On July 10, Secy. of State Condoleezza Rice told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili:

I want to again affirm that the United States remains committed to the territorial integrity of Georgia... It is extremely important that the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia be resolved on the basis of principles that respect that territorial integrity....

Georgia says South Ossetia is part of its territory. When Rice says we support "territorial integrity," she means Georgia’s right to call the shots in South Ossetia.

Yesterday Bush said Russia "must respect Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty."

"I am deeply concerned by reports that Russian troops have moved beyond the zone of conflict, attacked the Georgian town of Gori, and are threatening Georgia's capital of Tbilisi. There's evidence that Russian forces may soon begin bombing the civilian airport in the capital city," he said.

See a problem here?

The Orlando Sentinel posted a story late yesterday about Kevin Brown, arrested at Orlando International Airport Tuesday before he could board a flight to Jamaica.

Brown’s checked luggage contained some questionable materials:

A luggage search, according to an affidavit filed Wednesday by Orange County Sheriff's Detective Kelly Boaz, turned up: - Two galvanized pipes. - End caps with holes drilled in them. - BBs. - A model-rocket igniter. - Batteries. - Lighter fluid. - A lighter. - Two vodka bottles with flammable nitromethane. - Instructions on making explosives.

Brown probably knows how to use them. He is:

...a U.S. Army veteran who recently served as a contractor in Iraq...

FBI agents quoted Brown as telling them:

...he wanted to show friends in Jamaica "how to build explosive devices like he saw in Iraq"...

My ancestors probably played a leading role in one of the first and worst racist atrocities in history. I still benefit materially from the wealth they accumulated. Their photographs, more than a century old, hang in my foyer. My ancestors were slave owners.

When I was seven, I was taught to accept what Rudyard Kipling called the "white man’s burden" as my own. Kipling referred to the responsibilities inherent in racial superiority to kill or control "Half-devil and half-child" inferior peoples.

Such facile, fetid hubris underlies our current war in Iraq, the absurd comments of Geraldine Ferraro, and the radically nihilist bent Newt Gingrich inspired in conservative American politics---an obscene, destructive gambit that tragically informs the candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The story of the Camilla Massacre---and my genetic salvation---starts below.

I want to think about an Obama-Clinton 2008 ticket. There’s no better place to imagine that than here at dKos, the fertile crescent of the Democratic Party (my opinion and a disclaimer).

Here’s another opinion: I don’t think enough of us realize this, a lot of us feel it but don’t know how to quantify it, and some of us are waiting for corporate media to acknowledge it: our Democratic primary contest is the real 2008 presidential election. November starts the denoument of a sordid era of American history.

McCain, the GOP, the neoconservative movement and (to our eventual detriment) traditional conservative principles---vital ideas today’s "conservatives" abandoned a generation ago in favor of jingoism---are all but irrelevant. With each passing day, the high priests of PNAC are exposing the degeneracy of their goals, and the facile propaganda of our corporate media is too banal to mask it any longer.

Consider: Sen. Clinton draws more supporters to her appearances than all the Republican contenders combined and Sen. Obama’s crowds triple and quadruple Sen. Clinton’s.

The mood, as they say, is shifting.

Yesterday Bcgctn's Wexler, Gutierrez, Baldwin, Kucinich, and the People Call For Cheney Censure offered up a video of Rep. Robert Wexler's (Democrat from Boca Raton, Fla.) call for impeachment hearings and included a link to one of Rep. Wexler's most capable supporters: Florida Progressive Radio, which, along with FlaPolitics.com and a half-dozen equally vigorous netroots organizations down here, have helped push the issue into the mainstream press: The Miami Herald.

If you've read many of the 49-odd dKos diaries on this, you won't find much new in the Miami Herald story, but a substantial proportion of the 249,000 Miami Herald readers (holiday readership is higher) will be getting a factual look for the first time today.

This is an invitation to DailyKos readers to comment on the article at MiamiHerald.com.

A Miami activist group is holding a press conference at 10 a.m. Monday to call for the immediate release of the Liberty City 7, the 'home-grown terrorists' whom DOJ plans to re-try (but with a 'secret' jury this time) in order to prop up the effort to convince Americans to surrender their liberties in favor of security.

I know Max Rameau, one of the organizers, and have written about him here at dKos before. He's the real deal, and he's emerging as one of the most prominent progressive voices in South Fla.---couldn't happen to a better guy.

Says Rameau:

"In this political climate, the fact that a jury refused to convict a group of men charged with terrorism speaks volumes about the weakness of the case against them," says Max Rameau of CopWatch. "The US government is using the 'war on terror' to advance a domestic political agenda. In addition to costing time and money, in addition to ruining the lives of these men and their families, this is not making anyone safer."

The entire news release is posted below.

Florida Workforce Housing Network received an email news release one hour ago that housing activists have taken over the HUD office in New Orleans:

US military vehicles, including armed Hummers, have surrounded the 25 people encamped inside, who refused to leave the building unless HUD officials acquiesce to community demands.The community effort to open St. Bernard's Parish is symbolic effort of the dislocated Black community of New Orleans to return to home.  Residents such as former public housing residents have been met ignored, criminalized and otherwise excluded from the rebuilding of New Orleans.

The complete news release is below. The sender, Max Rameau, is the real deal. I wrote about him several months ago here at dKos.

It's Saturday morning cartoon time. Angel Cruz, a Kissimmee man---Kissimmee is just south of Orlando---is launching 'The United States Private Dollar,' which he claims will rival the U.S. dollar. Now two Kissimmee organizations are under investigation for issuing "worthless checks" to employees who believed in their scheme.

Victor Manuel Ramos of the Orlando Sentinel has the story in today's edition:

Thursday evening, the nonprofit JC Consultores Laborales released a statement distancing itself from financial partner The United Cities Corp., which printed checks deemed fraudulent by a federal agency. The nonprofit used those checks to pay its workers.

In the statement, the nonprofit's president, Josefina Calderon, said she was "very concerned" about the lack of payment to several dozen employees for "not only the hours worked but the monthly expenses too."

This is a real story, in a real newspaper. These guys claim they have $300 million in paper on the streets now...

Twenty-six-year-old Eric Botta of Port St. Lucie, Fla., has been ordered to report to Fort Jackson, S.C., on July 15 for his fifth wartime deployment.

Amy Driscoll at the Miami Herald has Boyta's story in today's edition:

Shortly after 9/11, as a young Army reservist, he volunteered to go to war. He was soon in Afghanistan.

The next year, he was sent out again, this time to Iraq, part of a Special Operations team.

In the next two years, he was sent to Iraq again. And again.

He thought he was done. But now, the Army wants Sgt. Botta one more time.

William R. Levesque of the St. Petersburg Times has a great story in today's edition about CENTCOM — the U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. It's not a new story, but it's a fresh take on this fast-changing blogosphere.

A three-person team monitors blogs - Internet journals with commentary from ordinary citizens and, often, links to news articles - that concentrate on CentCom's area of responsibility, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan.

Team members contact blogs when inaccuracies or incomplete information is posted. They also ask bloggers if they can post a link to CentCom's Web site, or they offer access to CentCom information and news releases.

Page Two: a little more Levesque and some levity...

A federal trial in Miami, Fla., will point a great big finger at U.S. abuses in Iraq, Guantanamo and secret CIA prisons abroad.

Reporter Carrie Weimar at the St. Petersburg Times has a fascinating story today:

the boy from Orlando... known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., son of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia and one of Africa's most feared warlords...sits in a Miami detention center awaiting trial. He will be the first person prosecuted under a 1994 law that makes it illegal for a U.S. citizen to commit acts of torture abroad. If convicted, he could face more than 60 years in prison.

Two weeks ago, in Jesus is a housing advocate in St. Petersburg, Fla., I diaried about a "tent town" that crusading Rev. Bruce J. Wright of Refuge Ministry in St. Pete helped organize on the St. Vincent de Paul property in St. Pete a month ago. St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker (right) wants St. Vincent de Paul to evict them.

On Wednesday, two homeless men were shot and killed nearby. Police believe teenagers committed both murders.

On Friday, St. Pete police raided the tent town. They didn't arrest anyone - they just destroyed the tents and carted away the tops "as evidence," leaving the homeless worse off than they were before.

The St. Pete Times posted the YouTube video link.

Greetings from Florida. Wish you were here.

Last month I diaried about Umoja Village, a "shantytown" settlement in Overtown, the poorest section of Miami, Fla.

Yesterday Laura Rivera at the New York Times detailed the Umoja story, describing intrinsic principles for which we Democrats suffer and which, occasionally, triumph.

"I know someday I’ll be old like her," said Mr. Simpkins, 43, who said he was an ordained Baptist minister and had lately been serving as Umoja’s unofficial cook. "I just hope that when that day comes, there will be someone to take care of me."

With 16 huts cobbled together from plywood, discarded closet doors and cardboard, Umoja is a shantytown in the shadow of the biggest construction boom Miami has seen since the 1920s. Started in October by an advocate for low-income housing, it is part social protest and part social experiment, with nightly meetings where decisions on whether to evict people or how to split up chores are determined by consensus.

Washington,. D.C. --- Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cal/35) (right), is incoming chairwoman of the Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee of the powerful House Financial Services Committee.

She plans to make affordable housing a key Democratic issue this year.

Yesterday Damian Paletta of Marketwatch (via Dow Jones Newswire) reported on Waters's speech to an influential housing finance group, where she warned bankers and HUD officials:

"For those of you who are worried about people like Maxine Waters in the financial services industry, stay worried..."

Waters warned bankers and HUD officials to be ready to discuss problems and solutions during hearings that start as soon as next week - in New Orleans.

"Come up with some answers. Come up with some ideas. Come up with some things that we can do that would help us work together to get the job done."

Florida Workforce Housing Network, of which I am a principal, is modeled after DailyKos.com and focuses on affordable workforce housing issues in Florida. Last month I diaried the news of Umoja Village, a block of occupied city-owned property in the poverty-plagued Overton area of Miami where people have constructed a makeshift "shantytown." (Don't cringe at that word, it has the noblest origins).

Now people power - Florida style - has taken root across the state in St. Petersburg.

Rev. Bruce J. Wright, who heads Refuge Ministry in St. Pete, helped establish an impromptu tent city for homeless people on the St. Vincent de Paul property in St. Pete on Dec. 30. Now the mayor wants St. Vincent de Paul to evict them.

On Sunday, Rev. Wright led his flock on a little march - to the Northside Baptist Church, where St. Pete Mayor Richard Baker worships.

Rightwing funnyman Tom Tancredo, auditioning for the new conservative comedy show, labeled Miami, Fla. "a Third World country.".

Tancredo was right, and he doesn't get it, and he never will. That’s funny.

Ten days ago, ‘third world’ activists in Miami formally christened their enclave — and their effort — Umoja Village.

And this is the future of America.

Photo: Maya Bell, The Orlando Sentinel.

Continued...

NPR is reporting this morning that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) called for an FBI investigation of Mark Foley last July 21.

Yesterday, CREW called on the Department of Justice Inspector General's office to investigate why the FBI did nothing.

"As a former prosecutor who handled sex crimes in the District of Columbia, the emails set off alarm bells. Grown men simply do not send emails requesting photographs to teenagers over whom they have had some degree of authority," Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW wrote [yesterday].
<...>
Sloan continued, "The American public deserves to know not just how and why members of Congress failed to take action to protect the youngsters entrusted to the care of the House of Representatives, but also why the FBI -- an agency charged with protecting the public -- failed to safeguard other youngsters from a potential sexual predator."

 

Josh Hafenbrack and Anthony Mann of the South Fla. Sun-Sentinel are reporting this morning that what south Fla. Republicans are saying about Foley sounds kinda-sorta like what Foley said about Bill Clinton:

"It's vile," Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, told the St. Petersburg Times. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."