Washington Window

White House: No credible evidence for ET's presence on Earth!

 WASHINGTON, DC -- A munchkin at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy used an official blog over the weekend to "answer" 12,000-plus citizen petitioners demanding the U.S. government disclose what many believe to be the "Truth" (Big "T") about flying-saucer borne extra-terrestrials visiting Earth and having contact with "us." Or some "chosen" of us, at least.

It ain't happening! At least, this White House won't be announcing "ET" anytime soon, if at all.

Or so said Phil Larson, a spokesman on space affairs for the (same) office where, in the Clinton administration, the late philanthropist and billionaire businessman Laurance S. Rockefeller made several forays into the White House to persuade former President Bill Clinton to tell the "UFO truth," or what the government may (or may not) know about the topic, as is widely perceived.

That initiative was directed toward former White House Science Advisor Dr. John "Jack" Gibbons, and it originated in October 1992, before the election which sent Clinton into office. That's when Rockefeller launched a letter-drafting project among his senior advisors and a nonprofit organization chaired by a U. S. Senator (the late Claiborne I. Pell, D-RI) and which was in large part funded by Rockefeller contributions, to persuade the incoming new president to "disclose UFO truth."

(Note: This writer staffed said first "Rockefeller UFO Initiative," which resulted in meetings between Rockefeller, Gibbons and senior White House staffers in April, 1993, and again in February, 1994, and subsequently. A rather detailed document site and other data are available for the seriously curious at:  http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/Rockefeller_Initiative_Documents.htm , a short-cut to independently probing through FOIA responses and reams of other official records. Note Hillary & Rockefeller photos. Another site with encyclopedic "Presidential UFO" information is:  www.presidentialufo.com )

While Rockefeller publicly soft-pedaled his own personal, claimed beliefs about well-known "UFO stories" like the supposed "ET saucer crash" near Roswell, NM in 1947, and other less well known but more provocative (and potentially credible) anomalous events, reported by many seemingly responsible witnesses, the Clintonistas shut down the probe, at least publicly, after the First Lady and her husband vacationed at Rockefeller's exclusive J-Y Ranch, outside of Jackson Hole, WY, in 1995, during which time lore insists they discussed "UFOs." (Other "affairs" busied the Clintons.)

The current White House UFO engagement, or lack thereof, was prompted by a Maryland-based nonprofit advocacy organization called Paradigm Research Group, whose principal spokesman, Stephen Bassett, for fifteen years has tirelessly campaigned for government truthtelling of UFOs.

Bassett, who espouses personal beliefs that the phenomena so widely reported are "ET" in nature, even campaigned for the U.S. House of Representatives several years ago on a UFO disclosure platform but was defeated in the Democratic primary for the Maryland suburbs of Washington.

While not immediately connected with the OSTP's latest shut-out of purported "UFO Disclosure" initiatives, it may (or may not) be notable that former Clinton White House chief of staff, John Podesta -- known then and recently as a potential believer in ET's "being here" -- recently left his job as president of the Center for American Progress, from which slot he also headed President Obama's transition team in 2008-2009, (giving hopes to UFO believers that a breakthrough was at least possible) -- and is now advising Mrs. Clinton "one day a week," on undisclosed topics.

Mrs. Clinton, of course, is Secretary of State and, should there be a "UFO/ET-related" disclosure signaling an opening of official relations (of a non-military kind) with purported visitors not of this planet, it would fall to Hillary and to various international officials such as those at the United Nations, to handle attendant diplomacy and global management of resultant "exopolitical affairs."

Notable in the OSTP's "official" blog response to the UFO/ET Disclosure petitions was its serious tone, in that (for a change) the posted comment didn't poke fun at the petitioners or the topic, unlike predictable media coverage which is already ramping up in "Style" sections and other unserious commentaries. Actually, this story is more fun than current campaign controversy.

Conversely, intense disinformation and institutionalized "UFOlogy" riddled with silly science and inane conspiracy theories continue to flourish, with suspected intent of derailing serious study.

Larson rehashed the usual official "interest" in possible (but unlikely) contact with theorized "ET life" by offering up SETI, the Kepler telescope project and a future Mars exploration "blue sky" program, for which there is as yet no serious money on the table, signaling that the White House isn't going to "play" with the ET disinfo folks our government has been paying for years to cover up whiz-bang exotic aircraft, new drones, stealth planes and to bury long-past inhumane illicit experimentation on unwitting human subjects, before and after World War II, as documented. 

The bottom line from Larson, on behalf of the OSTP and Barack Obama's White House:

"The fact is we have no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth."

(Author's note: It remains an open question whether there is intelligent life on THIS planet.)

See the original White House/OSTP blog posting, and the UFO Petition, linked here:

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#%21/response/searching-et-no-evidence-yet

Cain candidacy capsizing as accuser seeks escape from shadows

WASHINGTON, DC -- The candidacy of Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, already listing from a journalistic torpedo fired by Politico.com when it reported Cain sexually harrassed a former staffer at the National Restaurant Association during his tenure as president of that trade association, may be capsizing tonight.

Washington attorney Joel Bennett, representing one of Cain's alleged accusers, phoned in live to Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN earlier this evening and said his client is considering whether to ask the restaurant lobbying group to lift the non-disclosure portion of her settlement agreement so she may discuss Cain's alleged behaviors toward her.

Bennett rocked Cooper and his guest panelists when the attorney said he understood that the Politico.com story was launched when the news outlet was contacted by a "present or former board member" of the restaurant trade group, sometimes known around Washington as "the other NRA," to differentiate it from the National Rifle Association.

The National Restaurant Association, of which Cain served as a board member and board chair before serving as the group's president from 1996 until 1999, is among the largest and most powerful lobbying organizations in the capital.

Bennett said his client had contacted him when the Politico.com story broke and currently "is mulling over" what she wants to do to get her side of the story out. The lawyer said the non-disclosure clause was part of the settlement she reached with the NRA in the wake of her allegations of sexual harrassment against Herman Cain, an agreement which also included a "non-disparagement" clause.

That Cain has been asserting the sexual harrassment accusation was "false," and that there was "nothing to it," apparently is part of why the accuser is considering her options and how to tell her side of the story.

Bennett, her attorney, said that while he has not yet made direct overtures to the restaurant association, he is hoping it will grant his client a waiver allowing her speak about the matter.

Beyond the immediate political thunder Bennett's appearance on CNN has generated, his suggestion the story originated with a person affiliated presently or in the past with the National Restaurant Association may cool rampant speculation in Washington about who launched the damaging information at Herman Cain.

Conservative personalities have been accusing "left-wing media" and others, while Google searches of the terms: "Did Rove sink Cain?" provoke literally millions of hits, following Rove's recent television appearances downplaying Cain's seriousness and overall competence of his campaign, suspicions Rove has repeatedly denied.

All of which shifts the tides of political fortune of other Republican contenders for the privilege of taking a drubbing by the incumbent President, who continues to drift seemingly quite happily above the fray while the Repubs engage in their bizarre brand of "cage fighting" and a "scorched earth" policy reminiscent of Teddy Kennedy's toward the hapless Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Meanwhile the Congress meanders so far down in the polls that rogues are asking whether there can be "minus approval" ratings below the single digits the body currently enjoys.

Obama's command of situation, Seal Team Six (DEVGRU) illustrates maturity! Guarantees reelection in 2012!

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Hussein Obama has done a deed akin to Ronald Reagan's telling Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!" in Berlin, or Richard Nixon's going to Communist China and making nice with Chairman Mao. Killing Bin Laden is an exploit that will define Obama in history!

A president about whom a significant minority in his own country are unsure whether Obama is a Muslim himself, despite repeat assurances from the president that he is a Christian, took the risk of directly commanding his nation's most elite fighting force in an invasion of a sovereign Muslim nation (Pakistan), reportedly without previously alerting them, then reportedly assassinating an international Islamic militant leader, point blank, in cold blood. Obama killed Osama Bin Laden!

Let's savor the irony as well as the reflected glory glowing around Obama and his administration.

This urbane, at times somewhat effete and elitist former community organizer, activist lawyer and seemingly waffling "please-everybody" American president has "pulled the trigger" on Osama Bin Laden, sent a force popularly (if inaccurately) known as SEAL Team Six into Bin Laden's home to shoot the shadowy Muslim radical in front of at least one of his wives, then cart off his corpse.

Obama had Bin Laden's body snatched, confirmed as to his identity by DNA testing -- it should be noted here, after "whoever it was" was already dead -- and ceremoniously fed to the fishes in the Arabian Sea from the deck of an American aircraft carrier, as Muslim prayers in Arabic echoed.

Recycling Osama Bin Laden into fish food forever prevents the grave of the "martyred spiritual leader" of the "9-11" attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the fatal hijacking and successful counterattack by the passengers of Flight 93, which crashed in Shenksville, PA instead of into the White House or U.S. Capitol in Washington, from eternal veneration by his followers and as a likely rallying point for continuation of Bin Laden's mad dream to install a radical Caliph to preside over the Arab world... and the West's oil supplies, offshore wind farms to the contrary.

President Obama watched the unfolding "op" live, on Situation Room TV below the White House.

Gathered with him, white-knuckling on the edges of their seats as one of DEVGRU's (i.e., Special Warfare Development Group, the most recently public proper name of the special operations unit conducting the raid, their true current name reportedly a secret, according to some "Special Ops" scuttlebutt) Navy helicopters crash landed into Bin Laden's lawn, were most of the current leaders of our nation's military and diplomatic agencies (some no doubt fearing for their careers).

Unlike on President Jimmy Carter's watch, when a Navy helo experiencing a minor problem caused inexperienced carrier-based pilots to scrub Carter's Iran hostage rescue mission, Obama's SEAL team carried on and carried through their mission, "extracting" without U.S. casualties.

The crashed helicopter was blown up by the SEALS themselves, pundits say to pevent our "good friends" the Pakistanis (who somehow "didn't see" Bin Laden living in their midsts for, oh, years) from giving the sophisticated electronics in the aircraft to the Paks' "better friends," the Chinese.

Conspiracy theorists, bored with faux "ETs" from Roswell, NM, and clandestine "chem-trails" to bio-engineer humanity, have already shifted themselves into "Osama Gear" and resurrected every propaganda byte previously promulgated about Bin Laden's rumored "deaths," most loudly in 2001 or 2004, from: (pick one) lung infection, kidney failure, a "lucky" Predator drone strike.

Consequently, the current president's next big decision is whether to release reported photos of Bin Laden after SEALs had shot him (reportedly once in the chest, a second "tap" in the face), and video footage of Osama as he slid into the sea and beneath the waves, joining Davy Jones and King Neptune and Philippe Cousteau in nautical mythology, a perpetual "eucharist" for seafood lovers.

This will not satisfy the (dyed-in-the-wool-over-our-eyes) conspiracists, any more than the faked "alien bodies" film ended the Roswell UFO "crashed saucer" game, but most reasonable people -- and even some reasonable (oxymoronic?) "Islamic terrorists" -- are likely to be mollified by it.

Other than for the next-in-line leader of Bin Laden's cadre of killers, any purported "second in command" of Al Quaida, who will never hear an approaching helicopter the same way again, President Obama's "collateral damage" from his SEAL team's attack has been on GOP contenders for the privilege of taking a drubbing in Obama's undoubtedly successful 2012 re-election rout.

Despite all of former President George W. Bush's braggadocio, "Bring 'em on!" Texas gunfighter's rhetoric, a lanky basketball playing urbanite from Honolulu (or Kenya, pick your birthplace) got the Bad Guy and aced his place among the heroes of America's endless GWOT (Global War On Terror). It would take a felony conviction to derail Obama's serving a second term at this point

Tribute must be paid to the good people at the Central Intelligence Agency, who pursued Osama Bin Laden through three administrations, Lord knows how many leadership changes and no end of Congressional wrestling matches, second-guesses, "retired" analysts' disclosures and Wikileaks, relentlessly drilling and grilling captives, puzzling out obscure clues but mostly keeping focused.

When the president gave the order for DEVGRU to take to the air, leaving the deck of the U.S.S. Carl Vinson to fly off into the night and eventually into American warfighting history, he had a mostly unseen infrastructure of literally tens of thousands of "shadow warriors" who show up for work day after day (and night after night), doing what they do to help keep us safe... and free.

Cut through your cynicism, sarcasm, prejudice and repeat after me: "Thank you! To all of you!"

Keating commemorates Kennedy in first House speech

Our new congressman remembers JFK's inaugural speech

WASHINGTON -- Cape Cod's and the 10th District's new Democratic congressman, Rep. Bill Keating, commemorated the late President John F. Kennedy's inauguration fifty years ago today in Keating's first speech on the floor of the House of Representatives.

"President Kennedy's words are timeless, and we can and should learn from them today. He called on our country to remember that civility is not a sign of weakness."

Noting in his remarks Wednesday evening that his office is the same one once occupied by the future president when he served in the House, Keating hailed the iconic words from JFK's inaugural address, delivered on Jan. 20, 1961, which inspired, as the current congressman noted, "my generation and the generations to come."

"President Kennedy's words are timeless, and we can and should learn from them today," Keating recalled. "He called on our country to remember that civility is not a sign of weakness."

"His words should inform our national conversation as we hopefully renew our commitment to respect and graciousness, where politics means more than stark divisions and glaring partisanship," Keating said.

Echoing the mood in the halls of congress since the violence against another House member in Tucson on Jan. 8, a mere three days after the 112th Congress was sworn in, Keating pledged to work across the aisle in pursuit of solutions to pressing national problems.

"Our country needs healing," Keating continued, again invoking that late president's words, "and Kennedy would believe that it is up to all of us to participate in restoring this type of civility."

Calling on his constituents of "all political stripes" to contact him with ideas they may have about how to create jobs and move the country forward or make it safer, Keating invited 10th District citizens to make themselves and their views known to him and participate in the legislative process.

"His words should inform our national conversation as we hopefully renew our commitment to respect and graciousness, where politics means more than stark divisions and glaring partisanship."

"In closing, let us remember that President Kennedy had a long-term vision for this country," Keating said. "He understood that a change in direction takes time, and we understand that a return to the values he kept will not be immediate."

Recalling the soaring rhetorical finish of Kennedy's ironically prophetic inaugural speech, Keating called on the Congress as well as his own constituents to energize their patience with persistence.

"As (Kennedy) said, all of this will not be finished in the first hundred days, nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor perhaps in our lifetime on this planet, but let us begin!"

"So as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's inauguration," Keating concluded, "let us begin anew!"

See video of Rep. Bill Keating's speech, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2011, at:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/clip.php?appid=599427367

See President John F. Kennedy's inaugural fifty years ago today.

Feds Make Offshore Drilling Changes In Wake of BP Spill Report

New Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will oversee offshore resource development
New Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement will enforce safety and environmental regulations

By Richard Farley

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators charged with managing offshore energy production and enforcement of safety and environmental regulations are moving to respond to a report and recommendations of the commission that investigated the catastrophic oil spill following the April explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Michael Bromwich, director of the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) delivered extensive comments Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in Washington.

Canada bans drilling on Georges Bank for another ten years, see story here.

The bureau was created by Department of Interior's ongoing dismantling of the former Minerals Management Service (MMS), after the BP spill and protracted clean up revealed bureaucratic inconsistencies, confusion about agency and corporate responsibility, and poor interagency and public communications.

Bromwich's lengthy comments at CSIS came in response to a report issued this week by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, calling for significant changes in how the government manages offshore drilling and oil spill response.

The former MMS is being reorganized into an acronymous alphabet soup of several new agencies, each having what Bromwich says are separate and distinct responsibilities, although when all of the new agencies will be fully operational remains in question.

An Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) already has been created to collect and manage royalty payments from fuel producers, Bromwhich said, adding, "The the next steps in the reorganization are more difficult, but they are more important: they involve separating the energy development functions from the environment and safety functions."

A new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will oversee offshore resource development, while a new Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) will enforce safety and environmental regulations, said BOEMRE's director.

Bromwich said a recruitment campaign he led personally to colleges of engineering across the country, and a new federal job posting seeking inspectors, drew in excess of 550 applicants, currently being processed.

But in answer to an audience question, BOEMRE's director acknowledged a slow-down in processing the new hires owing at least in part to uncertainties about his agency's budget, which observers note is made even less certain by change in control of the House of Representatives, where federal budget legislation originates.

Bromwich also said his agency will participate in a new Offshore Energy Safety Institute (OESI) being created by the Interior Department and slated to develop and evaluate new technologies for drilling, spill response and clean up, rig and worker safety and better methods for risk and reliability assessments.

Additionally, Bromwich said, BOEMRE is a founding member of the International Regulators Forum (IRF), which held its first meeting last summer at the agency's headquarters in Herndon, VA. He said the IRF aims to develop and share best management practices among offshore energy producing nations and to set international safety and drilling standards.

To that end, BOEMRE and Interior are participating in the U. S. State Department's Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative (EGCI), Bromwich said, "to provide a range of technical and capacity-building assistance to the governments and institutions of select countries that are expected to become emerging oil and gas producers."

Read the full text of BOEMRE Director Michael Bromwich's comments at:

 http://www.boemre.gov/ooc/press/2011/press0113.htm

Report of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling at:

http://www.oilspillcommission.gov/final-report

Washington remains paralyzed by Giffords shooting

Congress considers its security while honoring slain victims
Feds set to arraign alleged assailant as blame game escalates

WASHINGTON -- (Upated, Monday, Jan. 10, 12:00 p.m. EST) The nation's capital remains stunned and essentially paralyzed after Saturday's shooting of Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in an attack at a Tucson shopping center that also killed a federal judge, a nine-year old girl and four others, including a member of the congresswoman's staff.

About 80 new congressmen attending a conference in Williamsburg, VA, were called to a special security briefing Saturday, and all members of Congress are being urged by U. S. Capitol Police to "take reasonable and prudent precautions regading their personal safety and security."

A conference call organized Sunday by the House Sergeant-At-Arms included more than 800 listeners, including congress members from both parties and many of their spouses, to hear about security and other matters, including how periodic updates on Rep. Giffords' condition will be delivered (daily) and how other information is to be coordinated.

Massachusetts remembers too many leaders killed

It is a tragic coincidence that Sunday was exactly fifty years since President John Kennedy bid goodbye to his home state to go to Washington to be sworn in as president only to be shot a thousand days later. And across the national media, recriminations and blame, from calls for gun control to criticism of angry political rhetoric are already filling televised "talking heads" segments and "Op-Ed" columns, Internet blogs and water-cooler conversations.

Jared Lee Loughner, above, has been identified as the man suspected of shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords below.

Capitol Police say they are assisting Arizona officials and the FBI in the investigation of Saturday's attack at one of  Giffords' "Congress On Your Corner" meetings she routinely holds to "meet and greet" constituents and listen to their concerns at various public venues throughout her district.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, dispatched by President Barack Obama in an unprecedented action to take control of the investigation personally, said Sunday no evidence has been found to suggest the shooting was part of any larger conspiracy.

Twelve people including Giffords, who was shot pointblank in the head by the attacker, allegedly were wounded by  the 22-year old white male now in federal custody, slated for arraignment today.

Another man initially suspected of being an accomplice to the shooter turned out to be a taxi driver who, police said, had transported the alleged assailant to the shopping mall where the gunfire later erupted. Authorities said the man is not a suspect.

Witnesses said the alleged attacker reportedly walked up to where the congresswoman was talking with an elderly couple, with fifteen to twenty other constituents waiting nearby to speak with her, and began shooting, his first shot stricking the back of Giffords' head.

Bystanders reportedly tackled the assailant as he continued shooting, emptying his weapon. A 61-year old woman wrestled an extra bullet magazine from the shooter as he attempted to reload his Glock .9mm semi-automatic pistol.

Two men, one of whom was carrying his own firearm and had rushed to the scene, restrained the gunman until police arrived. A congressional intern, Daniel Hernandez, who is also a nurse's aide, maintained Rep. Giffords' airway and tried to staunch the bleeding from her skull, actions doctors later said helped to save her life.

The suspect in custody has been identified by police as Jared Lee Loughner, described by neighbors and former classmates and teachers at the local high school and community college as a "loner," prone to bizarre outbursts. Police and court records show previous infractions, including an arrest for drug paraphernalia, which netted him a "diversion" program.

Loughner's computer and cell phone have been seized from the residence he shared with his parents, and FBI specialists are analyzing his You Tube and My Space postings for the context of the suspects expressed ideas and intentions, some of which reportedly suggested an anti-government mind-set focused on Rep. Giffords.

Giffords, who represents Arizona's 8th District, reportedly underwent surgery for two hours  following the 10:15 a.m. (local time) attack, which also killed the senior federal judge for the northern Arizona district, John Roll and five others, including one of Giffords' aides, and nine-year old Christina Taylor-Green, reportedly a granddaughter of a former Philadelphia Phillies baseball team manager.

Giffords remains in critical condition at the University of Arizona medical center intensive care unit, and her doctors are expressing guarded optimism that she will survive her wounds.

Doctors are reluctant to speculate about Giffords' potential degree of recovery, but they credit rapid and appropriate responses by witnesses, emergency medical personnel and hospital operating room staff for giving the congresswoman what chances she has of surviving and making at least some degree of recovery.

Several of Giffords' aides also were shot, and her outreach director, Gabe Zimmerman, 30, was killed in the attack. Zimmerman was a social worker with a masters degree and was engaged to be married. Doctors reported that all of the other wounded were out of intensive care and as of Sunday, one had been discharged.

Health Care Bill vote postponed due to tragedy

House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced late Saturday that a vote scheduled for the coming week to repeal the controversial health care law known as "Obama Care" is on hold for now.

Cantor said in a statement late Saturday that "all legislation currently scheduled to be considered by the House of Representatives next week is being postponed so that we can take whatever actions may be necessary in light of today's tragedy."

VOTE in our POLL:
I think the Gabrielle Gifford's shooting and the 6 deaths was caused by:

On Monday at 11 a.m., House members, some Senators and Supreme Court Justices and many Capitol Hill staffers stood on the Capitol steps to observe a moment of silence, as the nation was asked to do by President Obama on Sunday.

 Giffords, 40, has served in Congress since January 2007, and last Wednesday was sworn in for her third term. She is an Arizona native, a graduate of Cornell University and in 2007 she married navy Capt. Mark E. Kelly, a NASA astronaut, based in Houston. Kelly, one of the only twins ever to serve in the Astronaut Corps, is slated to pilot the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour later this year. His twin brother is currently flying on the International Space Station.

 See the latest updates on CNN here.

Washington Window reopening as Congressional combat escalates

After the Washington related aspects of the Cape Wind controversy reached a political autumn, and the energy project mostly liberated of back-room shenanigans, "Green paint" and other gazillionaire NIMBY ballet dances with Machiavelli, this column went on unavoidable hiatus, other than the occasional contribution from the fringes of "deep policy" politics or opportunistic story which more or less fell across our path, informally.

Now... weeeee're back! Eyes wide open! Keyboard "locked and loaded," taking aim!

On a personal note, this writer has been spending considerable time in my home state of West Virginia making arrangements for adult placement and services for our blind, severely and multiply disabled son, now 26.

He is in a most caring environment that is proving to be more compassionate and transparent than the urban settings closer to the nation's capital, where my family makes our primary residence. His future, while given all of the uncertainties about public policy, health care funding and national morality is not certain, feels safer.

In future columns, when "disability" issues touch public policy, budgeting and the larger health care arenas, we'll say more about these as they may inform other parents, guardians, caregivers and any compassionate political leaders interested in how their machinations and those of "K Street" lobbyists and militant disability "advo-zealots" impact real people in really dire circumstances, all too often lacking sufficient public sunshine.

Just as local traffic problems and remedies like stop signs and red lights unfortunately, and all too frequently, are installed only after the requisite number of fatalities, whatever bureaucratic "discomfort zones" specify, so will health care debates (and veterans' care, particularly for Traumatic Brain Injuries) be reactive to stories of excess, omission, human rights violations and dunderheaded bureaucracies for any progress. We're watching!

We will strive to bring timely analysis and focused perspectives of: energy shortages and costs; food supplies and regulatory warfare; and that always-challenging "government fiscal integrity," as well as "Environment."

These will all be reported and measured, whenever we can,  by relating them to real experiences being had by real people out in the real world beyond "The Beltway." This is in the finest tradition of journalism, which even with the Internet and all of its permutations we still believe is best deployed when our objectives reflect the sage words of the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant!"

My periodic travels "home" to the northern edges of Appalachia, and at times even more deeply into the "hills" where most of our nation's -- and certainly Washington, DC's -- electricity (from coal) is mined, shipped and fueled, will also help to balance our coverage of the intense debates over our nation's energy future, as well as global economic and planetary ecosystem impacts.

We'll dig into the lives of the heroic people who dig our coal while making perhaps the greatest sacrifices in human and environmental costs of our energy demand, and watch the policy implications of Washington's energy battlefield for those people and ecosystems (and yes, cities are ecosystems, too) directly affected.

These "wars," the waging and outcomes of which will set a most critical future course for our nation, begin in earnest tomorrow with the swearing in of the 112th Congress. People will place their hands on Bibles, raise their other hands and pledge to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

And almost immediately, some of them will begin breaking their oaths, preferring that we do not notice!

Battle lines already have been drawn and the opening salvos of political conflict are already being fired!

If politics is "combat," then this will be a war correspondent's notebook sharing with our readers how the battle feels, who among our leaders is behaving courageously and who perhaps more cowardly or dishonestly.

Washington all too often is viewed by those on the outside as if, to borrow from Lewis Carroll, we have to watch "through the looking glass," or more ominously, "through a glass, darkly." Can we trust what we believe we see? Is anything actually as it appears? Does anyone on Capitol Hill truly remember: "We're out here!"

Indeed, those who sometimes cover the intelligence community, as from time to time this reporter has done, are familiar with an even more descriptive phrase about how Washington sometimes works, as one author has termed it, as a "Wilderness of Mirrors." Allusions to a carnival "fun house" are not inappropriate, although in some of these realms, "fun" has to do with national security, individual liberty or upholding American values.

Frustration, opacity in the process and the penchants of politicians to default to positions reflecting, as the lawyers put it, "an absence of candor" (OK, we regular folks call that "lying," but you get my point?), all conspire to undermine our trust in anything happening under the Capitol dome, or in the White House and throughout government beyond "D.C."

Whether such cynicism is deserved or not, we as citizens must persevere to trust... and yes, "to verify!"

In this column, to which your comments are once again solicited and invited (but please, keep them pithy yet to the point, as the "folks under the bridges" with Internet access will, as is our practice, be politely escorted out of the building), we will make every effort to balance what appears to be happening at the Cape and on the Islands with leavening from "inside the Beltway" and perhaps a bit more grassroots perspective from forays into "fly over country," particularly the Appalachians and Deep South.

In our necessary travels, we like to troll for the opinions of the fine folks who inhabit the rest of America's historical center, from the oldest mountains on the planet down to our Southern beaches, which share an oceanfront with our readers along the Cape and out on the Islands. Indeed, many "expatriate" Cape Codders inhabit the nation's southern shores, even if for only part of the year, drawn by warmer water, easy living.

With the swearing in of Bill Keating tomorrow (after which, Bill is more likely to be "sworn at," but not by us as we strive to help hold him to account while perhaps balancing his public statements with a bit of perspective) we begin a renewed effort to bring solid coverage flavored with some humor and optimism to Cape Cod Today readers who choose to look at how their nation is being governed through our "Washington Window."

Let us know how we're doing as the drama in D.C. unfolds, hopefully before our nation's way of life unravels?

Clandestine human experimentation disclosed. More to come?

Wellesley history prof unearths Guatemalan syphilis tests;
Obama, Clinton apologize as US promises more disclosures!
Will "Roswell UFO" and other cover-up conspiracies be next?

by Dick Farley, Washington Correspondent  

WASHINGTON, DC -- October 2, 2010 -- Revelations yesterday (Friday, Oct. 1) that the United States government in the late 1940s conducted clandestine medical experiments on mental patients, prisoners and soldiers in Guatemala rocked western hemisphere international relationships, with more such disclosures apparently on tap.  

Announced late Friday by the Obama administration, apparently to reduce domestic coverage, the disclosure nonetheless is provoking outrage in Guatemala and among minority communities elsewhere because the medical scientist reportedly in charge of the experiments also was central to the infamous Tuskeegee syphilis study.  

 That study, disclosed in the 1970s, involved hundreds of African-American men used as human "guinea pigs" by American researchers from 1932 to 1972. Many of the unwitting research subjects were left untreated for syphilis as researchers watched the progression of their disease. Others were administered various experimental drug treatments.

 The Guatemalan studies reportedly involved 1,500 men and women and took place between 1946 and 1948, according to The WashingtonPost as reported in its Saturday morning edition (Oct. 2, 2010; Page 1-A).

 The full story, contained in a 29-page report by a Wellesley College history professor, is slated for publication in the January 2011 issue of The Journal of Policy History.  

These latest findings, discovered by researcher and professor Susan Reverby, came to light incidentally to her research at University of Pittsburgh archives into the papers of John C. Cutler, a physician with the US Public Health Service, and his involvement with the Tuskeegee study. Cutler died in 2003.

Then-US Surgeon General Thomas Parran, Jr. was among a number of high ranking US government officials who also knew of the Guatemalan studies, according to Reverby's report.   Parran, who died in 1968, is quoted in the Post story: "You know, we couldn't do such an experiment in this country."

Parran quite likely knew very well that his statement was not true.

In reality, such experiments were widely conducted in the United States during this period, ironically while the US government proposed and signed the Nuremberg Code proscribing medical and other experimentation on unwitting human subjects.

Such prohibitions were born of Nazi atrocities uncovered at the close of World War II and prosecuted by the US at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals in the late 1940s. 

And while the US signed the Nuremberg document in 1947, officials with the military, the then-new Atomic Energy Commission (derived from the Manhattan Project) and other government agencies and research contractors abjectly and routinely disregarded the Nuremberg Code, while conducting a range of experiments on unwitting citizens. 

Previous revelations about these practices caused a stir in the Clinton administration, when a 1993 series by then-Albuquerque Tribune reporter Eileen Welsome revealed "The Plutonium Experiments," a long-term study of the effects of Plutonium injected into unaware patients by then-esteemed medical researchers on behalf of government agencies.

Welsome stumbled upon references to those human experiments in 1986 while looking into radiation experiments on animals and problems attendant to radiation leakages at older nuclear facilities.

Welsome won the Pulitzer Prize for her series in 1994, and President Clinton apologized to the families of those victims, as well as to thousands of American service personnel (termed "Atomic Veterans") exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons tests and, at least until the mid-1990s, generally abandoned and ignored by their government. 

Also in 1994, University of Cincinnati professor and physician Eugene L. Saenger, who according to his Washington Post obituary in 2007, "led Cold War human radiation experiments," was sued by families of cancer patients "who said their relatives were unwitting guinea pigs in a military-sponsored experiment." That lawsuit reportedly was settled in 1999 for $3.6 million. 

The link to the much publicized "Roswell UFO," widely described by government-linked "UFOlogists" as being a "crashed flying saucer," replete with recovered bodies of alleged "extra-terrestrial" occupants, arises from little-known rocket tests and other medical experiments associated with post-World War II research into the effects of radiation and high-altitude exposures to humans.  

The tests were conducted by then-Army Air Corps and "our" captured Nazi scientists beginning in 1946, at the White Sands missile testing facility, and involved animals lofted into near-Earth space in the nose cones of captured V-2 rockets as well as alleged human subjects flown by high-altitude balloons.

Most contemporary advocates of the "Roswell UFO crash" scenario have involvements with government nuclear programs and other military or intelligence research in their resume's, but now publish "UFO conspiracy" books and are regularly featured as speakers at "UFO" conferences. Their vaunted "investigations" rarely if ever come up with prosaic explanations, especially those involving less well-known experiments using humans.

Ongoing efforts to promote "UFO Disclosure" by the US government experience periodic up ticks in public interest, the most recent accruing from several new books and media events claiming "ET/UFO interference" with military activities, such as at ICBM launch facilities in the 1960s and subsequently, as well as other military related "UFO reports," often associated with US Air Force and clandestine intelligence agency operations.

Current activities include a contributory effort by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, previously head of the Obama transition team and now president of the Center for American Progress, who penned a forward for a new book pushing "UFO disclosure" by journalist (Ms.) Leslie Kean.

Kean previously teamed with Podesta for a 2001 investigation into a claimed 1965 "UFO crash" at Kecksburg, PA, sponsored in part at the time by the Science Fiction (SyFY) television channel, and used Freedom of Information requests targeting NASA for information about the Kecksburg event.

Kean's new book features alleged "UFO interactions" reported by retired US military personnel, while Kean, and Podesta in his forward to Kean's book, both claim they are "agnostic" about whether "UFOs" as reported are actually "extraterrestrial" in nature.

Yet both Kean and Podesta previously advocated the "ET" genesis of such events. 

 In 1993, the late industrialist and philanthropist Laurance S. Rockefeller funded a range of "UFO-related" projects to encourage the Clinton administration to "disclose what the government knows about UFOs," an initiative that also reached into the office of then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

Rockefeller met at at least twice with Clinton administration officials in the White House, in 1993 and 1994,  and reportedly discussed the "UFO question" with Mrs. Clinton during a Clinton family vacation at Rockefeller's "JY Ranch" near Jackson Hole, WY, in the mid-1990s. Mrs. Clinton has subsequently refused to acknowledge or discuss the subject.

Mrs. Clinton, now Secretary of State, issued a joint apology for the Guatemalan debacle with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday, saying in part: "Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health," and "...we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent policies." 

Clinton era efforts to have a range of past government operations declassified came after Welsome's story about the Plutonium experiments and in the wake of aggressive activism by "atomic veterans" and advocacy groups.

A government-wide search for past human experimentation efforts was instituted as part of President Clinton's effort to force declassification of millions of pages of government documents from the Cold War's secrecy, although the effort was plagued by bureaucratic foot-dragging and claims of lost files or intentional lapses in the documentation of such programs.

Former President George W. Bush shut down that effort in the weeks after the September 11, 2001 attack by Islamic terrorists, although President Barack Obama reinstituted government-wide declassification mandates upon taking office. These are ongoing.

Activists for supposed "UFO Disclosure" generally ignore, downplay and deflect public and journalistic interest from any recollection or recounting of human experimentation possibly attendant to so-called "ET abductions" or other alleged "UFO" activity involving reported contacts with terrestrial human beings, in the US and now most notably in other countries and cultures.

The Guatemalan disclosures likely signal a "climate change" in how such alleged reports are considered, as much so-called "UFO" activity and claimed conspiracies involving citizens of countries other than the US have been the centerpiece of "retail UFOlogy."

Previously, the American CIA acknowledged that many claimed "UFO" sightings during the Cold War years had been of exotic reconnaissance aircraft the agency sponsored and developed, including its A-12 supersonic spy plane, code named "Oxcart." That aircraft later went public as the SR-71 Blackbird, now "retired." The skin of an early A-12 prototype recently was installed as a static display at the CIA's campus in Langley, VA, and a retired SR-71 was added to the collection at Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, after a record-breaking final flight across the continental United States.

Less proudly remembered are previous government and military intelligence research programs into so-called "mind control" and other experiments aiming to influence human and cultural behaviors, alleged victims of which continue to seek recognition and justice for claimed medical and psychological damage they suffered.

A number of these were disclosed in the mid-1970s, after congressional investigations following Watergate and allegations the Nixon administration misused the FBI and CIA in its activities targeting anti-war protestors and others deemed "enemies" of the Nixon White House.

But President Gerald R. Ford and later President Jimmy Carter shut down disclosures of many such programs, deemed "the Family Jewels" by intelligence insiders. Some of these programs allegedly were transferred out of government, to several private medical and philanthropical foundations and to academic research institutions.

Alleged victims of similar experiments perennially assert that not all of the military and intelligence research involving unwitting human subjects have as yet been disclosed, but mainstream journalism routinely disregards and marginalizes such claimants, feeding on the abundance of "silly science" and "whacko" information continuously fed by zealous advocates of "ET's presence," and their latest Internet manifestation, "Exopolitics."

But a number of journalists and  investigators suspect  "UFO" related programs covered up illicit human experimentation equally embarrassing or moreso than the Guatemalan disclosures of yesterday are to the US government and some past and present officials.

Cape Wind Cleared To Land by FAA

Cape Wind Cleared to Land by FAA

by Dick Farley, ccT Washington Correspondent

BOSTON, MA -- August 9, 2010 - Cape Wind has been "cleared to land" by the Federal Aviation Administration, which tossed out petitions filed by project opponents.

The FAA upheld and "finalized" its May 17th ruling, formally a "Determination of No Hazard," by issuing a "Denial of Petitions for Discretionary Review." Cape Wind previously has passed muster for navigation reviews by the FAA and the U. S. Coast Guard.

 "We are pleased that the FAA has finalized its approval of Cape Wind so that we can move forward in creating jobs, increasing energy independence and make Massachusetts a global leader in offshore wind power," said Mark Rodgers, communications director for Cape Wind, in a press release today.

Rodgers confirmed also that Cape Wind's amended long term power purchase agreement with National Grid has been found to be in the "public interest" by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Coakley has recommended that the agreement be approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities.

Search for West Virginia coal miners ends tragically

Death toll from Monday's Upper Big Branch Mine explosion stops at 29
Last four miners found dead last night - search ends - investigation begings

Special to CapeCodTODAY and PlymouthDailyNews by Dick Farley

Montcoal, WV -- Shortly after midnight this morning, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin announced to reporters and a bank of television cameras that the search for four remaining coal miners, missing since the Monday explosion of the Upper Big Branch Mine, has ended tragically, bringing the final death toll to twenty-nine.

Waiting at the Upper Big Branch Mine.

Until the four missing miners' remains were found last night, rescuers held faint hope that some or all of them had made it into an underground safety structure, but officials said the escape space had "not been deployed."

Seven bodies had been brought out of the mine earlier in the week, and several funerals were held yesterday.

Manchin and federal mine safety officials overseeing the search and recovery operations had already spoken with the miners' families, the governor said at a news conference.

"Our journey is over," Manchin said, "and now the healing will begin."

Without power underground and with conditions in the mine still too dangerous to use underground transport systems, if any were even still functional, it will take most of the night for crews to carry the remaining twenty-two bodies out of the mine. The bodies will be taken to Charleston, the state capital, for medical examiners to determine a cause of death before the miners' remains are returned to their families for burial, officials said.

Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) onsite incident commander Kevin Stricklin said bodies of three of the four missing men were found at the entrance to the "longwall" Section 22, where searchers had expected them to be. The body of the fourth man was found farther inside the longwall section, apparently where he had been working at the time of the explosion.

Manchin and Stricklin both said preliminary findings suggest the explosion was both sudden and violent, as the positions and locations of the dead miners did not suggest that there had been any alarm or panicked effort to escape. But the Upper Big Branch Mine reportedly has been plagued with what experts have described as an unusually high number of violations of ventilation effectiveness as well as inadequately mapped escape routes.

Stricklin said a complete investigation of what happened to spark the explosion could take up to a year, once forensic assessments of all electrical equipment, a complete detailed survey of the mine and interviews with survivors and everyone employed at Upper Big Branch Mine have been completed and all data is analyzed.

The mine is owned and operated by Massey Energy, a Virginia-based company. Massey also operates surface mines in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. Among its operations are a number of so-called "valley fill" surface mines employing controversial "mountain top removal" methods, which slice off the tops of steep hills and mountains to expose seams of coal for extraction.