Arguments2

4/19/06

[*** -separates dates]

4/19/06

“Our guys” in Iraq “have got every right to have good news ... even if it’s got to be planted or bought” -Pat Buchanan (12/02/2005)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112905N.shtml

“http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=96”

‘Villains Honoring Villains’
By Bill Berkowitz
MediaTransparency.org

Monday 28 November 2005

The Bush administration is winning the battle to institute public/private partnerships on America’s cash-strapped public lands. Is total privatization coming down the pike?

“National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”
-Wallace Stegner, 1983

In mid-October, The Yosemite Fund, a private-sector partner of Yosemite National Park, announced that it bestowed its “Corporate Protector of the Year” award on Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts at Yosemite, Inc. (DNC), at a ceremony held October 1 at Yosemite’s Wawona Hotel. Bob Hansen, the President of The Yosemite Fund gave the award to Kevin Kelly, the President of DNC Parks & Resorts, and thanked him for the contributions the company has made “to the Campaign for Yosemite Falls, a monumental restoration project spearheaded by The Yosemite Fund in 1997 which came to fruition in April 2005.”

In a press release dated October 14, Hansen said that the award was given to acknowledge the company’s “12 years of exceptional support, including their generous annual donations and exemplary teamwork with the National Park Service to assist with the Yosemite Falls project,” and for its “environmentally-friendly practices during their tenure as concessionaire in Yosemite.”

“Through its GreenPath initiative, Delaware North has eliminated toxic chemicals, and instituted a phenomenal recycling program that reduces waste and preserves the environment and its resources,” Hansen said.

On the same day, a US Forest Service news release announced the issuing of a 158-page concessionaire prospectus entitled “A Prospectus for the Delivery of Visitor Services, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.”

The document noted that “Offered opportunities include food service, retail sales, educational book sales, and optional museum and theater operation at Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center; retail sales, educational book sales, and optional mobile food and sundries vending at Johnston Ridge Observatory; and options to provide mobile food and sundries vending at other locations along SR504, and to develop rustic lodging and/or RV camping facilities ... Applicants whose proposals provide the Required Services specified for a complex will also be offered the opportunity to provide outfitter and guide services within the MSHNVM, including motorized and non-motorized winter activities, hiking tours, climbing tours, mountain biking tours and helicopter tours.”

In a series of e-mails - one titled “Villains Honoring Villains,” and the other “Hey you, ‘ya wanna buy a National Volcanic Monument?” - Scott Silver, the executive director of Wild Wilderness, a grassroots environmental organization that has been involved with public land management issues for more than a decade, commented on the Yosemite award ceremony, and the Mount St. Helens prospective sell-off.

“Bluntly stated,” Silver’s first e-mail read, “the Delaware North Companies - with $1.6 Billion in annual revenues - is quickly taking control of America’s National Parks, and The Yosemite Fund is perhaps the best example where private philanthropy is used as a substitute for Federal funding so as to help advance a larger privatization agenda.” When you combine these things, “you get the Yosemite Fund conferring upon Delaware North its “Corporate Protector of the Year” Award.”

In a subsequent message regarding Mount St. Helens, Silver mused: “Would any of you like to partner with me and buy ourselves control of a few hundred thousand acres of prime recreation lands - not to mention access to a couple of million paying customers?”

Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts (website) is “a leading hospitality provider with significant experience in hotel, retail, food service, recreation and transportation operations. The company’s portfolio includes historic properties in North America, such as Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex; Yosemite, Sequoia, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks; Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds; Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite; Harrison Hot Springs Resort & Spa; Niagara Falls State Park; Jones Beach; Deer Creek Resort & Conference Center; Old Town San Diego; the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia and Denver; and The Lodge & Conference Center at Geneva State Park, Ohio.”

Giving Delaware North the award, Silver wrote, is no different “than the villainous” American Recreation Coalition - a champion of motorized recreation and public/private partnerships on public lands - “giving Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton - leading the way toward commercialization and privatization of America’s public lands - or Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK) - who has been spearheading the drilling of the Arctic National Reserve - its much-coveted ‘Great Outdoors Award.’”

In an e-mail exchange, Silver pointed out that, “Today when you visit Yosemite Valley, for example, virtually every product, good or service you consume is provided by Delaware North Companies (DNC). If you purchase a sandwich and chips, those chips are private-labeled DNC-brand chips. The National Park Service collects a small cut from DNC’s take and because Congress and the President are literally starving park service budgets, the NPS has a direct incentive to encourage visitors to spend and consume.”

Over the past 15-plus years, Silver added, “the Yosemite Fund, a tax-exempt corporation, has funneled more than $20,000,000 into that park, much of it coming from corporate donor and much of that money being spent on projects of interest to the Yosemite Fund.”

The Yosemite Fund’s website lists a group of corporate partners that pony up at least $5,000, and in exchange get the prestige of being associated with Yosemite as well as more tangible rewards including having their names placed on the “Honor Wall at the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center,” receiving recognition in publications such as the Fund’s annual report, getting listed on the webpage and receiving special “invitations to an annual event in Yosemite and Fund holiday party.” It is not much of a price to pay for companies like Chevron, Coca-Cola of California, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Bank of America that then can call themselves friends of Yosemite.

Even prior to billions spent on the war on terrorism, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the recent series of natural disasters that laid waste to the Gulf Coast and New Orleans - which will cost additional billions - the National Parks Service was on shaky grounds, going through a major funding crunch. According to a recent report in The Salt Lake Tribune, that funding crunch has turned into a crisis “and it’s getting worse, not better. The backlog of park maintenance projects continues to grow, staffing has been sliced to the marrow and vital science and restoration work is being delayed, if not shelved.”
Crisis in America’s National Parks

For more than a decade, Scott Silver has been the Paul Revere of the environmental movement. Instead of riding a horse around the countryside shouting “the privatizers are coming, the privatizers are coming,” from his Bend, Oregon office, Silver has been sounding the alarm about the privatization of America’s public lands for more than a decade via his valuable web site WildWilderness.org, and through a steady stream of e-mail alerts.

In 1994, the Cato Institute, a Washington, DC-based free-market think tank, published “Privatizing the Planet,” which maintained that “privately owned resources have been better protected than their politically managed counterparts” and concluded that “the air, the water, most species of mammals and fish and public lands have no private owners, [therefore] they have few effective protectors and defenders.”

Recently, The George Wright Forum (Volume 22, #2) devoted a special issue to the privatization of the national parks. According to Silver, The George Wright Society is “well respected and mainstream and Forum is read by park managers all around the world.” Silver pointed out that “the fact that it did a special edition on privatization is significant in its timing. Two of the pieces were written by pro-privatization libertarians, and the idea was to present all sides of the debate.”

To Silver, “the pro-privatization articles confirmed the threats to which the anti-privatization people pointed, and on the whole, the special issue was ‘fair and balanced.’”

Silver’s essay, which concludes the special issue, looks at the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program - authorized by Congress in 1996 as a rider to the Department of the Interior appropriations bill - and its impact on the privatization of America’s public lands. In short, Fee-Demo allowed “land managers to collect fees for a wider range of products, goods, and services ... [and] retain the fees they collect.” Through this “alternative funding mechanism Congress was free to slash allocated funding and to force land managers to become reliant upon user fees, concessionaire fees, public-private partnerships, volunteerism, and other funding.”

According to Silver numerous pro-privatization think tanks support Fee-Demo: “Extremists seek to halt all funding of the national parks and public lands in order to create incentives to ensure that these lands become self-funding at a minimum, and preferably profitable.” Land managers would ascertain the value of the resources on land it oversees and then “would sell or lease rights to those commodity values and keep the monies received.”

In light of a recent extreme proposal by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo and the Bush Interior Department “to scale back and commercialize the park system to help meet its budget needs,” Subcommittee Chairman Mark Souder, R-Ind., and his fellow members stopped off in Flagstaff, Arizona in the fifth of a six-stop fact-finding mission.

However, Rep. Pombo’s proposal was not the only piece of bad news coming down the pike. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that a “leaked memo draft” written by Paul Hoffman, the Assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, “proposed revisions of park management policies that would allow cell phone towers, low-flying tour flights and all-terrain vehicles in parks, expand snowmobile access and would limit park managers’ authority to prevent development.”

“We don’t like what we see,” Richard Smith of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, told the Subcommittee. “We are saddened to watch the ongoing efforts by the political leadership of the [Interior] Department and the Park Service to privatize our national park system, a system that author Wallace Stegner called ‘the best idea America ever had.’”

Acknowledging that there needed to be some serious thinking about how to deal with the Park Service’s diminishing budgets, Rep. Souder said, “Parks won’t be sold. I can guarantee you that,” Souder said. “But commercialization in the parks is a very tough challenge. How far and where are we going to go in allowing it? It’s a valid question.”

“Representative Souder asked exactly the right question,” Silver explained in an email. “As of yet, no one is ready to completely sell off the National Parks, though some have made such threats. Selling parks would be the ultimate privatization step. And that is not how privatization is occurring. It is happening, instead, through a series of incremental steps.”

Silver said that the privatization process has been accelerating over the past decade, and unfortunately, “very little significant resistance is being put up. These days there seems to be a sudden uproar about efforts to sell the Parks, but selling parks is not the threat we’re facing today and we would be misled if we believed otherwise.”

A July 1997, government-issued report titled “Terms Related to Privatization Activities and Processes” spelled out the numerous issues facing America’s public lands including Asset Sale, Commercial Activities, Contracting Out, Divestiture, Franchising Of External Services, Franchising Of Internal Services, Government Corporations, Government-Sponsored Enterprises, Joint Ventures, Outsourcing, Privatization, Public-Private Partnership, Service Shedding, User Fees, Volunteer Activities, and Vouchers.

“Today, every one who cares about America’s public lands should be fighting the privatization steps laid out in that 1997 document,” said Scott Silver. “If we do not do so today, we will soon enough be fighting to prevent the sale of our nation’s crown jewels.”

Five years ago, “I gave a presentation to the Society for Environmental Journalists and warned them about how fee-demo would lead to the privatization of places such as Mount St. Helens.” Ironically, Silver pointed out, the SEJ annual meeting that year “was held inside of one of Mount Helens’ visitor centers, which are now up for bids.”

-------

***

5/9/06

“Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure . . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, ‘I see no probability of the British invading us’; but he will say to you, ‘Be silent; I see it, if you don’t.’ “

Rep. Abraham Lincoln, February 1848, on opposition to the Mexican War:

“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. No error is more certain than the one proceeding from a hasty and superficial view of the subject.”

- James Madison

I suppose I am most disappointed in a lack of intellectual honesty. The Fox Cave and Bush Broadcasting Co keep you entertained at a base level with well exposed lie after lie, deception, concealment, secrecy, quibble, distortion, insult, irony, hypocrisy, and ideology-- but you retain allegiance. The cloud, the firewall around the thought process are intact. The fatal flaws in logic from the White House BS Machine do not allow you to make the QED, yet you are with the faithful. The syllogisms collapse with every gap, overextension, and inconsistency, but you stay the course. Their analogies and bumper sticker slogans are false. Statements are patently untrue when their opposites, inverse, and substitutions are invalid. Their protestations disregard content, facts, and principles to shoot the messenger. The rhetoric masks reality. Mendacity trumps rectitude. The cognitive disconnect is staggering. It is not possible to make corrections until mistakes are admitted. You become as much of a Deny-er as your Leader.

“There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”

-Jonathan Swift, “Polite Conversation,“ 1738

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”

- Sir Winston Churchill

Truth, Justice, and the American Way --words from a black and white television era that used to exemplify a generation’s guidelines and goals. Now you trade in empirical evidence for an imperial tyranny that is the antithesis of those concepts. Do you no longer have a concern for the social, economical, and political injustice that this Crime Family represents? How can the rabid right wingers demand legalities from immigrants but not their Big Brother? Why does this Naked Emperor deserve you reverence but not the Founding Fathers? What happened to the rigid interpretation, strict construction of the Constitution and its three branches? Where is the indignation over the activist Executive Branch? His contempt for 750 laws raises no eyebrows? How is this group of regressive, robber baron, warmongers able to turn citizens into blind mice, herds of sheep, and paint them as the three monkeys with hands over their face?

All lies and jest.

Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

-Paul Simon, US singer/songwriter, The Boxer

Surveys in your favor are now commonly as low as 27%, with categories such as energy policy in the teens! It’s hard to believe that you still find yourself a comfortable fit among the hard core fascist pimps, Republican whores, Evangelical fanatics, red-neck bigots, and indifferent Rich who think the Bush Mafia is taking the country in the right direction. The generals, officers, soldiers, statesmen, and intelligence communities are finally reinforcing the obvious images of the Madman at the helm, rolling the marbles in his hand, voicing the incomprehensible repetitive mumblings of psychiatric megalomania.

Awareness, recognition, and outrage are fortunately continuing to appear everywhere. I still have hope. If you can’t penetrate the wisdom of George Orwell, perhaps a remedial, extended look at the perceptions and prophecies of Ayn Rand will help (as usual, more footnotes than shown are available.)

“Ever since Kant divorced reason from reality, his intellectual descendants have been diligently widening the breach.”

Ayn Rand, 2/2/1905 - 3/6/1982, Russian/ American writer, philosopher, “The Cashing-In: The Student Rebellion” in The New Left New American Library 71

“...there is no room for the arbitrary in any activity of man, least of all in his method of cognition - and just as he has learned to be guided by objective criteria in making his physical tools, so he must be guided by objective criteria in forming his tools of cognition: his concepts.”

-Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

“Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them.”

“The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.”

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”

“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

“Upper classes are a nation’s past; the middle class is its future.”

“A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.”

“Do not ever say that the desire to “do good” by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.”

Atlas Shrugged:

Dr. Stadler: You’ve taken the achievements of the mind to destroy the mind. You’ve given “ science” to unspeakable, disreputable mediocrity and woozy mysticism. Unwarranted, preposterous switches and inapplicable metaphors draw monstrous generalizations. The feeblest imbecile should be able to see the glaring contradictions in every one of your statements.

Dr. Ferris: The man who doesn’t see that, deserves to believe all my statements. You’re speaking as if we are addressing a thinking audience. If it were, one would have to be concerned with such matters as accuracy, validity, logic, and the prestige of science. But we address the public. People don’t want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. So they’ll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking.

...the full measure of human stupidity. I’ve fought it all my life. There was a time when I looked at the tragic mess they’ve made of this earth, and wanted to cry out, to beg them to listen--I could teach them to live so much better than they did-but there was nobody to hear me, they had nothing to hear me with...Intelligence? It is such a rare, precarious spark that flashes for a moment somewhere among men, and vanishes.

She had always looked for sparks of competence, like a diamond prospector in an unpromising wasteland.

I don’t like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody’s confidence. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not. If one’s actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception.

The reporters were young men who had been trained to think that their job consisted of concealing from the world the nature of its events. It was their daily duty to serve as audience for some public figure who made utterances about the public good, in phrases carefully chosen to convey no meaning. It was their daily job to sling words together in any combination they pleased, so long as the words did not fall into a sequence saying something specific.

I am in favor of a free economy. A free economy cannot exist without competition. Therefore, men must be forced to compete. Therefore, we must control men in order to force them to be free.

What is morality? Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.

This is an age of moral crisis. It is not man who is now on trial, not human nature, it is your moral code. What you now need is not to return to morality-but to discover it. Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality. There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man’s Life is its standard of value. It is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug, or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being-not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement-and there’s only one price that pays for man’s survival: reason. Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is the only means to gain it.

Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies, and integrates the material provided by his senses. His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality. Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason.

Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means to knowledge, is the only standard of truth. Man’s only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. The moral is rational, and reason accepts no commandments. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason--Purpose--Self-esteem. Reason is his only tool of knowledge. These values imply and require all of man’s virtues.

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over the act of perceiving it, which is thinking, that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise--that a concession to the irrational invalidates one’s consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality--that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind--that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of one’s consciousness.

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing cha help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts your consciousness.

Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value--that there are no values if obtained by fraud--that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising those victims to a position higher than reality. If you do not care to live as a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools who succeed in fooling, then honesty becomes a social duty, the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others.

Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men, that you must judge all men with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and rational a process of identification--that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly. You do not value a rotter above a hero. Your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you scrupulous honor--that to withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement--that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, an act of moral bankruptcy, to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence.

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality--that productive work is a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values.

Nobody can really exist by faking reality in any manner whatever.

No man can predict the time when others will choose to return to reason.

By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist.

There is no conflict of interests among men if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical. There is no conflict and no call for sacrifice and no man is a threat to the aims of another--if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn’t. Those who wish to gain by throttling a competitor--they’re all wishing facts out of existence, and destruction is the only means of their wish. A wish for the irrational is not to be achieved, whether the sacrificial victims are willing or not. You’d be surprised at how easy it is for men to agree when both parties hold as their moral absolute that reason is their only means of trade.

A basic premise is an absolute that permits no co-operation with its antithesis and tolerates no tolerance. When thinkers accept those who deny the existence of thinking as fellow thinkers, it is they who achieve the destruction of the mind.

She set out to learn with the devotion, the discipline, the drive of a military cadet.

The code of competence is the only system of morality that’s on a gold standard.

His concept of wealth was selection, not accumulation.

There was a time when the self-interest of his employers had demanded he exercise his utmost ability. Now, ability was not wanted any longer. Now, he could expect nothing but punishment if he tried to follow his conscience. There had been a time when he had been expected to think. Not they did not want him to think, only to obey.

Holding enormous official powers, he schemed ceaselessly to expand them, because it was expected of him by those who had pushed him into office. He had the cunning of the unintelligent and the frantic energy of the lazy. The sole secret of his rise in life was the fact that he was a product of chance and knew it, and aspired to nothing else.

Their terror was not the fear that comes from understanding, but from the refusal to understand.

He was seeing the enormity of the smallness of the enemy who was destroying the world.

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started.

We The Living:

I loathe your ideals. No matter how much your Party promises to accomplish, no matter what paradise it plans to bring mankind, you will turn your paradise into the most unspeakable hell. What are your masses but millions of dull, shrivelled, stagnant souls that have no thoughts of their own, no dreams of their own, no will of their own, who eat and sleep and chew helplessly the words others put into their brains?

Anthem:

What the rule of brute force does to men will be the same in any dictatorship, anywhere, at any time.

Centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.

**

“Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America “you are too arrogant, and if you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I’m God. Men will beat their swords into plowshafts and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore.” I don’t know about you, I ain’t going to study war anymore.

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.... There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, “Be nonviolent toward Jim Clark,” but will curse and damn you when you say, “Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children!” There is something wrong with that press....
I’m convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values....When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered....”
Martin Luther King Jr., Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That’s how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking

Everybody knows that the captain lied

Everybody knows

-Leonard Norman Cohen, b. 1934, Canadian singer/songwriter

Lookin’ for a leader

To bring our country home

Re-unite the red white and blue

Before it turns to stone

Lookin’ for somebody

Young enough to take it on

Clean up the corruption

And make the country strong

Walkin’ among our people

There’s someone who’s straight and strong

To lead us from desolation

And a broken world gone wrong

-Neil Young, US singer/songwriter, Lookin’ for a Leader

**

Published on Thursday, May 4, 2006 by the Independent / UK

Global Warming Fastest for 20,000 Years - and it is Mankind’s Fault

by Steve Connor

Global warming is made worse by man-made pollution and the scale of the problem is unprecedented in at least 20,000 years, according to a draft report by the world’s leading climate scientists.

The leaked assessment by the group of international experts says there is now overwhelming evidence to show that the Earth’s climate is undergoing dramatic transformation because of human activity.

A draft copy of the report by a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are at the highest for at least 650,000 years.

**

Fueling Our Future

By Jonathan Shaw

Harvard Magazine

May/June 2006 Issue

Climate warming is accelerating as energy use soars. Graham Allison, Dillon professor of government and director of the KSG’s Belfer Center for International Affairs, “I would say that 99.9 percent of scientists and informed citizens who look at the problem are serious about anthropogenic contributions to global warming.”

Fossil fuels provide 80 percent of the energy that powers civilization. The more fuel we burn, the more heat-trapping greenhouse gases we produce, principally carbon dioxide (CO2). We know the carbon is coming from fossil-fuel combustion because, as Iain Conn, executive director of British Petroleum, said in a recent visit to Harvard, isotopic fingerprinting of the carbon tells us so. The consequent global warming is already linked to a pattern of record floods, droughts, heat, and other extreme weather events around the globe, and is expected to lead to extinctions of some plants and animals. But such news from the natural world has done little to galvanize political will. Even forecasts of disastrous effects for the human sphere - severe drought in parts of Africa and Europe in the next century, and rising sea levels worldwide that will someday drown major cities - have thus far failed to mobilize public action in the United States. The time to act is running short.

“It’s a grand problem,” says professor of earth and planetary sciences Daniel Schrag. “The effect of CO2 on temperature is not theoretical,” says Schrag.

***

5/29/2006

Yep, still love the guy. May take longer that five years for history to view GWB as one of our greatest presidents though. I’m not sure why I have this gift for recognizing greatness when so few have it, I just do. Must be my years of studying history at OSU!

PS: I have plenty of intellectual honesty, thanks.

It’s always nice to get your notes since you have developed some interesting and amusing phraseology. It’s still hard to comprehend its content though. “Yep, still love the guy.”

WHAT’S TO LIKE?

From yesterday’s New York Times: “Americans have a bleaker view of the country’s direction than at any time in more than two decades, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. . . . Mr. Bush’s overall job approval rating hit another new low, 31 percent, tying the low point of his father in July 1992, four months before the elder Mr. Bush lost his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton.”

“You can fool some of the people all of the time,” President Bush joked at Washington’s Gridiron Dinner shortly after his first Inauguration, “and those are the ones you have to concentrate on.”

ATobias: Ah, Yes, but that pool is shrinking

How can he spin them, one after another, Iraq, gays, guns, God, Social Security, abortion, Mexicans, Iranians, all the hot buttons as tales “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” and you hunker on reverent knee, eager to buy from a new line of Fear ‘n’ Keep ‘em Scared clothing the Naked Emperor wants to sell?

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

-H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken, 9/12/1880 - 1/29/1956, American journalist, critic, editor

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

Noam Chomsky

A standard textbook on 7th grade World History would show your Frat Boy Bully Tyrant to be little different from all the other Empire Builders who presided over the demise of the greatness they sought. From the Incas, Myans, Egyptians, Khans, Alexanders, Romans, Goths, Visigoths, Byzantines, Ottomans, etc., a few years of power corrupts so badly that the oppressed arise, overcome, and become likely oppressors.

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility.”

John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, 1/10/1834 - 6/19/1902, English historian, letter to Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887.—Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power, ed. Gertrude Himmelfarb, pp. 335–36 (1972).

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak. Power always thinks... that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.

-John Adams, 10/30/1735 - 7/4/1826, 2nd president of the United States (1797-1801)

Invaders cannot successfully occupy a territory without total annihilation, control, and assimilation. The Crusaders were crushed by the Muslims, who at one point gained control over much of Europe.

“We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship earth successfully, nor for much longer, unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.”

-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Your understanding of history also seems to differ considerably from that of the historians:

Published on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by Rolling Stone

The Worst President in History?

One of America’s leading historians assesses George W. Bush

by Sean Wilentz

George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a “failure.”

Twelve percent of the historians polled -- nearly as many as those who rated Bush a success -- flatly called Bush the worst president in American history. And these figures were gathered before the debacles over Hurricane Katrina, Bush’s role in the Valerie Plame leak affair and the deterioration of the situation in Iraq. Were the historians polled today, that figure would certainly be higher.

Even worse for the president, the general public... now appears to be coming around to the dismal view held by most historians. To be sure, the president retains a considerable base of supporters who believe in and adore him, and who reject all criticism with a mixture of disbelief and fierce contempt -- about one-third of the electorate.

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

**

Published on Wednesday, May 17, 2006

“The Worst President in History?” Why the Question Mark?

by Andrew Bard Schmookler

“The Worst President in History?” is the title of a recent article about the presidency of George W. Bush by Princeton historian Sean Wilentz published in Rolling Stone. It’s a fine piece, which has deservedly made the rounds of the blogosphere. Therefore it is not to denigrate that article that I now suggest that the question mark in that title can be dropped.

Now factor in all that has become known about this administration in the almost two-and-a-half years since that poll was taken: how more fully disclosed are the lies leading to the war in Iraq and the blunders that assured its disastrous consequences; how incompetent the administration has proved to be in the face of hurricane Katrina; how clear has become the picture of this administration’s disdain for the Constitution and the law, with its bypassing of the required judicial oversight in the issuing of warrants; how shamelessly they have sought to suppress scientific and economic facts, and so forth_ a list that could be vastly expanded.

The worst presidency in history? Where’s the competition?

Consider the systematic assault that this regime and their party loyalists have been conducting on the basic structures of our democracy:

** The use of “signing statements” and bogus “constitutional arguments” to usurp the constitutional powers of the other branches;

** The flagrant violation, under presidential orders, of duly passed laws such as the FISA act, not to mention of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution;

** The violation of duly-ratified treaties banning torture and of constitutional provisions for due process;

** The K street culture of big moneyed interests buying government, even further corrupted with the requirement that only Republican lobbyists be hired;

** The rigging of Congressional districts, and other thuggish abuses of power, orchestrated by Tom Delay and his syndicate;

** The institution of a voting process that practically asks for election-stealing;

** The practice of politics by character assassination;

** The degradation of our public discourse through the distortion and disregard of science, the “fixing” of intelligence, and the denigration of expertise, secretly-paid commentators, and administration-produced advertisements presented as real news;

** The pattern of lies by this presidency to Congress and to the American people about vital national issues, not least in the selling of an unnecessary war.

(Again, the list could be multiplied.)

In subverting our democracy, this Bushite regime is attacking the heart of America- what generations of Americans going off to war have been told we must fight to protect. This is what takes this presidency beyond other failed or corrupt or criminal administrations.

Not only does this administration embody the sins of all the past administrations -corruption, abuse of power, leading us along the path of destruction- but the crisis of this moment in American history is unique in this crucial respect: the problem is not that this administration is mismanaging a national crisis, it is that they themselves are the crisis.

**

Published on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 by the “http://www.sun-sentinel.com/”

Under the Cold Eye of History

by Robert P. Watson

Ever since 1948, when historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. first polled leading scholars and asked them to rank our presidents, updated polls have been released every few years. As a participant in the current poll, I spent several weeks thinking long and hard about the best and worst of our country’s presidents -- and about President Bush’s eventual place in history.

Bush will likely be remembered much as is Warren Harding, who was disinterested in policy details, brought a group of corrupt cronies to the White House and stumbled through one mishap after the other. He is remembered as something of a jovial but incompetent puppet for corporate interests, and for setting the nation on a course to the Great Depression.

But it is James Buchanan, president from 1857-1861, who often earns the dubious title of “worst president” because he lost the Union to civil war on his watch, and failed to change course until it was too late.

When history renders its cold assessment of George W. Bush, I believe he will find himself alongside Harding and Buchanan as one of the worst presidents in American history. Bush’s legacy will likely be that of death, deficits and deceit, and it could well take this nation a decade or more to recover from his presidency.

Robert Watson, Ph.D., won the Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award this year at Florida Atlantic University and is the author or editor of 25 books on politics. He can be reached at “http://www.thinkactlead.com/”.

**

Lessons of Iraq War Start With US History
By Howard Zinn
The Progressive

Tuesday 14 March 2006

On the third anniversary of President Bush’s Iraq debacle, it’s important to consider why the administration so easily fooled so many people into supporting the war.

I believe there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture.

One is an absence of historical perspective. The other is an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism.

If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. But if we know some history, if we know how many times presidents have lied to us, we will not be fooled again.

**

Published on Thursday, February 9, 2006
Is U.S. Military Dominance of the World a Good Idea?
by Peter Phillips
The leadership class in the US is now dominated by a neo-conservative group of some 200 people who have the shared goal of asserting US military power worldwide. This Global Dominance Group, in cooperation with major military contractors, has become a powerful force in military unilateralism and US political processes.
Neo-conservatives promoting the US Military control of the world are now in dominant policy positions within these higher circles of the US. Adbusters magazine summed up neo-conservatism as: “The belief that Democracy, however flawed, was best defended by an ignorant public pumped on nationalism and religion. Only a militantly nationalist state could deter human aggression. Such nationalism requires an external threat and if one cannot be found it must be manufactured.”
**

Published on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 by Agence France Presse

War Anniversary Unleashes Avalanche of Criticism

The third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq has unleashed an avalanche of criticism of the US administration with calls for high level resignations and a reappraisal of objectives.

Some of the bleakest assessments of events in Iraq have come from independent analysts who generally support the US effort, reflecting a mood of deepening disillusion.

The most dramatic came from a retired army general who was in charge of training Iraqi security forces in 2003 and 2004.

Retired major general Paul Eaton laid the blame for failures in Iraq on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, portraying him as a bullying micromanager who alienated allies and ignored military advice.

“In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq,” wrote in the New York Times Sunday.

“Mr. Rumsfeld must step down,” Eaton declared.

Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush administration have come under mounting fire before for their handling of the Iraq war, but the criticism occasioned by the anniversary has been especially biting.

A “scorecard” drawn up by Anthony Cordesman, a repected military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, lists seven major strategic objectives of the war. Cordesman argued that all have proved illusory.

The major objective -- getting rid of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction threat -- was “pointless,” he said.

Liberate Iraq? Cordesman said the Iraqis are now worse off than under Saddam -- but free to vote for sectarian and ethnic divisions. “We essentially used a bull to liberate a china shop,” he said.

End the terrorist threat in Iraq? “There was no meaningful threat in the first place. Salafi (fundamentalist) terrorism now dominates the insurgency and is a far worse threat,” he wrote.

The Gulf and Middle East are more unstable than before, oil exports are down from pre-war levels, and Arabs view Iraq not as a model for democratic reform but with fear and suspicion, Cordesman wrote.

US efforts to modernize Iraq’s economy “have largely been a wasteful, and highly ideological and bureaucratic, failure,” he added.

“There is little or no chance of salvaging the war in terms of our broader strategic objectives,” Cordesman concluded.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter and had a reputation as a hawk in a Democratic administration, delivered a scathing assessment of the war in a speech Friday.

“The war has proven to be prohibitively costly. American leadership, in all of its dimensions, has been damaged,” he said.

“American morality has been stained -- in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. American legitimacy has been undermined -- by unilateral decisions. American credibility -- particularly the case for the war -- has been shattered,” he said.

Brzezinski said the US occupation of Iraq failed “as a consequence of a decision-making process that compounds errors, that involves a very narrow group of true believers, and that evades responsibility and accountability - for errors and even crimes.”

“No one responsible for wrong judgments has been fired. No one responsible for setting in motion a chain of events that produced extraordinarily embarrassing crimes has been put on trial,” he said.

You may, of course, redefine the entire world in and on your own terms, but such exercises aren’t necessarily recognized by others, and may leave you to “see through a glass, darkly” with its obscure or imperfect vision of reality. One claim that is easily disputed is that “I have plenty of intellectual honesty.” Perhaps you are just using it in ways not being demonstrated in the political comments you’ve sent to me. Honesty is telling the truth. Making a statement that is and turns out to be untrue is dishonest. Not admitting that such a spoken untruth was obviously proven false is intellectual dishonesty. Dozens of claims you’ve made supporting the divinely correct political decisions of your personal American Idol have been clearly refuted, but you’ve yet to acknowledge even a single mistake on your part. The simplest of dialectics shows that conclusions drawn from faulty premises are invalid. We’re now getting more honesty from our humorists than from the news media. Colbert, Durst, Letterman, Leno are all hitting their stride. Colbert defines his no-nonsense philosophy with a single word: “truthiness.” Asked to define “truthiness,” Colbert tells Safer, “Truthiness is what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are. What feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support.”

“I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”

Even Bush, Blair, or Rice saying there have been mistakes into the thousands haven’t allowed you to be similarly forthcoming. The craven image pops out of the White House/Fox News Bureau at regular intervals with calculated, pre-programmed, focus group words to parrot “9/11” “liberty” “democracy” “victory” and we might as well rename it the Bush Cuckoo Clock.

Alice said, “One can’t believe impossible things.”

The Queen replies, “I daresay you haven’t had much practice.”

-Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), 1/27/1832 - 1/14/1898, English writer, mathematician, photographer, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

“I just am not sure how anyone, including you, can believe that Bush and his advisors are wrong!”

70% of the country now, even more of the world, and an avalanche of such purists as William Buckley, Peggy Noonan, George Will, Thomas Friedman, Cal Thomas, David Brooks can see the dim bulb standing behind the curtain-- why not you? How can you persist to believe in an ideology and ideologues whose pedestals are built on the dominion of absurdity? Will conscience yet win a conflict with beliefs?

“One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed,” conservative legend William F. Buckley Jr. said, Feb. 24,2006.

“The so-called Bush Doctrine that set the framework for the administration’s first term is now in shambles,” neoconservative icon Francis Fukuyama wrote Feb. 19 in The New York Times Magazine.

www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110008359

Baseless Confidence

It may take a defeat in November for the GOP to unlearn the lessons of power.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

What’s behind the president’s, and the Congressional Republicans’, poll drop? All the bad news that’s been noted, from Iraq and Katrina to high spending and immigration. What’s behind the bad decisions made in those areas? Detachment from the ground.

Power is distancing.

**

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401450.html

The GOP’s Betrayal On Speech

By George F. Will

Sunday, April 16, 2006; Page B07

If in November Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives, April 5 should be remembered as the day they demonstrated that they earned defeat. Traducing the Constitution and disgracing conservatism, they used their power for their only remaining purpose -- to cling to power. Their vote to restrict freedom of speech came just as the GOP’s conservative base is coming to the conclusion that House Republicans are not worth working for in October or venturing out to vote for in November

**

http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/05/24/20060524-A11-03.html

Politicians prefer power to governing via good ideas

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

CAL THOMAS

Republicans, who once had ideas, (the Reagan Revolution; the Contract with America) behave like the Democratic majority they replaced. The ideas that put Republicans in power seem to have evaporated. Instead of advancing those ideas, too many Republicans pander to various constituencies, hoping their soon-to-be former supporters will overlook their prostitution.

**

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/opinion/17friedman.html

Saying No to Bush’s Yes Men

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: May 17, 2006

With the Bush team, ideology always trumps reality, loyalty always trumps expertise

**

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25brooks.html

David Brooks

Conclusions are unavoidable. The gap between rich and poor is widening. It’s like global warming; you can resist the evidence, but eventually you have to succumb.

**

Published on Sunday, May 21, 2006 by the Agence France Presse

In Open Split with Bush, Top US Conservative Calls for Independent Movement

The patriarch of US conservatives has urged his followers to halt their financial support of the Republican Party and start an independent movement, signaling a major political shift that could result in heavy losses for the US ruling party in upcoming elections

Richard Viguerie, who was instrumental in cementing the winning coalitions behind Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George W. Bush in 2000, declared that conservatives were “downright fed up” with both the president and Republican-controlled Congress.

Viguerie insisted that Bush only “talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.”

Sixty-five months into Bush’s presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the “Bridge to Nowhere” transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us.

“We’ve been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of ‘nation-building’ that candidate Bush said he opposed,” the conservative patriarch went on to say.

He also called congressional Republicans “unprincipled power brokers”, whose agenda “comes from big business”.

I wonder why you have so much difficulty recognizing the simple accuracy of mathematics in representations of statistical economic terms or actuarial charts or scientific data on environmental degradation. In other comparisons with the Bumbling Baboon Bubba, and since my references aren’t sinking in, I would wonder how many books you’ve read during the past 5 years? Given the ease with which you and the Corrupt Conceited Corporate Cabal delight in the spilt blood of 2500 vainly dead Americans and the cannon fodder of 40,000 (so far) US wounded and maimed casualties, how many pints of blood have you and they donated to the Red Cross? How many new jobs have you created with your tax cuts? Any Joe on the street can tell you that the millionaires aren’t going to do anything with an extra $40,000 other than give it to their broker.

Maybe a review of pop psychology, anthropology, common knowledge from the 60’s will help.

“The principal cause of modern warfare arises from the failure of an intruding power correctly to estimate the defensive resources of a territorial defender. While the master politician seems acutely aware of how far the forces of outward antagonism will go toward unifying his own people in support of his rule, history offers few evidences that he is equally aware of what the same forces will accomplish with his enemies.

The primordial psychological necessities of life itself are needs for identity, the opposite of anonymity; stimulation, the opposite of boredom; and security, the opposite of anxiety.

Human war has been the most successful of all our cultural traditions. The simulation of warfare is a flight and ultimate release from boredom that is presented with the maximum satisfactions for maximum numbers. No philosopher, viewing the horrors of war, can grasp the attraction which war presents to civilized men. We face in the elimination of war this most fundamental of psychological problems. For almost as long as civilization has been with us, war has represented our most satisfactory means of at once escaping anonymity and boredom while preserving or gaining the perception of a measure of security. It has been the all-purpose answer to our innate needs. Man is achieving identity otherwise denied him, discovering excitements socially unavailable.”

-Robert Ardrey, 10/16/1908-1/14/1980, US anthropologist, playwright, The Territorial Imperative (1966)

“We are ready to believe all that is good about our friends, all that is bad about our enemies. Our minds are enslaved to our prejudices to a far greater degree than is usually thought.”

Sir Arthur Keith, British author

“There is no infidelity to compare with the fear that the truth will be bad.”

-Herbert Spencer, British philosopher

“It is not difficult to demonstrate a connection between the unlimited right of the individual to pursue happiness and the catastrophes threatened by unrestrained affluence which exhausts resources and pollutes the environment.”

-B. F. (Burrhus Frederic) Skinner, 3/20/1904 - 8/18/1990, American psychologist, behaviorist
“Man’s sense of ineffectiveness, helplessness, and weakness re-awakens a corresponding tendency for his unexpressed normal aggression to turn into hate and resentment.

In truth, the extremes of “brutal” behaviour are confined to man; and there is no parallel in nature to our savage treatment of each other.

With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate except Homo sapiens habitually destroys members of his own species.

Throughout history man has been bedevilled by ignorance about his own nature, and has filled the gap by Utopian phantasies of what he wishes to be like rather than face the reality of what he is.”

-Anthony Storr, b.1920, English psychiatrist, author, Human Aggression (1968)

There is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them.

-Eric Hoffer, 7/25/1902 - 5/21/1983, American longshoreman, philosopher, writer, The True Believer (1951)

Ah, another Memorial Day. Time to offer more tribute to those you continue to send into the Valley of Death, giving us nothing but more and more names to Memorialize.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap05-25-141055.asp?reg=mideast&vts=52520061437

25 — As of Thursday, May 25, 2006, at least 2,464 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

I wonder what the number will total when the country finally comes to its senses. If you note the chart at this site, 92% of fatalities are US, and with the Brits, its 96%. It’s just another clue that your “Sixty countries have joined our unilateral attack on Iraq. I am so sick of hearing from all the dem candidates how Bush went at this alone. Are they that misinformed?” highlights the far greater degree of being misinformed. By any significant measurement, this is not a Coalition.

Published on Saturday, May 27, 2006 by Foreign Policy in Focus

Honoring the Dead on Memorial Day

by Col. Daniel Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Afghanistan, Iraq, and the whole “global war on terror” (a.k.a. “the long war”), like Vietnam, are for the public becoming increasingly onerous. While the actual number of fatalities is low compared to other major wars that have lasted more than three years, the manipulations of the shock of September 11, 2001 have explicitly accentuated public fear of the future to abridge constitutional rights and to foster a revengeful paranoia that claims to be the justification for launching preventive wars.

That the administration and many in Congress have been so cavalier with the truth in no way denigrates the sacrifices made by these men and women (and Iraqi men and women) who have been the victims of this war. In this context it becomes most fitting this Memorial Day to pause—not just for the “traditional” twenty or thirty seconds of silence before the first pitch is thrown or the first hot dog is consumed—to remember, to contemplate, those who have fallen, and to renew our dedication, our conviction, and our commitment to the idea that “War is not the Answer.”

Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus, a retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

PS Otherwise, there’s always more exposure to the thousands of reasons we shouldn’t be tolerating the status quo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/14/AR2006031401083.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/iraq

Top U.S. Military Official: No Evidence of Iran Involvement in Iraq

By Bill Brubaker

Tuesday, March 14, 2006; 4:30 PM

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, said today he has no evidence the Iranian government has been sending military equipment and personnel into neighboring Iraq.

On Monday, President Bush suggested Iran was involved in making roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, that are being used in Iraq. And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last week accused Iran of sending members of its Revolutionary Guard to conduct operations in Iraq.

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-16T153040Z_01_COL460419_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true&src=cms

Three years after Saddam, new fears haunt Iraqis

Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:31 AM ET

By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three years after U.S. forces invaded to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraqis have one preoccupation -- staying alive.

“Every day I feel like I am waiting in a queue for death,” said one Baghdad lawyer, too frightened to be named in print.

Published on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 by “http://www.truthdig.com”

Bush, the Statesman

by Molly Ivins

It’s hard to keep up with George W. Bush’s shuttles between internationalism and isolationism. You may recall he first ran for office declaring he was against nation-building and other such effete, peacekeeping efforts. None of that do-gooder, building-a-better-world stuff for him—he couldn’t even be bothered to learn the names of the Grecians and Kosovians.

The unseemly haste with which Bush pushed toward an unnecessary war alienated many of our closest allies, and the Bush team could not have made their contempt for those allies and the United Nations more clear.

So for a while we were the new imperialists and disdained the rest of the world. We didn’t need anyone—we would go our own way, and good riddance to the United Nations, what a bunch of wusses they were. It was the season of hubris, arrogance and rudeness.

In the ultimate “up yours,” Bush named John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton is a man so undiplomatic, not to mention so anti-U.N., that half the administration was appalled by the idea. These were the days when mental pygmies outside the administration were dismissed as the “reality-based community.” The senior Bush adviser famously quoted by Ron Suskind explained, “We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” Gosh, that was an exciting time.

Unfortunately, reality uncharitably refused to conform to the Bush administration’s demands—in fact, reality kept blowing up in our faces. In Afghanistan and particularly in Iraq, reality turned out to be downright ugly about not obliging our blithe president.

Several months after our invasion of Iraq, it turned out we had actually invaded in order to bring democracy to that lucky little country. In the odd, dreamlike way that Bush policy morphs, all the conservatives began to pretend we had always gone in to create democracy and anyone who suggested otherwise was misremembering that pesky reality.

Published on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 by the “http://www.baltimoresun.com”

Three Years Later, They Hope You’ll Forget the Truth

by G. Jefferson Price III

It is nearly three years since President Bush launched a war against Iraq, ostensibly because that country and its leader, Saddam Hussein, presented a grave danger to the security of the United States.

Iraq did not then pose the sort of danger the president said it did, asserting that Mr. Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and suggesting those might include a developing nuclear arsenal. For good measure, he added the fabricated suggestion that Mr. Hussein was somehow tied to al-Qaida and thus to the terrorist attacks against the U.S. on 9/11.

None of that was true. Over and over it’s been said - including in this column - that the reasons given for going to war in Iraq were not true. It’s important to keep reminding people of that, because Mr. Bush and the men and women in his administration who took us to war want everyone to forget the truth.

They would like us all to forget the moment in May 2003 when the President appeared in full flight costume aboard the USS Lincoln, beneath a banner declaring “Mission Accomplished.”

Then, and for many, many months to come, including up to and after the 2004 presidential election, most Americans believed that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld knew what they were doing and that they were doing the right thing.

But now they do not. The truth has overwhelmed Americans, no matter how hard this administration has tried to prevent them from getting it.

Bush’s Fantasy of “Progress” in Iraq
By Robert Scheer
The San Francisco Chronicle

Wednesday 15 March 2006

What is he thinking?

The Right’s Man
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Monday 13 March 2006

It’s time for some straight talk about John McCain. He isn’t a moderate. He’s much less of a maverick than you’d think. And he isn’t the straight talker he claims to be.

Impeachment Talk Reaches the Mainstream

By William Goodman

AlterNet

Tuesday 14 March 2006

From the Wall Street Journal to MSNBC, talk of impeachment is no longer on the fringe.

The groundswell for President Bush’s impeachment is growing, and last week the establishment media finally took notice.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story analyzing how a planned impeachment of President Bush will play out as an “election issue,” including a helpful pie chart showing 51 percent of Americans support Congress in considering Bush’s impeachment if he “didn’t tell the truth about the reasons for the Iraq war.”

The Washington Post published a commentary acknowledging that support for impeachment is now “reaching beyond the usual suspects,” and the Associated Press covered the spike in pro-impeachment resolutions from local officials across the country. Resolutions recently passed in Vermont and California, and this weekend Democratic Party officials in Michigan voted to urge local officials to pass another. Meanwhile, 14 Democratic candidates for Congress have announced their support for impeachment.

Study: Bush Rejected More Storm Loans
By Frank Bass
The Associated Press

Tuesday 14 March 2006

Washington - The White House has rejected hurricane disaster-recovery loans at a higher rate than any other administration in the last 15 years, according to a congressional study by Democrats.

Published on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 by the “http://www.huffingtonpost.com”

Note to Moronic Democratic Senators:
Americans Can’t Stand George Bush

by Cenk Uygur

The Republicans are unbearable. They break the law, lie, spin, spend, invade, torture and give away our money to lobbyists. The way they put their party above their country sickens me.

These are the same guys who had the nerve to try to impeach Bill Clinton because of their “respect for the rule of law.” Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Published on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

How Many Brinks Until There’s Nothing Left to Lose?

by Missy Comley Beattie

My dictionary defines “brink” as “the point at which something, typically an unwelcome or disastrous event, is about to happen.”

Seems we’ve left the brink behind and moved into those disasters many times under the leadership of George W. Bush. The decision to go to war is one, followed by torture, rendition, spying on American citizens, and, of course, the brink in New Orleans when Bush knew the levees would be breached but was passive and, later, said, “Who’d have known?”

How many brinks are we going to allow, especially when Bush is too stubborn and inept to pull us back, away from danger?

“http://click.theonion.com/c.html?s=6jy,jan8,7kb,8q19,mdji,cf54,cly”

STAFFORD, TXFormer House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is facing several ethics violations and felony charges, announced Tuesday that he will resign from Congress in order to concentrate on corruption in the private sector. “I can say with a clear lack of conscience that, after 21 years of public disservice, I have done everything I could to the American people,” DeLay said in a televised statement to constituents. “I have a lot to offer the corporate world, such as money laundering and influence-peddling.” DeLay added that, before assuming his new irresponsibilities, he looks forward to spending more time alienating his family and cheating on his wife.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/04/04/jay-leno-people-were-sh_n_18501.html

“Indicted former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay resigned yesterday,” said Jay Leno as part of his Tonight Show monologue. “People were shocked! A Republican with an exit plan.”

Actually, said Leno, “they were just amazed he was going to pay for his own vacation.”

For your obituary files:

NAME: Thomas Dale “Tom” DeLay
BIRTH DATE: April 8, 1947
EDUCATION: B.S., biology, University of Houston, 1970; attended Baylor University, 1965-1967
EXPERIENCE: U.S. House of Representatives, 1985-present; House Majority Leader, 2003-present; House Majority Whip, 1995-2003; Texas House, 1979-1985; worked for pesticide maker Redwood Chemical after college before starting his own exterminating business, Albo Pest Control.

1984: Elected to represent the 22nd District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives.

1994: Elected majority whip.

July 1997: DeLay was part of a group that tried, but failed, to oust House Speaker Newt Gingrich. (”http://www.nytimes.com/ref/politics/19971027ging.html”)

October 1998: DeLay attacks the Electronics Industries Alliance for hiring former Democratic Rep. Dave McCurdy as its president and later receives a private rebuke from the House ethics committee.

November 2002: Re-elected to the House. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/politics/10CONG.html”)

2003: Elected majority leader without opposition. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/05/politics/05CONG.html”)

September 2004: Grand jurors in Texas indict three DeLay associates Jim Ellis, John Colyandro, and Warren RoBold in an investigation of alleged illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee associated with him. The investigation involved the alleged use of corporate funds to aid Republican candidates for the Texas legislature in the 2002 elections. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/national/22delay.html”)

September-October 2004: DeLay is admonished by the House ethics committee on three separate issues. The committee chastised DeLay for offering to support the House candidacy of Michigan Republican Rep. Nick Smith’s son in return for the lawmaker’s vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. The panel said DeLay created the appearance of linking political donations to a legislative favor, and that he had improperly sought the Federal Aviation Administration’s intervention in a Texas political dispute. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/politics/08delay.html”)

January 2005: House Republicans reverse a controversial rule passed in November 2004 that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership post if he were indicted. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/05/politics/05cong.html”)

March 2005: Media reports spur Democrats to question DeLay’s relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation. Delay has asked the House ethics committee to review allegations that Abramoff or his clients paid some of DeLay’s overseas travel expenses. DeLay has denied knowing that the expenses were paid by Abramoff. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/politics/09delay.html”)

April 2005: House Republicans scrap controversial new ethics committee rules passed earlier in the year that would have made it harder to proceed with an ethics investigation. Democrats charged the rules were meant to protect DeLay. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/politics/28ethics.html”)

September 2005: DeLay is indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas political fundraising law and forced to step aside as majority leader. Ellis and Colyandro are indicted on additional felony charges of violating Texas election law and criminal conspiracy to violate election law for their role in 2002 legislative races. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/politics/30delay.html”)

DeLay’s Statement: “http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/politics/28text-delay.html” | “http://play.rbn.com/?url=ap/nynyt/g2demand/0928dv_delay_bite_SS.rm&proto=rtsp&mode=compact”

White House Reaction: “http://play.rbn.com/?url=ap/nynyt/g2demand/0928dv_whitehouse_delay_SS.rm&proto=rtsp&mode=compact”

Oct 3, 2005: A grand jury in Texas issued a second indictment against Representative Tom DeLay, accusing the Texas Republican and two aides of money laundering in a $190,000 transaction that prosecutors have described as a violation of the state’s ban on the use of corporate money in local election campaigns. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/04/politics/04delay.html”)

October 2005: DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro are indicted by a second grand jury on charges of conspiring to launder money and money laundering. DeLay turns himself in to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Houston, where he is fingerprinted and photographed. He smiles broadly in his mug shot to thwart its use by political opponents. DeLay’s attorneys win removal of a Democratic judge from the case because he has donated to Democratic causes and candidates. The Associated Press reports that DeLay and Rep. Roy Blunt, who succeeded DeLay as majority leader, orchestrated a political money carousel in 2000 that diverted donations secretly collected for presidential convention parties to some of their own causes.

November 2005: Former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleads guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge that stems from the government investigation of work he and his former partner, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, did for Indian tribes. The investigation continues.

December 2005: A judge dismisses the conspiracy charge but refuses to throw out the more serious allegations of money laundering, dashing the congressman’s immediate hopes of reclaiming his House majority leader post and increasing the likelihood of a criminal trial next year. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/national/06delay.html”)

January 2006: Abramoff pleads guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud and agrees to cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that threatens powerful members of Congress. ( “http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/05/politics/05delay.html”)

DeLay abandons his bid to resume his post as House majority leader.

March 2006: Representative Tom DeLay survives a challenge to his renomination for Congress, beating three Republican primary rivals seeking to capitalize on the criminal charges and ethics citations against him. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/national/08delay.htm”)

April 2006: Tony Rudy, a former top DeLay aide, pleads guilty to charges that he accepted thousands of dollars in illegal gifts in return for influencing legislation on behalf of Abramoff. (”http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/washington/01lobby.html”

DeLay announces that he is leaving Congress and plans to relocate to Virginia, which would clear the way for a special election to replace him.

**

Published on Tuesday, April 4, 2006 by “http://www.tomdispatch.com/”

Returning to the Scene of the Crime: War Crimes in Iraq

by Noam Chomsky

This piece is adapted from Chapter 2 of Noam Chomsky’s newest book, ““http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805079122/commondreams-20/ref=nosim”“ (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006).

In 2002, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales passed on to Bush a memorandum on torture by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). As noted by constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson: “According to the OLC, ‘acts must be of an extreme nature to rise to the level of torture… Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.’” Levinson goes on to say that in the view of Jay Bybee, then head of the OLC, “The infliction of anything less intense than such extreme pain would not, technically speaking, be torture at all. It would merely be inhuman and degrading treatment, a subject of little apparent concern to the Bush administration’s lawyers.”

Gonzales further advised President Bush to effectively rescind the Geneva Conventions, which, despite being “the supreme law of the land” and the foundation of contemporary international law, contained provisions Gonzales determined to be “quaint” and “obsolete.” Rescinding the conventions, he informed Bush, “substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act.” Passed in 1996, the act carries severe penalties for “grave breaches” of the conventions: the death penalty, “if death results to the victim” of the breach. Gonzales was later appointed to be attorney general and would probably have been a Supreme Court nominee if Bush’s constituency did not regard him as “too liberal.”

Published on Tuesday, April 4, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

When War Crimes Are Impossible

by Norman Solomon

Is President Bush guilty of war crimes?

To even ask the question is to go far beyond the boundaries of mainstream U.S. media.

In medialand, when the subject is war crimes, the president of the United States points the finger at others. Any suggestion that Bush should face such a charge is assumed to be oxymoronic.

But a few journalists, outside the corporate media structures, are seriously probing Bush’s culpability for war crimes. One of them is Robert Parry.

“In a world where might did not make right,” Parry wrote in a recent piece, “George W. Bush, Tony Blair and their key enablers would be in shackles before a war crimes tribunal at the Hague, rather than sitting in the White House, 10 Downing Street or some other comfortable environs in Washington and London.”

Over the top? I don’t think so.

Is Congress ready to consider the possibility that the commander in chief has committed war crimes during the past few years? Of course not. But the role of journalists shouldn’t be to snuggle within the mental confines of Capitol Hill. We need the news media to fearlessly address matters of truth, not cravenly adhere to limits of expediency.

We haven’t yet seen any noticeable part of the Washington press corps raise the matter of war crimes by the president. Very few dare to come near the terrain that Parry explored in his March 28 article “”http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/032706.html”.”

That article cites key statements by the U.S. representative to the Nuremberg Tribunal immediately after the Second World War. “Our position,” declared Robert Jackson, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, “is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions.”

During a March 26 appearance on the NBC program “Meet the Press,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to justify the invasion of Iraq this way: “We faced the outcome of an ideology of hatred throughout the Middle East that had to be dealt with. Saddam Hussein was a part of that old Middle East. The new Iraq will be a part of the new Middle East, and we will all be safer.”

But, in a new essay on April 3, Parry points out that “this doctrine -- that the Bush administration has the right to invade other nations for reasons as vague as social engineering -- represents a repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter’s ban on aggressive war, both formulated largely by American leaders six decades ago.”

Parry flags the core of the administration’s maneuver: “Gradually, Rice and other senior Bush aides shifted their rationale from Hussein’s WMD to a strategic justification, that is, politically transforming the Middle East.” He concludes that “implicit in the U.S. news media’s non-coverage of Rice’s new rationale for war is that there is nothing objectionable or alarming about the Bush administration turning its back on principles of civilized behavior promulgated by U.S. statesmen at the Nuremberg Tribunal six decades ago.”

Published on Tuesday, April 4, 2006 by “http://www.thenation.com/”

Hammered

by John Nichols

When he was making his name in American politics, as then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s political enforcer, Tom DeLay was confronted by fellow Republicans who urged him to embrace a bipartisan budget compromise. Borrowing an expletive from Dick Cheney, DeLay growled, “F--k that, it’s time for all-out war.”

DeLay’s war on American democracy -- which included not just radical gerrymandering of congressional districts and the formalization of pay-to-play policymaking in Washington but the crude manipulation of the recount that made George Bush president -- is now coming to a close.

Published on Tuesday, April 4, 2006 by “http://www.tompaine.com/”

Bankrupt Nation

by Adam Hughes

As the 2007 budget debate moves forward, the complete disregard of the precarious state of our government’s finances is, unfortunately, more apparent than ever. The current year deficit is projected to top $400 billion for the second time in history—the first time being two years ago. According to the president’s own projections, large and persistent deficits will remain part of the budget landscape for decades if current policies are continued.

Published on Monday, April 3, 2006 by the “http://www.afp.com/”

Former US General Says Rumsfeld Should Quit Over Iraq

A former senior US military commander, Anthony Zinni, called for the dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over critical mistakes made in the Iraq war.

Zinni, who headed the US Central Command from 1997 to 2000, was asked if anyone should lose their job over how Washington has managed its Iraq policy.

“Secretary of defense to begin with,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.

“Integrity and getting on with the mission and doing it right is more important than loyalty. Both are great traits, but integrity, honesty and performance and competence have to outweigh, in this business, loyalty,” the former Marine Corps general said.

Zinni has called for a high-level shake-up at the Pentagon since late 2003, the same year the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein.

“There’s a series of disastrous mistakes. We just heard the secretary of state say these were tactical mistakes. They were not tactical mistakes. These were strategic mistakes, mistakes of policies made back here,” he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said over the weekend that “thousands” of tactical mistakes had been made with regard to Iraq, a statement she later backed away from.

Published on Monday, April 3, 2006 by the “http://www.afp.com/”

US ‘Intoxicated’ by Power: Gorbachev

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who triggered the demise of the Soviet Union’s Communist empire, said in an interview that the United States was “intoxicated” by its power and should not impose its will on others.

“This talk of pre-emptive strikes, of ignoring the UN Security Council and international legal obligations -- all this is leading toward a dark night,” Gorbachev told Time magazine.

“I think some people may be pushing president Bush in the wrong direction,” he said of the US leader.

“America is intoxicated by its position as the world’s only superpower. It wants to impose its will.

“But America needs to get over that. It has responsibilities as well as power. I say this as a good friend of America,” said Gorbachev Sunday, who considered his US contemporary, president Ronald Reagan, a friend as well, and attended his funeral.

Published on Tuesday, April 4, 2006 by the “http://www.iht.com/”

Deregulation Gone Mad

by William Pfaff

A man who played a key role in the deregulation of the U.S. airline industry in 1980, Tom Allison, at the time chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, says that if senators had known then what they know now about airline deregulation, they would never have passed the measure.

Allison says that by lifting restrictions on airline competition, and on where airlines could fly, Congress unintentionally created unending disruption and cost to both industry and consumers, with gross accompanying inefficiencies.

In an interview given to the International Herald Tribune in February, intended to influence the current debate in Europe over airline deregulation, he said the human and other costs of U.S. airline deregulation outweighed benefits to consumers, which were chiefly lower airfares on the popular routes between big cities that attract competition.

Small-city air service, typically provided in the United States by single carriers, has greatly increased in cost, or has simply been abandoned. From any big American city, Allison said, “It’s cheaper to fly to Paris than to Missoula.” In practice, to get to Missoula, in Montana, you now need a car, the Greyhound Bus or a bicycle.

Allison said that deregulation cut airline salaries, slashed retirement benefits, forced job cuts despite rises in the frequency of airline services, bankrupted many formerly great airlines or forced them into bankruptcy protection, ruined standards of airline service, raised fares on most non-mainline services, and made life miserable for travelers and airline employees.

A further consequence of deregulation, Allison noted, which most Americans fail to appreciate, is that deregulation resulted in a “massive shift of airline debt to the public,” via a federal corporation established to pay the pensions (or a part of them) of the employees of airlines driven out of business or forced into bankruptcy.

Published on Tuesday, April 4, 2006 by the “http://www.baltimoresun.com/”

Iraq Illusion Shattered, With A Terrible Cost

by G. Jefferson Price III

The Bush administration insists the invasion and occupation of Iraq will result in a reshaping of the region. It looks as if he will be right about that, but the new shape increasingly seems unlikely to be the one he has in mind. Another illusion shattered at a horrific cost.

Ms. Rice referred to that cost in Baghdad yesterday: “The United States and, indeed, Great Britain and a number of others ... have put a lot of treasure - and I mean human treasure - on the line to try to give Iraq an opportunity for a democratic government.”

The human treasure would include more than 2,300 American lives. Add to that about 35,000 Iraqi dead and about $250 billion squandered on a shattered illusion.

To what end? Not the one playing itself out now and, probably, not the one to come.

Published on Tuesday, April 4, 2006 by “http://www.ipsnews.net/”

Bush’s War Hawks Edged Out of the Nest

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Although still united in pushing for confrontation with Iran, the coalition of hawks that propelled U.S. troops toward Baghdad three years ago appears to have finally run out of steam.

Demoralized by the quagmire in Iraq, as well as Pres. George W. Bush’s still falling approval and credibility ratings, the coalition of aggressive nationalists, neo-conservatives, and the Christian Right that promoted the belligerent, neo-imperial trajectory in U.S. foreign policy has lost both its coherence and its power to dominate the political agenda here.

“http://progressive.org/mag_comm0306”

Audacity and Mendacity
By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive

March 2006 Issue

The audacity and mendacity of the Bush Administration mount by the day. This Presidency has become an increasing menace to our constitutional system.

Days after the Katrina disaster, and minutes after he woke up to it, Bush promised to cooperate fully with any Congressional inquiry. “Congress is preparing an investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough,” he said.

But that was then. Now Bush is buttoning the lips of the entire Administration.

Even Senator Joe Lieberman, who usually is so eager to sit on the President’s lap, has registered his displeasure.

“Almost every question our staff has asked federal agency witnesses regarding conversations with or involvement of the White House has been met with a response that they could not answer on direction of the White House,” said Lieberman, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

FEMA lawyers advised Heckofajob Brownie “not to say whether he spoke to the President or the Vice President, or comment on the substance of conversations he had with any other high-level White House officials,” Lieberman said.

No, that would require accountability, and that’s the last thing this White House wants. It views itself as accountable to no one.

“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0604030140apr03,1,1117366.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed”

The President’s War Madness
By Derrick Z. Jackson
The Washington Post

Monday 03 April 2006

President Bush said he invaded Iraq to rid the world of a madman. It is ever-more clear Bush went mad to start it.

This week, The New York Times reported on a confidential memo about a meeting between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Jan. 31, 2003.

“http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/060403ta_talk_coll”

Deluded
By Steve Coll
The New Yorker

03 April 2006 Issue

After the fall of Baghdad, three years ago, the United States military began a secret investigation of the decision-making within Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. The study, carried out by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, drew on captured documents and interviews with former Baath Party officials and Iraqi military officers, and when it was completed, last year, it was delivered to President Bush. The full work remains classified, but “Cobra II,” a recently published book about the early phases of the war, by the Times reporter Michael Gordon and Lieutenant General Bernard Trainor, has disclosed parts of the study, and the Pentagon has released declassified sections, which Foreign Affairs has posted on its Web site. Reading them, it is easy to imagine why the Administration might resist publication of the full study. The extracts describe how the Iraq invasion, more than any other war in American history, was a construct of delusion.

An Average Joe’s Spectacular Lies
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 03 April 2006

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
- Edmund Burke

Page four of Sunday’s Washington Post carried a story titled “The President as Average Joe,” which described how George W. Bush is trying once again to cast himself as a regular fella so as to boost his anemic poll numbers. “As he takes to the road to salvage his presidency,” reported the Post, “Bush is letting down his guard and playing up his anti-intellectual, regular-guy image.”

“During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003,” read the Times, “[Bush] made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair’s top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by the New York Times.”

“The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable,” continued the Times report. “Mr. Bush predicted that it was ‘unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups.’

Bush’s Paper Trail Grows
By John Prados
TomPaine.com

Monday 03 April 2006

The memo reveals that the two leaders agreed that military action against Iraq would begin on a stipulated date in March 2003 - despite the fact that no weapons of mass destruction had been found there. The memo reveals how the two leaders mulled over ways to supply legal justification for the invasion. Indeed this record supplies additional evidence for the view that Bush planned all along to unleash this war.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040406Z.shtml

How Massacres Become the Norm
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 04 April 2006

US soldiers killing innocent civilians in Iraq is not news. Just as it was not news that US soldiers slaughtered countless innocent civilians in Vietnam. However, when some rare reportage of this non news from Iraq does seep through the cracks of the corporate media, albeit briefly, the American public seems shocked. Private and public statements of denial and dismissal immediately start to fill the air. We hear, “American soldiers would never do such a thing,” or “Who would make such a ridiculous claim?”

It amazes me that so many people in the US today somehow seriously believe that American soldiers would never kill civilians. Despite the fact that they are in a no-win guerrilla war in Iraq which, like any other guerrilla war, always generates more civilian casualties than combatant casualties on either side.

http://www.dispatch.com/features-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/04/05/20060405-B5-01.html

Comic explores similarities between Bush, Yosemite Sam

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Gary Budzak

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Kathleen Madigan, who fared well on the NBC reality series Last Comic Standing and was once voted “Best Female Stand-Up” at the American Comedy Awards, will perform six shows at the Funny Bone Comedy Club in Easton Town Center.

She also is celebrating her new Comedy Central special and the release of her third album, both called In Other Words. The title refers to a bit she does about a speech by President Bush.

“He’ll always take the time to explain stuff to us the way it was explained to him . . . it’s about stuff that didn’t need other words. We all got it the first time,” she says on the compact disc.

Q: Why do you compare President Bush to Yosemite Sam?

A: (Bush) always seems to have his arms cocked like he’s in a gunfight, and I always pictured Yosemite Sam . . . George W. Bush’s whole persona to me is a caricature almost of that.

**

http://borowitzreport.com/

BUSH CALLS PARALYSIS OF IRAQI GOVERNMENT A SIGN OF DEMOCRACY

President Hails Partisan Wrangling, Inaction

President George W. Bush said today that the infighting and partisan wrangling that have brought the Iraqi government to a standstill are “signs that true democracy has taken root in Iraq.”

At a White House briefing, Mr. Bush said the fact that the newly formed government of Iraq is in the grip of paralysis shows that American-style democracy can be successfully exported to a Middle Eastern nation.

“It took the United States government hundreds of years to attain the level of inactivity we currently enjoy,” Mr. Bush told reporters. “The Iraqi people have achieved that in just a matter of months.”

While Mr. Bush praised the Iraqis for establishing such key democratic institutions as partisan squabbling and gridlock, he cautioned that much work needs to be done before Iraq can be considered a true democracy.

“Iraq still has not had a major campaign fundraising scandal,” he noted.

He said that key elements of a democracy, such as indicted lawmakers and disgraced lobbyists, were still largely missing from Iraq’s political landscape and need to take root there.

In order to kick-start those democratic institutions, Mr. Bush said he was sending Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex) to Iraq to teach Iraqi legislators how to become indicted and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to teach Iraqi lobbyists how to disgrace themselves.

“Only when Iraq has its own disgraced lobbyists and a president who denies ever knowing them can it be considered a truly democratic nation,” Mr. Bush said.

Elsewhere, two movies about prehistoric creatures debuted at the box office over the weekend, “Ice Age” and “Basic Instinct 2.”

CONDI SAYS NUMBER OF U.S. MISTAKES CLOSER TO A BILLION

Forgot All The Mistakes Rumsfeld Made, Rice Says

After stating last week that the U.S. had made thousands of tactical errors in the war in Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice restated that number upward today, telling reporters that the actual figure was “probably closer to a billion.”

Dr. Rice apologized for initially low-balling the number of U.S. mistakes, explaining, “Quite frankly, I forgot about a lot of the mistakes that Rumsfeld made.”

While acknowledging that pegging the number of mistakes in the thousands was an error, she added, “Quite frankly, when the U.S. has made a billion mistakes, what’s one more?”

The State Department today issued an official list of the billion mistakes made thus far in Iraq, but Dr. Rice warned that the list was far from complete: “We are currently making between four and five thousand mistakes a day, so this list is very much a work in progress.”

The list contains some well-known mistakes (No. 1: Expecting the Iraqis to greet us with flowers) but also some previously undisclosed ones (No. 23,556,779: Attempting to introduce Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” as the new Iraqi national anthem).

At a press briefing at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was mum on the list of mistakes issued by the State Department, but said that later in the week he would be issuing a list of mistakes made by Dr. Rice.

“And that number is closer to a zillion,” he said.

Elsewhere, a new study indicates that cell phones pose health risks when thrown at one’s head by Naomi Campbell.

WHITE HOUSE OUSTS PASTRY CHEF; SHAKEUP COMPLETE

‘We Have Fixed the Problems,’ Says Delighted President

Attempting to answer the calls within his own party to shake up his beleaguered administration, President George W. Bush today ousted the White House pastry chef and pronounced the shakeup complete.

“There have been many Republicans in Congress who have been calling upon me to do something drastic,” Mr. Bush told reporters at the White House. “I am convinced that by firing the pastry chef, we have fixed the problems.”

Mr. Bush, while declining to “play the blame game,” indicated that after much consideration he had concluded that the White House pastry chef was at the root of most of the problems of his administration.

“Let’s face it, during the run-up to the war in Iraq, there was all of that talk about weapons of mass destruction, and the pastry chef didn’t say anything about it,” Mr. Bush said. “If he knew that the intelligence was faulty, he should have spoken up.”

The president added that the pastry chef was “slow to act” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: “Basically, he was just in the kitchen baking the whole time.”

While Mr. Bush said that firing the White House pastry chef would probably solve all of the problems plaguing his administration of late, he was not afraid to take future action if warranted.

“I am fully prepared to fire the person who waters the plants around here,” Mr. Bush said.

Elsewhere, adolescents who do not get enough sleep and then drive while drowsy pose a safety hazard, according to a new study today published in “Duh” magazine.

CHENEY INVITES HELEN THOMAS ON HUNTING TRIP

Effort to Reach Out to White House Press Corps, Observers Say

In what Washington insiders believe is an attempt to mend fences with an increasingly contentious White House press corps, Vice President Dick Cheney today invited veteran journalist Helen Thomas on a quail-hunting trip to Texas.

“I would like to extend an invitation to Helen to join me on a quail-hunting trip to the Armstrong Ranch,” Mr. Cheney said in an official statement at the White House. “It will be a chance for the two of us to spend some quality time together.”

The vice president’s invitation took many Beltway observers by surprise, coming as it did only one day after a heated exchange at a White House press conference between Ms. Thomas and President George W. Bush.

But Ms. Thomas, never one to shrink from an opportunity, said today that she would be glad to join the vice president quail hunting in Texas so long as the Pentagon provided body armor for her first.

At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that he was taking Ms. Thomas’ request for body armor “very seriously” but warned that the Pentagon has been plagued by production delays.

“The earliest we could fit Helen Thomas with body armor would be spring 2009,” he said.

Ms. Thomas said she was considering other protective measures, such as wearing a quail outfit: “If I look like a quail, there’s no way Cheney will hit me.”

Elsewhere, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that his department would beef up security at the nation’s chemical plants by compiling a complete list of plants that are vulnerable to attack and publishing them online.

BARRY BONDS DEMANDS DRUG TESTS FOR JOURNALISTS

Claims Latest Steroids Books Were Written On Steroids

San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, who has been resolutely silent while allegations of steroid use have swirled around him, broke his silence today by demanding drug tests for all baseball journalists.

At a press conference at the Giants’ spring training facility, Mr. Bonds claimed that such tests were necessary because most of the recent books about steroid use in baseball were written by journalists on steroids.

“In the 1970’s there were no books about steroid use, and now a new one comes out every week,” Mr. Bonds said. “The only way to explain such an extreme increase in production is that these writers are obviously juiced.”

Mr. Bonds’ charges drew an immediate rebuttal from Carol Foyler, a spokesperson for the Baseball Writers Association of America, who denied that baseball journalists were on steroids and instead attributed their increased production to advancements in nutrition and training.

“Having said that, it is not unusual for writers to use dietary supplements to complete manuscripts when they are under a writing deadline,” Ms. Foyler said. “If some of those supplements turned out to be steroids, then journalists could have been taking steroids without even knowing it.”

For his part, Mr. Bonds said that if any writers break sales records with their books while on steroids, those records should not stand.

“If any of these books make the New York Times bestseller list, they should have an asterisk after them,” he said.

Elsewhere, President Bush urged legal status for 11 million illegal aliens in the hopes that some of them will approve of the job he is doing as President.

INTERIOR SECRETARY QUITS; CITES ‘NO MORE ENVIRONMENT LEFT TO WRECK’

Norton Declares Mission Accomplished

Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton announced her resignation on Friday, saying that there was “no more environment left to wreck” after five years at her Cabinet-level job.

Flanked by members of her Department of the Interior staff, Ms. Norton was clearly in a celebratory mood, telling reporters, “When I took this job five years ago, my goal was a simple one: to destroy as much of the environment as possible.”

Beaming with pride, Ms. Norton said, “I am here today to say, ‘mission accomplished.’”

The outgoing Interior Secretary was quick to share the credit with her staff, saying, “No one person could wreak that much damage on the environment all by herself – this was definitely a team effort.”

Ticking off her accomplishments, Ms. Norton took special pride in having opened up previously protected wildlife habitats to oil exploration and drilling.

“Five years ago, caribou and puffins made Alaska their home,” she said. “Thanks to your hard work, today we have them on the run.”

While insisting that the environment was for all practical purposes destroyed, she said that her successor would still face “pockets of wildlife, air and water” that would need to be eradicated.

When asked about her plans for the future, Ms. Norton said that she was leaving her job to spend more time defoliating forests with her family.

Elsewhere, President Bush said he was saddened by the arrest of former adviser Claude Allen on felony theft charges, telling reporters, “If he wanted to rip people off, I could have gotten him a job at Halliburton.”

CHERTOFF LOCKS HIMSELF OUT OF HOMELAND SECURITY HEADQUARTERS

Forgets Security Code, Secret Question

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff suffered another embarrassment today when he accidentally locked himself out of the Homeland Security Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

After security guards entrusted with protecting the Homeland Security building complained that the building itself was not secure, Secretary Chertoff ordered that the headquarters be outfitted with a new security system, but then forgot the security code necessary to gain entry.

“Unfortunately, Chertoff is the only one who knew the security code, and he forgot it,” one source said. “He also had a secret question which could be used to retrieve the security code, but he forgot that, too.”

As of late this afternoon, Mr. Chertoff was still standing outside the building waiting to gain entry after a locksmith who was called turned out to be from Dubai and had to be sent away.

Mr. Chertoff also declined Vice President Dick Cheney’s offer to shoot off the lock on the building for fear that Mr. Cheney might hit the Department of Agriculture building across the street.

On Capitol Hill, news that the nation’s highest ranking homeland security official had locked himself out of his own building drew criticism from Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del): “Michael Chertoff’s secret question should be, ‘How the hell did I get this job?’”

For his part, Mr. Chertoff tried to put the best face on the situation, telling the reporters that the nation “might actually be safer” with him outside the Department of Homeland Security than inside.

Elsewhere, President Bush scrapped plans to send Americans to Mars after NASA’s Mars probe failed to find signs of oil.

KEN LAY CLAIMS COCONUT FELL ON HEAD, CAUSING AMNESIA

Controversial ‘Gilligan Defense’ Makes Debut at Enron Trial

In what many experts are calling a high stakes legal strategy, former Enron CEO Ken Lay testified at his trial today that a coconut fell on his head while he was running the Texas energy company, causing amnesia that wiped out all memory of anything that happened during his tenure there.

While most trial watchers expected Mr. Lay’s defense team to use inventive tactics to secure an acquittal for the embattled former CEO, few expected the coconut-falling-on-head explanation for Mr. Lay’s claim that he was out of the loop for the entirety of Enron’s multibillion-dollar fall from grace.

As the trial resumed this morning, Mr. Lay’s defense attorney used a diagram, a pointer, and a coconut itself to dramatize the incident in what legal experts are already calling “The Gilligan Defense.”

“As you can see, a coconut that Mr. Lay kept on a high shelf of his office bookcase rolled off the shelf, landing squarely on his head, and causing total amnesia,” said Mr. Lay’s attorney to a stunned courtroom.

Moments after the coconut landed on the former CEO’s head, Mr. Lay claimed that Andrew Fastow, Enron’s former chief financial officer, ran into Mr. Lay’s office, concerned, and asked, “Are you all right, little buddy?”

But under cross examination, Mr. Lay’s story appeared to fray somewhat, especially when the prosecutor asked, “If you had total amnesia, how could you remember that a coconut fell on your head?”

“Oops,” Mr. Lay replied.

Elsewhere, President Bush expressed confidence about Iraq’s future, and added that he thought that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston would get back together.

U.S. CONFUSES INSURGENTS WITH PRESCRIPTION DRUG PLAN

Military Launches ‘Operation Incomprehensible Program’ Across Iraq

In an effort to confuse Iraqi insurgents, the Pentagon announced today that the U.S. had begun bombarding insurgent positions with copies of President Bush’s Medicare prescription drug plan.

At a press briefing at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that the idea of confusing the insurgents with the President’s Medicare plan was hatched last week, after Mr. Bush appeared at a series of town hall meetings at which seniors in his audience seemed thoroughly bewildered by the intricate new program.

“We realized, if this prescription drug plan is that confusing in English, imagine how incoherent it would seem once it was translated into Arabic,” Secretary Rumsfeld said.

As soon as Pentagon planners seized upon the idea of using the President’s plan to confuse the insurgents, Operation Incomprehensible Program was launched.

According to Secretary Rumsfeld, U.S. warplanes pounded insurgent positions in the cities of Tikrit and Najaf with copies of the prescription drug plan in the early morning hours of Monday.

Mr. Rumsfeld said that satellite photos of those positions have been encouraging thus far, showing dozens of Iraqi insurgents reading the prescription drug plan and scratching their heads.

The Defense Secretary said he was hopeful that Operation Incomprehensible Program would leave the Iraqi insurgents totally baffled, but he hinted that the Pentagon had other tactics up its sleeve: “We are fully prepared to bombard them with copies of my press briefings.”

Elsewhere, one day after Seoul National University dismissed him for falsifying results, South Korean cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk claimed that the other nine of him still had jobs.

BIN LADEN TRIED TO WARN BUSH ABOUT KATRINA

In Newly Released Teleconference, Madman Expressed Concern About Levees

A newly released video of a teleconference between President George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden that took place in the hours before Hurricane Katrina hit reveals that the al Qaeda terror mastermind attempted to warn the President that the levees in New Orleans could be breached in the event of a powerful storm.

The video, which was broadcast today on the Arabic-language television network Al Jazeera, appears to be the most stunning evidence to date that the President was warned about the vulnerability of the levees but remained unconcerned nevertheless.

During the teleconference, Mr. bin Laden, who appears to be speaking from a cave, warns the President that the full force of Katrina’s fury could breach the levees, adding, “It is important that those levees remain intact, because I would like to breach them myself at a later date.”

Throughout the videotaped session, however, the President seems unconcerned both about Katrina’s potentially catastrophic impact on the levees and Mr. bin Laden’s implied threat to destroy the levees himself.

“What’s most striking about the tape is that Mr. Bush never asks bin Laden any questions, including, where exactly are you calling from?” an Al Jazeera executive said.

At the White House today, Mr. Bush downplayed his contact with Mr. bin Laden, telling reporters that he “barely knew” the al Qaeda madman.

“I know him even less well than I know Jack Abramoff,” the President said.

Elsewhere, in an ominous sign that Iraq may be sliding into civil war, Ken Burns and his camera crew turned up in Baghdad today.

BUSH PAYS SURPRISE VISIT TO REALITY

President Calls Two-Hour Stop in Real World ‘Informative’

President George W. Bush departed from his planned itinerary today to make a surprise visit to reality, later calling the two-hour stop in the real world “informative.”

For Mr. Bush, the visit to reality, while brief, was still significant because it represented his first visit to the real world since being elected President in 2000.

“The President has not visited reality the entire time he’s been in the White House,” one aide said. “The closest he’s come is watching ‘Survivor.’”

Mr. Bush touched down in the real world a little after dawn, delivering a brief address on the airport runway in which he attempted to put the best face on his relationship with reality, a relationship which has been frayed in recent years.

But beneath the smiles and positive statements, Mr. Bush’s aides seemed well aware that the President’s relationship with reality is complicated at best, since his approval rating in the real world currently hovers at an all-time low.

“The President deserves a lot of credit for making this visit to reality,” one aide said. “He doesn’t have a natural constituency here.”

On the whole, though, when the President’s two-hour visit was over, most of his staff seemed relieved that the potentially perilous tour of reality had passed without incident.

“It’ll be good leaving reality and going back to Washington,” one aide said.

Elsewhere, after a new study showed that only one in 1,000 Americans know what the First Amendment is, Vice President Dick Cheney said, “Good, then no one will notice when it’s gone.”

BIN LADEN TO RUN U.S. POSTAL SERVICE

White House Defends Latest Deal

The White House became embroiled in controversy once again as it announced today that it had made a deal with Osama bin Laden to run the U.S. Postal Service.

Only days after it agreed to a review of its deal with a Dubai-based company to run several U.S. ports, the White House surprised Washington with its decision to put the U.S. mail in the hands of the world’s most wanted man.

But at a press briefing in Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney vigorously defended the deal, calling Mr. bin Laden “the right man for the job.”

“Osama bin Laden is eminently qualified to run the U.S. Postal Service,” Mr. Cheney told reporters. “For one thing, he’s already disgruntled.”

The vice president denied reports that he was inebriated at the time the deal was made, adding, “I had one beer, tops, and I did not make a second trip to the keg.”

Mr. Cheney said that critics of the bin Laden deal were being “narrow minded,” saying that giving a multibillion-dollar government contract to the world’s most wanted fugitive offered a unique opportunity: “This may be our best chance to find out where he is.”

The vice president added that once Mr. bin Laden has control over the postal service, there was a chance that he could become a friend of the U.S., noting, “And once he is our friend, we will shoot him in the face.”

Elsewhere, Anna Nicole Smith said she was optimistic about winning her case before the United States Supreme Court, adding, “I’m good at getting old men to do what I want.”

SADDAM SENTENCED TO BE PRESIDENT OF IRAQ

Angry Hussein Demands Retrial

A court in Baghdad today found former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to serve a life term as President of Iraq.

With the nation of Iraq on the brink of civil war, Saddam’s judge said that being forced to serve as President of Iraq was the stiffest sentence he could hand down.

“Your crimes are unspeakable, and this punishment fits those crimes,” said Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman.

The moment Saddam heard his sentence, the angry former dictator leapt to his feet and demanded a retrial.

Saddam’s lawyer, former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, said that he would appeal the sentence at the World Court in The Hague: “Being forced to serve as President of Iraq is cruel and unusual punishment, and is most certainly in violation of the Geneva Convention.”

But the mood was markedly different in the offices of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who immediately began packing up his things and said he was “totally stoked” about handing over the presidency of Iraq to Saddam.

When asked how he planned to celebrate the abrupt end to his term in office, Mr. Talabani said, “I’m going to Disneyland!”

At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld praised Saddam’s sentence and said that the long-elusive solution to the war in Iraq had finally been found.

“To those who have said that we had no exit strategy, all I can say is, mission accomplished,” Secretary Rumsfeld said.

Elsewhere, President Bush mourned the passing of Don Knotts, calling the actor “a great American and a role model for me personally.”

BUSH VOWS TO ALIENATE REMAINING POCKETS OF SUPPORT

President Determined to Drive Approval Rating Down to Zero

In a nationally televised address from the White House last night, President George W. Bush announced several bold new initiatives designed specifically to alienate his remaining pockets of support.

Acknowledging that his approval rating currently hovers around forty percent, the president told his national television audience, “I will not rest until I have driven that number down to zero.”

Mr. Bush said that his recent decision to let a company based in the United Arab Emirates take control of key American ports was “an important step” in alienating the few Americans who still support him.

But the president said he began implementing his plan to drive away millions of supporters three years ago, with the invasion of Iraq: “Based on the approval numbers I now have, all I can say is, mission accomplished.”

He added that naming Michael Brown to head up the Federal Emergency Management Agency was another crucial decision in his plan to alienate supporters: “When it comes to driving down your approval rating, Brownie did in fact do a heck of a job.”

The president said that he was considering several new initiatives to alienate his remaining pockets of support, such as naming outgoing Harvard University President Larry Summers to a new Cabinet post, Secretary of Alienation.

“When it comes to alienating people, Larry Summers makes me look like a rank amateur,” Mr. Bush said.

Elsewhere, donning a helmet while skiing or snowboarding down the slopes can reduce your risk of head injury by 60 percent, according to a new study published today in “Duh” magazine.

BUSH: KEEP GUANTANAMO OPEN, CLOSE U.N.

Calls Conditions at World Body `Intolerable’

Days after a United Nations panel issued a report roundly criticizing practices at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo, President George W. Bush said today that the Guantanamo facility should remain open but that the United Nations should be closed.

Mr. Bush’s plan to keep Guantanamo open but close the United Nations seemed likely to fall far short of the recommendations that the U.N. panel put forth.

But at a press briefing at the White House, the president remained steadfast in his position that the U.N. should be closed, calling conditions there “intolerable and possibly in violation of the Geneva Conventions.”

“The United Nations regularly issues reports, which we are then forced to read,” Mr. Bush said. “This practice of making us read things is tantamount to torture.”

“Day in, day out, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is forced to listen to the endless ramblings of foreigners, many of whom do not speak English at all,” Mr. Bush continued. “He is forced to wear those ear-thingies in his ears to understand them, and after hours of having those on, his ears start to hurt bad.”

Mr. Bush said that the United Nations has carried out other inhumane practices for years, including “making people get resolutions approved before they can go and invade other countries.”

The president concluded his remarks by congratulating Iraq on forming a new government, adding, “Now it is your duty to do what all governments must do: eavesdrop on your people.”

Elsewhere, a new study shows that apes are capable of planning ahead, except for the ones who work at FEMA.

**

BUSH PRESSES FED CHIEF FOR HIKE IN APPROVAL RATING

President Demands One Percent Increase In Heated Oval Office Meeting

In what insiders described as a heated, occasionally testy Oval Office meeting, President George W. Bush today pressed Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke for a one percent increase in his approval rating.

With the president’s approval rating sinking below thirty percent for the first time in his presidency to an all-time low of twenty-nine percent, Mr. Bush felt that urgent action needed to be taken to boost his sagging statistic.

For that reason, he took the extraordinary step of pulling Mr. Bernanke out of a Fed meeting on inflation and summoning him to the White House to demand that his approval rating be hiked by one hundred basis points, or one percent.

While presidents in the past have leaned on the nation’s central banker to move interest rates up or down, Mr. Bush’s action is believed to be the first time that a Fed chief has been called upon to manipulate a president’s approval rating.

But at the White House today, Mr. Bush defended the move, telling reporters, “It’s time to start thinking outside the box.”

For his part, Mr. Bernanke seemed cool to the President’s argument, issuing the following official statement: “The chairman of the Federal Reserve can change the course of interest rates, but he does not control the world.”

Soon after Mr. Bernanke issued his statement, the president offered his own terse response: “Alan Greenspan could.”

Elsewhere, after scientists said that chimps and humans are more closely related than originally thought, the National Security Agency announced that it would begin eavesdropping on chimps.

**

CONFUSED IMMIGRANTS STAY HOME

Not Sure If They Will Be Welcomed, Shot

As President George W. Bush’s policy on immigration has become increasingly confusing in recent weeks, a growing number of potential illegal aliens have given up trying to figure it out and have decided to stay at home instead.

The confusion over the president’s immigration policy has been at the top of the agenda of the annual meeting of Future Illegal Aliens of America, which is gathering in Juarez, Mexico this week.

The organization, which offers travel tips, restaurant suggestions and other information for those planning to sneak across the border, spent the better part of Tuesday and Wednesday trying to decipher the president’s immigration policy but with no success.

“We do not know whether we will be granted guest worker status or shot on sight by the National Guard,” said Manuel Javier Davalos, who until recently had been considering sneaking across the U.S.-Mexico border. “Just trying to figure out the whole thing makes my head hurt.”

Mr. Davalos said he had been planning to sneak into the U.S. in order to get prescription drug benefits, but added, “President Bush’s prescription drug plan is almost as confusing as his immigration policy.”

At the White House, President Bush said that the addled response from potential illegal aliens was “proof that my policy of intentional confusion is working.”

“By changing my policy on an almost daily basis, I have succeeded in stemming the flow of illegal aliens,” Mr. Bush said. “It’s only a matter of time before the same thing works in Iraq.”

Elsewhere, in an effort to increase his nation’s birth rate, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered citizenship to Britney Spears and husband Kevin Federline.

**

U.S. MOVES LOU DOBBS TO MEXICAN BORDER

Anchorman To Serve As Barrier To Illegal Immigrants

In his toughest stand yet against illegal immigration, President George W. Bush today announced that he would move CNN anchorman Lou Dobbs to the United States’ border with Mexico.

For Mr. Bush, who one day earlier had announced that he was moving 10,000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, the decision to dispatch Mr. Dobbs means that the deployment of Guard troops was no longer necessary.

“It is my belief that America’s most powerful weapon against illegal immigration has always been and will always be Lou Dobbs,” Mr. Bush said in a nationally televised address.

Speaking from his studio in New York, Mr. Dobbs said he would continue broadcasting his nightly “Moneyline” program from the Mexican border while keeping an eye out for illegal aliens trying to sneak across it.

Mexican president Vicente Fox, who was already concerned by Mr. Bush’s decision to send troops to the border, was incensed today by the decision to deploy the CNN anchorman, calling the move “an act of intimidation.”

“I could live with American troops on my border, but Lou Dobbs is another thing entirely,” Mr. Fox told reporters in Mexico City.

While many in Congress questioned the decision to dispatch the newsman to the border, with some expressing concern about the cost of maintaining Lou Dobbs, Mr. Bush strongly defended the move.

“It was a choice between building a massive wall and sending Lou Dobbs,” he said. “Lou Dobbs was cheaper.”

Elsewhere, media mogul Rupert Murdoch threw his support to Sen. Hlllary Clinton (D-NY), as was first reported in the Book of Revelation.

**

BUSH ORDERS NATIONAL GUARD TO PROTECT APPROVAL RATING

10,000 Troops to Prevent Supporters From Leaving Country

In a nationally televised address last night, President George W. Bush announced that he would order 10,000 National Guard troops to protect his sagging approval rating.

The use of the National Guard to safeguard the president’s political fortunes struck many Beltway observers as highly unorthodox, and Mr. Bush’s decision to do so seemed likely to draw fire from congressional Democrats.

But with his approval rating hovering at 29%, the president said he had “no choice” but to use the National Guard to prevent that number from sinking any lower.

Speaking from the White House with his now-familiar tone of steely resolve, Mr. Bush said that he would send 10,000 troops to the Mexican border to prevent any of his supporters from leaving the country.

“Many of my supporters have amazing second homes south of the border,” Mr. Bush said. “By taking this action, I am sending the clear message that they are not to leave the country until the midterm elections are over.”

The president stopped short of saying that any supporters caught leaving the country would be shot on sight, but he warned, “Their tax cuts will be history.”

Even as Mr. Bush was tightening security at the Mexican border, he said that he had “no plans” to keep people from fleeing to Canada: “Everyone who wanted to move to Canada did so after I was reelected in 2004.”

Elsewhere, surgeons who successfully separated conjoined twins over the weekend said they failed to separate Sen. John McCain’s lips from Jerry Falwell’s ass.

**

NSA REPORTS INCREASED PHONE USAGE ON MOTHER’S DAY

Heightened Levels of Chatter Trouble Intelligence Officials

The National Security Agency reported a sharp increase in long distance telephone usage yesterday, causing high-ranking intelligence officers in the Bush administration to fear that al-Qaeda might be planning a terror plot to coincide with Mother’s Day.

Beginning Sunday morning and continuing throughout the day, Americans’ long distance usage surged well beyond normal levels, sparking concerns that a terrorist event was either being planned or moving into an operational phase.

At the White House, national security adviser Stephen Hadley said that the troubling increase in chatter was “the strongest argument possible” for the Bush administration’s policy of eavesdropping on millions of Americans.

“If we were not listening in on everyone’s conversations, when there is a sudden increase in phone usage such as we have seen today we would totally miss it,” Mr. Hadley said.

In addition to what he called “frighteningly normal-sounding phone calls to terrorists posing as mothers,” Mr. Hadley reported that al Qaeda members or affiliates placed thousands of phone calls to florists in order to mask their terror plot.

When asked by a reporter why no terrorist event ultimately occurred on Sunday, Mr. Hadley replied, “I chalk that up to the success of our eavesdropping program.”

In response to another reporter who asked if the increase in long distance usage could have been due to Mother’s Day itself, the security adviser said, “That’s exactly what the terrorists want us to think.”

Elsewhere, Johnny Depp is the celebrity best at signing autographs, according to Autograph Collector magazine, while Russell Crowe is the best at throwing phones, according to Injured Hotel Clerk magazine.

**

BRITNEY SPEARS REPRODUCING AT UNSUSTAINABLE RATE, SCIENTISTS FEAR

Husband’s Troubling Fertility Tops Agenda of Oslo Conference

Scientists attending a conference in Oslo, Norway to discuss threats to the global ecology placed pop star Britney Spears’ rapid reproductive pace at the top of their agenda, conference attendees confirmed today.

While the conference had originally been organized to bring the world’s greatest scientific minds together to grapple with such problems as global warming and avian flu, news of Ms. Spears’ unexpected second pregnancy immediately pushed those issues to the back burner.

Many of the scientists’ concerns focused on the alarming fertility of Ms. Spears’ husband, Kevin Federline, who appears to be able to reproduce at will.

“According to the tabloids, Ms. Spears and Mr. Federline are almost never in the same city, and yet he still managed to fertilize her egg,” said Dr. Zang Liangyong of Beijing University. “From all evidence, Mr. Federline appears to possess some kind of super-sperm that may be transmittable over phone lines.”

Underlining the gravity of his concern, the scientist added, “Kevin Federline can no longer be considered a shiftless hanger-on and must now be thought of as a pandemic.”

Dr. Zang said that if Ms. Spears and Mr. Federline continue to reproduce at their current rate, by the year 2030 one out of three children in the world will be the offspring of the famous couple, putting a strain on global resources.

“That is far too many Spears-Federline children for the earth to sustain,” Dr. Zang said. “The only hope is that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will adopt them.”

Elsewhere, in a troubling new development for President Bush, a new poll gives him his worst marks since Yale.

**

GORE OFFERS HIMSELF AS ALTERNATIVE TO HILLARY, AMBIEN

Former Veep Offers Voters Quality Sleep With No Side Effects

Contemplating a run for the White House in 2008, former Vice President Al Gore is positioning himself as an alternative to both Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and the sleeping pill Ambien, aides to Mr. Gore confirmed today.

With a growing number of Democrats concerned about the possible candidacy of Sen. Clinton and an increasing segment of the population worried about side effects from the popular sleeping pill, Mr. Gore’s aides believe that their candidate is uniquely qualified to offer himself as an alternative to both.

“Al Gore can say, `I am not Hillary, but I have the experience to be president,’” one Gore aide said. “Additionally, he can say, `I am not Ambien, but I will put you to sleep.’”

In an effort to show that he is a safe, effective alternative to Ambien, the former vice president is touring the country with a documentary he made about global warming entitled “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“Unlike Ambien, Al Gore is giving audiences hours of satisfying, restful sleep with no side effects,” his aide said.

But according to pollster Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, Ambien may prove a tough opponent for Mr. Gore to beat.

“According to our polling, a race between Al Gore and Ambien is a dead heat, with Gore narrowly defeating Ambien,” he said. “But the whole thing would wind up being thrown into the Supreme Court, where Ambien would defeat Gore.”

Elsewhere, magician David Blaine acknowledged that he failed to break the world’s record for holding one’s breath, but said that he accomplished his true goal, which was avoiding Tom Cruise’s new movie.

April 04, 2006
2:53 PM

CONTACT: “http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/”
Contact: David Bryden, 1-202-789-0432 x 211
Mobile 1-202-549-3664

GLOBAL AIDS ALLIANCE
US Government Report Shows Bush AIDS Policy is Unworkable

Washington, April 4 -- The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a new report today which shows that the US approach to AIDS prevention is essentially unworkable.

Top Ten Things Overheard During George W. Bush’s Trip To Cancun

10. “Feels great to get away after three straight weeks of work”

9. “As president of the United States, I pledge to do whatever’s necessary to help the Cancunians!”

8. “Couldn’t we have stayed home and gone to Chi-Chi’s?”

7. “Cozumel? Isn’t that the chick I made Secretary of State?”

6. “When do I get to meet Zorro?”

5. “Holy crap, how’d they move these pyramids from Egypt?”

4. “I’ll have a non-alcoholic pina colada...just kidding, juice me up, Pepe!”

3. “NAFTA? Don’t they make auto parts?”

2. “Secret service! He’s choking on a nacho”

1. “Once you get a little buzz going, my poll numbers don’t look so bad”

Published on Thursday, April 6, 2006 by the Washington Spectator

A Culture of Corruption

Let’s Save Our Democracy by Getting Money Out of Politics

by Bill Moyers

Money is choking our democracy to death. Our elections are bought out from under us and our public officials are doing the bidding of mercenaries. So powerful is the hold of wealth on politics that we cannot say America is working for all Americans. The majority may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government “of, by, and for the people” to deliver on those aspirations.

Published on Thursday, April 6, 2006 by Tom Dispatch

Cutting and Running in Baghdad

by Robert Dreyfuss

Too late, the urgency of the crisis in Iraq, and the sheer ugliness of its civil war, seems finally to be dawning on the Bush administration. As usual, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and their stalwart secretaries of state and defense, are johnnies-come-lately in their ability to understand how far gone Iraq is. Perhaps, as has been the case in the past, that is because they continue flagrantly to disregard what they are told by analysts in the U.S. intelligence community. Before, during, and after the invasion of Iraq, with a rising sense of alarm, the CIA, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and other agencies warned the Bush-Cheney team that the destruction of Iraq’s central government could tumble the country into a civil war. In 2004, of course, the president famously dismissed such CIA warnings as “just a guess.” Well, guess what, Mr. President? It’s civil war. And it isn’t pretty.

Published on Thursday, April 6, 2006 by the Bangor Daily News (Maine)

Conniving, Greedy, Lying, and Deceitful

by Duncan E. Beaton

I have been a registered Republican since the early 1950s, as has my wife, Dot. In fact our dedication to the Grand Old Party was such that we used to ride our horses around our Buckingham Township, Pa., neighborhood with Republican candidates’ bumper stickers on their backsides. Now, we never considered the implication, but we found out later that one of those candidates was a real “horsesass.”

If we had horses today, that’s right where we’d stick George Bush’s bumper sticker, on our horse’s asses.

This is the worst administration in our memory. As a Fiscal Conservative, I began disliking Bush when he proposed major tax cuts as a means to get elected in 2000. Despite that, given the choice of two inept presidential candidates we voted for Bush as “the lesser of two evils.”

Little did we know.

They built the case for war by giving us and Congress false information about Iraq’s stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and its involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. All lies with no foundation in fact.

So, for illegitimate reasons, we invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq, which was not threatening us.

Three years later we still have no business being there. Neither the Iraqis nor we can safeguard their oil facilities. Their infrastructure throughout the country is in shambles and newly “elected” government is mostly inoperable because of opposition from various fanatic religious factions and insurgents.

We have lost nearly 2,400 troops and thousands more have been maimed for life.

In fiscal matters, from 2001 through 2008, Bush will increase the National Debt by $3.919 trillion to a projected total of $9.689 trillion by 2008 according to the Office of Management and Budget. That’s an average Annual Deficit of $489 billion, and a 72 percent increase in the national debt. Yet, he has the gall to cut many domestic programs including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Half or more of this debt increase has or will go toward financing this stupid Iraq war.

Published on Thursday, April 6, 2006 by the Financial Times

DeLay Quits Congress but His Soul Lives On

Editorial

It would be tempting to herald the resignation of Tom DeLay - former majority leader in the US House of Representatives - as the end of an era. Tempting, but premature. Mr DeLay, who was indicted last September on election-related money laundering charges, was a friend of Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist, who was last week sentenced to almost six years in prison for fraud and corruption.

Meanwhile, John Boehner, who replaced Mr DeLay as majority leader, yesterday praised his predecessor’s “integrity and honour”. Mr Boehner came to the job promising to put an end to sleaze, in spite of having been caught distributing campaign checks from the tobacco industry on the house floor in 1995. Mr DeLay is quitting Congress. But his soul is marching on.

Published on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)

Words For Right Wing Pundits to Choke On

by Dave Zweifel

The media watchdog organization, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, likes to keep tabs on the pontificators in print and on television and occasionally looks back to see how they did.

The Iraq war, for instance, has been a treasure trove in providing some first-class embarrassments for America’s punditry, particularly those talking heads on cable TV.

Here’s a sampling. There are many more at the group’s website.

“Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America’s unrivaled power and how best to use it.” (CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)

“I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?” (Bill O’Reilly, Fox News, 1/29/03)

The Tethered Goat Strategy

By Sidney Blumenthal

The Guardian UK

Thursday 06 April 2006

Amid an internal crisis of credibility, Condoleezza Rice has washed her hands of her department.

Since the Iraqi elections in January, US foreign service officers at the Baghdad embassy have been writing a steady stream of disturbing cables describing drastically worsening conditions. Violence from incipient communal civil war is rapidly rising. Last month there were eight times as many assassinations committed by Shia militias as terrorist murders by Sunni insurgents. The insurgency, according to the reports, also continues to mutate. Meanwhile, President Bush’s strategy of training Iraqi police and army to take over from coalition forces - “when they stand up, we’ll stand down” - is perversely and portentously accelerating the strife. State department officials in the field are reporting that Shia militias use training as cover to infiltrate key positions. Thus the strategy to create institutions of order and security is fuelling civil war.

Rather than being received as invaluable intelligence, the messages are discarded or, worse, considered signs of disloyalty. Rejecting the facts on the ground apparently requires blaming the messengers. So far, two top attaches at the embassy have been reassigned elsewhere for producing factual reports that are too upsetting.

The Bush administration’s preferred response to increasing disintegration is to act as if it has a strategy that is succeeding. “More delusion as a solution in the absence of a solution,” said a senior state department official.

Published on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 by the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (New York)

Goal No. 1: Make the World Safe For Oil Companies

by David Rossie

News item: “CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela had a blunt message this week for Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s most powerful oil companies: Get off my crude-rich turf.”

All right, what do we have to do, wait for a pack of crazed Latinos to crash a hijacked airliner into Disneyland before we realize that Venezuela and its power-crazed presidente cum dictator Hugo Chavez have declared war on the United States?

And don’t try to tell me that Venezuela’s threatening an oil company and not the United States. Exxon Mobil is the United States. Just ask Dick Cheney. If you can find him.

Venezuela poses a clear and present danger to this country and has for some time. First, its people thumbed their collective noses at us when they restored Chavez to office after evicting him for a couple of days, thereby undoing all the good work our CIA had done.

Then Chavez, out for revenge, poked fun at our beloved president when they were down in Argentina and got several thousand other USA-hating Latin Americans to join in the fun.

Exxon Mobil, to its credit, has vowed to stand firm against a country it has been exploiting for years and says it will not pull out, as those spineless bleeding heart liberals would have us do in Iraq.

I realize that our government, especially the departments of Defense and State, don’t need any advice from me, especially considering the splendid job they’ve done in Iraq, but I think Chavez’ belligerent attitude offers us a chance to solve two problems in one fell swoop.

With democracy in full bloom in Iraq and with the insurgents on their last legs and civil war a mere figment of the cut-and-run crowd’s imagination, what better time to announce Mission Accomplished II and bring our troops home to prepare for another pre-emptive strike against a potentially deadly enemy much nearer our vulnerable shores.

As we know, Condoleezza Rice’s Threat of the Month Club is prone to change. For a long time it was Iraq, until we went in there and got rid of all those weapons of mass destruction. Then it was North Korea and most recently, Iran. So why not move Venezuela up to Numero Uno?

Laugh if you will, but Chavez is rolling in oil money. How long do you think it would take him to assemble an invasion fleet of bum boats and invade Key West? Or he could invade Mexico and then send his hordes across our undefended border before Tom Tancredo and Jim Sensenbrenner can get their fence built.

I say fight him now on that crude-rich turf of his before we have to fight him here.

Besides, we have a pretty good win-lose record against fifth-rate Latin American opponents. Remember Grenada? And Panama?

On to Caracas!

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040606K.shtml

Five Days of April in Iraq

By Larry C. Johnson

Thursday 06 April 2006

Clearly smarting under charges that they are “failing” to tell the good news in Iraq, the major TV network and cable channels appear to have abandoned any effort to report what is going on in Iraq. Fearful of being accused of undermining the war effort, the TV side of journalism apparently decided to punt and do nothing. Fortunately, the print media and wires continue to tough it out. Working from the info collected on www.icausalties.org, I have assembled a snapshot of the first five days of April in Iraq. It is not a pretty picture. While it certainly could be worse, the facts on the ground make it very tough to argue that the US is making progress in securing Iraq.

Here is a summary of the last five days (the specific news reports are posted at the end of this article). During the period of March 31st thru April 4th the following occurred:

There were 39 shootings/ambushes that killed 144 people.

There were 25 major bombings that left 40 people dead.

There were 5 mortar attacks killing 3 people.

Four people, including a physician and the brother of a Sunni lawmaker, were kidnapped.

One US military helicopter was shot down. The crew died in the crash.

There were three major attacks on oil pipelines.

All violence is relative. In the United States our cable networks have no trouble spending weeks covering the disappearance of a teenager in Aruba. In fact, the saturation coverage of the disappearance of Natalie Holloway would lead a visitor from Mars to conclude that she was some sort of goddess and that our very security depended on finding her. Compare that coverage with the actual events in the last five days in Iraq.

If we had 25 car bombings in New York City and Washington, could George Bush’s White House get away with chiding the media for not focusing on the good news in the United States? Based on the lingering shock from the four terrorist strikes on September 11, 2001, I wager that news coverage would be borderline, if not full blown, hysteria in this country if we were experiencing what the Iraqis are confronting on a daily basis.

The problem is not what the news media is reporting. The real problem is that the White House continues to delude itself into believing that the problems in Iraq can be solved simply by managing the news. The events on the ground in Iraq, however, reflect centuries of deep seated sectarian and ethnic strife. If we cannot create effective security forces or provide such security ourselves, the Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds in Iraq will seek protection from their own militias. A functioning government requires, at a minimum, that the people be protected.

Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and US State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism (as a Deputy Director), is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management. Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world.

Report Faults Video Reports Shown as News

By David Barstow

The New York Times

Thursday 06 April 2006

Many television news stations, including some from the nation’s largest markets, are continuing to broadcast reports as news without disclosing that the segments were produced by corporations pitching new products, according to a report to be released today by a group that monitors the news media.

Bush’s Unprecedented Arrogance

By John Dean

FindLaw.com

Wednesday 05 April 2006

President George Bush continues to openly and defiantly ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) - the 1978 statute prohibiting electronic inspection of Americans’ telephone and email communications with people outside the United States without a court-authorized warrant. (According to U.S. News & World Report, the President may also have authorized warrantless break-ins and other physical surveillance, such as opening regular mail, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.)

In some two hundred and seventeen years of the American presidency, there has been only one President who provides a precedent for Bush’s stunning, in-your-face, conduct: Richard Nixon. Like Bush, Nixon claimed he was acting to protect the nation’s security. Like Bush, Nixon broke the law - authorizing, among other things, illegal wiretaps.

The Architects of War: Where are They Now?

ThinkProgress.com

Wednesday 05 April 2006

President Bush has not fired any of the architects of the Iraq war. In fact, a review of the key planners of the conflict reveals that they have been rewarded - not blamed - for their incompetence.

Paul Wolfowitz

Role in Going to War: Wolfowitz said the U.S. would be greeted as liberators, that Iraqi oil money for pay for the reconstruction, and that Gen. Eric Shinseki’s estimate that several hundred thousand troops would be needed was “wildly off the mark.” [Washington Post, 12/8/05]

Where He Is Now: Bush promoted Wolfowitz to head the World Bank in March 2005. [Washington Post, 3/17/05]

Key Quote: “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.” [Wolfowitz, 3/27/03]

Douglas Feith

Role in Going to War: As Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Feith spearheaded two secretive groups at the Pentagon - the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans - that were instrumental in drawing up documents that explained the supposed ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. The groups were “created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true.” Colin Powell referred to Feith’s operation as the Gestapo. In Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack, former CentCom Commander Gen. Tommy Franks called Feith the “f**ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth.” [LAT, 1/27/05; NYT, 4/28/04; New Yorker, 5/12/03; Plan of Attack, p.281]

Where He Is Now: Feith voluntarily resigned from the Defense Department shortly after Bush’s reelection. He is co-chairman of a project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to write an academic book on how to fight terrorism. Feith’s secretive groups at the Pentagon are under investigation by the Pentagon and the Senate Intelligence Committee for intelligence failures. [Washington Post, 1/27/05, 11/18/05; Washington Times, 3/3/06]

Key Quote: “I am not asserting to you that I know that the answer is - we did it right. What I am saying is it’s an extremely complex judgment to know whether the course that we chose with its pros and cons was more sensible.” [Washington Post, 7/13/05]

Stephen Hadley

Role in Going to War: As then-Deputy National Security Advisor, Hadley disregarded memos from the CIA and a personal phone call from Director George Tenet warning that references to Iraq’s pursuit of uranium be dropped from Bush’s speeches. The false information ended up in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address. [Washington Post, 7/23/03]

Where He Is Now: On January 26, 2005, Stephen Hadley was promoted to National Security Advisor. [White House bio]

Key Quote: “I should have recalled at the time of the State of the Union speech that there was controversy associated with the uranium issue. _ And it is now clear to me that I failed in that responsibility in connection with the inclusion of these 16 words in the speech that he gave on the 28th of January.” [Hadley, 7/22/03]

Richard Perle

Role in Going to War: Richard Perle, the so-called “Prince of Darkness,” was the chairman of Defense Policy Board during the run-up to the Iraq war. He suggested Iraq had a hand in 9-11. In 1996, he authored “Clean Break,” a paper that was co-signed by Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others that argued for regime change in Iraq. Shortly after the war began, Perle resigned from the Board because he came under fire for having relationships with businesses that stood to profit from the war. [Guardian, 9/3/02, 3/28/03; AFP, 8/9/02]

Where He Is Now: Currently, Perle is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he specializes in national security and defense issues. He has been investigated for ethical violations concerning war profiteering and other conflicts of interest. [Washington Post, 9/1/04]

Key Quote: “And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation.” [Perle, 9/22/03]

Elliot Abrams

Role in Going to War: Abrams was one of the defendants in the Iran-Contra Affair, and he pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. He was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs during Bush’s first term, where he served as Bush’s chief advisor on the Middle East. His name surfaced as part of the investigation into who leaked the name of a undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. [Washington Post, 5/27/03, 2/3/05]

Where He Is Now: Abrams was promoted to deputy national security adviser in February of 2005. [Slate, 2/17/05]

Key Quote: “We recognize that military action in Iraq, if necessary, will have adverse humanitarian consequences. We have been planning over the last several months, across all relevant agencies, to limit any such consequences and provide relief quickly.” [CNN, 2/25/03]

David Wurmser

Role in Going to War: At the time of the war, Wurmser was a special assistant to John Bolton in the State Department. Wurmser has long advocated the belief that both Syria and Iraq represented threats to the stability of the Middle East. In early 2001, Wurmser had issued a call for air strikes against Iraq and Syria. Along with Perle, he is considered a main author of “Clean Break.” [Asia Times, 4/17/03; Guardian, 9/3/02]

Where He Is Now: Wurmser was promoted to Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs; he is in charge of coordinating Middle East strategy. His name has been associated with the Plame Affair and with an FBI investigation into the passing of classified information to Chalabi and AIPAC. [Raw Story, 10/19/05; Washington Post, 9/4/04]

Key Quote: “Syria, Iran, Iraq, the PLO and Sudan are playing a skillful game, but have consistently worked to undermine US interests and influence in the region for years, and certainly will continue to do so now, even if they momentarily, out of fear, seem more forthcoming.” [Washington Post, 9/24/01]

Andrew Natsios

Role in Going to War: Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Andrew Natsios, then the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, went on Nightline and claimed that the U.S. contribution to the rebuilding of Iraq would be just $1.7 billion. When it became quickly apparent that Natsios’ prediction would fall woefully short of reality, the government came under fire for scrubbing his comments from the USAID Web site. [Washington Post, 12/18/03; ABC News, 4/23/03]

Where He Is Now: Natsios stepped down as the head of USAID in January and is currently teaching at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh’s School of Foreign Service as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and Advisor on International Development. [AP, 2/20/06; Georgetown, 12/2/05]

Key Quote: “[T]he American part of this will be $1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.” [Nightline, 4/23/03]

Dan Bartlett

Role in Going to War: Dan Bartlett was the White House Communications Director at the time of the war and was a mouthpiece in hyping the Iraq threat. Bartlett was also a regular participant in the weekly meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG). The main purpose of the group was the systematic coordination of the “marketing” of going to war with Iraq as well as selling the war here at home. [Washington Post, 8/10/03]

Where He Is Now: Bartlett was promoted to Counselor to the President on January 5, 2005, and is responsible for the formulation of policy and implementation of the President’s agenda. [White House]

Key Quote: “President Bush understands that the need to disarm Saddam Hussein is necessary. He has made that case to the United Nations Security Council. He’s made that case to the United States Congress. The entire world rallied behind this resolution that gives him one last chance. He has that chance, but time is running out.” [CNN, 1/26/03]

Mitch Daniels

Role in Going to War: Mitch Daniels was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from January 2001 through June of 2003. In this capacity, he was responsible for releasing the initial budget estimates for the Iraq War which he pegged at $50 to $60 billion. The estimated cost of the war, including the full economic ramifications, is approaching $1 trillion. [MSNBC, 3/17/06]

Where He Is Now: In 2004, Daniels was elected Governor of Indiana. [USA Today, 11/3/04]

Key Quote: Mitch Daniels had said the war would be an “affordable endeavor” and rejected an estimate by the chief White House economic adviser that the war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion as “very, very high.” [Christian Science Monitor, 1/10/06]

George Tenet

Role in Going to War: As CIA Director, Tenet was responsible for gathering information on Iraq and the potential threat posted by Saddam Hussein. According to author Bob Woodward, Tenet told President Bush before the war that there was a “slam dunk case” that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. Tenet remained publicly silent while the Bush administration made pre-war statements on Iraq’s supposed nuclear program and ties to al Qaeda that were contrary to the CIA’s judgments. Tenet issued a statement in July 2003, drafted by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, taking responsibility for Bush’s false statements in his State of the Union address. [CNN, 4/19/04; NYT, 7/22/05]

Where He Is Now: Tenet voluntarily resigned from the administration on June 3, 2004. He was later awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. [Washington Post, 6/3/04]

Key Quote: “It’s a slam dunk case.” [CNN, 4/19/04]

Colin Powell

Role in Going to War: Despite stating in Feb. 2001 that Saddam had not developed “any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction,” Powell made the case in front of the United Nations for a United States-led invasion of Iraq, stating that, “There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction.” [Powell, 2/5/03; Powell, 2/24/01]

Where He Is Now: Shortly after Bush won reelection in 2004, Powell resigned from the administration. Powell now sits on numerous corporate boards. He is poised to succeed Henry Kissinger in May as Chairman of the Eisenhower Fellowship Program at the City College of New York. In September 2005, Powell said of his U.N. speech that it was a “blot” on his record. He went on to say, “It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now.” [ABC News, 9/9/05]

Key Quote: “’You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people,’ he told the president. ‘You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You’ll own it all.’ Privately, Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.” [Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack]

Donald Rumsfeld

Role in Going to War: Prior to the war, Rumsfeld repeatedly suggested the war in Iraq would be short and swift. He said, “The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground. I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.” He also said, “It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” [Rumsfeld, 11/14/02; USA Today, 4/1/03]

Where He Is Now: Despite increased calls for his resignation, Donald Rumsfeld continues to be the most vocal supporter of staying the course in Iraq. Recently, he claimed that an early U.S. pullout would be the equivalent of leaving Germany in the hands of Nazis. [Bill Kristol, Washington Post, 12/15/04; Reuters, 3/19/06]

Key Quote: “You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” [CNN, 12/9/04]

Condoleezza Rice

Role in Going to War: As National Security Adviser, Rice disregarded at least two CIA memos and a personal phone call from Director George Tenet stating that the evidence behind Iraq’s supposed uranium acquisition was weak. She urged the necessity of war because “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” [Washington Post, 7/27/03; CNN, 9/8/02]

Where She Is Now: In December of 2004, Condoleezza Rice was promoted to Secretary of State and is being widely-mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. [ABC News, 11/16/04]

Key Quote: “We did not know at the time - maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency - but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Of course it was information that was mistaken.” [Meet the Press, 6/8/03]

Dick Cheney

Role in Going to War: Among a host of false pre-war statements, Cheney claimed that Iraq may have had a role in 9/11, stating that it was “pretty well confirmed” that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence officials. Cheney also claimed that Saddam was “in fact reconstituting his nuclear program” and that the U.S. would be “greeted as liberators.” [Meet the Press, 12/9/01, 3/16/03]

Where He Is Now: Cheney earned another four years in power when Bush won re-election in 2004. Despite recent calls from conservatives calling for him to be replaced, Cheney has said, “I’ve now been elected to a second term; I’ll serve out my term.” [CBS Face the Nation, 3/19/06]

Key Quote: “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” [Larry King Live, 6/20/05]

George W. Bush

Role in Going to War: Emphasizing Saddam Hussein’s supposed stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, supposed ties to al Qaeda, and supposed nuclear weapons program, Bush led the effort to build public support for an invasion of Iraq. [State of the Union, 1/28/03]

Where He Is Now: In November 2004, Bush won re-election. Since that time, popular support for the war and the President have reached a low point. [Washington Post, 3/7/06]

Key Quote: “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” [Bush, 10/7/02]

-------

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/186.php?nid=&id=&pnt=186&lb=hmpg2

Iraq: The Separate Realities of Republicans and Democrats

The war with Iraq, now three years on, will surely be regarded by historians as one of the more unusual wars in history. The stated premise for going to war_Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and support for al-Qaeda_was unfounded, a number of US government commissions have concluded. However, other government leaders have made statements that leave ambiguities on what was in fact the case. Not surprisingly, over the years a number of studies have found that there have been widespread differences among Americans, not only in their attitudes about the war, but also their perceptions of what were, in fact, the realities surrounding it, including the premises for going to war.

A new study by WorldPublicOpinion.org has found that, despite the passage of years, many of these divisions persist. A closer analysis also reveals that these divisions are closely aligned with party identification. Indeed it seems fair to say that in regard to the Iraq war, Republicans and Democrats are living in separate realities.

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_related/179.php?nid=&id=&pnt=179&lb=hmpg

Two in Three Americans Call Iraq a War of Choice, Not Necessity

Majority Now Says That Iraq Had No WMD Program

Bush Administration Perceived as Still Saying

Iraq Had Major WMD Program and Supported al-Qaeda

By a two-to-one margin Americans now say that the Iraq war was a war of choice, not a war of necessity_i.e., it was not necessary for the defense of the US_and that the war was not the best use of US resources, according to a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll. For the first time, a majority now believes that Iraq did not have a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, though the public is still divided on whether Iraq supported al-Qaeda. Such beliefs are highly correlated with support for the war. A large bipartisan majority says that if Iraq did not have WMD or did not support al-Qaeda, the US should not have gone to war. Majorities in both parties perceive the Bush administration as continuing to say that Iraq did have WMDs or a major WMD program and provided substantial support to al-Qaeda.

George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 is a chilling glimpse into what was supposed to be the not too distant future. But it’s now happening…here…RIGHT NOW.
Orwell’s “Big Brother” depended on suppression of information, individual freedom and a complete surrender of privacy. It included rabid Nationalism and slogans like
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Blood-soaked corporate oil wars wrapped in the flag is of course for PEACE.
Making a slave class out of immigrants is their FREEDOM.
Suppression of news to keep you ignorant of course makes you STRONGER.
Orwell was warrior and an artist who fought fascism where ever he saw it up until he drew his last breath. And he knew, just like the Neocons do, that resistance and reform is always possible with a large, healthy, informed middle class willing to speak truth to power.
Once you understand that, you can understand the motivation behind every move Bush makes from tax cuts for the ultra rich, to importing cheap labor from Mexico, to turning healthcare over to pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
Every move keeps the poor poor and further weakens the middle class.
Thanks for listening!
Love ALLways,
Randi

http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Moral_Values

REPUBLICAN MORAL VALUES

Richard Theriault: As a registered Republican for 60 years, I am so FUCKING angry about what the current crop of idiots have done to the party and the country that I have given to the “http://www.democrats.org/” while still trying to fix the GOP from within. It may be futile.”

BIBLES

You’ve probably seen this one already, but just in case:

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify. At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: “Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?” Raskin replied: “Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.” The room erupted into applause.

Geoffrey Millard: What Really Demoralizes the Troops

A Film by Scott Galindez

Geoffrey Millard, a veteran of the Iraq war, responds to those who say Cindy Sheehan and the protesters demoralize the troops. He argues that it’s the lies and the carnage of war that make it difficult for the troops to do their job, not a grieving mother asking, “What Noble Cause were they fighting for?”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401450.html?sub=AR

The GOP’s Betrayal On Speech

By “http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/george+f.+will/”Sunday, April 16, 2006; Page B07

If in November Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives, April 5 should be remembered as the day they demonstrated that they earned defeat. Traducing the Constitution and disgracing conservatism, they used their power for their only remaining purpose -- to cling to power. Their vote to restrict freedom of speech came just as the GOP’s conservative base is coming to the conclusion that House Republicans are not worth working for in October or venturing out to vote for in November.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/notes-for-converts_b_17662.html

Bruce Bartlett, The Cato Institute, Andrew Sullivan, George Packer, William F. Buckley, Sandra Day O’Connor, Republican voters in Indiana and all the rest of you newly-minted dissenters from Bush’s faith-based reality seem, right now, to be glorying in your outrage, which is always a pleasure and feels, at the time, as if it is having an effect, but those of us who have been anti-Bush from day 1 (defined as the day after the stolen 2000 election) have a few pointers for you that should make your transition more realistic.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/04/16/ny-times-the-leak_n_19224.html

NY Times: The Leak Bush Authorized Libby To Divulge “Was So Distorted...More Like Disinformation Than Any Sincere Attempt To Inform The Public”...

BE HAPPY FOR HIM

Your own retirement may look a little shaky, but “http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/business/13exxon.html?ex=1302580800&en=503f18987db8ca72&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss” something to be happy about:

As you’ve surely seen by now, Exxon’s outgoing chief, Lee R. Raymond, got a $398 million retirement package. (Plus perks.) It seems like a lot, but he worked there for 43 years, so it’s not even $10 million for every year worked.

Some may argue he was already paid for those 43 years – 2,236 paychecks, if Exxon pays weekly. But how do you give him less than $398 million without killing the morale of other Exxon employees with their eyes on the CEO prize? Who is going to compete for that top job if, at the end of a distinguished career, all you can look forward to is – say – a $75 million package?

More good news: The Republican leadership have cut his taxes smartly, and are working hard to see that he can pass this wealth on to his heirs tax-free.

Published on Thursday, April 13, 2006 by “http://www.truthdig.com”

White House Whopper Becomes Instant Classic

by Molly Ivins

Personally, I think this is a really good time not to keep up. The more you try, the less sense it makes, although getting us used to having it all make no sense at all may be an extremely sneaky Karl Rove ploy to justify the war in Iraq. Hard to say.

The latest development to which the only appropriate response is, “Huh,” is the news that the “mobile weapons labs” introduced to us by President Bush before the war as conclusive evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were not evidence—conclusive or otherwise—of WMD and were not, in fact, mobile weapons labs.

The only thing new here is the news that George W. Bush likely knew a couple of days before he talked about them in public that the Defense Intelligence Agency had found they were not mobile weapons labs.

OK, given everything we already know about the lies before the war, this is not particularly startling—although I do think it’s long past time we stopped referring to the campaign of disinformation and false information that we were fed as anything but lies. No, the startling and funny part of the “mobile weapons lab” lie is the administration’s defense of it, which is so batty it’s an instant classic.

According to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, the DIA report debunking the “weapons labs” is “a complex intelligence white paper and it’s ... one derived from highly classified information (and) takes a substantial amount of time to coordinate and to run through a declassification process.”

If I understand what McClellan is saying, Bush leaked bad information from a classified intelligence report because there wasn’t enough time for the contradictory DIA report to go through a declassification process. All of which would make more sense if we hadn’t just gone through this Valerie Plame episode, where the White House says if the president leaked it, then it’s legal to leak it. No problem, the president can declassify at will, they said. I don’t know about you, but none of it is becoming clearer for me. Does anyone understand why we have to bomb Iran yet?

Published on Friday, April 14, 2006 by the “http://www.guardian.co.uk/”

Iraq: Ungoverned and Ungovernable

Editorial

The Americans say they are seeking to disband the militias, though they have tried it before without success. Iraqis themselves are not pinning hopes on that; many are applying to change their names so it will be less obvious which sect they belong to. Up to 30,000 others have left their homes in recent weeks, fleeing to areas where they feel more secure and raising echoes of the ethnic and religious “cleansing” witnessed during the break-up of Yugoslavia. Today Iraq is a country with no real government. It may be only a matter of time, though, before there is a government with no real country to govern.

Published on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 by the “http://www.boston.com”

Robbery, Nor Reconstruction, in Iraq

by Derrick Z. Jackson

The great liberator of Iraq was actually the hyena that cleaned out the nation.

Piece by piece, Halliburton over here, a corrupt company over there, we have heard various individual cases of overcharging and fraud by American firms in the reconstruction of Iraq. Last weekend, a Globe story connected some of the dots of corruption. Of $20.7 billion in Iraqi bank accounts and oil revenues seized by the Coalition Provisional Authority in the US-led invasion of Iraq, $14 billion was given out for reconstruction but tens of millions of dollars were unaccounted for. A year ago, an audit by the inspector general found no evidence of work done or goods delivered on 154 of 198 contracts. Sixty cases of potential swindles are under investigation.

Behind the Military Revolt
By Richard Holbrooke
The Washington Post

Sunday 16 April 2006

The calls by a growing number of recently retired generals for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have created the most serious public confrontation between the military and an administration since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951. In that epic drama, Truman was unquestionably correct - MacArthur, the commanding general in Korea and a towering World War II hero, publicly challenged Truman’s authority and had to be removed. Most Americans rightly revere the principle that was at stake: civilian control over the military. But this situation is quite different.

First, it is clear that the retired generals - six so far, with more likely to come - surely are speaking for many of their former colleagues, friends and subordinates who are still inside.

Second, it is also clear that the target is not just Rumsfeld.

Facing this dilemma, Bush’s first reaction was exactly what anyone who knows him would have expected: He issued strong affirmations of “full support” for Rumsfeld, even going out of his way to refer to the secretary of defense as “Don” several times in his statements. (This was in marked contrast to his tepid comments on the future of his other embattled Cabinet officer, Treasury Secretary John Snow. Washington got the point.)

In the end, the case for changing the secretary of defense seems to me to be overwhelming. I do not reach this conclusion simply because of past mistakes, simply because “someone must be held accountable.” Many people besides Rumsfeld were deeply involved in the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan; many of them remain in power, and some are in uniform.

The major reason the nation needs a new defense secretary is far more urgent. Put simply, the failed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be fixed as long as Rumsfeld remains at the epicenter of the chain of command. The only question is: Will it come so late that there is no longer any hope of salvaging something in Iraq and Afghanistan?

--------

Richard Holbrooke, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, writes a monthly column for The Post.

The Generals’ Easter Parade
By Bud McClure
CommonDreams.org

Saturday 15 April 2006

Tis the spring of our generals’ discontent! The parade of military brass condemning Rumsfeld’s incompetence is a refreshing interlude to the mind numbing spin spewed out every few hours by the good news boys in the White House. Even more telling is the mass exodus of junior grade officers bolting the military for civilian life the moment their obligations are up. The military followed Rumsfeld down a sewer hole, and the stench has gotten so bad some of them have decided to come clean and make public what has long been obvious to most conscious people. The war is going badly!

State Department Memo: “16 Words” Were False
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 17 April 2006

Sixteen days before President Bush’s January 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he said that the US learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Africa - an explosive claim that helped pave the way to war - the State Department told the CIA that the intelligence the uranium claims were based upon were forgeries, according to a newly declassified State Department memo.

The revelation of the warning from the closely guarded State Department memo is the first piece of hard evidence and the strongest to date that the Bush administration manipulated and ignored intelligence information in their zeal to win public support for invading Iraq.

Published on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 by the “http://progressive.org”

Rumsfeld Shouldn’t be Fired, He Should be Indicted

by Matthew Rothschild

It’s not Donald Rumsfeld’s colossal arrogance or his glaring misjudgments we should be focusing on. It’s his potential crimes.

The mainstream media in the U.S. is giving enormous attention to the retired generals who are demanding Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation because of his autocratic style and his bungling in Iraq.

But the mainstream media is barely discussing Rumsfeld’s alleged culpability in the abusive treatment of detainees, up to and including torture.

“The question at this point is not whether Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it’s whether he should be indicted,” says Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch, who directs its terrorism and counterterrorism program.

Published on Monday, April 17, 2006 by the “http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/04/17/news-bethcolapril17-04-17.html” (Middletown, New York)

Recipe for Holy War: Add Two Nut Jobs and Stir

by Beth Quinn

All right. I’m now officially scared.

Having just read Seymour Hersh’s article about Bush’s Iran plan, it appears that we no longer have a case of the good guys versus the bad guys.

What we have here is the bad guy versus the bad guy - two madmen playing an international game of chicken, ratcheting up the rhetoric to appeal to their fundamentalist followers.

Published on Sunday, April 16, 2006 by the Boulder “http://www.dailycamera.com” (Colorado)

Fiddling While the Earth Burns

by John M. Crisp

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — My friend, the entomologist, makes his living de-bugging the vast cotton fields of South Texas. Maybe not this year, though. Drought is jeopardizing the cotton crop, as well as the livelihoods of everyone connected to it. If rain doesn’t come soon, there’ll be little cotton, if any.

Warmer water means stronger hurricanes and probably more of them, as well as higher sea levels and other dramatic environmental alterations. And clearly the globe is getting warmer. That fact has been solidly documented in many books and magazines, including cover stories by Audubon (December 2003) and National Geographic (September 2004). A recent Time cover story (April 3) demonstrates very credibly that the fact of global warming is beyond dispute. Even the skeptics have to admit that.

The real question is why we have such a difficult time accepting the extreme likelihood that the ever-heavier human footprint on the planet has an effect on its temperature.

The refusal to acknowledge that great likelihood is to engage in one the most dangerous of all human behaviors: Denial.

John M. Crisp is a professor in the English Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. E-mail “mailto:jcrisp@delmar.edu”.

Published on Sunday, April 16, 2006 by the “http://seattlepi.nwsource.com”

Retired Generals Rising Up Against Iraq War

by Erin Solaro

Alexis de Tocqueville once remarked that in a democracy, the greatest pacifists are the generals. In America, this has often been true but rarely obvious. Our time-honored and intense tradition of civilian supremacy means that senior officers, active or retired, rarely express misgivings or dissenting opinions in public -- certainly not while a war is going on.

And yet, since mid-March, we have witnessed a veritable “Revolt of the Generals,” a situation having nothing to do with men on horseback but, potentially, a great deal to do with offering some perspective and restoring some sanity to this increasingly war-weary republic.

Published on Saturday, April 15, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Wall Street Versus America

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

There is something about Gary Weiss’s new book -- Wall Street Versus America: The Rampant Greed and Dishonesty that Imperil Your Investments (Portfolio, 2006).

It’s not the same old recitation of corporate and Wall Street crimes that have bored generations of business school students taking their required ethics courses.

While it purports to be about Wall Street, it is in fact a biting critique of the elites that populate the Wall Street firms, regulatory agencies, law firms and newsrooms across America.

Published on Saturday, April 15, 2006 by The Nation

The Generals Revolt

by Katrina vanden Heuvel

Batiste. Eaton. Newbold. Riggs. Zinni….Is there a retired general left in the States who hasn’t called on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to fall on his sword?

Batiste believes “… the administration’s handling of the Iraq war has violated fundamental military principles….” And, as he told The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, “…the strategic underpinnings of this war can be traced back in policy to the secretary of defense. He built it the way he wanted it.”

Last month Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton – who oversaw the training of Iraqi troops – was much more pointed in his criticism of Rumsfeld. He wrote in a New York Times op-ed that Rumsfeld is “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically” and should resign.

Well-connected Washington Post columnist David Ignatius says that “the retired generals who are speaking out ...express the view of hundreds of other officers on active duty.” He adds, “when I recently asked an Army officer with extensive Iraq combat experience how many of his colleagues wanted Rumsfeld out, he guessed 75 percent.” Ignatius suspects--based on his conversations with senior officers over the past three years--that figure may be low.

What we are witnessing is the impact of the arrogance and recklessness not just of Rumsfeld – but the entire Bush administration. As Gen. Newbold wrote, the decision to invade “was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions -- or bury the results.”

Published on Friday, April 14, 2006 by the “http://www.baltimoresun.com” (Maryland)

No Military Solution

by William D. Hartung

WASHINGTON -- Some members of the Bush administration never learn. Despite the debacle in Iraq, several administration officials have suggested publicly that regime change and military strikes may be the best way to deal with Iran’s nascent nuclear enrichment program.

As former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright has suggested, one thing is clear: Iran will be unlikely to compromise on its nuclear program while it is being threatened with destruction. Those administration officials who see bombing Iran as a prelude to regime change should step back and make room for pragmatic anti-nuclear diplomacy.

William D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the “http://www.worldpolicy.org/” at the New School and the author of “Tangled Web II: A Profile of the Missile Defense and Space Weapons Lobbies.”

Published on Friday, April 14, 2006 by the “http://www.nj.com” (New Jersey)

Bush’s Band of War-Happy Simpletons

by John Farmer

Reports that the Bush administration is considering a nuclear strike on Iran may not frighten the mad mullahs in Tehran, but it will scare the hell out of many Americans here at home.

It’s hard to believe that with one military venture gone bad in Iraq and a world that now sees Washington as the greatest threat to peace, the Bushies would contemplate attacking a second nation, this time with tactical nukes. Which prompts two questions: Are these guys obsessed with a messianic sense of world mission that has robbed them of common sense? Or are they just plain nuts?

And the answers are yes and possibly so.

Published on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 by the “http://www.ap.org”

Study: Health Insurers Are Near-Monopolies

Consolidation among health insurers is creating near-monopolies in virtually all reaches of the United States, according to a study released Monday.

Data from the American Medical Association show that in each of 43 states, a handful of top insurers have gained such a stronghold that their markets are considered “highly concentrated” under U.S. Department of Justice guidelines, often far exceeding the thresholds that trigger antitrust concerns.

The study also shows that in 166 of 294 metropolitan areas, or 56 percent, a single insurer controls more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting.

“This problem is widespread across the country, and it needs to be looked at,” said Jim Rohack, an AMA trustee and physician in Temple, Texas. “The choices that patients have now are more difficult.”

The AMA study cited a Justice Department benchmark in citing antitrust concerns, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, or HHI. A score above 1,000 shows “moderate” concentration. Those scoring above 1,800 yield a “high” concentration.

Figures show that 95 percent of the 294 HMO/PPO metropolitan markets studied were above 1,800. Raise that HHI bar even higher to 3,000, and 67 percent rise above it.

Published on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 by the “http://www.nytimes.com”

National Archives Pact Let C.I.A. Withdraw Public Documents

by Scott Shane

WASHINGTON — The National Archives signed a secret agreement in 2001 with the Central Intelligence Agency permitting the spy agency to withdraw from public access records it considered to have been improperly declassified, the head of the archives, Allen Weinstein, disclosed on Monday.

Mr. Weinstein, who began work as archivist of the United States last year, said he learned of the agreement with the C.I.A. on Thursday and was putting a stop to such secret reclassification arrangements, which he described as incompatible with the mission of the archives.

Published on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 by “http://www.vanityfair.com”

Senate Hearings on Bush, Now

by Carl Bernstein

Worse than Watergate? High crimes and misdemeanors justifying the impeachment of George W. Bush, as increasing numbers of Democrats in Washington hope, and, sotto voce, increasing numbers of Republicans—including some of the president’s top lieutenants—now fear? Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans—nearing fifty percent in some polls—who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq.

Published on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 by “http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au”

Lock Him Away to Stop the Next War

by Phillip Adams

We cannot wait any longer for the impeachment of George W. Bush. Far more efficient to have Bush certified. There is no need for further debate on his mental state. The US President is bonkers.

Having turned the White House into a madhouse, having taken more lunatic positions on more issues than any head of state since GeorgeIII (are they, perchance, related?). GWB needs a long rest and a change of medication. And it shouldn’t be too hard to guide him into a padded cell. Just tell him it’s the presidential bomb shelter.

Let’s examine the symptoms of his mental decline. First, Bush convinced Americans that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. This is something the poor fool might have believed, given a tenuous grasp of geography, history and political reality. He then began to hallucinate about weapons of mass destruction, despite the evidence of Hans Blix and a multitude of others that there weren’t any. And he finally organised a tatty little alliance to join him in the silliest war since Vietnam, one guaranteed to recruit terrorists in unprecedented numbers.

Like Vietnam, the Iraq war was launched with presidential lies. Like Vietnam, the Iraq war descended into a moral and military quagmire. And if Iraq seems to be less of a stuff-up, consider this fact: it’s taken just three years in Iraq for US deaths to equal the body count after six years in Vietnam.

Little wonder six retired senior generals have joined ranks with the American public in condemning the war, or that the guru of neo-conservatism, Francis Fukuyama, has broken ranks with the likes of Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol in denouncing it. Or that many in the Republican hierarchy have joined left-wing critics denouncing the invasion as a mistake and a failure, calling for immediate withdrawal.

APRIL 18, 2006
1:00 PM

CONTACT: “http://www.ctj.org”
Bob McIntyre, 202-299-1066

Bush Tax Cuts Saved President $26,000, Cheney $1.1 Million in 2005

WASHINGTON - April 18 - On Good Friday, April 14, 2006, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney released their federal income tax returns for 2005. An analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice of the White House figures shows:

# Due to the 2001-05 Bush tax cuts, the President’s 2005 income tax was reduced by $26,204. # The President’s income tax rate was 25.4 percent of his reported income. Without his tax-cut legislation, he would have paid 29.0 percent. # Vice-President Dick Cheney’s 2005 income tax bill was reduced by $1,093,937 due to the Bush tax cuts. # The Vice-President’s income tax rate was only 5.7 percent of his $9.1 million reported income. Without the Bush tax cuts, he would have paid 17.7 percent.

==DON’T YOU HAVE TO WONDER HOW MANY ADDITIONAL SERVANTS WERE HIRED OR HOW MUCH ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THEY PERSONALLY CREATED WITH THIS ADDITIONAL INCOME?

Cheney Tax Return Shows Katrina Tax Benefits for Non-Katrina Charitable Contributions
By Michael Kirsch
Tax Prof Blog

Tuesday 18 April 2006

Michael Kirsch (Notre Dame) points out an interesting aspect of the Vice-President’s 2005 tax return:

It appears that the VP is a major beneficiary of the Hurricane Katrina tax relief act. In particular, he claimed $6.8 million of charitable deductions, which is 77% of his AGI - well in excess of the 50% limitation that would have applied absent the Katrina legislation.

Despite the importance of the Katrina legislation to his tax return, it looks like none of the charitable contributions actually went to Katrina-related charities

While there’s nothing inappropriate about that from a legal perspective, it does demonstrate how the legislation, which was sold to the public as providing relief to Katrina victims, provided significant tax benefits to the VP (and potentially other wealthy individuals) in situations that have nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina.

“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/16/AR2006041600685.html”

Tax Gimmickry
The Washington Post | Editorial

Monday 17 April 2006

Paying for tax cuts for the wealthy with ... more tax cuts for the wealthy!

Much to the chagrin of the White House and the GOP leadership, lawmakers didn’t get a new round of tax cuts done in time for tax day today. But when Congress comes back from its recess, it’s expected to take up a deal to extend President Bush’s capital gains and dividend tax cuts. To make their budget-busting tax policy appear less costly than it is, the lawmakers are resorting to a gimmick that is even more egregious than their usual tactics.

This one would, as usual, hide the cost of tax cuts that primarily benefit upper-income Americans. But it would accomplish that budgetary smoke and mirrors with a new tax provision, involving retirement savings accounts, that also benefits the well-to-do. And, to top things off, this new tax provision, while masking the cost of the tax cuts by bringing in more revenue in the short term, would in the long run worsen the fiscal situation by piling on more debt. No one who’s serious about controlling the deficit - whatever one’s position on extending the tax cuts - could support this dishonest approach.

“http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060501/phillips”

Theocons and Theocrats
By Kevin Phillips
The Nation

01 May 2006 Issue

Is theocracy in the United States (1) a legitimate fear, as some liberals argue; (2) a joke, given the nation’s rising secular population and moral laxity; (3) a worrisome bias of major GOP constituencies and pressure groups; or (4) all of the above? The last, I would argue.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041906Z.shtml

Setting the Record Straight

“http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/setting-record-straight/index.html”

A recent perusal of the White House web site unearthed a page that, I think, scores a perfect 100 on the Simmons scale. The page is titled Setting the Record Straight, and is intended to carry forth the administration’s argument that it did nothing wrong in pushing for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Note the rough-edged graphic at the top, meant to display the gritty reality of truth according to Bush and the boys. It isn’t funny, not at all, and yet ... it is unintentional comedy of the purest ray serene, a perfect 100 no matter what the East German judges have to say. It is almost, dare I say, sublime.

Take note of the lack of substance to be found. It is to laugh, until you read the butcher’s bill. 2,377 American soldiers have been killed, 49 of those deaths coming in the first eighteen days of April. Tens of thousands more have been wounded. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed and maimed. The country, and indeed the entire region, teeters on the verge of total chaos.

This administration thinks it can set the record straight with a page on their web site? Now that’s funny. If the record were indeed ever made truly straight, if all the lies that have been told to such bloody and costly effect were presented before an empowered investigation or inside a courtroom, the men and women within this administration would be staring down the barrel of significant prison time.

Impeachment? That’s small potatoes. They’d all be in jail for premeditated murder.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.

Limbs Lost to Enemy Fire, Women Forge a New Reality
By Donna St. George
The Washington Post

Tuesday 18 April 2006

Her body had been maimed by war. Dawn Halfaker lay unconscious at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, her parents at her bedside and her future suddenly unsure. A rocket-propelled grenade had exploded in her Humvee, ravaging her arm and shoulder.

In June 2004, she became the newest soldier to start down a path almost unknown in the United States: woman as combat amputee.

http://www.slate.com//id/2140242/

Worse Than Bush

Why Tony Blair deserves more blame than the president.

By Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Posted Thursday, April 20, 2006, at 2:56 PM ET

The US accounts for about a quarter of the total global emissions of man-made carbon dioxide or the other gases such as methane that can exacerbate the earth’s greenhouse effect, which traps sunlight and heat.

Under the UN climate change convention, America is required to publish its net contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, which takes into account pollution sources, such as cars and industry, and “sinks”, such as forests.

The figures show that the total US emissions have risen by 15.8 per cent from 1990 to 2004, mainly due to increased consumption of electricity generated by burning fossil fuel, a rise in energy demands caused by increased industrial production and a rise in petrol consumption due to increased travel. Fossil fuel combustion alone accounted for 94 per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions produced by the US during 2004, the figures show.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are now a third higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, and probably higher than they have been for at least 10 million years.

Scientists in Britain condemned the increase, saying that it showed how the US was failing to take a lead in the international attempt to curb greenhouse gas emissions despite being the worst offender.

Professor David Read, the vice-president of the Royal Society, said that the US and Britain needed to take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas levels in order to honour their commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Professor Read said there was mounting evidence to suggest that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions were beginning to cause serious climate effects, such as a drop in annual rainfall in east Africa because of rising water temperatures in the Indian Ocean.

“If emissions continue to rise, we can expect even more impacts across the world,” Professor Read said. “The developing world will find it difficult to adapt to climate change and the industrialised countries, which are primarily responsible for the rise in greenhouse gas levels, should realise that they would also struggle to adapt to a world in which, for instance, sea levels are several metres higher,” he said.

“The science justifies action now by all countries to both adapt to climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Published on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by Reuters

Global Warming Hits Canada’s Remotest Arctic Lands

by David Ljunggren

RESOLUTE BAY, Nunavut - Even in one of the remotest, coldest and most inhospitable parts of Canada’s High Arctic, you cannot escape the signs of global warming.

APRIL 20, 2006

1:02 PM

CONTACT: Natural Resources Defense Council

Edwin Chen, NRDC, 202-289-2373

Ending America’s Oil Addiction

Opportunities this Earth Day

WASHINGTON - April 20 - President Bush was right when he observed earlier this year that “America is addicted to oil.” On April 22, our 36th Earth Day, all Americans can join in helping to end that addiction, which causes global warming, pollutes our environment, saps our economic competitiveness and even threatens our national security.

Fortunately, America does not need a complicated, multi-stepped program to end our dependence, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Some simple steps can do the job.

Bush, a Crisis Almost Without Equal

By Greg Mitchell

Editor & Publisher

Wednesday 19 April 2006

Published on Thursday, April 20, 2006 by the New York Times

Things Change, and Stay the Same

Editorial

President Bush wants to show the nation he’s shaking things up in his administration, but it is clear that the people who messed everything up will remain in place. The press secretary goes; the political-and-domestic-policy adviser is losing half his portfolio. There’s a new White House chief of staff. But the folks at the Defense Department are still on the job, doing ... what they’ve been doing.

Metaphors about deck chairs abound.

It’s too soon to say how history will judge this administration, but it does look as if the first thing this president will be remembered for is the disastrous way the war in Iraq was conducted under Donald Rumsfeld, who, of course, isn’t going anywhere. If there’s a second thing we think history will shake its head over, it’s the administration’s cavalier disregard for the civil liberties of American citizens and the human rights of American prisoners. Needless to say, nobody’s being replaced at the Justice Department.

The third great disaster of the Bush administration is a fiscal policy that has turned a federal surplus into a series of enormous budget gaps and an economy that depends on loans from China to pay its bills.

Published on Thursday, April 20, 2006 by the Madison Capital-Times

Congress Should Investigate Bush

by John Nichols

In light of recent testimony by Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actively involved in scheming to discredit former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who revealed the administration’s use of discredited Iraq intelligence, another key figure from the Watergate era has called for a congressional investigation.

Carl Bernstein, who as a young reporter for the Washington Post was part of the team that broke the story of Richard Nixon’s high crimes and misdemeanors, is urging the Senate to launch a bipartisan investigation into the president’s actions. His call comes on the heels of former White House counsel John Dean’s charge that the crimes of the Bush administration are “worse than Watergate.”

Though he says it is “premature” to talk of impeachment, Bernstein argues in a new Vanity Fair article that it “is essential that the Senate vote - hopefully before the November elections, and with overwhelming support from both parties - to undertake a full investigation of the conduct of the presidency of George W. Bush, along the lines of the Senate Watergate Committee’s investigation during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.”

Bernstein asks, rhetorically, “How much evidence is there to justify such action?” His answer: “Certainly enough to form a consensus around a national imperative: to learn what this president and his vice president knew and when they knew it; to determine what the Bush administration has done under the guise of national security; and to find out who did what, whether legal or illegal, unconstitutional or merely under the wire, in ignorance or incompetence or with good reason, while the administration barricaded itself behind the most Draconian secrecy and disingenuous information policies of the modern presidential era.”

But could Arlen Specter really be the Sam Ervin of the 21st century?

Published on Thursday, April 20, 2006 by the New York Times

Our Dirty War

by Bob Herbert

I said, “Some of these folks have never been heard from again, right?”

“Yup,” said Curt Goering. “That’s right.”

Mr. Goering is the senior deputy executive director for policy and programs at Amnesty International USA. We were discussing a subject _ government-sanctioned disappearances _ that ordinarily would repel most Americans.

In past years, stories about torture and “the disappeared” have been associated with sinister regimes in South and Central America. The attitude in the United States was that we were above such dirty business, that it was immoral and uncivilized, and we were better than that.

But times change, and we’ve lowered our moral standards several notches since then. Now people are disappearing at the hands of the U.S. government.

“Below the Radar: Secret Flights to Torture and ‘Disappearance’ “ is the title of a recent Amnesty International report on the reprehensible practice of extraordinary rendition, a highly classified American program in which individuals are seized _ abducted _ without any semblance of due process and sent off to be interrogated by regimes that are known to engage in torture.

Some of the individuals swept up by rendition simply vanish.

Published on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by TruthDig

Bush’s Nutty Nuclear Braggadocio

by Robert Scheer

There is one clear standard by which President Bush has asked, over and over, to be judged: his ability to keep us safe from rogue nations or terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, by any rational definition of that standard, his 5-year administration has been an abysmal failure.

The quandary in which Bush finds himself regarding Iran’s apparent quest for nuclear weapons is only the latest example in an astonishing series of national security blunders.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0419-26.htm

Published on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by Ted Rall

A Maniacal Messianic Prepares to Fulfill His Destiny

by Ted Rall

“I have fulfilled my destiny,” the president says manically. He has just entered the nuclear launch codes that will trigger World War III. Seconds later, he emerges from a bunker. The Secretary of State squeezes between two soldiers. “Mr. President!” he shouts. “We have a diplomatic solution!”

He smiles. “It’s too late,” he replies. “The missiles are flying. Alleluia. Alleluia.”

The above scene, from David Cronenberg’s 1983 adaptation of the horror novel “The Dead Zone,” is a classic if slightly preposterous nightmare of a world destroyed by a demented demagogue. Now, incredibly, a lunatic out of a Stephen King movie has brought the United States to the brink of Armageddon.

Until I read Seymour Hersh’s expose in The New Yorker and subsequent follow-up coverage by other journalists about the Bush Administration’s plans to start a war against Iran, I had dismissed talk of George W. Bush’s messianism as so much Beltway chatter. True, he hears voices, even claiming that God and Jesus Christ talk to him. “I believe God wants me to run for president,” he told a friend in Texas. Eschewing mainstream religion, he routinely parrots the apocalyptic ravings of fringe Christianist cults: “And the light [America] has shone in the darkness [the enemies of America], and the darkness will not overcome it [America shall conquer its enemies],” he said during his fevered campaign for war against Iraq. He mimics Old Testament cadences: “God told me to strike at Al Qaeda and I struck them,” Bush told the Palestinian prime minister in 2003, “and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.”

Nooor-mal.

Despite the man’s wacky religiosity, I have been giving Bush the benefit of a small amount of remaining doubt after five years of the most disastrous rule this nation has ever suffered. I believed that he was breathtakingly bigoted, stupid and ignorant. But I didn’t think he was out of his mind. Until now.

Published on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Global Warming? Not in My Backyard

by Bob Burnett

Despite mounting scientific evidence, the prospect of global climate change is not a big concern for many Americans. the April 7th Gallup Poll indicated that while 62 percent worry about global warming, only 36 percent think it will be a big deal during their lifetimes. What explains this? Why do so many Americans remain sanguine?

The Gallup poll provides some insight. First, it notes that whether or not you are concerned about global warming depends upon your Party affiliation. The pollsters found that 77 percent of Democrats worried about global warming versus 45 percent of Republicans. In an increasingly polarized society, Democrats and Republicans see things quite differently. This is true on most issues: Iraq, where 72 percent of Republicans think the US “will win” versus 29 percent of Dems, and the economy, where 60 percent of Republicans think economic conditions are “good or excellent” versus 20 percent of Dems. The mood of GOP adherents is remarkably different from that of those who support the minority Party. Sixty percent of Republicans are satisfied with the direction of the country versus just nine percent of Democrats.

This polarization may not make sense, but it does follow a certain logic: If you trust George W. Bush, then you accept his view of things. The President doesn’t think that global warming is a big deal. Therefore, his supporters-about one-third of the electorate if you believe the latest polls-go along with his perspective. “George is our shepherd, I shall not worry.”

Published on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

It’s Called Mad For A Reason, You Fool!

by Joyce Marcel

Bush came into office ready to attack Iraq. He lied through his teeth about his reasons - who is sure, even today, what his deepest ones might be? He turned the national tragedy of 9/11 into a false raison d’être, threw the Middle East into turmoil, made Iraq a training ground for terrorists, corrupted the soul of our nation with lies and torture, and began to squander its wealth.

But wait, there’s more! Now he wants to nuke Iran.

Given the growing awareness that Bush and his cronies are really crazy enough to try it, retired top U.S. military officials are developing consciences. They are speaking out against the war in Iraq using words like “unnecessary” and “the worse strategic mistake in American history.” They are calling the Bush administration’s behavior “self-deluding, derelict in its duty, negligent and irresponsible.” Even former Secretary of State Colin Powell told journalist Robert Scheer that he never believed Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat. “Now he tells us,” Scheer sneered.

But wait, there’s more!

These same top retired military officers are falling all over themselves calling for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Former Major General Paul Eaton, who oversaw the training Iraqi troops after the U.S. invasion, described him as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically.” This unprecedented behavior is almost rational enough to make a military coup seem desirable.

Yet our president defends Rumsfeld, saying his “energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my full support and deepest appreciation.”

And wait, there’s more!

Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker, who a few years ago broke the story that Bush was planning to invade Iraq - a story that made no sense at the time, since America had been attacked by Saudi religious madmen - now reports that the U.S. already has soldiers on the ground in Iran. Also, the Air Force is practicing “over the shoulder” bombing, a maneuver designed to deliver nuclear weapons. And - here’s the coup de grace - Bush and the neocons believe that once we nuke them, Iranians will welcome us with flowers.

Bush casually discredited Hersh’s story in a recent speech at Johns Hopkins University. “What you’re reading is wild speculation,” he said, insisting that his promise to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons “doesn’t mean force necessarily. In this case it means diplomacy.”

Which is pretty much what he said right up until the day we attacked Iraq. Hersh was right then and, God help us, he’s probably right now.

Why fight now?

Because Bush is running out of time. The most frightening quote in Hersh’s article is from a government consultant who says the president believes he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

Stop a nuclear confrontation by having a nuclear confrontation? I wouldn’t exactly use the word “courage.” It’s called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) for a reason, you presidential fool! Get it? Mutual? We destroy them, they destroy us? Mutual. MAD!

But no, An anonymous member of the U. S. House of Representatives told Hersh that Bush “has a messianic vision.” I guess if you believe in Armageddon, you can’t be blamed for wanting to jump-start it.

Defying Senators, Bush Renames 2 Social Security Public Trustees

By Robert Pear

The New York Times

Thursday 20 April 2006

Washington - President Bush reappointed the two public representatives on the board of trustees for Social Security and Medicare on Wednesday, defying Senate leaders of both parties.

20,000 Kidnapped in Iraq Since January: Report

Agence France-Presse

Thursday 20 April 2006

Karbala - Nearly 20,000 people have been kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of this year alone, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The survey, which underscores the massive social upheaval caused by rebel activity and increasing sectarian conflict, does not give the number of people killed. However, it says that 15,462 people have been wounded.

The 19,548 people kidnapped includes 4,959 women and 2,350 children, according to the report prepared by a group of 125 non-governmental organisations and made public in the Shia holy city of Karbala.

An Unkept Promise in Iraq

The New York Times | Editorial

Monday 17 April 2006

Two years ago, the United States government promised to build more than 140 badly needed health clinics in Iraq, bringing basic care to underserved areas outside the big cities. That could have done a lot of good, saving innocent Iraqi lives and building good will for the United States in places where it has grown dangerously scarce. A generous cost-plus contract was awarded to Parsons Inc., an American construction firm, to do the work, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Now, with roughly $200 million already spent and financing from Washington set to run out in less than nine months, it appears extremely unlikely that most of those clinics will ever be built. As The Washington Post reported earlier this month, the Army Corps of Engineers predicts that no more than 20 clinics will actually be completed - out of 142.

America’s good intentions should not be allowed to expire with so pathetically little achieved. The country’s three years in Iraq have been a cavalcade of squandered opportunities and unanticipated outcomes. Many of those are now, sadly, beyond retrieval.

THIRTY-THREE MORE MONTHS

“I mean, think about it. Other than the war in Iraq, the Katrina disaster, the deficit, the CIA leak, torture, stopping stem cell research, homeland security, global warming and undercutting science, we’ve yet to really feel the negative effects of the Bush administration.” - Bill Moyers

Published on Saturday, April 22, 2006 by the “http://www.afp.com”

CIA Warned Bush of No Weapons in Iraq: Retired Official

The Central Intelligence Agency warned US President George W. Bush before the Iraq war that it had reliable information the government of Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, a retired CIA operative disclosed.

Published on Saturday, April 22, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Iraq Three Years after “Liberation”

by Stephen Zunes

Three years after U.S. forces captured Baghdad, Iraqis are suffering from unprecedented violence and misery. Although Saddam Hussein was indeed one of the world’s most brutal tyrants, the no-fly zones and arms embargo in place for more than a dozen years prior to his ouster had severely weakened his capacity to do violence against his own people. Today, the level of violent deaths is not only far higher than during his final years in power, but the sheer randomness of the violence has left millions of Iraqis in a state of perpetual terror. At least 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died, most of them at the hands of U.S. forces but increasingly from terrorist groups and Iraqi government death squads. Thousands more soldiers and police have also been killed. Violent crime, including kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery, is at record levels. There is a proliferation of small arms, and private militias are growing rapidly. A Lebanon-type multifaceted civil war, only on a much wider and deadlier scale, grows more likely with time.

Over 50,000 Iraqis have been imprisoned by U.S. forces since the invasion, but only 1.5% of them have been convicted of any crime. Currently, U.S. forces hold 15,000 to 18,000 Iraqi prisoners, more than were imprisoned under Saddam Hussein. Amnesty International and other human rights groups have cited U.S. forces with widespread violations of international humanitarian law, including torture and other abuses of prisoners.

It is not just the fear of arrest and torture that have worsened since the U.S. conquest of Iraq three years ago. Although the destruction of the civilian infrastructure during the heavy U.S.-led bombing campaign in 1991 combined with the subsequent economic sanctions led to enormous suffering among ordinary Iraqis, the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program, despite the abuses, did substantially improve the quality of life in the years preceding the U.S. invasion. Now, deaths from malnutrition and preventable diseases, particularly among children, are again on the increase. The supply of drinking water, reliability of electricity, and effectiveness of sewage disposal are all worse than before the invasion.

As much as half of the labor force is unemployed, and the cost of living has skyrocketed. The median income of Iraqis has declined by more than half. The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) reports that the Iraqi people suffer from “significant countrywide shortages of rice, sugar, milk, and infant formula,” and the WFP documents approximately 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from “dangerous deficiencies of protein.” Oil production, the country’s chief source of revenue, is less than half of what it was before the invasion. And despite Bush administration promises to infuse billions of dollars worth of foreign aid to rebuild the country’s civilian infrastructure, only a small fraction of these ventures have been completed, and most projects have been cancelled. Close to one million Iraqis, most of them from the vital, educated middle class, have left the country to avoid the violence and hardship brought on as a result of the U.S. invasion.

Despite all this, a Harris poll at the end of December showed that a majority of Americans believe the Bush administration’s claims that Iraqis are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein. Most Iraqis polled say just the opposite.

President Bush and his supporters still insist that Iraq is supposed to be a model for democracy that other countries in the region should try to emulate. In reality, the U.S. conquest and occupation of Iraq have, in the eyes of many Muslims worldwide, given democracy a bad name in the same way that the Soviets gave socialism a bad name through their conquest and occupation of Afghanistan. Democracy has become synonymous with war, chaos, domination by a foreign power, and massive human suffering. As a result, anti-American sentiment in Iraq is growing.

Amazingly, supporters of Bush policy cannot quite understand why this is the case. For example, Bush administration adviser Daniel Pipes, a leading proponent of the invasion, expressed his disappointment at “the ingratitude of the Iraqis for the extraordinary favor we gave them” by invading and occupying their country.

APRIL 21, 2006
10:21 AM

CONTACT: “http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/”914-772-2310

West Point Graduates Against the War Launches Campaign Against the Deceit of the US Government

NEW YORK - April 21 - Three alumni of the United States Military Academy at West Point have launched a grassroots movement to convert the disgrace of governmental lies and evasions about the assault on Iraq into a force to redeem the honor of their country. At issue –which directly assaults the West Point honor code which forges the character of all graduates – are the falsehoods by administration officials, culminating in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, which catapulted the United States into a preventive war.

“This fraudulent war has done such enormous damage to the reputation and prestige of the United States and its military forces,” said co-founder James Ryan. “Unless remedied, this will prove catastrophic to our country’s interests over the longer term.”

“The West Point honor code, which mandates cadets will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do, defines honor and duty,” said Joseph Wojcik, co-founder of West Point Graduates Against the War. “And this provides us with a lifelong sense of duty, a shared responsibility for graduates to do the right thing, even if that means admonishing our country’s leadership.”

Published on Saturday, April 22, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Wars for Oil

by Tom Turnipseed

Our warrior President constantly refers to the 9/11/01 attacks as the casus belli for our invasion of Iraq.

The Iraq war is actually a continuing function of the US military as a “global oil protection force”, according to Michael Klare, author of Blood and Oil and Resource Wars. The Islamist struggle against U.S. and Britain’s colonial/imperialist policies has raged for more than a half century. It’s been in reaction to our Machiavellian quest for cheap oil in the Middle-East.

Published on Saturday, April 22, 2006 by The Nation

Attack Iran, Ignore the Constitution

by Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith

Bush is calling news reports of plans to attack Iran “wild speculation” and declaring that the United States is on a “diplomatic” track. But asked this week if his options included planning for a nuclear strike, he repeated that “all options are on the table.”

The President is acting as if the decisions that may get us into another war are his to make and his alone. So the Iran crisis poses not only questions of military feasibility and political wisdom but of Constitutional usurpation.

Published on Saturday, April 22, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Overthrow

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Hawaii
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Nicaragua
Honduras
Iran
Guatemala
South Vietnam
Chile
Grenada
Panama
Afghanistan
Iraq

What do these 14 governments have in common?

You got it.

The United States overthrew them.

And in almost in every case, the overthrow can be traced to corporate interests.

Published on Saturday, April 22, 2006 by the “http://www.smh.com.au” (Australia)

Tide Turns on Dubya’s Wreck

by Mike Carlton

SYDNEY, NSW, is a long way from Washington DC but, even at this distance, it is clear that the Bush Administration is falling to pieces.

In recent weeks, scanning the political coverage in the mainstream US media and sampling the blogs has been to watch a flood tide ebbing to reveal a rotting, skeletal hulk. It is the George W. Bush ship of fools, stuck in the mud for the world to see in all its mendacity, its incompetence, its faith-based stupidity.

It is possible, at this late stage, that even Bush himself has begun to realise something is wrong. That oddly simian face is ashen, the eyes leaden. The voice is shrill and its tone defensive.

Published on Friday, April 21, 2006 by “http://writ.news.findlaw.com”

If Past Is Prologue, George Bush Is Becoming An Increasingly Dangerous President

by John Dean

President George W. Bush’s presidency is a disaster - one that’s still unfolding.

Jane Braxton Little | The Feds Want to Sell My Land

A mile-long roadless area near Eagles Nest Wilderness is among the 21,000 acres for sale in Colorado. So are two popular rock-climbing areas in Boulder Canyon and a snowboarding site around St. Mary’s Glacier. For spelunkers, Pluto Cave in California is part of a sale tract with spectacular views of Mount Shasta.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12554975/site/newsweek/

Many Strange ‘Emergencies’

A poll shows that approval of the job Congress is doing has plunged to just 22 percent. One wonders: who are those 22 percent?

By George F. Will

Newsweek

So the decadence of the Republican Congress, displayed in the bloated “emergency” supplemental-spending bill, lacks even the dignity of originality. The noun “emergency” once had meaning: a severe, sudden, unexpected and temporary crisis. The original point of the president’s request for a $92.2 billion “emergency” supplemental was to provide money for the war on terror_principally Iraq_and Katrina recovery. Well.

Why are we funding Iraq, one of the longest wars in American history_by Nov. 25, 2006, it will be 1,347 days old, the number of days between Pearl Harbor and VJ Day_with “emergency” bills? To hide, or at least obscure, the costs.

Jay Bookman:

Big Oil, Like Big Tobacco, Talks Sweet But Plays Dirty

Elizabeth Sullivan:

Bush Makes Familiarly Scary Noises

Frank O’Donnell | Oilman in Chief

“You know President George W. Bush’s ratings are in the toilet when he starts bashing oil companies in the name of protecting what he repeatedly called ‘our consumers,’ as he did yesterday.”

No Criminal Charges in Yucca E-Mail Controversy

The US attorney’s office will not pursue criminal charges over allegations of paperwork fraud by government scientists on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, the Energy Department’s inspector general announced.

Percentage of Uninsured Americans Rising

The percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41 percent in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 28 percent without coverage in 2001, a study found.

Despite Conflicts, Drug Judges Continue to Vote Yea or Nay

Medical experts who sit on FDA drug advisory committees frequently disclose financial conflicts of interest, but those disclosures rarely result in the members being disqualified from voting, a public watchdog group reported.

Jason Leopold | Target Letter Drives Rove Back to Grand Jury

“Karl Rove’s appearance before a grand jury in the CIA leak case Wednesday comes on the heels of a ‘target letter’ sent to his attorney recently by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, signaling that the Deputy White House Chief of Staff may face imminent indictment, sources that are knowledgeable about the probe said Wednesday.”

Cindy Sheehan | Peace Takes Courage

“I have a new friend,” writes Cindy Sheehan. “She is a 15-year-young peace activist named Ava Lowery. She is disgusted with the war and with the Bush regime, and she has started to use her talents for animation to make cartoons that oppose Bush and the war in Iraq ... Ava has been the object of intense and horribly ugly hate emails and not-too-subtle threats to do her bodily harm ... Open and honest discourse in our society is welcomed and encouraged, and our differences are only eclipsed by our commonalities, but obscene and destructive assaults on fellow human beings only adds to the violence in our already all-too-violent society.”

Iraqi Strife Seeping Into Saudi Kingdom

In Saudi Arabia, the conflict in Iraq has begun to spill over onto this hardscrabble, sunburned swath of coast, breathing new life into the ancient rivalry between the country’s powerful Sunni Muslim majority and the long-oppressed Shiite minority in one of the most oil-rich areas of the world.

Neil Young Lets Loose a War Cry

Robert Everett-Green writes, “We met outside a bagel joint in north Toronto, then drove a few blocks to a quiet street where two strangers could sit in a big old Cadillac and listen to the car stereo in peace. Then Robert Young slipped a CD-ROM from a plain white sleeve and gave me a rare preview of the nine explosive new songs on his brother Neil Young’s much-anticipated album, ‘Living With War.’”

The Perfect Storm

“Bush defines ‘terrorist’ selectively. When it comes to Cuba, the Bush administration harbors the terrorists and punishes the anti-terrorists,” writes Marjorie Cohn. “The 700,000 Cuban-Americans in Miami are ‘people who vote,’ as evidenced by their critical role in both the 2000 and 2004 US elections.”

GOP Blocks Tax Hikes on Oil Firm Profits

While Republican leaders sharply criticize soaring gasoline prices and energy industry profits, GOP negotiators have decided to knock out provisions in a major tax bill that would force the oil companies to pay billions of dollars more in taxes on their profits.

Mokhiber and Weissman | The Ten Worst Corporations of 2005

“The ongoing prosecutions of individuals associated with corporate financial scandals enabled Big Business and its apologists to claim there had actually been a crackdown on corporate crime.” Mokhiber and Weissman write that this leaves “corporations free to buy legislation, profiteer, pollute, poison, and mistreat workers without restraint.”

Murray Waas | Is There a Double Standard on Leak Probes?

“When the CIA announced on Friday that it had fired an employee who the agency claims ‘knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence’ with a newspaper reporter, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, immediately praised the agency’s action, saying that “unauthorized disclosures of classified information can significantly harm our ability to protect the American people,” Murray Waas writes. “But three years ago, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Roberts himself was involved in disclosing sensitive intelligence information.”

US Military Files Still for Sale on the Street in Bagram

Just days after US troops were ordered to plug a security breach at their base here, the black market trade in computer memory drives containing military documents was thriving again Monday.

Ted Rall:

Neocons Squander Their Only Victory

Molly Ivins:

The Great Bush Reclassification Project

Frank O’Donnell:

Oilman in Chief

Ralph Nader:

It’s Time to Reinstate the Office of Technology Assessment

Gregory Foster:

The Long War Posture

Harvey Wasserman:

Chernobyl Kills While Bought ex-Greenpeacer Shills

Cindy Sheehan:

Peace Takes Courage

Bill Quigley:

Eight Months After Katrina

Hany Khalil:

A Way Forward, Out of Iraq

Steve Chapman:

Mad Cow Madness: USDA Stands in the Way of Broader Testing

Derrick Jackson:

A Lesson Unlearned in El Salvador”

John Nichols:

Frank Church and the Abyss of Warrantless Wiretapping

David Krieger/Jonathan Granoff:

Say No to the US-India Nuclear Deal

Molly Ivins:

The Great Bush Reclassification Project

Ted Rall:

Neocons Squander Their Only Victory

Dave Zweifel:

Greed Thrives In Our Health Care System

Gene Lyons:

Is Our Democracy Sleepwalking Into a Nightmare?

Nicholas von Hoffman:

Who Gets the Blame For Dirty Tactics in Iraq?

David Sirota:

Mike McCurry & the Hostile Takeover of the Democratic Party

Paul Rogat Loeb:

Dying for Nixon, Dying for Bush

Mokhiber/Weissman:

The Ten Worst Corporations of 2005

Andrew Greeley:

Generals Trying to Stop New Fiasco

Mark Morford:

You Can Do it the Old Way, or You Can Do it Like Bush -- With Smirks, Mountain Bikes and Oil

Corruption Eroding Afghan Security

Nearly five years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s security situation continues to be dragged down by endemic corruption, roving militias, and a growing nexus between narco-warlords and remnants of the Taliban, officials and analysts say.

Wyden’s Long Talk Fails to Persuade

Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden seized control of the Senate floor for more than four hours Thursday in an attempt to reduce subsidies to oil companies, enraging Republican leaders. Wyden proposed an amendment that would give the federal government greater authority to collect royalties from oil companies that drill on public property.

Ten States Sue EPA Over Global Warming

Ten states fired a new legal salvo at the federal government Thursday in a long-running court battle over global warming and pollution from power plants. The states, joined by environmental groups, sued the Environmental Protection Agency over its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide pollution as a contributor to global warming.

White House EPA Pick Decried

A chorus of environmental and health advocacy groups is urging Congress to reject the Bush administration’s most recent nominee to an environmental post. “Virtually anything bad that the Bush administration has done with air pollution has Bill Wehrum’s fingerprints on it,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

Judith Coburn | Caring for Veterans on the Cheap

“Much has been written about how President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld waged war on the cheap, sending too few ill-equipped young soldiers - 30% of them ill-trained reservists and National Guardsmen - into battle. But little has been reported about how shockingly on-the-cheap the homecomings of these soldiers have proved to be.”

Jim Lobe | After Abu Ghraib, Impunity

“Two years after the abuse by US soldiers of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq first came to light, accountability for what turns out to have been a widespread pattern of mistreatment at several detention sites, including torture and at least eight homicides, remains elusive.”

Iraq War Set to Be More Expensive Than Vietnam

The Iraq war has already cost the United States $320 billion, according to an authoritative new report, and even if troop withdrawal begins this year, the conflict is set to be more expensive in real terms than the Vietnam War a generation ago. The estimate, circulated this week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), can only increase unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6 billion a month, or $200 million a day, with no end in sight.

Robert Scheer Interview | “Nothing Prepared Me for Bush”

With over 65 percent of Americans disapproving of our current president, why can’t we get some credible opposition in Washington? As we head toward midterm elections and look ahead to those of 2008, it’s a question that is weighing heavily on millions of American minds. Two longtime observers of our increasingly corrupt political system, Robert Scheer and Joe Klein, have written books documenting the causes and the consequences. Onnesha Roychoudhuri interviews Scheer, who has some startling insights.

Thom Hartmann | The Story of Carl

“How can we best return to our governments the essential values of protecting the ‘life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness’ of their people, and separate from our governments contamination by the profit motive, which rightly should remain in the realm of business and not politics?”

Paul Krugman | The Crony Fairy

“The US government is being stalked by an invisible bandit, the Crony Fairy, who visits key agencies by dead of night, snatches away qualified people and replaces them with unqualified political appointees. There’s no way to catch or stop the Crony Fairy, so our only hope is to change the agencies’ names. That way she might get confused, and leave our government able to function.

Michael A. Fox | Bodies for Barrels: Betrayal and Energy Dependence

An Ohio Republican and longtime conservative has come to the realization that America’s energy problems are not, as President Bush recently declared, because Americans have an “addiction to oil.” Our energy problems stem from the failed leadership of two political parties - Democrats and Republicans.

US Death Toll in Iraq Reaches New High

The military announced the death of one American soldier on Friday, bringing the death toll so far in April to 69, the highest in five months. The monthly figure disrupted a trend of steadily falling American fatalities that had begun in November.

FBI Secretly Sought Data on 3,501 People in ‘05

The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 US citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court’s approval, the Justice Department said Friday.

Probe of GOP Congressman Widens

Federal prosecutors signaled this week that they have decided to pursue a wide range of allegations about dealings between Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, rather than bringing a narrowly focused bribery case against the congressman.

Ex-Head of FDA Faces Criminal Inquiry

Dr. Lester M. Crawford, the former commissioner of food and drugs, is under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury over accusations of financial improprieties and false statements to Congress, his lawyer said Friday.

William Fisher | “The Worst of the Worst”

By not acknowledging their mistake in detaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the Bush administration seems hell-bent on continuing to shoot itself in the foot by clinging to the fading perception of its own hundred percent righteousness.

Hearing Vowed on Bush’s Powers

Senator Specter said he plans to hold a hearing in June to examine Bush’s assertion that he has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted over the past five years. Specter intends to call administration officials to explain and defend the president’s claims of authority, as well as constitutional scholars to testify on whether Bush has overstepped the boundaries of his power.

Report Details Katrina Communications Fiasco

Failure of communications hampered relief and rescue efforts in the Gulf Coast. Several reports, including one by a House select committee that Democratic leaders boycotted, and another conducted by the White House, documented a collapse of telephones, computers and radio networks.

“George W.’s Palace:” A Giant Embassy in Iraq

The question puzzles and enrages a city: How is it that the Americans cannot keep the electricity running in Baghdad for more than a couple of hours a day, yet still manage to build themselves the biggest embassy on Earth?

Greenhouse Gases Continue to Rise

The greenhouse gases widely blamed for raising the planet’s temperature are still building up in the atmosphere. Overall, NOAA said, its annual greenhouse gas index “shows a continuing, steady rise in the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.”

Cut and Run? You Bet

Lt. Gen. William E. Odom urges, “Only with a rapid withdrawal from Iraq will Washington regain diplomatic and military mobility. Tied down like Gulliver in the sands of Mesopotamia, we simply cannot attract the diplomatic and military cooperation necessary to win the real battle against terror. Getting out of Iraq is the precondition for any improvement.”

Bush Impeachment Probe

36 US House representatives have signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors of H. Res 635, which would create a Select Committee to look into the grounds for recommending President Bush’s impeachment.

The New York Times | Keeping a Democratic Internet

Cable and telephone companies that provide Internet service are talking about creating a two-tiered Internet, in which web sites that pay them large fees would get priority over everything else. Opponents of these plans are supporting Net-neutrality legislation, which would require all web sites to be treated equally.

Katrina Contractors Bilk Taxpayers

While removing enough debris to cover Britain, contractors working on hurricane recovery have overbilled the government in a $63 billion operation that only will get more expensive, according to a House report Thursday.

Military Action Won’t Solve Iran

Military action is not a “magic wand” that can be used to resolve the international community’s standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Thursday.

Moussaoui’s Haunting Exchange With Victims’ Families

Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison yesterday. In his last words in the courtroom he branded the trial a “wasted opportunity for this country to understand and to learn why people like me and people like Mohamed Atta (a September 11 hijacker) and the rest have so much hatred for you.”

Katrina vanden Heuvel | Energy Independence Day

“George Bush won’t ask Congress for permission for torture or domestic spying. But when it comes to energy policy - he is very, very concerned about the limits of his presidential powers.”

Study Finds Medicare Operators Often Give Bad Information

With less than two weeks remaining for seniors to sign up for the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, an independent review has found that Medicare’s telephone operators frequently give callers false or incomplete information, reviving calls by Democrats to extend the May 15 deadline.

Climate Change Drives Disease to New Territory

Global warming - with an accompanying rise in floods and droughts - is fueling the spread of epidemics in areas unprepared for the diseases, say many health experts worldwide.

Senate: No Permanent Bases in Iraq

“Despite all of the division and the partisanship about when to leave Iraq and under what circumstances, I think there is one thing that everyone ought to be able to agree on, namely that we should not be in Iraq permanently,” Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said in a statement issued Wednesday. “As long as we keep the door to a permanent military presence open, we will continue to fuel the insurgency, undermine the security situation and keep the targets on our troops’ backs.”

GOP $100 Rebate Ridiculed by Consumers

The rise and fall of the Republican $100 rebate offers a window on how Washington sometimes works in a slapdash way, featuring in this case Congressional aides who misread the political climate and lawmakers desperate to hang onto their jobs.

UN Hears Evidence of US Violations of Ban on Torture Treaty

The UN was grilling the United States on its compliance with the global ban on torture today for the first time since Washington declared war on terrorists, focusing on allegations of secret CIA prisons and flights transferring suspects to other countries for possible torture.

The Bush Agenda: Corporate Domination

About the following interview with Antonia Juhasz, Joshua Holland writes, “Juhasz shows that the invasion of Iraq - an invasion that was as much economic as military - was the centerpiece of a larger project: the creation of a New American Century in which the end-goal of American foreign policy is to enrich the corporate elites, and dissent at home will not be tolerated.”

How Not to Fight Terrorism

David Cole writes, “At a secret CIA ‘black site’ prison, the United States is holding the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. And at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it has Mohamed al-Qahtani, who the government now claims is the real would-be 20th hijacker. But the administration can’t try either of these men, because any such proceeding would turn into a trial of the United States’ own tactics in the war on terrorism.”

Constitutional Cafeteria

It seems that Bush has asserted the right to ignore, as the Boston Globe puts it, “vast swaths of the law” simply because he thinks that these laws are unconstitutional. Michael Kinsley writes, “Legitimate outrage comes when the president acts in flagrant violation of the Constitution, defending his actions unconvincingly, disingenuously or not at all.”

It’s Showdown Time in Pakistan

The Bush administration is asking for a Tora Bora-style aerial bombing of the Taliban foothold in the Pakistani north and south Waziristan tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. The Taliban are integrated into the local population, and there would be high civilian casualties. This is considered acceptable as civilians would be deemed Taliban sympathizers.

Let’s Hear It for the Voice of Democracy!

William Fisher discusses Cheney’s recent declaration that Russia is breaching civil rights. “But what was President Bush thinking when he chose Vice President Dick Cheney to go to Lithuania as the messenger? Could there be anyone less credible on subjects like democratic reform and open government?”

Healthcare Headaches for Working Families and Small Business Owners

Approximately 45 million Americans have no health insurance, even though most of them are working. Will a new bill solve the problem, or make it worse? On May 5 on PBS, NOW looks at families who coped with both catastrophic illness as well as shockingly inadequate insurance.

Sakhalin Weighs Environmental Cost of Shell Project

A Shell oil pipeline being built in Russia crosses 1,100 rivers and water courses and threatens spawning fish and the critically endangered Western Grey Whale.

Freeport Mine ‘Poisoning’ West Papua’s Environment

The giant Freeport mine is polluting West Papua’s rivers and estuaries and a world heritage-protected national park. Documents leaked to an environmental group show that the world’s largest gold and copper mine has dumped a billion tons of mine waste into surrounding rivers, polluting forests and river systems with heavy metals such as copper and arsenic.

Democrats Push for Stem Cell Vote in US Senate

Senate Democrats sought on Thursday to jump-start a long-awaited debate on legislation to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research by considering it while it debates other health measures this month.

An Excellent Reason Not to Join the Military

Aimee Allison was a medic in the army reserves during the Persian Gulf War. She writes of her experience as a female in the army, which includes first hand accounts of widespread sexual misconduct and abuse committed by soldiers and army doctors.

Pointed Questions on Iraq Often Come From “the People,” Not the Press

Greg Mitchell questions, “When it comes to really putting Bush and Rumsfeld on the spot, why did a comedian, a former general, a rock star, an ex-CIA analyst and an average citizen in North Carolina go where reporters often fear to tread?”

Veto? Who Needs a Veto?

“President Bush doesn’t bother with vetoes; he simply declares his intention not to enforce anything he dislikes,” write the editors of the New York Times. “Charlie Savage at The Globe reported recently that Mr. Bush had issued more than 750 ‘presidential signing statements’ declaring he wouldn’t do what the laws required. Perhaps the most infamous was the one in which he stated that he did not really feel bound by the Congressional ban on the torture of prisoners.”

“This Is Our Destiny”

Tom Englehardt writes, “While the neo-cons proposed much from inside Washington’s Beltway, from various right-wing think tanks, and later from the inner offices of the Bush administration, while oil-consultant Khalilzad was still trying to sort out energy pipeline deals with the Taliban, and while various Iraqi exile Scheherezades were whispering sweet nothings in their ears about flowers, and liberated populaces, and the glory that was Rome - oh, sorry, those were pundits on the editorial pages of our major newspapers - they surely pondered too little.”

US Secret Prisons Hurt Intelligence Efforts

Allegations that CIA flights through Europe carried people bound for ill-treatment are damaging transatlantic intelligence cooperation, a lawyer acting for the State Department said on Thursday.

Going Nukular

William Rivers Pitt argues, “If we as a nation are going to be led by dangerous fools, if we are going to allow treason to stand in the highest ranks of government, if we are going to allow our Representatives to get wild with prostitutes and fat wads of cash, if we are going to allow our soldiers to slowly starve in Iraq while getting blasted out of unarmored Humvees during an ill-conceived occupation, the very least we can do is not sound stupid while doing it.”

Rumsfeld, US Top Officials Sanctioned Torture

In a new report, Amnesty International charges that torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees by US forces is widespread and, in many cases, sanctioned by top US government officials. The UN Committee Against Torture will begin hearings Friday, May 5, in Geneva.

Katrina’s Legacy

Anya Kamenetz comments that “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. That’s what’s happening right now in New Orleans. FEMA, having demonstrably and repeatedly failed, continues to hold the purse strings of recovery.”

Al-Qaida, Taliban Expanding in Pakistan

Gauging the militants’ strength is difficult. Foreign journalists are banned from the tribal areas, most local correspondents have fled, and it was not possible to interview any residents during a recent media trip. Analysts and local media believe, however, that the Taliban are gaining ground.

Ex-CIA Analyst Condemns Bush ‘Manipulation Campaign’ on Iraq

Paul Pillar, a former CIA analyst specializing in counter-terrorism in the Middle East and Asia, said that the United States had particularly wanted to prove a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. “That was not the case; I suppose by some definitions that could be called a lie. There was an organized campaign of manipulation,” Pillar says. “That would be the proper way to define it.”

Populist Left in South America

There is a sense across Latin America that George Bush, distracted by terrorism and Iraq, has failed to pay sufficient attention to his neighbors to the south. Washington now finds itself largely powerless to halt the shift to the left in these countries. Indeed, if it tried, the backlash would surely only get worse.

Chernobyl’s Elusive Bottom Line

A study by the international environmental watchdog Greenpeace says that in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia alone, by 2056 the Chernobyl accident will have claimed the lives of more than 93,000 people through thyroid cancer, leukemia, and blood and respiratory diseases.

Bush’s Failure in the Middle East

“In the absence of a fundamental reorientation of American policy, the overall situation in the Middle East will continue to deteriorate,” writes Thierry de Montbrial.

Ridicule and Contempt

“The most scathing public critique of the Bush presidency and the complicity of a craven press corps was delivered at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday by a comedian,” writes Sidney Blumenthal. “Bush was reported afterwards to be seething, while the press corps responded with stone-cold silence.”

The Fox News Effect

“Does President Bush owe his controversial win in 2000 to Fox cable television news?” asks Richard Morin. “Yes, suggest data collected by two economists who found that the growth of the Fox cable news network in the late 1990s may have significantly boosted the Republican Party’s share of the vote in the 2000 election and delivered Florida to Bush.”

Ohio Struggles to Fix Voting Problems

Ohio’s first election without punch card ballots was marred by a slew of problems with new voting machines, raising a crucial question: Can the state that decided the last presidential race get it together before November?

Scarborough Rails Bush and the GOP

QT (rough transcript)

Joe: ...I’ve learned from this White House, that when things change these days, they almost always change for the worse. Let’s face it. When one out of three of your own party wants you to lose control over Congress, it’s time to take a long look-at the enemy within.

Published on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 by CBC News

Did You Hear the One About the Satirist and the President? Probably Not

by Heather Mallick

History was made last week at the White House Press Correspondents’ Dinner. But it took a non-journalist - a comedian in fact - to do the job the well-fed journalists failed to do: take on George W. Bush.

The thing is, you likely won’t have heard about it. The mainstream media ignored the keynote speech by Stephen Colbert, which made Bush look like a smashed toadstool and the American press look like the compost a mushroom grows in.

MAY 9, 2006

12:32 PM

CONTACT: Center for Constitutional Rights

212.260.5000

CCR Rebuts Bush’s Misleading Guantanamo Comments as Undermining Due Process

NEW YORK - May 9 - Today the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which won the Supreme Court case establishing the Guantánamo detainees’ right to challenge their detention in U.S. court (Rasul v. Bush), provided a rebuttal to President Bush’s recent comments about closing the Guantánamo prison. On Sunday, President Bush said he would “like to close the camp” and referring to the detainees, he added: “They will get their day in court. One can’t say that of the people that they killed.”

CCR Legal Director Bill Goodman provided the following response:

President Bush’s comments reveal that again he is oblivious to the facts. According to the Defense Department’s own documents, nine out of ten detainees are not accused of being in Al-Qaeda. By declaring detainees guilty before a trial has begun, the President is undermining due process and deceiving the public.

MAY 9, 2006

10:47 AM

CONTACT: Common Cause

202-833-1200

Stevens Telecom Bill Fails Democracy and Consumers

Statement by Common Cause President Chellie Pingree

WASHINGTON - May 9 - The Communications, Consumer Choice and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006, sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) fails to protect and preserve network neutrality. The bill does nothing to stop network operators from discriminating against lawful Internet content or establishing fees or “tollbooths” on the Information Superhighway.

The US’s Geopolitical Nightmare

By F. William Engdahl

Asia Times

Tuesday 09 May 2006

By drawing attention to Iraq and the obvious role oil plays in US policy today, the George W Bush-Dick Cheney administration has done just that: it has drawn the world’s energy-deficit powers’ attention firmly to the strategic battle over energy, and especially oil.

Simply put: Bush and Cheney and their band of neo-conservative war hawks, with their special relationship to the capacities of Israel in Iraq and across the Mideast, were given a chance.

The chance was to deliver on the US strategic goal of control of petroleum resources globally, to ensure the US role as first among equals over the next decade and beyond. Not only have they failed to “deliver” that goal of US strategic dominance, they have also threatened the very basis of continued US hegemony, or as the Rumsfeld Pentagon likes to term it, “Full Spectrum Dominance”.

Republicans Set Aside Middle-Income Tax Cuts to Focus on Rich

By Ryan J. Donmoyer

Bloomberg News

Monday 08 May 2006

Republican lawmakers, facing the prospect that their power to cut taxes may soon be curbed, plan to extend breaks that mostly benefit the wealthy and Wall Street at the expense of reductions for middle-income households.

No Free Ride

By Shikha Dalmia

TomPaine.com

Tuesday 09 May 2006

Denying public services to people who pay their taxes is an affront to America’s bedrock belief in fairness. But many “pull-up-the-drawbridge” politicians want to do just that when it comes to illegal immigrants.

The fact that illegal immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. Yet nativists like Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., have popularized the notion that illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation’s hospitals, schools and welfare programs-consuming services that they don’t pay for.

In reality, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified illegal immigrants from nearly all means-tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization. The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education.

Nevertheless, Tancredo and his ilk pushed a bill through the House criminalizing all aid to illegal aliens-even private acts of charity by priests, nurses and social workers. Potentially, any soup kitchen that offers so much as a free lunch to an illegal could face up to five years in prison and seizure of assets.

Fire Destroys Bush Presidential Library
WASHINGTON - A tragic fire on Monday destroyed the personal library of President George W. Bush. Both of his books have been lost. Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said the president was devastated, as he had not finished coloring the second one.

http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/05/05/20060505-A14-07.html

White House wasn’t upfront about Iraq

Friday, May 05, 2006

Newsweek tells of four U.S. “superbases” being built in Iraq. I have long believed the reason for the invasion was to place permanent bases in the Middle East to protect the flow of oil to the West. This construction confirms my belief.

The retired head of CIA operations in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, has stated that a paid informant in Saddam Hussein’s inner circle supplied solid evidence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction. Several months before the war, the White House was informed of this. The reply was that it was no longer about intelligence but about regime change.

I believe the administration really does not want Iraqis to be capable of supplying their own security because we would lose our excuse to retain the bases. We are not going to spend billions on bases and then gladly abandon them.

This war is not about WMD, regime change or bringing democracy to Iraq. Instead of this shameful policy of deception, the American people should have been given the honest choice of an oil war or a Manhattan-type project of development of alternative-energy sources and conservation to provide a measure of self-sufficiency. What would we have chosen?

DARRELL L. SHAHAN

Zanesville

http://www.slate.com//id/2141588/

The Hackocracy

Why our MBA president can’t manage the government.

By Jacob Weisberg

Posted Wednesday, May 10, 2006, at 3:34 PM ET

In Bush’s sixth year, the executive branch resembles a smoldering landscape after battle. The staffs of various agencies and departments have been routed by a combination of political interference, neglect, and failed leadership.

Published on Thursday, May 11, 2006 by TruthDig

A Capital Full of Shih Tzu Reporters

by Molly Ivins

As I occasionally survey the pack of sycophantic Shih Tzus* in the Washington press corps, wriggling on their bellies to kiss the feet of those in power, I feel plumb discouraged about the future of journalism.

It’s like a cross between Versailles under Louis XIV and high school: obsequious courtiers flattering their way to favor, plus the silly cliques of the “in crowd” and “out crowd.” On the other hand, I am greatly cheered by the young journalists in the blogosphere who have now whelped a perfect litter of books worth paying attention to.

For my marbles and chalk, the pick is David Sirota’s “Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government_and How We Take It Back.” The extent to which corporate power has taken over the country and is running the table cannot be exaggerated and must not be ignored.

Distributed to newspapers by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services

Published on Thursday, May 11, 2006

Repealing Estate Tax Helps Rich, Hurts Everyone Else

by Mark Weisbrot

“Money to get power, and power to guard the money,” was the motto of the powerful Medici family in 16th century Florence. It is getting to be a successful modern political strategy for some of America’s wealthiest families today.

A new report by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy shows how 18 of these families, including the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame, spent millions of dollars to push for the repeal of the estate tax. The estate tax is paid by wealthy heirs when they receive inherited wealth. Using trade associations and influential lobbyists, these extremely wealthy families stand to gain an astounding $71 billion from the repeal.

Published on Thursday, May 11, 2006 by Inside Bay Area

Scientists Call Diebold Security Flaw ‘Worst Ever’

Critics say hole created for upgrades could be exploited by someone with nefarious plans

by Ian Hoffman

Computer scientists say a security hole recently found in Diebold Election Systems’ touch-screen voting machines is the “worst ever” in a voting system.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20060511-104853-1835r.htm

Poll: Bush job approval at 29 percent

May. 11, 2006 at 10:53PM

U.S. President George W. Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to 29 percent in a new Harris Interactive poll.

It is the lowest job approval rating of Bush’s presidency, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Authorities Fear Guns Shipped to Iraq Went to Insurgents

By Steve Marshall

KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO

Thursday 11 May 2006

Baghdad - Fears have surfaced that as many as 200,000 AK-47s shipped by the U.S. to Iraqi security forces may have ended up in the hands of terrorists.

The Northern Ireland newspaper The Daily Mirror reports the 99-ton cache of AK47s was supposed to have been secretly flown out from a U.S. base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have since vanished.

Richard Perle, one of the architects of the Iraq War, here are some of the interesting things he said back in the day:

ON INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT:

[7-11-2] Interviewer: Isn’t there a risk if we don’t get allied support before we undertake this action that they won’t be there to help defray the billions and billions and billions of dollars we’ll need to spend for a long time in Iraq?

Richard Perle: We’ll get lots of allied support when it’s over, when it’s clear that the result was as we anticipated.

IRAQ OIL REVENUE:

[7-11-2] “First of all, Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will. The Iraqis are enormously talented. So I don’t think we need the Europeans and their bank accounts.”

IRAQ - AL/QAEDA LINKS

[7-11-2] “This evidence is very powerful. There is collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, which means to destroy us. It entails chemical weapons, biological weapons, training in their application. And he’s working on nuclear weapons. The message is very clear - we have no time to lose, Saddam must be removed from office. Every day that goes by is a day in which we are exposed to dangers on a far larger scale than the tragedy of September 11.”

EASY WAR

Soon after the invasion, Perle told a French documentary filmmaker: “Most people thought there would be tens of thousands of people killed, and it would be a long and very bloody war. I thought it would be over in three weeks, with very few people killed. Now, who was right?”

[9/22/03]: “And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.”

May 17, 2006

12:45 PM

CONTACT: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Shannon Spillane, 202-408-1080 or spillane@cbpp.org

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Most Americans Likely to End Up Net Losers When New Tax-Cut Bill is Paid For

WASHINGTON - May 17 - New data from the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center indicate that whether the new tax-cut bill the President will sign today is ultimately paid for through program cuts, tax increases, or some combination of the two, the small or non-existent tax benefit that most Americans will get from the bill will likely be outweighed by the cost imposed on them by the financing measures.

“There is no such thing as a free lunch. This tax bill -- like all recent tax legislation -- is being financed with borrowed money, and that money will eventually have to be paid back,” said Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center. “The vast majority of American households will receive little or no benefit from the bill, but they will share responsibility for the debt. When the bill comes due, most Americans are almost certain to lose far more than they gain from this legislation.”

May 17, 2006

3:08 PM

CONTACT: Human Rights Watch

(212) 290-4700

U.S. Fails to Comply With Ban on Torture

U.N. Committee Challenges U.S. on Treaty Obligations

WASHINGTON - May 17 - A high-level U.S. delegation’s exchange with the U.N. Committee against Torture reveals that the United States is failing to meet its international obligations to end torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, Human Rights Watch said today. The committee is expected to issue its conclusions and recommendations on U.S. practices by the end of this week.

APRIL 21, 2006

10:21 AM

CONTACT: West Point Graduates Against the War

914-772-2310

West Point Graduates Against the War Launches Campaign Against the Deceit of the US Government

NEW YORK - April 21 - Three alumni of the United States Military Academy at West Point have launched a grassroots movement to convert the disgrace of governmental lies and evasions about the assault on Iraq into a force to redeem the honor of their country. At issue -which directly assaults the West Point honor code which forges the character of all graduates - are the falsehoods by administration officials, culminating in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, which catapulted the United States into a preventive war.

“This fraudulent war has done such enormous damage to the reputation and prestige of the United States and its military forces,” said co-founder James Ryan. “Unless remedied, this will prove catastrophic to our country’s interests over the longer term.”

May 17, 2006

2:06 PM

CONTACT: Sierra Club

David Willett 202-675-6698

Water/Approps: 111 Million Americans’ Drinking Water at Risk: State-by-State Numbers

WASHINGTON - May 17 - The drinking water sources of more than 111 million Americans could be at risk because of the Environmental Protection Agency’s policy to withhold Clean Water Act protections from headwater and seasonal streams.

Published on Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Of Congress and Camels

by Todd Huffman

So many worries flit about my brain late at night like moths to a porch light. So many things I struggle at the cost of insomnia to understand.

Take, for instance, Congress. In the midst of a half-trillion-dollar war, in an age of stagnating wages and skyrocketing health care, fuel and housing costs, and in the face of exploding deficits and entitlements, the Republican-controlled Congress is set to pass yet another multi-billion-dollar tax cut, nearly ninety percent of which will go to the richest fifteen percent of Americans.

As if this shocking fiscal indiscipline weren’t enough to make anyone sleepless with confusion and worry for our children’s future, these selfsame Republicans, a majority of whom profess themselves “born-again” through Jesus, are brazen enough to once again enrich the rich while governing under the banner of “compassionate conservatism.”

Hey Millennials, Debt Becomes You

By Mischa Gaus

In These Times

Wednesday 17 May 2006

Twenty-somethings face a life of looming loans.

The children of baby boomers are the new debtor class. Buckling under a heavy weight of debt, new workers step into an economy of low-wage and contingent work, a combination that makes the basics of adulthood increasingly unattainable.

“We grew up in the Regan era where everything was fake, voodoo economics, and we’re not seeing the connections,” says Anya Kamenetz, author of Generation Debt: Why Now Is a Terrible Time to be Young. “I don’t think we can continue treating people as disposable, not providing them with health care or the means to save.”

Educational debt is the most visible - but not the only - barrier to the well-being of the “millennial generation,” roughly defined as Americans born after 1978. Every gate on the way to middle-class life is now tougher to unlock. Mortgages, health insurance expenses, car maintenance, child care and tax loads for two-income families have all ballooned.

For Graduates, Student Loans Turn Into an Albatross

By Chris Gaylord

The Christian Science Monitor

Wednesday 17 May 2006

“We are the first society in history to take our brightest and start them out in debt,” says Allan Carlson, president of the socially conservative Howard Center in Rockford, Ill. “That’s just stupid public policy.

Incompetence Is Simply a Byproduct of Something Far More Sinister

By Bob Johnson

DailyKos.com

Monday 15 May 2006

I don’t think the Bush administration is incompetent, in the pure sense of the word, as so many pundits have claimed. Everytime I read that charge, it doesn’t sit right in my mind.

No, that’s not the whole of it, I think. Their particular brand of incompetence is an outgrowth of something else - something far more sinister. If those who populate this administration, along with their co-conspirators in Congress, were simply happy-go-lucky fools, the incompetence tag would hang on them like a too-big suit. They’d wear incompetence like a pair of oversized clown shoes.

Osama’s escape, the Iraq Debacle, Katrina, Medicare D... The list of incompetent actions and policies stretches on for miles, as far as the eye can see on a flat, blazing hot desert road.

But “incompetence” lets them off too easily.

Incompetence is an outgrowth - or an end product - of indifference. Cold, callous, cold-hearted, criminal indifference:

∙ Indifference towards the troops they put in harm’s way.

∙ Indifference toward the elderly who must cope with the trainwreck that is Medicare D.

∙ Indifference toward the hundreds of thousands of Gulf states residents who lost everything in Katrina.

∙ Indifference toward future generations by giving away national forests and refusing to abide by environmental agreements.

Indifference after indifference after indifference.

Incompetence? Sure. But only because, fundamentally, they do not give a flying fuck about America or its citizens. (Nevermind how little they think of the citizens of the rest of the world.) They care only of themselves - and money. Simple, really.

It is no accident that indifference is a synonym for selfishness. And that selfishness can be synonymous with greed.

When Grover Norquist uttered his famous proclamation that his dream was to “drown the federal government in the bathtub,” he was only giving the half of it.

The likes of Rove and Cheney and Rumsfeld quickly figured out that the best way to accomplish Norquist’s dream - a dream they avidly shared - was to not only govern indifferently (thus underlying their assertion that government is an inefficent and ineffectual way of operating everything from wars to disaster relief), but that they also could enrich themselves and their corporate sponsors in the process, effectively looting the government as they “drown it in the tub.”

“Two birds with one stone” and all that.

The deficit is no accident. It is the ultimate manifestation of Norquist’s dream. Cheney and company (through their idiotic puppet and perfect foil, George Bush) paint the government as incompetent while bankrupting the federal treasury and lining the pockets of everyone from Halliburton to the religious right.

The Bush years have been nothing less than a criminal enterprise. Organized crime. Thievery on a scale never before witnessed in the history of humankind. Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars looted from the national treasury and delivered to the pockets of the well-connected. (Tax relief? For whom?)

The NSA spying program was never about ferreting out terrorist plots. We knew that. It was simply another tool to be used to stop any person or entity which sought to uncover their criminal cabal. And the Patriot Act is more of the same. This crew will stop at nothing to protect their criminal enterprise.

Groundhog Day in Iraq

By Joshua Holland

AlterNet

Monday 15 May 2006

America’s foreign policy elite seems incapable of understanding the limited uses of hard power. Until they do, we’ll continue to get into wars like Iraq - over and over again.

As the architects of the Iraq war cast about for someone to blame for their debacle, they’ve turned their sights inward - to the U.S. public. A lack of fortitude among the American people is to blame; only the folks back home can defeat our awe-inspiring military.

Others, despairing of the Bush administration’s “soft approach” to the Iraq insurgency - and casting hungry eyes toward Tehran - have adopted a feverish, almost genocidal view of the war. If only we had the stomach to bring more firepower to bear on the Iraqi people, they say, “victory” would be assured.

In both formulations, the media is ultimately at fault for poisoning Americans’ view of the war and sapping our national strength. But the war’s advocates have no one to blame but themselves; we are in Iraq because of their delusion that raw military power can solve even the most complex transnational issues. They’re incapable of grasping the importance of real moral legitimacy in modern warfare. Without that legitimacy, even the most powerful military in the world is likely to get dragged into a quagmire and, when it does, the public’s weariness is entirely predictable. File it away as another error in post-war planning.

Many military thinkers - people like Colin Powell and Anthony Zinni - learned the hard way, in Vietnam, how important it is to be right as well as strong. They appreciate hard power but also understand that wars of choice or ideological preference won’t cut it unless they’re over very quickly. Recent history is full of grim examples of the most powerful states launching wars with thin justification, only to find themselves bogged down by militarily weak resistance groups.

But America’s foreign policy elite - our strategic class - seems incapable of learning from those experiences.

Published on Thursday, May 18, 2006 by Knight Ridder

Pentagon Report Said to Find Killing of Iraqi Civilians Deliberate

by Drew Brown

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon report on an incident in which U.S. Marines shot and killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians last November will show that those killings were deliberate and worse than initially reported, a Pennsylvania congressman said Wednesday.

“There was no firefight. There was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed those innocent people,” Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said during a news conference on Iraq. “Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them. And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. That is what the report is going to tell.”

Published on Thursday, May 18, 2006 by TomDispatch.com

How the Bush Administration Deconstructed Iraq

by Michael Schwartz

Media coverage of the Iraq War has generally portrayed the current quagmire as the result of an American failure to achieve a set of otherwise admirable goals. This rather comfortable portrait of the U.S. as a bumbling, even thoroughly incompetent giant overwhelmed by unexpected forces tearing Iraqi society apart is strikingly inaccurate: Most of the death, destruction, and disorganization in the country has, at least in its origins, been a direct consequence of U.S. efforts to forcibly institute an economic and social revolution, while using overwhelming force to suppress resistance to this project. Certainly, the insurgency, the ethno-religious jihadists, and the criminal gangs have all contributed to the descent of Iraqi cities and towns into chaos, but their roles have been secondary and in many cases reactive. The engine of deconstruction was -- and remains -- the U.S.-led occupation.

Published on Thursday, May 18, 2006 by the Progressive

The “War on Terror” Fog

by Ruth Conniff

So the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of “tens of millions of Americans,” according to USA Today’s scoop last week. It amounts to what one source called an effort to construct the “largest database ever assembled in the world” with a goal of tracking every domestic call in the United States.

So much for all those assurances from the President that NSA spying concerned only suspected terrorists, and only calls between the United States and foreign countries.

Published on Thursday, May 18, 2006 by Bloomberg News

Do We Need Protection by Bush, or From Him?

by Margaret Carlson

I didn’t worry when word leaked out that George W. Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to tap phones without a warrant. I haven’t phoned Kabul or West London.

I was a bit concerned about the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, and I did wonder why the administration would bypass the court set up to fast-track wiretap approvals on international calls.

But Congress seemed upset about it. Surely, our lawmakers would rein in the White House. But then Bush named the wiretaps the Terrorist Surveillance Program, the public bought it, and suddenly Congress wasn’t upset enough to do anything.

Then came USA Today on May 11 with the story that the NSA secretly collected a massive database of phone records of millions of domestic calls by ordinary Americas with the help of Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. That’s your call to your broker and mine to my internist and lots of other people’s calls to former and present boyfriends, astrologists and bookies.

`Not Trolling’

``We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans,’‘ the president was quick to say, as if anyone pictured him and Karl Rove personally listening in to see which Republican county chairmen were on Senator John McCain’s friends and family list. Bush often denies the thing he’s not accused of.

But something like the wholesale collection of phone records was what the Constitution -- not to mention any number of Federal Communications Commission regulations -- supposedly safeguards against.

First they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me.

-Martin Niemöller (1892-1984): German Lutheran theologian, pastor,

Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? radio show airs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays on WCBE (90.5 FM). Here are excerpts from his latest “All the News That Isn’t”:

“The good news is that everybody who thought their phones were being tapped can get off their meds now.”

“The president says there was no mining and trolling, although there may have been some sifting and winnowing, and the occasional shaking and baking, stapling and mutilating, lifting and separating, head-turning and coughing.”

-Michael Feldman, “Whad’Ya Know?” PBS radio show

Published on Thursday, May 18, 2006 by the Independent / UK

Western Projects are Bleeding Afghanistan Dry, Says Minister

by David Loyn

Samihullah is just the kind of returned refugee his country needs. Aged 30, with a wife and two children, he was well educated in the camps across the border in Pakistan. After the Taliban were pushed out in 2001, he returned home and joined the Afghan Ministry of Education, where he helped to rebuild the higher-education sector. But not any more.

I found him working as a security guard at the UN’s World Food Programme headquarters in Kabul. With allowances he earns a total of $270 a month there, compared with $50 at the Afghan higher education. The decision to move jobs was not a hard one.

But it is the international system that is sucking Afghanistan dry. Any returnee who speaks English can be guaranteed a job at a higher level in the UN, or the myriad big NGOs that have set up shop in Kabul.

Ashraf Ghani, who was Finance Minister in the first year after the Taliban fell, and is now chancellor of Kabul University, says the international community has failed Afghanistan. Rather than build up the government, it has created a parallel system that has actively weakened the capacity of Afghanistan to run its own affairs.

Mr Ghani’s greatest fear is that by failing to empower the Afghan government, the world could be helping the Taliban to regroup, as they feed on the resentment of people at the slow pace of change. He says “The cheapest way of bringing development and security is government.”

Should Gen. Hayden Be Confirmed or Court-Martialed?

Ray McGovern writes “Gen. Mike Hayden had bowed to administration pressure to skirt the law and violate what until then was NSA’s “First Commandment” - Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on US Citizens.”

Published on Saturday, May 20, 2006 by the Independent/UK

Iraq is Disintegrating as Ethnic Cleansing Takes Hold

Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold on a massive scale.

by Patrick Cockburn in Khanaqin, North-East Iraq

The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. “Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you,” warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.

The same pattern of intimidation, flight and death is being repeated in mixed provinces all over Iraq. By now Iraqis do not have to be reminded of the consequences of ignoring threats.

The sectarian warfare in Baghdad is sparsely reported but the provinces around the capital are now so dangerous for reporters that they seldom, if ever, go there, except as embeds with US troops. Two months ago in Mosul, I met an Iraqi army captain from Diyala who said Sunni and Shia were slaughtering each other in his home province. “Whoever is in a minority runs,” he said.

Published on Saturday, May 20, 2006 by the “http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article548921.ece”

Deep-Sea Fish ‘Plundered’ to Extinction by Trawling

by Ian Herbert

Fish stocks in international waters are being plundered to the point of extinction because governments are failing to protect them, the “http://www.worldwildlife.org/” (WWF) has warned.

Species including tuna and the orange roughy are among those under threat by illegal fishing and the notorious practice of bottom-trawling, by which heavy rollers are dragged over the ocean floor, trapping fish and mammals and destroying entire ecosystems.

The most imperilled species are within international waters, which account for more than half the world’s surface. Many governments are ignoring controls on them and allowing pirate fishing vessels to operate unchecked, said Simon Cripps of WWF’s marine program.

Published on Saturday, May 20, 2006 by the “http://www.ips.org”

US Groups Hail Censure of Washington’s “Terror War”

by William Fisher NEW YORK - Human rights organisations here are hailing the recommendations of the United Nations Committee Against Torture that the United States close its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention centre, cease holding detainees in secret prisons, and stop the practice of “rendering” prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured.

Published on Sunday, May 21, 2006 by the Boulder Daily Camera (Colorado)

Hold the Corrupt Jerks Accountable

by Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas - Looking at the wreckage of the Bush administration leaves one with the depressed query, “Now what?” The only help to the country that can come from this ugly and spectacular crack-up is, in theory, things can’t get worse. This administration is so discredited it cannot talk the country into an unnecessary war with Iran as it did with Iraq. In theory, spending is so out of control it cannot cut taxes for the rich again; the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bushies is already among its lasting legacies.

As we all know, things can always get worse, and often do.

Suppose we really did stop to investigate why and how and who is responsible for the lies, the deformed policies and the inability to govern of this administration. There is a wealth of lessons to be learned about the dangers of ideological delusion and of contempt for governance.

Published on Sunday, May 21, 2006 by the Boulder Daily Camera (Colorado)

The Price of Unchecked Power

by John Young

WACO, Texas - Somewhere in the bowels of our government is a new Pentagon Papers waiting to be read.

The real story of what our leaders knew and what they were thinking when they planned to invade Iraq is waiting to be told.

A preview of that blockbuster is contained in a new book, “The Weapons Detective,” by former U.N. weapons inspector Rod Barton. In addition to addressing the trumped-up case made for war, Barton, who served on the CIA-commissioned Iraq Survey Group, tells of how truth was bottled up.

As early as May 2003, claims of “mobile bioweapons labs” had been debunked by the CIA. A year afterward, an election year, that information was still being suppressed, he writes. A CIA officer said it was “politically not possible” to share the truth with the public.

A revelation of this sort presumably would be probed aggressively by a legislative branch that cared to use any of its checks on unbridged presidential power. Not this one.

New York Times

The Dixie Chicks: America Catches Up With Them

by Jon Pareles

THE DIXIE CHICKS call it “the Incident”: the anti-Bush remark that Natalie Maines, their lead singer, made onstage in London in 2003. “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas,” said Ms. Maines, a Texan herself.

Published on Sunday, May 21, 2006 by the Independent/UK

Where Have All the Icebergs Gone?

The British-funded Ice Patrol is usually busy in May, protecting shipping from rogue bergs. But it’s all gone alarmingly quiet this year.

by Michael Park

Published on Sunday, May 21, 2006 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio)

Neglected Afghanistan Flares Up

by Elizabeth Sullivan

With only 18,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, versus 150,000 in Iraq, the military is spread pretty thin.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the Taliban are back -- and with them questions about whether America neglected the first and most important front in the “war on terror.”

Yet, because of Iraq, precious little money has gone into Afghanistan since U.S. and Afghan forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. That has allowed the Taliban to rebuild, stoking a newly hot war full of suicide bombings, improvised explosives and other techniques borrowed from Iraq.

The 98 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan last year represented a seven-fold increase over 2001, when the Taliban were defeated.

America should have known better.

Published on Sunday, May 21, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times

The Lie Behind the Secrets

The government’s secrets claim crushes the rights of whistle-blowers and mistaken detainees.

by Tom Blanton

Government secrecy in the name of national security has reached record-setting proportions. In case after case, the government has used it as an excuse to thwart lawsuits by whistle-blowers and people with grievances against the United States.

John Edwards: Bush Worse than Nixon

By Ed O’Keefe

ABC News

Sunday 21 May 2006

2004 Vice Presidential contender blasts Bush and readies to run again.

Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., says George W. Bush is the “worst president of our lifetime,” and “absolutely” worse than Watergate-tainted President Richard M. Nixon.

In an exclusive appearance on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” the former presidential and vice presidential contender said of Bush, “He’s done a variety of things - things which are going to take us forever to recover from.

“You have to give Bush and Cheney and gang credit for being good at politics - you know, good at political campaigns,” Edwards added. “They’re very good at dividing the country and taking advantage of it. What they’re not good at is governing, and it shows every single day in this administration. And the country is paying a huge price for that.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/21/MNG85IVK2A1.DTL&feed=rss.news

Taxes triple on teenagers’ savings funds for college

Despite his pledge, Bush plan raises rate

David Cay Johnston, New York Times

Sunday, May 21, 2006

The $69 billion tax cut bill that President Bush signed last week triples tax rates for teenagers with college savings funds, despite Bush’s 1999 pledge to veto any tax increase.

Mine Where Five Died Had History of Violations

The Kentucky mine where five men were killed in an explosion on Saturday had been cited at least 41 times in the last five years for failing to clean up coal dust properly, which can lead to explosions, according to federal records.

Global Warming Predictions Are Underestimated Say Scientists

Climate change models have dramatically underestimated the extent to which global warming will raise temperatures, scientists warn. The flaw means existing predictions for temperature rises will have to be revised upwards by as much as 2 degrees Celsius, suggesting the world could experience a hike of up to 7.7 degrees Celsius by the year 3000.

The Human Ecological Footprint

A future for planet Earth and humanity requires that a third major revolution - a successor to the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions - be initiated by the Earth’s most influential life form. This third revolution will clearly have to be an Ecological one.

Power Lines and Pipelines Draw Closer to Parklands

Under orders from Congress, the Department of Energy and Bureau of Land Management will approve thousands of miles of new power line and pipeline corridors on federal lands across the West in the next 14 months. The energy easements are likely to cross national parks, forests and military bases as well as other public land.

Ray McGovern: Eavesdropping, Gagging, and the Constitution

Is the National Security Agency being “turned against the people,” as the Congressional committee led by Sen. Frank Church warned might happen? We the people cannot know; it’s classified. While acknowledging the NSA’s technological capability as a “sensitive national asset valuable to national defense,” the Church committee sharply warned, “If not properly controlled ... this same capability could be turned against the American people, at great cost to liberty.”

Iraq War Provoking Terror: Amnesty International

“The war on terror and the way it has unfolded is actually premised on the principle that by eroding human rights you can reinforce security,” said Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Irene Khan. “And that is why as part of the war on terror we see restrictions being placed on civil liberties around the world.”

The Delusions of Global Hegemony

In an interview by Tom Engelhardt, Andrew Bacevich discusses his subjects of choice: American militarism and the American imperial mission.

End the Hostile Takeover

Joshua Holland interviews David Sirota about his new book “Hostile Takeover,” and how Big Business is “a system corrupted almost beyond recognition. We have a government in which the greater good is subsumed by corporate interests day in and day out, and where political discourse itself is framed by those very interests.”

Taliban Danger

“The violent combat unfolding in Afghanistan illustrates, four and a half years after the Taliban’s fall from power, their continuing nuisance ability,” notes Le Monde. “Western promises ... have not been followed by results.”

Bush Snubs Gore Film on Global Warming

Is Bush likely to see Al Gore’s documentary about global warming? “Doubt it,” Bush said coolly Monday. “But Bush should watch it,” Gore shot back. In fact, the former Democratic vice president offered to come to the White House any time, any day to show Bush either his documentary or a slide show on global warming that he’s shown more than 1,000 times around the world.

“Yes, I Am Actually Calling Them Racist”

“By all means, reform immigration with this deep obeisance to the Republican right-wing nut faction and their open contempt for ‘foreigners,’” writes Molly Ivins. “But do not pretend for one minute that it is not a craven political bow to racism.”

Insurgents Keep US at Bay in Ramadi

Whole neighborhoods are lawless, too dangerous for police. Some roads are so bomb-laden that US troops won’t use them. Guerrillas attack US troops nearly every time they venture out - and hit their bases with gunfire, rockets or mortars when they don’t.

Which Is the Real Iraq?

“A frustrating aspect of writing about Iraq since the invasion is that the worse the situation becomes, the easier it is for Tony Blair or George Bush to pretend it is improving,” writes Patrick Cockburn. “That is because as Baghdad and Iraq, aside from the three Kurdish provinces, become the stalking ground for death squads and assassins, it is impossible to report the collapse of security without being killed doing so.”

How Iraq Police Reform Became Casualty of War

An initial effort by American civilians to rebuild the Iraq police, slow to get started and undermanned, became overwhelmed by corruption, political vengeance and lawlessness unleashed by the toppling of Saddam Hussein. When the rebuilt skeletal force became a target of the rapidly spreading insurgency, Americans turned to heavily-armed police commando units that had been assembled by the Iraqis. They added firepower, but at a price.

Climate Change Is the Major Challenge Facing the World

David Attenborough says he is no longer skeptical about climate change: “The thing that really convinced me was the graphs connecting the increase of carbon dioxide in the environment and the rise in temperature with the growth of human population and industrialization.”

US Plan to Lure Nurses May Hurt Poor Nations

As the United States runs short of nurses, senators are looking abroad. A little-noticed provision in their immigration bill would throw open the gate to nurses and, some fear, drain them from the world’s developing countries.

Tamara Draut and Cindy Zeldin | Young and Uninsured

According to recently published survey findings, more than half of young adults under age 30 were uninsured for at least one month between 2002 and 2003. Stable health insurance has become the exception, not the rule, for young adults.

Sportswear Makers “Failing to Improve Working Conditions”

The world’s top sportswear manufacturers stand accused of continuing to use a number of foreign factories which deny workers union rights and decent wages, despite claims they have cleaned up their act.

http://www.boston-legal.org/19-stickit/ep19-stickit.shtml#dialogue

http://www.boston-legal.org/script/BL02x19.pdf

Boston Legal

Stick It

Season 2, Episode 19

Written by David E. Kelley

2006 David E. Kelley Productions. All Rights Reserved.

Broadcast: March 14, 2006

Transcribed by Imamess of JSMP for Boston-Legal.org

[Transcribed March 17, 2006]

Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not to be true, I expected the

American people to rise up. Ha! They didn’t.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government

participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize

in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorist suspects, locked them up without

the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We

did.

And now, it’s been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic

surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the

American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven’t.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we’re okay with it all. Torture,

warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial or any trial, war on false

pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there’s no clear indication that young

people even seem to notice.

Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have

protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential

appearance, but we’ve lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech

zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If

you’re wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This! In the United States of America. This!In the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the

only one embarrassed? He sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge.

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That’s a chair for witnesses only.

Alan Shore: Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.

Judge Robert Sanders: Please get out of the chair.

Alan Shore: Actually, I’m sick and tired.

Judge Robert Sanders: Get out of the chair!

Alan Shore: And what I’m most sick and tired of… He get’s up and out of the chair. …is how every time

somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled un-American.

D.A. Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentially, it’s speech time.

Alan Shore: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa

Hughes to stand up to her government and say, “Stick it”!

D.A. Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!

Alan Shore: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its

citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it, they’re smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is

an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down.

You’ve breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.

Alan Shore: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29-year-old, but the book

contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952.

He said, “The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression.

Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic

cloak of anti-Communism.”

Today, it’s the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, “It’s far easier to fight for principles

than to live up to them.”

9

I know we are all afraid. But the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That’s all

Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that

room and speak for her.

“Golf is an ineffectual attempt to put an elusive ball into an obscure hole with implements ill-adapted to the purpose.”
-- Woodrow Wilson

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/25/D8HR4K6G0.html

Deserts Expanding With Jet Stream Shift
May 25 8:20 PM US/Eastern

By ANDREW BRIDGES
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

Deserts in the American Southwest and around the globe are creeping toward heavily populated areas as the “http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22jet+streams%22&sid=breitbart.com” shift, researchers reported Thursday.

The result: Areas already stressed by drought may get even drier.

Satellite measurements made from 1979 to 2005 show that the atmosphere in the subtropical regions both north and south of the equator is heating up. As the atmosphere warms, it bulges out at the altitudes where the northern and southern jet streams slip past like swift and massive rivers of air. That bulging has pushed both jet streams about 70 miles closer to the Earth’s poles.

WHERE TO DEPLOY OUR SOLDIERS NEXT?
Are we going to be an empire or a republic? The concluding paragraph in a long, thoughtful “http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2006.135.2.5” – “A Republic Divided” – by David Bromwich in the Spring volume of Daedalus:

After the fall of Communism, there was an opening that passed. The United States never fully entered the world of nations. The burden of a constitutional opposition today must include education in the significance of this fact. For the sound part of the balance-of-power doctrine always lay in the idea that no one nation can control the world. We may still be the world’s best hope; it should be a comfort that we are no longer its last hope. But we cannot endure half empire and half republic. We will become all one thing or all the other: an empire that expands by the permanent threat of war, and invents power after power to enlarge the authority and reach of the state; or the oldest of modern republics, vigilant against the reappearance of tyranny and firm in repelling any leader who sets himself above the law.

OHIO VOTE COUNT EXPOSED
Or at least seriously called into question – “http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x209190”.

Bernard Weiner

GOP IS COLLAPSING FROM WITHIN
Finally, realize the import of a good share of the conservative Republican movement abandoning the extremism of the Bush Administration. All those conservative generals and Bill Buckley are just the tips of the iceberg of resentment and appalled anger at what Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove are doing to the once-respected Republican Party and to this country in terms of our stalled economy, the humongous deficits being racked up, the unending wars of choice our young troops are dying in (with Iran fast coming up as the next reckless-insanity theater of war), the ever-expanding levels of corruption in the Republican Party, the outsourcing and privatization of so much of traditional, established government functions -- outsourcing even to potential enemies abroad!

Published on Thursday, May 25, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Are You Bush Defenders Just Blowing Smoke, or Do You Really Not Get It?

by Andrew Bard Schmookler

Three recent public statements by defenders of the Bush regime have reminded me that one of the enduring challenges for the student of human affairs is to discover where self-deception ends and the deliberate deception of others begins.

All the members of Congress, of whatever party, take an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution is the heart and soul of America, our highest national value, transcending party.

And so, while one might say that a partisan agenda can be served either by protecting or by investigating a lawless presidency, the difference between the two is fundamental.

Can you Bush defenders really not see the difference? Or do you just want to keep the American people from recognizing what is at stake?

Andrew Bard Schmookler’s website, “http://www.nonesoblind.org/”, is devoted to understanding the roots of America’s present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as “http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0791424200/commondreams-20/ref=nosim” (SUNY Press) and “http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262194147/commondreams-20/ref=nosim” (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states. Email to: “mailto:andythebard@comcast.net”

Published on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 by the “http://www.news.independent.co.uk/”

Climate Change is the Major Problem Facing the World

by David Attenborough

Fire Destroys Bush Presidential Library
WASHINGTON - A tragic fire on Monday destroyed the personal library of President George W. Bush. Both of his books have been lost. Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said the president was devastated, as he had not finished coloring the second one.

Published on Saturday, May 27, 2006 by “http://www.progressive.org”

Impeachment? No. Impalement!

by Will Durst

I don’t know about you guys, but I am so sick and tired of these lying, thieving, holier-than-thou, rightwing, cruel, crude, rude, gauche, coarse, crass, cocky, corrupt, dishonest, debauched, degenerate, dissolute, swaggering, lawyer shooting, bullhorn shouting, infra-structure destroying, buck passing, hysterical, criminal, history defying, finger pointing, puppy stomping, roommate appointing, pretzel choking, collateral damaging, aspersion casting, wedding party bombing, clearcutting, torturing, jobs outsourcing, torture out-sourcing, election fixing, women’s rights eradicating, Medicare cutting, uncouth, spiteful, boorish, vengeful, jingoistic, homophobic, xenophobic, xylophonic, racist, sexist, ageist, fascist, cashist, audaciously stupid, brazenly selfish, lethally ignorant, journalist purchasing, genocide ignoring, corporation kissing, poverty inducing, crooked, coercive, autocratic, primitive, uppity, high-handed, domineering, arrogant, inhuman, inhumane, inbred, inept, insipid, incapable, incompetent, ineffectual, insolent, insincere, know-it-all, snotty, pompous, contemptuous, supercilious, gutless, spineless, shameless, avaricious, noxious, poisonous, imperious, merciless, graceless, tactless, brutish, brutal, Karl Roving, backward thinking, persistent vegetative state grandstanding, nuclear option threatening, evolution denying, irony deprived, consciously depraved, conceited, perverted, peremptory invading, thirty-five day vacation taking, bribe soliciting, hellish, smarty pants, loudmouth, bullying, swell headed, ethics eluding, domestic spying, medical marijuana busting, Halliburtoning, narcissistic, undiplomatic, blustering, malevolent, demonizing, Duke Cunninghamming, hectoring, dry drunk, Muslim baiting, hurricane disregarding, oil company hugging, judge packing, science disputing, faith based advocating, armament selling, nonsense spewing, education ravaging, whiny, insane, unscrupulous, lily livered, greedy (exponential factor fifteen), fraudulent, delusional, CIA outing, redistricting, anybody who disagrees with them slandering, fact twisting, ally alienating, betraying, chickenhawk, sell out, quisling, god and flag waving, scare mongering, Cindy Sheehan libeling, smirking, bastardly, voting machine tampering, sociopathic, cowardly, treasonous, Constitution shredding, oppressive, vulgar, antagonistic, trust funding, nontipping, tyrannizing, peace hating, water and air and ground and media polluting (which is pretty much all the polluting you can get), deadly, traitorous, con man, swindling, pernicious, lethal, illegal, haughty, venomous, virulent, mephitic, egotistic, bloodthirsty, yellowbelly, hypocritical, Oedipal, did I say evil, I’m not sure if I said evil, because I want to make sure I say evil . . . EVIL, cretinous, slime buckets in the Bush Administration that I could just spit.

Impeachment? Hell no. Impalement. Upon the sharp and righteous sword of the people’s justice. Make it a curtain rod. Because it would hurt more.

Yes, political comic, writer, actor, radio talk show host Will Durst received a thesaurus for his birthday, but he didn’t need it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1062760&mesg_id=1062760

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Before I begin, I’ve been asked to make an announcement. Whoever parked 14 black bullet proof S.U.V.’S out front, could you please move them. They are blocking in 14 other black bulletproof S.U.V.’S and they need to get out.

Wow, wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents’ dinner. To just sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I’m dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what; I’m a pretty sound sleeper that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face.

Is he really not here tonight? The one guy who could have helped. By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly on into your table numbers and somebody from the N.S.A. Will be right over with a cocktail. Mrs. Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps,

***

7/3/2006

Another holiday already? As many of us begin to celebrate 11 score and 10 years of a nation conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and some self-evident truths, we recognize and marvel at the founding fathers’ wisdom and foresight.

Most men are guided by selfishness and require a government to keep appetites in check. To expect ordinary men to be influenced by any principles other than self-interest... is to look for what never did and I fear never will happen.

-George Washington, 2/22/1732 - 12/14/1799, 1st President of U.S.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In forming a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

-James Madison, 3/16/1751 - 6/28/1836, 4th President of the US (1809-17), Federalist 51

“It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free.”

-James Madison, 3/16/1751 - 6/28/1836, 4th President of the US (1809-17)

“Tolerate no error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

-Thomas Jefferson, 4/13/1743 - 7/4/1826, 3rd President of the US (1801-1809)

“Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.”

-John Adams, 10/30/1735 - 7/4/1826, 2nd President of the US (1797-1801)

As you expand your review of the many unsavory levels of US history and basic political theories from such as Locke, Rousseau, or Hobbe’s Leviathan, perhaps enlightenment will reinforce the fact that the only oath our public officials take is “to protect and defend the Constitution,” or cause a yearning for news and media sources beyond those with little conscience, sense of decency, or journalistic integrity.

“The element of belief about right social and political relationships that enters into the definition of such names as ideology, rationale, myth is more important, usually, than whether the elements in the ideology are consonant with facts. Thus, that there was no scientific evidence of the existence of witches did not prevent the development of elaborate laws and suppressive programs against them.”

-Thomas P. Jenkin, professor UCLA, The Study of Political Theory (1955)

Much like saying the lack of evidence for wmd, terrorists, terrorism support, or bin Laden cooperation couldn’t prevent an irrational war in Iraq from the No. 1 Flip Flopper, Flim Flammer, and Cut and Runner! Only the Bushies cut and ran from Afghanistan. The only intelligence failure was a lack of IQ above 100 in the White House.

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-1560255692-2

The Bush-Haters Handbook: An A-Z Guide of the Most Appalling Presidency of the Past 100 Years

by Jack Huberman

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The Bush-Haters Handbook is a godsend to those looking for a concise, mordantly entertaining overview of the Bush record. Summarizing, detailing, and bewailing all of the more important Bush administration outrages, and some of the more trivial ones, this book is the brainchild of Jack Huberman, a former Canadian who took up U.S. citizenship just so he could vote against Dubya in 2000. Topics range from abortion, AIDS, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and Ashcroft, to women and workplace safety. Other major topics include budget and taxes, civil liberties, death penalty, defense spending, education, environment, gun control, health care, homeland security, Iraq, judicial nominations, “nucular” weapons, patients rights, privacy, public land, September 11 and the war on terror, and social security. In between are a variety of smaller topics, such as Bush‘s language abilities (featuring a selection of priceless Bushisms). The pages are also enlivened by sidebars, “boxed” lists, and political cartoons.

**

THE IRONY OF THE 1% DOCTRINE

“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743271092/sr=8-1/qid=1151299822/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8108399-4464112?ie=UTF8” book by Ron Suskind will surely be #1 on the best-seller lists. The 1% Doctrine holds that if there is even the slightest – one-percent – chance a terror threat may be real, America will take action as if it’s a 100% certainty.

The implications of that – and of our not having known it was our nation’s policy – seem to me to be huge.

But for the sake of argument, let’s just buy it for a minute. (And then read the book and spend many hours debating it with everyone we know, because what debate could be more important?)

The irony is that when it comes to terror threats, the Administration has decided that a 1% chance is enough to impel decisive action. But when it comes to the global climate change that could wipe out most of the world’s coastal cities and threaten civilization itself, even near certainty is not enough to provoke action.

**

Kathi Sees the Movie

(And One of My Readers Is an Idiot)

Published on June 29, 2006

It gets scarier and scarier. Wait til you see how the Senate is attacking the scientific community and risking our future. But let’s ease into it this way:

Kathi Derevan: “We finally went to see An Inconvenient Truth last night. Now, may I say, I was going more out of duty than desire. I just couldn’t imagine it was going to be more than a lecture, and maybe a dry one at that. Wow. I am going to try to get everyone I know and everyone they know to see it. Amazing.”

And now let’s ratchet it up:

Roger in Calgary: “The scientific community is NOT of one mind as you insist. Please go here or here. The movie is rife with distortions and falsehoods. I consider you to be fair-minded but on this issue, you are completely closed-minded.”

F First off, can we avoid use of words like “distortion” and “falsehood”? Unless you think Gore and the rest of the scientific community are on some sort of evil mission to save civilization, shouldn’t you use words like “unsupported conclusions and inaccuracies” to describe what you think the film is guilty of?

But see, here’s the thing: It’s not like the space shuttle, where every last detail needs to be perfect or you shouldn’t launch. Even if there are scientists who question some of this – as until recently there were scientists who questioned any causal connection between smoking and cancer – do we really need every single scientist in the world to agree with every single word of the movie before we see the bigger picture and take action?

That question holds even if there are truly independent scientists who have reached the same conclusions as those that Exxon, et al, have funded (in the grand scientific tradition of the Tobacco Institute before them).

Here’s what the Associated Press found when it surveyed climatologists:

The nation’s top climate scientists are giving “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.

The former vice president’s movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets — mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.

. . .

The tiny errors scientists found weren’t a big deal, “far, far fewer and less significant than the shortcoming in speeches by the typical politician explaining an issue,” said Michael MacCracken, who used to be in charge of the nation’s global warming effects program and is now chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.

But now here’s where it gets really scary:

The Republican Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works has vehemently attacked the AP for this report, demanding, for example, that AP list all 19 scientists it talked to, not just the five it quoted.

I don’t suppose AP would mind doing this, and may already have done so. (Would that we could say the same for the secret list of participants in Dick Cheney’s secret 2001 energy task force – the list that even a GAO lawsuit could not pry loose for public inspection.)

But what an astonishing position for the Republican Majority on this committee to take!

The headline of their press release: AP INCORRECTLY CLAIMS SCIENTISTS PRAISE GORE’S MOVIE.

Doesn’t that suggest to the casual reader that scientists don’t praise his movie?

Yet they all but unanimously do.

(Bear in mind, the oil industry controls the executive branch of our government – run by two former oil men – and wields huge influence on the Republican Congress. Hence it’s just possible the AP is more objective about this than the Republican Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works.)

So how does the Committee justify its headline?

Ø They have a professor from James Cook University in Australia calling Gore’s arguments “so weak they are pathetic.” Which I guess should put the lie to the notion that 6.5 billion humans burning hundreds of billions of gallons of gasoline and lord knows how much coal into the air each year could have any affect.

Ø And they have this wonderful disclosure:

Gore’s film … cites a review of scientific literature by the journal Science which claimed 100% consensus on global warming, but [MIT Professor Richard] Lindzen pointed out the study was flat out incorrect.

“A study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words “global climate change” produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it,” Lindzen wrote in an op-ed in the June 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal.

See? Gore cites an article in Science that said 928 peer-reviewed articles had abstracts when only 913 did – barely 98.3% of them!

Worse, according to this, “several” of those 913 (four? six?) actually disagreed with the consensus view.

So Gore claimed her study found that “none” of the 928 peer-reviewed articles disagreed with the consensus (which it did) when really, if Lindzen has this right (he gets Naomi Oreskes’s name wrong; it is Naomi, not Nancy), her study should have said “almost none.”

If none of the 928 disagrees, maybe it’s worth taking seriously. But if almost none disagrees, well, then, that’s enough doubt for the Wall Street Journal . . . for Exxon . . . for the Republican majority on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee . . . and for our President – who has shown no more interest in seeing this film than he showed in the explicit CIA warning he received at Blair House on January 7, 2001, shortly before taking office, of a “tremendous,” “immediate” threat from Osama Bin Laden. He ignored both, each time focusing on Iraq instead.

Folks: the human ecosphere is in serious trouble. And the guys running the show are straight from the mold of the Tobacco Institute. Only more powerful.

There is an idiot who reads this web site who is convinced I am “ashamed to tell the truth” and will not post the link to that Senate Republican Majority Report. (Sportsmanship inhibits me from publishing even his first name; but he knows who he is.)

And there is a very bright guy named Gennady, who has read the Wall Street Journal column quoted in the Senate press release and writes to say that he won’t, therefore, go see the movie. Tobacco guys see no link between smoking and cancer? That’s good enough for him.

And I tell you: Go see this movie! Read Naomi (not Nancy) Oreskes’s article in Science!

And if having done that you remain certain the world need not take action, so be it. But my guess is that you will decide that the Republicans working so hard to debunk this movie are doing you and your kids grave harm.

© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Andrew Tobias

**

10,000 EPA Scientists Protest Library Closures

In an extraordinary letter of protest, representatives for 10,000 US Environmental Protection Agency scientists are asking Congress to stop the Bush administration from closing the agency’s network of technical research libraries.

AWOL: GI War Resistance in Canada

A Report by Geoffrey Millard and Sari Gelzer

The Department of Defense has recently reported that 8,000 members of the US military are listed as AWOL. Currently 24 war resisters are known to be in Canada trying to establish citizenship, with an estimated several hundred more living there underground.

Did Bush Commit War Crimes?

Rosa Brooks points out, “The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt the Bush administration a stinging rebuke, declaring in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that military commissions for trying terrorist suspects violate both US military law and the Geneva Convention. But the real blockbuster in the Hamdan decision is the court’s holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to the conflict with al-Qaeda - a holding that makes high-ranking Bush administration officials potentially subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act.”

The Iraqi Distraction

The Head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Dave Richards, has declared that the resurgence of the Taliban is partly due to the international community’s distraction with Iraq. Pakistan denies supporting the Taliban to Condi Rice, whose support for President Hamid Karzai may sink him still further in the estimation of his countrymen.

Report: US-Led Afghan Mission Is Failing

Drug policy analysts say “militaristic” attempts to eradicate poppy crop is driving farmers to Taliban.

Published on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Pariah President: How Bush is Damaging US Standing Abroad and Threatening National Security

by Heather Wokusch

It’s embarrassing to have a president who’s so universally loathed. Bush arrives in Austria today and will be greeted by scorn and widespread protests, not to mention Cindy Sheehan. Random posters have been up across Vienna since April, depicting Bush’s face and a German-language caption reading “A mass murderer is coming.”

It’s hard to imagine where Bush actually is welcome. A Pew opinion poll released last week found that citizens across the globe are losing confidence in the US leader, with his approval ratings plummeting, for example, to 15% in France, 7% in Spain and a 3% in Turkey. Support for the administration’s militaristic policies has also dramatically waned, with majorities in only 2 of the 14 countries surveyed favoring the so-called war on terror, and similar majorities citing the US military presence in Iraq as a greater threat to world peace than Iran.

In other words, people around the world are beginning to understand that the deteriorating security situation in Iraq is linked to the sharp increase in global terrorism - and a potential threat to their own safety. And they wouldn’t be heartened by Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) April 2006 assessment of National Counterterrorism Center data, which found an increase of over 5,000% in the number of global terrorist attacks and over 2,000% in the number of terrorist-related deaths in the three years following the US invasion of Iraq. Yet the administration says the war on terror is making us safer.

It’s troubling that as international disapproval of Bush and his administration’s policies increases, so does anti-Americanism in general; the Pew poll found that “favorable opinions of the United States” have plummeted since last year in the majority of the 15 countries it surveyed, including in Germany, Russia and India.

So perhaps it’s fitting that Bush is now visiting Austria, a country which at one point was a powerful empire controlling lands as far flung as Mexico, but today fights to have its voice heard on the world stage. The lesson is clear: Imperialistic overreach and its requisite focus on military power can eventually make the mighty crumble.

Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer based in Austria and can be reached via her website: www.heatherwokusch.com.

GOP Kills Bill to Police Halliburton
By Bob Geiger
AlterNet

Tuesday 20 June 2006

Republicans in Congress have made it clear they’re willing to fight for military contractors’ right to lie, cheat and defraud taxpayers.

I suppose it’s old news at this point that the Bush administration lied us into the Iraq war and that the cost of this mess will be fully realized by the next generation when Bush leaves office with the biggest budget deficit in U.S. history.

Published on Friday, June 23, 2006 by the “http://www.sfgate.com”

It’s Official: We Live in Hot Times
Study of data on global warming supports earlier findings that recent decades have been the hottest in 400 years

by Keay Davidson

Earth’s average temperature has been hotter over the last quarter century than during the previous four centuries and possibly much longer, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report Thursday that substantially supports the findings of a controversial 1998 climate study.

Published on Thursday, June 22, 2006 by “http://www.reuters.com”

CEOs Earn 262 Times Pay of Average Worker

by Kamal Taha Chief executive officers in the United States earned 262 times the pay of an average worker in 2005, the second-highest level in the 40 years for which there is data, a nonprofit think-tank said on Wednesday.

In fact, a CEO earned more in one workday than an average worker earned in 52 weeks, said the “http://www.epinet.org”in Washington, D.C.

The typical worker’s compensation averaged just under $42,000 for the year, while the average CEO brought home almost $11 million, EPI said.

Published on Saturday, June 17, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

The Right Divine of Kings to Govern Wrong

by Christopher Brauchli

The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong.
-- Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

Every so often Mr. Bush and his friends offer up little surprises that are amusing when not alarming. That’s what makes it so much fun to have George Bush in the White House.

Published on Saturday, June 10, 2006

How Many Iraqis I Know Are Dead?

by Aaron Glantz

How many Iraqis I know are dead?

Last Thursday, the BBC broadcast gruesome footage from Ishaqi, a small community about 60 miles North of Baghdad. The Pentagon has already dismissed allegations of a massacre there, but the video tells the story clearly enough. Bodies of 11 Iraqi civilians are riddled with bullet holes, among them a 75 year old grandmother and a 6 month old baby shot in the head and stomach.

Watching the video now from the comfort of California, I realize that I have been to this small town.

The district is called Ishaqi but the raid was in a small farming village is called Abu Sifa. When I visited in March 2004, cattle grazed on the side of the road and date palms sway in the wind. The mighty Tigris flowed near-by.

Even then the community was outraged – about a raid that occurred the previous Summer. One of the women of the village, Rejan Mohammed Hassen, stood in front of the rubble that was her house and recalled when the US military took her sons to prison and destroyed her home.

“Early in the morning they took us from the home and asked us to stand around,” she recalled. “When we questioned them, the Americans started to beat the women. After that, two tanks came to our house and started to shoot using the machine gun on top of the tank and then two missiles from the head of the tank.”

By the time the US Army left Abu Siffa an hour later -- 83 men from the village had been rounded up including all four of Rejan Mohammed Hassen’s sons. Villagers told me the Americans didn’t find the arms caches they were looking for, but the soldiers did confiscate several trucks and large sums of cash. Nine months later, 15 year old Ahmed Itar Hassen was one of only two villagers have emerged from custody.

“For the first six days we all staying in open field surrounded by razor wire,” he told me. “There was no tent and no mat under us and we were exposed to the sun and the rain.”

He said the soldiers provided no toilet facilities leaving the men to relieve themselves in the open.

“It was impossible to sleep,” he said. “Every night the American soldiers threw pebbles at us all night long.”

Eventually, Ahmed said he was transferred to Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. There, he was held in solitary confinement -- in a 3 foot by 4 foot cell -- the same cell used to keep political prisoner prisoners during the reign of Saddam Hussein. He said he was not allowed outside to exercise. He says he was not allowed to see his family and not allowed to see a lawyer.

“At night they threw a dog in the cell to frighten me,” he said. “We call it a wolf-dog, the big police dog. A soldier just put in my cell every night. Every night a different soldier.”

Ahmed says the dog went away after he complained to a Red Cross observer who came to his cell. After nine months in prison, the American military released Ahmed Itar Hassen -- never charging him with any crime.

In March 2004, Rejan Mohammed Hassen waited in the wreckage of her home for her sons to return from prison. She hadn’t been able to see them since the US military took them away and had no idea when they’ll return.

“It’s just an occupation,” she said. “There’s no freedom. Everything they say about democracy and human rights it’s all a lie.”

After watching the video of 11 civilians dead in Ishaqi, I wonder if she is still alive. Because they live in a small village, I don’t have a phone number to call. Perhaps she is dead.

Pacifica radio network reporter Aaron Glantz is author of the new book “How America Lost Iraq” (Tarcher/Penguin). More information at www.aaronglantz.com.

Published on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 by “http://www.truthdig.com”

Without DeLay, Has the GOP Lost its Moral Compass?

by Molly Ivins

Gee, the Republicans seem to have lost their moral compass since Tom DeLay quit. Who knew it could get worse without that pillar of rectitude from Texas? What a snakes’ nest of corruption and nastiness.

The latest involves Speaker Denny Hastert and a land deal.

Hastert had sold to a developer a 69-acre portion of a 195-acre farm that had been purchased in his wife’s name. The developer also purchased an adjacent plot of roughly equal size owned in trust by Hastert and two of his “longtime supporters.” The area west of Chicago is growing madly, and Hastert—through an earmark appropriation process—dedicated $207 million in taxpayer dollars as the first appropriation on the Prairie Parkway, which will run 5.5 miles from the Hastert land. Went through in the fall of 2005. Three months later, Hastert and his partners sold the land for a $3-million total profit, $1.8 million to Hastert.

In a staggering display of brass-faced gall, Hastert is now claiming a freeway running 5.5 miles from his land is not close enough to affect the price of the farm. Then what did the developer pay the extra $3 million for? Hastert is said to be furious with the Sunlight Foundation, which broke the story, and the Chicago newspapers, which pounced on it gleefully. This is what I don’t get about Republicans. Apparently they think they are genuinely entitled to get these special deals.

Also making news is California Rep. Jerry Lewis, who is in deep with a lobbying firm that is El Stinko. This wouldn’t matter so much if Lewis were just another congressman, but he is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the one that hands out the money. Lewis’ family and friends have profited nicely from contractors and lobbyists who court his favor. Such cozy arrangements.

Just for example, one Lewis aide, who had gone to work for the lobbying firm and then returned to the congressman’s staff, was paid $2 million by the firm in 2004 while on the public payroll.

With a fine sense of ethical behavior, members of the House have voted to continue earmarking, including $500,000 for a swimming pool in Lewis’ district (bringing the total federal money allotted for this pool to $1 million).

Meanwhile, back on the Jack Abramoff and related fronts (lest we forget good old Dusty Foggo, ex-No. 3 at the CIA), a letter had been found, despite initial denials by the Department of Homeland Security, from the now-convicted ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham recommending that the government use the limo firm that allegedly ferried whores to the poker parties given by defense contractors who were paying off Cunningham.

Don’t Democrats have scandals, too? Yes, Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana is in deep doo-doo. Among other things, the Fibbies found $90,000 in cash in his freezer. So the Democratic caucus kicked him off his important seat on the Ways and Means Committee. Republicans just keep on trucking.

Meanwhile, the entire Department of Homeland Security is beginning to look like a Republican playground. According to The New York Times, over 90 former officials at DHS or the White House Office of Homeland Security are now “executives, consultants or lobbyists for companies that collectively do billions of dollars’ worth of domestic security business.” Now isn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?

Can Republicans run anything right? Where is the CEO administration that was supposed to straighten out government? It may be that Bush deserves credit for having initially opposed a DHS, knowing that Republicans would make a giant new federal agency. But he later changed his mind and supported the thing. The rest of us thought we were getting an agency that would provide homeland security, but what an endless saga of misspent money, stupid decisions, waste, fraud, abuse and political logrolling—and still no port protection.

It seems to me there is a direct connection between the Republicans’ inability to run anything governmental (”Heckuva job, Brownie”) and the fact that they don’t believe in government. The simplest purposes of government have long been defined for us—to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. It is, or should be, a benign enterprise, making life better for citizens.

I carry no special brief for government—many years of studying the Texas Legislature will disenchant anyone. But if you are put in charge of government, the least you can do is run it well. Bill Clinton took government seriously—he was interested in how to make it work better, interested in government policy. Clinton declared the era of Big Government over and indeed pruned the federal structure and finished with a surplus. Bush is giving us fat, bloated, inefficient, corrupt government, all of it running on a huge deficit—not counting the expense and growing body count in Iraq. As the man said: “2,500 is just a number.”

Published on Monday, July 3, 2006 by the “http://www.recordonline.com”(Orange County, Florida)

King George of America, This Letter is For You

by Beth Quinn

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that connected them with another, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The history of the present King George of America is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts about the excesses of King George of America be submitted to a candid world:

Published on Saturday, July 1, 2006 by “http://www.afp.com/english/home/”

Guantanamo May Have 30-40 “Real” Cases: OSCE Inspector

The Guantanamo camp may have only 30 to 40 “real” cases and the US detention center should be shut down by 2007, the president of the Belgian Senate, who headed a European inspection team there, said.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/etc/script.html

***

7/4/06

More history...

I think one of the most heinous rhetorical figments from the right wingers in charge of our country are those comparisons equating various aspects of attacking Iraq and WWII. The only valid analogy is more accurately with Vietnam, but it is easy to see the ever creeping and expanding corruptness of the American Nazis described below.

Published on Monday, July 19, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: “It Can Happen Here”

by Thom Hartmann

The Republican National Committee has recently removed from the top-level pages of their website an advertisement interspersing Hitler’s face with those of John Kerry and other prominent Democrats. This little-heralded step has freed former Enron lobbyist and current RNC chairman Ed Gillespie to resume his attacks on Americans who believe some provisions of Bush’s PATRIOT Act, his detention of American citizens without charges, his willingness to let corporations write legislation, and the so-called “Free Speech Zones” around his public appearances are all steps on the road to American fascism.

The RNC’s feeble attempt to equate Hitler and Democrats was short-lived, but it brings to mind the first American Vice President to point out the “American fascists” among us.

Although most Americans remember that Harry Truman was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Vice President when Roosevelt died in 1945 (making Truman President), Roosevelt had two previous Vice Presidents - John N. Garner (1933-1941) and Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945). In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?”

Vice President Wallace’s answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

“The really dangerous American fascists,” Wallace wrote, “are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word “fascist” - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)

As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: “A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.”

Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled “The Doctrine of Fascism” he wrote, “If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government.” But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.

In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the “Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni” - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Corporations were still privately owned, but now instead of having to sneak their money to folks like Tom DeLay and covertly write legislation, they were openly in charge of the government.

Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out in his 1944 Times article his concern about the same happening here in America:

“ If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.”

Nonetheless, at that time there were few corporate heads who had run for political office, and, in Wallace’s view, most politicians still felt it was their obligation to represent We The People instead of corporate cartels. “American fascism will not be really dangerous,” he added in the next paragraph, “until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information...”

Noting that, “Fascism is a worldwide disease,” Wallace further suggest that fascism’s “greatest threat to the United States will come after the war” and will manifest “within the United States itself.”

In Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here,” a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy as anti-American. When Windrip becomes President, he opens a Guantanamo-style detention center, and the viewpoint character of the book, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, flees to Canada to avoid prosecution under new “patriotic” laws that make it illegal to criticize the President.

As Lewis noted in his novel, “the President, with something of his former good-humor [said]: ‘There are two [political] parties, the Corporate and those who don’t belong to any party at all, and so, to use a common phrase, are just out of luck!’ The idea of the Corporate or Corporative State, Secretary [of State] Sarason had more or less taken from Italy.” And, President “Windrip’s partisans called themselves the Corporatists, or, familiarly, the ‘Corpos,’ which nickname was generally used.”

Lewis, the first American writer to win a Nobel Prize, was world famous by 1944, as was his book “It Can’t Happen Here.” And several well-known and powerful Americans, including Prescott Bush, had lost businesses in the early 1940s because of charges by Roosevelt that they were doing business with Hitler. These events all, no doubt, colored Vice President Wallace’s thinking when he wrote:

“ Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after ‘the present unpleasantness’ ceases.”

Fascists have an agenda that is primarily economic. As the Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com) notes, fascism/corporatism is “an attempt to create a ‘modern’ version of feudalism by merging the ‘corporate’ interests with those of the state.”

Feudalism, of course, is one of the most stable of the three historic tyrannies (kingdoms, theocracies, feudalism) that ruled nations prior to the rise of American republican democracy, and can be roughly defined as “rule by the rich.”

Thus, the neo-feudal/fascistic rich get richer (and more powerful) on the backs of the poor and the middle class, an irony not lost on author Thomas Frank, who notes in his new book “What’s The Matter With Kansas” that, “You can see the paradox first-hand on nearly any Main Street in middle America - ‘going out of business’ signs side by side with placards supporting George W. Bush.”

The businesses “going out of business” are, in fascist administrations, usually those of locally owned small and medium-sized companies. As Wallace wrote, some in big business “are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage.” He added, “Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise [companies]. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.”

But American fascists who would want former CEOs as President, Vice President, House Majority Whip, and Senate Majority Leader, and write legislation with corporate interests in mind, don’t generally talk to We The People about their real agenda, or the harm it does to small businesses and working people. Instead, as Hitler did with the trade union leaders and the Jews, they point to a “them” to pin with blame and distract people from the harms of their economic policies.

In a comment prescient of George W. Bush’s recent suggestion that civilization itself is at risk because of gays, Wallace continued:

“ The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination...”

But even at this, Wallace noted, American fascists would have to lie to the people in order to gain power. And, because they were in bed with the nation’s largest corporations - who could gain control of newspapers and broadcast media - they could promote their lies with ease.

“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact,” Wallace wrote. “Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy.”

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added, “They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”

Finally, Wallace said, “The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. ... Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.”

This liberal vision of an egalitarian America in which very large businesses and media monopolies are broken up under the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (which Reagan stopped enforcing, leading to the mergers & acquisitions frenzy that continues to this day) was the driving vision of the New Deal (and of “Trust Buster” Teddy Roosevelt a generation earlier).

As Wallace’s President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said when he accepted his party’s renomination in 1936 in Philadelphia, “...out of this modern civilization, economic royalists [have] carved new dynasties.... It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction.... And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man....”

Speaking indirectly of the fascists that Wallace would directly name almost a decade later, Roosevelt brought the issue to its core: “These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power.”

But, he thundered in that speech, “Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power!”

In 2004, we again stand at the same crossroad Roosevelt and Wallace confronted during the Great Depression and World War II. Fascism is again rising in America, this time calling itself “compassionate conservatism.” The RNC’s behavior today eerily parallels the day in 1936 when Roosevelt said, “In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for.”

It’s particularly ironic that the CEOs and lobbyists who run the Republican National Committee would have chosen to put Hitler’s fascist face into one of their campaign commercials, just before they launched a national campaign against gays and while they continue to arrest people who wear anti-Bush T-shirts in public places.

President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace’s warnings have come full circle. Which is why it’s so critical that this November we join together at the ballot box to stop this most recent incarnation of feudal fascism from seizing complete control of our nation.

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk radio show. www.thomhartmann.com. His most recent books are “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight,” “Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights,” and “We The People: A Call To Take Back America.” His new book, “What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy,” based on four years of research in Jefferson’s personal letters, begins shipping this week from Random House/Harmony.

**

I found the complete essay by Wallace:

“http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm”
Henry A. Wallace
An article in the New York Times, April 9, 1944.

The Danger of American Fascism

Henry A. Wallace

An article in the New York Times, April 9, 1944.

From Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord, p. 259.

On returning from my trip to the West in February, I received a request from The New York Times to write a piece answering the following questions:

What is a fascist?

How many fascists have we?

How dangerous are they?

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.

The perfect type of fascist throughout recent centuries has been the Prussian Junker, who developed such hatred for other races and such allegiance to a military clique as to make him willing at all times to engage in any degree of deceit and violence necessary to place his culture and race astride the world. In every big nation of the world are at least a few people who have the fascist temperament. Every Jew-baiter, every Catholic hater, is a fascist at heart. The hoodlums who have been desecrating churches, cathedrals and synagogues in some of our larger cities are ripe material for fascist leadership.

The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. They are doing this even in those cases where they hope to have profitable connections with German chemical firms after the war ends. They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.

American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.

The European brand of fascism will probably present its most serious postwar threat to us via Latin America. The effect of the war has been to raise the cost of living in most Latin American countries much faster than the wages of labor. The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives. Our chemical and other manufacturing concerns are all too often ready to let the Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American companies can work out an arrangement which will enable them to charge high prices to the consumer inside the United States. Following this war, technology will have reached such a point that it will be possible for Germans, using South America as a base, to cause us much more difficulty in World War III than they did in World War II. The military and landowning cliques in many South American countries will find it attractive financially to work with German fascist concerns as well as expedient from the standpoint of temporary power politics.

Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.

Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after “the present unpleasantness” ceases:

The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups. Likewise, many people whose patriotism is their proudest boast play Hitler’s game by retailing distrust of our Allies and by giving currency to snide suspicions without foundation in fact.

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust of both Britain and Russia. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

Several leaders of industry in this country who have gained a new vision of the meaning of opportunity through co-operation with government have warned the public openly that there are some selfish groups in industry who are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage. We all know the part that the cartels played in bringing Hitler to power, and the rule the giant German trusts have played in Nazi conquests. Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.

It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology facilitates dictatorship. What we must understand is that the industries, processes, and inventions created by modern science can be used either to subjugate or liberate. The choice is up to us. The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. It was Mussolini’s vaunted claim that he “made the trains run on time.” In the end, however, he brought to the Italian people impoverishment and defeat. It was Hitler’s claim that he eliminated all unemployment in Germany. Neither is there unemployment in a prison camp.

Democracy to crush fascism internally must demonstrate its capacity to “make the trains run on time.” It must develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels. As long as scientific research and inventive ingenuity outran our ability to devise social mechanisms to raise the living standards of the people, we may expect the liberal potential of the United States to increase. If this liberal potential is properly channeled, we may expect the area of freedom of the United States to increase. The problem is to spend up our rate of social invention in the service of the welfare of all the people.

The worldwide, agelong struggle between fascism and democracy will not stop when the fighting ends in Germany and Japan. Democracy can win the peace only if it does two things:

Speeds up the rate of political and economic inventions so that both production and, especially, distribution can match in their power and practical effect on the daily life of the common man the immense and growing volume of scientific research, mechanical invention and management technique.

Vivifies with the greatest intensity the spiritual processes which are both the foundation and the very essence of democracy.

The moral and spiritual aspects of both personal and international relationships have a practical bearing which so-called practical men deny. This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy. Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.

Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.

It should also be evident that exhibitions of the native brand of fascism are not confined to any single section, class or religion. Happily, it can be said that as yet fascism has not captured a predominant place in the outlook of any American section, class or religion. It may be encountered in Wall Street, Main Street or Tobacco Road. Some even suspect that they can detect incipient traces of it along the Potomac. It is an infectious disease, and we must all be on our guard against intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction. But if we put our trust in the common sense of common men and “with malice toward none and charity for all” go forward on the great adventure of making political, economic and social democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail.

**

Published on Saturday, July 1, 2006 by the “http://www.boston.com”

Mirror Image
Could Iraq be Vietnam in reverse? What George F. Kennan’s 1966 Senate testimony can tell us about Iraq in 2006.

by Nicholas Thompson

``Do you see, as some of your critics do, a parallel between what’s going on in Iraq now and Vietnam?” President George W. Bush was asked at a press conference earlier this month. The president, unsurprisingly, responded ``No.” ``Because there’s a duly-elected government; 12 million people voted,” he said. ``Obviously, there is sectarian violence, but this is, in many ways, religious in nature, and I don’t see the parallels.”

It is possible to quibble with the president’s explanation. There was religious unrest in Vietnam in 1963, when Buddhists protested the Christian-led government, and South Vietnam held presidential elections in 1967. Yet President Bush is right on the larger point: Iraq is not Vietnam. Of course, detractors have long compared the two conflicts in order to suggest that the war in Iraq is an unwinnable quagmire. But if anything, the war in Iraq looks like the Vietnam War in reverse.

Consider the respective arcs of the two conflicts. In Vietnam, the United States entered a divided country with a simmering civil war and left behind a nasty tyranny. In Iraq, the US has unseated a nasty tyranny but may leave behind a simmering civil war that could lead to a divided country. In Vietnam, fearing a nuclear clash with the Soviet Union or a confrontation with China, the US slid in slowly: first sending technical advisers, then undertaking search and destroy missions, and ultimately engaging in a full-throttle war. In Iraq, the US began full throttle, switched to search and destroy, and is now seriously debating whether to begin sliding out. In Vietnam, America was fighting to uproot communism. Now, it’s fighting to plant democracy.

By this logic, the situation in Iraq today should be compared to the winter of 1966, when the US was about a year into major troop deployments in Vietnam. In 1966, America had a bit more than 150,000 troops engaged; now the US has just under that number. In both cases, about 2,500 soldiers had already died in action. This week, the Senate has held its first major hearings on the war since serious fighting began. The same thing happened regarding Vietnam in February of 1966. And it is these 1966 hearings-in particular the testimony of George F. Kennan, the framer of America’s Cold War ``containment” policy-which offer vital insight into the current situation in Mesopotamia.

. . .

In 1964, after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Arkansas Senator and Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee William Fulbright voted in favor of escalating the war in Vietnam. By 1966, however, he had begun to change his mind. He convened a hearing before his committee to debate the issue, calling Kennan, among others.

Kennan was likely chosen because of a recent article he’d written for The Washington Post, criticizing both the war and war protesters who seemed to prefer the Viet Cong flag to America’s. What he said that day on the Senate floor was even more controversial. Fred Friendly, the president of CBS, resigned when his network refused to broadcast it live.

Kennan opened with a statement that likely resonates with many Americans today. If not already involved in the war, he said, ``I would know of no reason why we should wish to become so involved, and I could think of several reasons why we should wish not to.” Recent opinion polls show that far fewer Americans would have supported attacking Iraq three years ago if they’d known how much it would cost in dollars and lives, the strength of the insurgency it would inspire, and of course how few threatening weapons Saddam Hussein actually had.

As a foreign policy realist, and a longtime skeptic of America’s ability to change the world for the better, Kennan made the case that the only legitimate reason for staying in Vietnam was the fear that an abrupt departure might harm our reputation and make a bad situation worse. ``A precipitate and disorderly withdrawal could represent in present circumstances a disservice to our own interests, and even to world peace,” Kennan said. President Bush and others have made a similar case for staying the course in Iraq. ``If we fail in Iraq, it’s going to embolden al Qaeda types. It will weaken the resolve of moderate nations to stand up to the Islamic fascists. It will cause people to lose their nerve and not stay strong,” he said at the same press conference where he was asked about similarities between Vietnam and Iraq.

Kennan, however, took knives to the argument that leaving meant showing weakness. He pointed out the waste of American resources in Vietnam, and the cost of focusing so much attention on one remote country. Again, the same has been said of Iraq. The invasion has won the United States few friends, and many enemies, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and distracted us from other issues-including serious problems in Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and the ongoing fight against al Qaeda. ``However justified our action may be in our own eyes, it has failed to win either enthusiasm or confidence, even among peoples normally friendly to us,” Kennan said.

Kennan articulated a plan whereby America would switch from offense to defense in Vietnam, and begin to seek a peace settlement- even on terms less desirable than its initial objectives. ``[T]here is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant and unpromising objectives,” he said. Kennan, were he alive today, would have little patience for the Bush administration’s frequent call to stay in Iraq because a commitment was made and so many soldiers have already died. Just because the US had shot itself in one foot, he told the Senate committee, didn’t mean it should fire away at the other.

. . .

Kennan concluded his Senate testimony with a well-known quotation from John Quincy Adams. ``[America] goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” said our sixth president. ``She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

Kennan used Adams’s words to argue for a brand of realism necessary when the country overextends itself, as many today argue the Bush administration has.

Since the United States became the world’s most powerful nation, it has constantly oscillated between idealism and realism. The idealists try to remake the world in our image; their successors pull back, focusing on issues at home and negotiating international affairs more cautiously. Eisenhower put on the brakes after Harry Truman declared that this country would do anything in support of democracy. Despite Kennan’s best efforts, it would take Richard Nixon’s détente to snuff the ``bear any burden” approach of the Kennedy and Johnson years.

So perhaps it’s no coincidence that the Iraq War looks like Vietnam in reverse-it may have to do with where the two conflicts fell in this peculiarly American cycle of idealism and realism. The realists were still powerful when the Vietnam War began, but were absent when the country invaded Iraq. Now, though, voices of caution are starting to reassert themselves, and the idealists are losing sway, as people recognize the costs of the current war.

``Now, gentlemen, I don’t know exactly what John Quincy Adams had in mind when he spoke those words,” Kennan said at the end of his time before the Senate committee. ``But I think that, without knowing it, he spoke very directly and very pertinently to us here today.” The same could be said about George Kennan.

Nicholas Thompson, an editor at “http://www.wired.com” Magazine, is writing a book for Henry Holt and Co. about the Cold War diplomats George Kennan and Paul Nitze.

***

7/27/06

On the political front I have to say thank God for Israel, takin’ on the terrorists ... you can’t be disappointed with that, right? I still think George W is doing a great job you’re not still upset with his leadership are you? If only he could run again in ‘08. My buddy Newt should be ready to take over when his term ends, if not Newt, I’ll be routing for George Allen, what about you, got any favorite candidates waiting in the wings for a big disappointment?

Given your glee at the brain dead violence and terrorism being perpetrated by the US in Iraq, it is at least consistent that the indiscriminate blood lust of the Israelis also pleases your heart. Pulling the trigger on a missile from an airplane is no less fatal or tragic or barbarian for the innocent victims than the idea of a beheading. To thank God for more killing seems to violate one of the Commandments... and comes nowhere near the suggestions for godliness and a heavenly path heard in the Sermon on the Mount. To contrast the plausible or seemingly reasonable justifications for “takin’ on the terrorists,” a common reason for using the stereotype of calling the Jewish people immoral is seen if you take the time to re-read the Merchant of Venice. Their irrational aggression here too is creating more terrorists than they can ever kill, and will arrive at a military solution no sooner than the US will, and the best King George XLIII can give us is “Just wait” for an infinite time period.

Putin, in a barbed reply, said: “We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly.” Bush’s face reddened as he tried to laugh off the remark. “Just wait,” Bush replied about Iraq.

“Waiting to Get Blown Up”

Some soldiers in the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division - interviewed over four days on base and on patrols - say they have grown increasingly disillusioned about their ability to quell the violence and their reason for fighting. The battalion of more than 750 people arrived in Baghdad from Kuwait in March, and since then, six soldiers have been killed and 21 wounded. “It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we’re driving around waiting to get blown up, that’s the most honest answer I could give you,” said Spec. Tim Ivey, 28, of San Antonio, a muscular former backup fullback for Baylor University. “You lose a couple friends and it gets hard.” “No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about what we do,” said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader.

Perhaps in another small example, if you knew someone who was paralyzed, maybe you wouldn’t “still think George W is doing a great job,” like Brownie. Is it the Brittany Spears/ Stephen Bradbury syndrome? I have still seen no examples of “his leadership” other than a blind allegiance to political motivations and rewards for corrupt corporate cronies and ideologues. (An interested project I suppose would be to define that term from the management textbooks and make the detailed analysis.) And I’ve yet to see any of his actions that will be viewed kindly by the historical perspective you revere. If you were to review his stated reasoning behind the stem cell decision, e.g., those items have proven to be false or invalid, yet again, his conclusions are not altered by facts.

BUT SHOULDN’T WE REALLY BE ANGRY . . .

. . . with George Bush for vetoing the stem cell research bill . . . and with those who are likely to keep that veto from being overridden? By leaning against this medical research instead of encouraging it, the Republicans have been doing two things: first, they have been handing the lead in an important 21^st Century industry to our friends in other lands; second, and more important, they have delayed the kinds of breakthroughs that could improve the quality of life – or save the life – of you or someone you love.

Imagine if the polio vaccine had been delayed five years. What if your parents had contracted it during that unfortunate five-year window?

Better – says the Republican majority – to discard microscopic embryos than to use them to save you or your loved ones from a final decade like Ronald Reagan’s or a nightmare like that of J. Michael Fox or Christopher Reeve.

Can you tell me how a sentient being could vote for, sign, applaud or tolerate Medicare Part D?

Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Steven Bradbury, head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel. Vermont’s Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy asked him about the President’s claim that the Court’s Hamdan decision “upheld his position on Guantanamo.”

BRADBURY: The President is always right.

“If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea.”

- Richard Hofstadter, 1916–1970, American historian

War doesn’t determine who is right-only who is left.

-Bertrand (Arthur William) Russell, 5/18/1872 - 2/2/1970, British philosopher, mathematician, Nobel Prize (1950)
“A government of laws and not of men.”

-John Adams, “Novanglus Papers,” no. 7.—The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams, vol. 4, p. 106 (1851).

“Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

-James Madison, speech in the Virginia Convention, Richmond, Virginia, June 6, 1788.—The Papers of James Madison, ed. Robert A. Rutland and Charles F. Hobson, vol. 11, p. 79 (1977).
“Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.”

- Demosthenes (383-322BC) Greek Orator, Statesman

“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

- Louis Dembitz Brandeis

For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that.”

- Carl Sagan, US astronomer

“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.”

- Robert M. Pirsig (1928~) American Philosopher, Writer

“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.”

- Dwight David Eisenhower

“Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience. You will find it a calamity.”

- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English Author, Lexicographer

​Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

-Marcus Aelius Aurelius, 4/26/121-3/17/180, Roman Emperor

MOVIE NEWS

Kevin Kotowski: “Saw An Inconvenient Truth the other day and you’re right. Everyone who cares about the environment AND has an open mind should see it. I wonder whether, if a Republican had made it instead of Mr. Gore, it would find more acceptance among those who decry it without even seeing it.”

Dan Stone: “One of the most disturbing issues surrounding the release of Gore’s movie was Bush’s ‘probably not’ when asked if he’d see it. This underlines the fact that Bush self-censors his sources of information and that he is close-minded to any information that might challenge his pre-existing opinions.”

If they made a movie about YOUR HOUSE, would you go see it? Well, they have.

Naomi Oreskes:

Global Warming -- Signed, Sealed, and Delivered

Dave Zweifel:

No Need to Ask If Bush Has No Shame

Beth Quinn:

Sure, Shit Happens, But President Bush Should Stop Making It Happen

Max Hastings:

The West’s Moral Erosion Has Undermined the War on Terror

Stephen Zunes:

Israel Will Create More Terrorists Than It Kills

John Nichols:

Condoleezza “False Promise” Rice

Robert Fisk:

The Empire Leaves Beirut to Burn

Joseph Galloway:

Going from Bad to Worse

Sanford J. Ungar:

Distorted Reflection

Dahr Jamail:

War Savages Everything

Christopher Brauchli:

Blind Justice

James Zogby:

Willful Fantasies and Reality in Today’s Mideast Conflict

Derrick Jackson:

Bush Doesn’t Measure up

Robert Kuttner:

US Blunders Roil the Mideast

Rana El-Khatib:

Israel Sows Seeds of Hatred

Molly Ivins:

In Politics, Comedy and Tragedy

US ‘could be going bankrupt’
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor

(Filed: 14/07/2006)

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country’s central bank. A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

A POSITIVELY GRAND TIME

Don Rudolph: “Please read a copy of Class War in America by Charles M. Kelly. It should be required reading in every Economics classroom.”

F “The most appalling thing,” writes Amazon reviewer Robynne Williams, “is that the book was published in 2000, BEFORE the installation of the most rapacious Administration since the 19th century.” She calls it a “superb and succinct account of the rise and rise of the plutocracy.”

Comments another Amazon reviewer, Jack Lohman: “Even as a life-long Republican, I find it hard to disagree with many of the arguments in this obviously Liberal writing. I highly recommend [it].”

The Real Agenda
The New York Times | Editorial

Sunday 16 July 2006

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone.

Triumph of the Authoritarians
By John W. Dean
The Boston Globe

Friday 14 July 2006

Contemporary conservatism and its influence on the Republican Party was, until recently, a mystery to me. The practitioners’ bludgeoning style of politics, their self-serving manipulation of the political processes, and their policies that focus narrowly on perceived self-interest - none of this struck me as based on anything related to traditional conservatism. Rather, truth be told, today’s so-called conservatives are quite radical.

For more than 40 years I have considered myself a “Goldwater conservative,” and am thoroughly familiar with the movement’s canon. But I can find nothing conservative about the Bush/Cheney White House, which has created a Nixon “imperial presidency” on steroids, while acting as if being tutored by the best and brightest of the Cosa Nostra.

Today’s Republican policies are antithetical to bedrock conservative fundamentals. There is nothing conservative about preemptive wars or disregarding international law by condoning torture. Abandoning fiscal responsibility is now standard operating procedure. Bible-thumping, finger-pointing, tongue-lashing attacks on homosexuals are not found in Russell Krik’s classic conservative canons, nor in James Burham’s guides to conservative governing. Conservatives in the tradition of former senator Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan believed in “conserving” this planet, not relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. And neither man would have considered employing Christian evangelical criteria in federal programs, ranging from restricting stem cell research to fighting AIDs through abstinence.

Candid and knowledgeable Republicans on the far right concede - usually only when not speaking for attribution - that they are not truly conservative. They do not like to talk about why they behave as they do, or even to reflect on it. Nonetheless, their leaders admit they like being in charge, and their followers grant they find comfort in strong leaders who make them feel safe.

For almost half a century, social scientists have been exploring authoritarianism. We do not typically associate authoritarianism with our democracy, but as I discovered while examining decades of empirical research, we ignore some findings at our risk. Unfortunately, the social scientists who have studied these issues report their findings in monographs and professional journals written for their peers, not for general readers. With the help of a leading researcher and others, I waded into this massive body of work.

What I found provided a personal epiphany. Authoritarian conservatives are, as a researcher told me, “enemies of freedom, antidemocratic, antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry, Machiavellian and amoral.” And that’s not just his view. To the contrary, this is how these people have consistently described themselves when being anonymously tested, by the tens of thousands over the past several decades.

It is long past time to bring the telling results of their empirical work into the public square and to the attention of American voters. No less than the health of our democracy may depend on this being done. We need to stop thinking we are dealing with traditional conservatives on the modern stage, and instead recognize that they’ve often been supplanted by authoritarians.

John W. Dean, former Nixon White House counsel, just published his seventh nonfiction book, Conservatives Without Conscience.

Foreign Companies Buy US Roads, Bridges
By Leslie Miller
The Associated Press

Saturday 15 July 2006

Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.

Published on Sunday, July 16, 2006 by the “http://www.latimes.com”

Bush: Worse Than Nixon
by Morton H. Halperin

In response to Watergate and the related scandals of the Nixon years, however, Congress constructed a careful set of prohibitions, guidelines and requirements for congressional reporting.
Bush’s systematic and defiant violation of these rules, as well as of the mandates of the Constitution and international law, pose a challenge to our constitutional order and civil liberties that, in the end, constitutes a far greater threat than the lawlessness of Richard Nixon.
Morton H. Halperin served in the administrations of presidents Johnson, Nixon and Clinton. He is a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress and the director of U.S. Advocacy for the Open Society.

Published on Sunday, July 16, 2006 by the “http://www.latimes.com”

Is Bush Still Too Dumb to Be President?
by Jonathan Chait

Yet it is now increasingly clear that Bush’s status as non-rocket scientist is a serious problem. The problem is not his habit — savored by late-night comedians — of stumbling over multisyllabic words. It is his shocking lack of intellectual curiosity.
Ron Suskind’s new book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” paints a harrowing picture of Bush’s intellectual limits. Bush, writes Suskind, “is not much of a reader.” He prefers verbal briefings and often makes a horse-sense judgment based on how confident his briefer seems in what he’s saying. In August 2001, the CIA was in a panic about an upcoming terrorist attack and drafted a report with the title, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” When a CIA staffer summed up the memo’s contents in a face-to-face meeting with Bush, the president found the briefer insufficiently confident and dismissed him by saying, “All right, you’ve covered your ass, now,” according to Suskind. That turned out to be a fairly disastrous judgment.

At the End Of Cowboy Diplomacy: How Can We Support Our Cannon Fodder and Shell Shocked Soldiers?

by Tom Turnipseed

Wilkerson: Cheney’s Office Cultivated a Pro-Torture Environment
By Steve Clemons
The Washington Note

Wednesday 12 July 2006

“http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/10/1356245”

My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan and Clinton - and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush
Amy Goodman Interviews Robert Scheer
DemocracyNow!

Monday 10 July 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 14, 2006
9:33 AM

CONTACT: “http://www.cbpp.org”
202-408-1080
Henry Griggs, Communications Director, “mailto:Griggs@bpp.org”

The Phantom Federal Revenue “Explosion”

WASHINGTON - July 14 -
Download these Policy Points in “http://www.cbpp.org/policy-points7-14-06.pdf”

The mid-year budget estimates released this week by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) forecast higher revenues and a lower deficit for fiscal year 2006 than OMB had projected earlier this year. The Administration has greeted the projections as evidence that its tax cuts are “working,” by generating strong economic and revenue growth. The President even suggested that the tax cuts are paying for themselves — i.e., that they have not reduced revenues at all. The reality, however, is quite different.

After adjusting for inflation and population growth, revenues have simply returned to the level they reached more than five years ago.

Rather than booming, the economy actually remains weaker than in the average post-World War II business cycle, especially in employment and wages/salaries.

The President’s claim that his tax cuts have paid for themselves is refuted by the Administration’s own analysis.

A $300 Billion Deficit in the Fifth Year of an Economic Recovery Isn’t Good News

Baghdad Starts to Collapse as Its People Flee a Life of Death
By James Hider
The Times of London

Thursday 13 July 2006

As I hung up the phone, I wondered if I would ever see my friend Ali alive again. Ali, The Times translator for the past three years, lives in west Baghdad, an area that is now in meltdown as a bitter civil war rages between Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. It is, quite simply, out of control.

I returned to Baghdad on Monday after a break of several months, during which I too was guilty of glazing over every time I read another story of Iraqi violence. But two nights on the telephone, listening to my lost and frightened Iraqi staff facing death at any moment, persuaded me that Baghdad is now verging on total collapse.

AH, THE PRESCIENCE

These quotes in Paul Krugman’s current column could make you cry:

Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits for the region. ...Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart, and our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced.

-- Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002

Peacekeeping requirements in Iraq might be much lower than historical experience in the Balkans suggests. There’s been none of the record in Iraq of ethnic militias fighting one another that produced so much bloodshed and permanent scars in Bosnia.

-- Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy secretary of defense Feb. 27, 2003.

A GRAND TIME

But it was his previous New York Times column I wanted to highlight.

(What? You still don’t subscribe to the Times on-line?)

Left Behind Economics

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: July 14, 2006

. . . Here’s what happened in 2004 [the latest year for which data is available]. The U.S. economy grew 4.2 percent, a very good number. Yet last August the Census Bureau reported that real median family income — the purchasing power of the typical family — actually fell. Meanwhile, poverty increased, as did the number of Americans without health insurance. So where did the growth go?

. . even if you exclude capital gains from a rising stock market, in 2004 the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans surged by almost 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, the average real income of the bottom 99 percent of the population rose only 1.5 percent. In other words, a relative handful of people received most of the benefits of growth.

. . . Even people at the 95th percentile of the income distribution — that is, people richer than 19 out of 20 Americans — gained only modestly. The big increases went only to people who were already in the economic stratosphere.

. . . the real earnings of the typical college graduate actually fell in 2004.

In short, it’s a great economy if you’re a high-level corporate executive or someone who owns a lot of stock. For most other Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport.

CORRECTION

“http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/060717.html”’s column excerpted Paul Krugman on “Left Behind Economics.” (The economy is growing smartly, the ultra-rich are doing very well, but median family income, adjusted for inflation, keeps falling.) I should have titled it: A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL YACHTS. How did I not think of that?

Underarm Deodorant

Published on July 19, 2006

Not everybody uses it, and this is a very important point. Even with just a billion people using it, a few decades back . . . and some of those billion using roll-on deodorant . . . the emission of chlorofluorocarbons still made a giant hole in Earth’s ozone layer.

And it was widening.

The global community was alarmed and took action and now three things are true:

More people than ever use deodorant (praise the Lord)

None of it emits chlorofluorocarbons (an alternative propellant was found – likewise for refrigerants)

The hole in the ozone layer gradually disappeared (but you should still use SPF 15 or higher this weekend)

Okay? Do you see my point?

No?

My point is that if a little Right Guard can threaten our atmospheric equilibrium, isn’t it just really dumb to bet that the literally trillions of pounds of carbon dioxide we dump into the air each year will have no effect? Be honest: don’t you use more gasoline than deodorant?

I am amazed at all my Republican friends who read this page who seem to agree with the Administration that it’s no biggie.

David D.: “I won’t be seeing ‘the movie’ any time soon, especially since you’ve been pushing it so heavily, but the thing I find most interesting is that it was mostly made with Apple’s Keynote presentation software (as detailed here).”

Mike A.: “OK, so you can dismiss Lomborg’s arguments. How about picking on someone with a little more heft? Like the WSJ Opinion piece from Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospherics at MIT. Prof. Lindzen is no fan of Mr. Gore’s alarmism.”

F I already did.

To which Mike responds: “I, for one, am glad that President Bush is looking at all the scientific evidence, and waiting for a greater degree of agreement, before embarking on a costly crusade that may have no merit.”

Mike, like our President, is not going to see the movie. And perhaps Mike, like our President, believes the jury is still out on this Darwin stuff.

Yet the overwhelming majority of the scientists who follow this – like the overwhelming majority who thought cigarette smoking was linked to lung cancer and the overwhelming majority who think we are descended from apes – believe Al Gore is pointing out something we all need to own.

Indeed, if that overwhelming majority is right, yesterday’s 99-degree temperature in New York may – well, Mother Nature may be just getting warmed up. According to USA Today, the past six months were the warmest since we started keeping records in 1895.

The scientific case is based on records from ice cores going back 650,000 years. The natural cycles of carbon dioxide, followed by temperature, look like the teeth on the blade of a very long saw – except that suddenly after 650,000 years, in the last century, the carbon dioxide level is going through the roof (could those trillions of pounds of CO2 we emit have anything to do with that?) and the temperature level, if 650,000 years of history is any guide, seems likely to follow.

Want more? Watch Tom Brokaw’s 2-hour special on The Discovery Channel, which one of you writes in to say is “in some ways more impactful and alarming than the Gore presentation.” It’s being run several times in the days ahead.

And don’t forget Who Killed The Electric Car?

If they made a movie about YOUR HOUSE, would you go see it? Well, they have.

“http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/”.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0718-20.htm

Published on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 by “http://www.truthdig.com”

The Suicide of Capitalism

by Molly Ivins

In case you haven’t got anything else to worry about—like war in the Middle East, nuclear showdowns, global warming or Apocalypse Now—how about the suicide of capitalism?

Late last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals struck down a new rule by the Securities and Exchange Commission requiring mandatory registration with the SEC for most hedge funds. This may not strike you as the end of the world, but that’s because you’ve either forgotten what a hedge fund is or how much trouble they can get us into.

History shows that as empires crumble the ruling elites become ever more corrupt and ruthless in their drive to secure their own power—a dynamic now playing out in the United States. We Americans base our identity in large measure on the myth that our nation has always embodied the highest principles of democracy, and is devoted to spreading peace and justice to the world.

But there has always been tension between America’s high ideals and its reality as a modern version of Empire. The freedom promised by the Bill of Rights contrasts starkly with the enshrinement of slavery elsewhere in the original articles of the Constitution. The protection of property, an idea central to the American dream, stands in contradiction to the fact that our nation was built on land taken by force from Native Americans. Although we consider the vote to be the hallmark of our democracy, it took nearly 200 years before that right was extended to all citizens.

Americans acculturated to the ideals of America find it difficult to comprehend what our rulers are doing, most of which is at odds with notions of egalitarianism, justice, and democracy. Within the frame of historical reality, it is perfectly clear: they are playing out the endgame of Empire, seeking to consolidate power through increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic policies.

Wise choices necessarily rest on a foundation of truth. The Great Turning depends on awakening to deep truths long denied.

David Korten | Yes! Magazine

The Bush administration came to power as a fundamentalist regime; and here I’m not referring to the Christian fundamentalist faith of our President. After all, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and our Vice President seem not to be Christian fundamentalists any more than were Paul Wolfowitz or Douglas Feith. Bush’s top officials may not have agreed among themselves on whether End Time would arrive, or even on the domestic social issues of most concern to the Christian religious right in this country, but they were all linked by a singular belief in the efficacy of force.

In fact, they believed themselves uniquely in possession of an ability to project force in ways no other power on the planet or in history ever could. While hardly elevating the actual military leadership of the country (whom they were eager to sideline), they raised the all-volunteer American military itself onto a pedestal and worshipped it as the highest tech, most shock-and-awesome institution around. They were dazzled by the fact that it was armed with the smartest, most planet-spanning, most destructive set of weapons imaginable, and backed by an unparalleled military-industrial complex as well as a “defense” budget that would knock anyone’s socks off (and their communications systems down). It was enough to dazzle the administration’s top officials with dreams of global domination; to fill them with a vision of a planet-wide Pax Americana; to send them off to the moon (which, by the way, was certainly militarizable).

Force, then, was their idol and they bowed down before it. When it came to the loosing of that force (and the forces at their command), they were nothing short of fervent utopians and blind believers. They were convinced that with such force (and forces), they could reshape the world in just about any way they wanted to fit their visionary desires.

And then, of course, came 9/11, the “Pearl Harbor” of this century. Suddenly, they had a divine wind at their back, a terrified populace before them ready to be led, and everything they believed in seemed just so… well, possible. It was, in faith-based terms, a godsend. Not surprisingly, they promptly began to prepare to act in the stead of an imperially angry god and to bring the world — particularly its energy heartlands — to heel.

Tom Engelhardt | Tom Dispatch

As those under the boot of Israel or America lose all hope for justice, as they give up on peaceful recourses to ameliorate their plight, as they fall into despair, it throws them, by default, into the hands of extremists. And as the extremists grow and their attacks became more deadly, it likewise helps silence those in Israel and the United States who call for compassion, restraint and understanding. It is difficult to argue with those holding up bloodied corpses. Each side finds it useful to keep the supply coming.

In this demented world, friend and foe need each other. Hamas and Hezbollah yearn, on some level, for Israeli airstrikes against civilians just as the hard right in Israel yearns in some dark way for suicide bombers. The indiscriminate violence of one justifies the indiscriminate violence of the other. The violence stokes the fear that is the driving force behind all messianic, violent movements—American, Jewish and Muslim. And since these groups have nothing to offer other than violence, they need fear to keep those around them compliant. The atrocities committed by one—real or imagined – make possible the atrocities of the other.

Does anyone in the Israeli government really believe that attacking Lebanon and killing more than 60 Lebanese civilians will ensure the freedom of the two captured Israeli soldiers? There have been hostages, including Israeli hostages, taken captive in Lebanon before, and most have been freed through long and painful negotiations. If the Israelis do believe in this violence, it is a sad indication of how out of touch they are with the world that opposes them.

We cannot ascribe equal amounts of moral blame to all sides. Israel is the oppressor in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon. America is the oppressor in Iraq. And there can be no hope for a peaceful resolution to these conflicts until Iraqis are freed from American occupation and Palestinians are allowed to build a viable state. It is the distorting and dehumanizing effects of occupation that made possible the proliferation of extremist groups that, albeit on a smaller scale, simply hand back to the occupier some of their own medicine. The numbers, after all, make clear that most of the victims are Palestinian, Iraqi and now Lebanese civilians, although the numbers game can also obscure the fact that the murder of any innocent by any group is indefensible.

This is the world of the apocalypse. It is the world where those on either extreme become indistinguishable. And if we do not find a new way to speak, and soon, there will be untold suffering—not only for many innocents in the Middle East but eventually innocents at home. It was the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon that spawned and empowered Hezbollah. It was the decades-long occupation and humiliation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank by Israel that spawned and empowered Hamas, and it is the brutal American occupation that has bred the legions of extremists in Iraq. And when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah promises “open war” against Israel, as he did in an address shortly after his Beirut offices were bombed, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he won’t cease his attack until Israel is secure, it is time to run for cover, especially when George W. Bush is our best hope for peace.

Chris Hedges | TruthDig

Israel is now simultaneously bombing and destroying the civilian infrastructure in Palestine and Lebanon, including airports, bridges, roads, power plants, and government offices. It claims to do this in order to stop terror attacks against Israelis, but in fact the past four decades have shown that its policies generate exactly the opposite effect: They have given birth, power, credibility and now political incumbency to the Hamas and Hezbollah groups whose raison d’être has been to fight the Israeli occupation of their lands. Israeli destruction of normal life for Palestinians and Lebanese also results in the destruction of the credibility, efficacy and, in some cases, the legitimacy of routine government systems, making the Lebanese and Palestinian governments key actors in current events — or non-actors in most cases.

The Lebanese and Palestinians have responded to Israel’s persistent and increasingly savage attacks against entire civilian populations by creating parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect them and deliver essential services. With every new Israeli attack against the Hamas and Hezbollah leadership or the civilian populations, four important things happen, and will probably happen during this round of war: The Lebanese and Palestinian governments lose power and impact; Hamas and Hezbollah garner greater popular support, which enhances their effectiveness in guerrilla and resistance warfare; they expand their military technical capabilities (mainly longer-range missiles and better improvised explosive devices); and the anti-Israel, anti-U.S. resistance campaign led by Hamas and Hezbollah generates widespread political and popular support throughout the Middle East and much of the world.

Rami G. Khouri | Salon

It seems to me that we’ve seen enough evidence over the years that the capitalist system is not going to be destroyed by an outside challenger like communism—it will be destroyed by its own internal greed. Greed is the greatest danger as we develop an increasingly winner-take-all system. And voices like The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page encourage this mentality by insisting that any form of regulation is bad. But for whom?

It is so discouraging to watch this country become less and less fair—“justice for all” seems like an embarrassingly archaic tag. Republicans have rigged the “lottery of life” in this country in ways we don’t even know about yet. The new bankruptcy law is unfair, and the new college loan rules are worse. The system has been stacked so that large corporations have an inside track over small businesses in getting government contracts. We won’t see the full consequences of this mean and careless legislation for years, but it starting to affect us already.

Molly Ivins | TruthDig

The extent to which American exceptionalism is embedded in the national psyche is awesome to behold.

While the United States is a country like any other, its citizens no more special than any others on the planet, Americans still react with amazed surprise at the suggestion that their country could be held responsible for something as heinous as a war crime.

From the massacre of more than 100,000 people in the Philippines to the first nuclear attack ever at Hiroshima to the unprovoked invasion of Baghdad, U.S.-sponsored violence doesn’t feel as wrong and worthy of prosecution in internationally sanctioned criminal courts as the gory, bload-soaked atrocities of Congo, Darfur, Rwanda, and most certainly not the Nazis — most certainly not. Howard Zinn recently described this as our “inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.”

Most Americans firmly believe there is nothing the United States or its political leadership could possibly do that could equate to the crimes of Hitler’s Third Reich. The Nazis are our “gold standard of evil,” as author John Dolan once put it.

But the truth is that we can, and we have — most recently and significantly in Iraq. Perhaps no person on the planet is better equipped to identify and describe our crimes in Iraq than Benjamin Ferenccz, a former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials who successfully convicted 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating death squads that killed more than one million people in the famous Einsatzgruppen Case. Ferencz, now 87, has gone on to become a founding father of the basis behind international law regarding war crimes, and his essays and legal work drawing from the Nuremberg trials and later the commission that established the International Criminal Court remain a lasting influence in that realm.

Ferencz’s biggest contribution to the war crimes field is his assertion that an unprovoked or “aggressive” war is the highest crime against mankind. It was the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 that made possible the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the destruction of Fallouja and Ramadi, the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, civilian massacres like Haditha, and on and on. Ferencz believes that a “prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.”

Jan Frel | AlterNet

A Nice Mess Our President Has Made for US

by Dave Lindorff

In an excellent piece in Monday¹s New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert tells how the Bush administration has been trying to turn not just the Guantanamo detainee tribunals but the entire US legal system into the kind of judicial environment more appropriately depicted in a Marx Bros. film.

At the same time, US foreign policy is coming to resemble not Marx-ism, but a Laurel and Hardy script.

Indeed, as Israel, with Bush’s blessing, expands its initial militaristic bullying of Gaza into a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, with daily escalation of the violence threatening to ignite the whole Middle East, a version of Oliver Hardy¹s famous line springs readily to mind: “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into.”

Apparently the Stan Laurel impersonator in the White House, with his biblical megalomania and his self-delusional neo-con advisors seems to think all this is a good thing. The president has had not a word of criticism to offer for Israel’s blitzkrieg, and is content to take a historic conflict of national, ethnic and tribal dimensions and cram it into his simplistic “us-against-the-terrorists” dogma.

In the Bush worldview, bombing crowded urban areas by air and howitzer is “legitimate national defense,” while capturing Israeli soldiers and firing small, unguided rockets back at Israeli territory is “terrorism.”

Of course, we can trace this ignorant and simplistic thinking (if it can be called that) back to the invasion of Iraq, where President Laurel/Bush and his gang imagined first of all that invading that country would a) be a piece of cake and b) set off a wave of democratic reform across the Middle East.

A fine mess that has proven to be!

Iraq is now, by almost any measure, a worse place to live than it ever was under Saddam Hussein, and appears headed for at best a religious theocracy, and at worst an interminable period as a failed state of warring tribes and religious sects slaughtering for supremacy. As for spreading democracy, the only place where democracy seems to have really been attempted was Palestine, where the people, using the ballot, threw out the corrupt and ineffective PLO, and replaced it with a government led by Hamas. And what did President Laurel/Bush do in response for this dramatic and honest expression of the people’s will? He joined Israel in condemning their decision, and set about, with Israel, in attempting to undermine and overturn that elected government.

We are reaping the result of this unprincipled idiocy today. Just watch the news (after filtering out the pro-Israeli slant on the coverage, if you can).

US has effectively controlled Saudi Arabia for years, and gets full access to that country¹s oil--and to neighboring Kuwait¹s oil--without firing a shot. Why spent $1 trillion and create unpredictable chaos abroad and at home to accomplish something that we already have? The truth, anyway, is that while the US is being bankrupted by war this without end, the Chinese are signing long-term oil-supply deals with Iran and other producing countries at favorable forward prices.

These are not smart people running American foreign policy. They¹re the same kinds of bumbling idiots who brought us the War in Indochina.

A nice mess they¹re getting us into.

Dave Lindorff is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, May 2006). His work can be found at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

Running From Cut and Run: Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

by John Atcheson

Imagine this: the Party that presided over epic struggles in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Cuban missile crisis, and Kosovo has been branded as the party of “cut and run,” while the Party that presided over our desperate flight from Vietnam, that abandoned Beirut after losing hundreds of marines, and currently happens to be run by a collection of draft dodgers, an AWOL guardsman, and assorted other chicken hawks is the “stay the course” tough guys.

In what world could such a fantasy stand?

Only in a world in which the Dems are unwitting accomplices to upholding this fairy tail and the press is more interested in maintaining access and being “balanced” than reporting truths.

Consider: the Democrats, under Roosevelt, completely revamped the United States’s industrial base, revitalized the military, created from scratch the Air Force, then won a real global war involving real super powers all in the space of less than four years.

In about the same amount of time, Bush has yet to get the body armor right, or deliver enough blood clotting bandages to save the lives of American soldiers, and America’s best hope in Iraq is to trade a secular despot for a theocratic fundamentalist state, although more likely, he’s created a failed state that will be mired in civil strife for decades.

The plain fact is, when it comes to national defense, Democrats have stood strong in the breach throughout the last century, and they’ve been successful.

Republicans, on the other hand, have been long on bluster, short on success, and quick to fold the tent and skedaddle, and now that we should do exactly that, they won’t.

So how does Rove get away with his BS?

Simple. The only thing that would allow Rove’s phony charges to stick would be for the Party of strength to behave like cowards. And of course, that’s exactly what the poll-pandering, triangulating, equivocating branch of the Democratic Party has been doing for decades, and is doing now. Instead of ducking for cover, the Dems oughta be lining up behind Jack Murtha and speaking with passion, conviction, and principle about the debacle that is Iraq.

In any debate, if one side refuses to articulate their position and point out the weaknesses of their opponent’s assertions, they will lose, no matter how absurd the opposition’s position might be.

And when it comes to absurd, there’s simply nothing more so than this administration’s notion that a slogan – “stay the course” – can be a substitute for a rational policy. Unless it’s their contention that the press isn’t reporting all the “good news” from Iraq.

Let’s take a look at this “course” and some of the “good news.”

Bottom line on Bush’s course? We’re not fighting a war of liberation; we’re not fighting terrorism. We’re occupying a foreign country whose people don’t want us there. Basically we’re in a deep hole in Iraq, and his solution seems to be: dig faster and deeper.

For example, the US military estimates that fewer than 300 foreign insurgents were in Iraq prior to the invasion, but since our liberation turned into an occupation, their estimates have climbed to as many as 2,000. Overall, the number of insurgents in Iraq – foreign and domestic – has increased from about 3,000 in January of 2004 to more than 20,000 today.

There’s also less oil being produced; less potable water available; less sewage treatment capacity; fewer doctors; more terrorist strikes, more deaths and wholesale destruction of infrastructure; continued torture and imprisonment of Iraqis without civil review (only now we’re the one’s doing it) ... Yes sir, that’s certainly good news.

The best news of all – and certainly the liberal press has failed to give Bush the appropriate credit for this – is that fundamentalists are now running around Iraq harassing and killing women who wear western style clothes, men who wear shorts or jeans, anyone who drinks, or consorts with Americans ... Sounds sort of like the Taliban, doesn’t it? Good news, eh? Yes sir this here’s a course worth staying on, right?

By the way, the source of that last bit of “good news” is not the leftist liberal media. It comes straight from the US Embassy in Iraq, in the form of a 23 point cable detailing Iraq’s descent into a state of fundamentalist zealotry.

It gets better. More than 80% of Arabs in Iraq view us as occupiers; nearly half say it’s OK to bomb or otherwise kill US soldiers; and the Iraqi government is proposing amnesty for Iraqis who have attacked and killed members of the US military.

Meanwhile, our soldiers are doing two and three tours in what amounts to a hostile occupation of a country and Bush has yet to articulate a plan or even offer a viable justification. And our military, stretched to the limit in this war of error, is lowering recruiting standards and enlisting men and women who would have been rejected on moral, legal, or intellectual grounds just two years ago. Lower standards, an untenable situation on the ground, no clear plan, no clear mission, and no end in sight – no wonder we’re seeing a spike in incidents in which the US soldiers commit crimes against Iraqis.

And when they come home, their health benefits have been cut. You can slap all the ribbons you want on your petro-terrorist funding vehicle (aka SUV) but if you support this course, you don’t support the US military or our soldiers.

Stay this course? Globally, Bush has done for terrorists what Henry Ford did for car manufacturing. He’s created an assembly line that cranks out thousands of them at a time. Instead of defeating terrorism, his policies are causing their numbers to explode. Before Bush cranked up his assembly line, there were less than a couple of thousand trained terrorists worldwide and relatively few sympathizers. Now there are tens of thousands of highly skilled, battle-hardened terrorists, and they’ve been increasingly busy. In 2003, there were a total of 208 terrorist attacks worldwide; in 2004, there were 2,800; and in 2005 there were 11,111. That’s some course.

And does anyone remember bin Laden? Certainly not the CIA, where they just disbanded the task force charged with hunting him down. Yes sir, that’s some course.

And has the “flowering of democracy” improved things in the Mideast as promised? Ask Israel, Lebanon, or Palestine. Or check on Iran’s progress towards a nuclear weapon. Or examine how despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia have used their astounding profits from extortionary oil prices to strengthen their stranglehold on their people. Check with Egyptian dissidents who are being rounded up and jailed. Or note how Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria act with impudence now that the US is tied down, Gulliver-like, by the Lilliputians. Finally, examine how Afghanistan is descending into anarchy as a resurgent Taliban adopts the tactics and strategies learned in Iraq against our forces there.

How about the homeland? Now that we’ve frustrated at least two terrorist plots on US soil can we finally stop saying “We’re fightin’ ‘em there, so we don’t have to fight them here?” Please? And is anyone aware that more than 50,000 containers still enter our country every day and only about 5% are inspected? Or that there’s still enough lose nuclear material in the world to make 40,000 Hiroshima-sized nuclear devices? Or that each day millions of tons of commercial cargo gets loaded onto the same planes we have to get inspected, detected, and neglected to board, and it gets nary a glance? Or that our bridges, tunnels, ferries, schools, power plants, and chemical plants remain vulnerable (although the nation’s supply of Amish popcorn is safe and sound). Oh yes, that’s some course.

So, after spending more than $350 billion, after more than 2500 American soldiers have died and more than 18,000 more have been wounded, and more than 50,000 Iraqis killed, this is what we have to show for it: in Iraq, a once secure secular state is transforming into either a despotic Islamic theocracy or a splintered and failed state; at home, a less secure homeland open to sabotage of our ports, industrial and power infrastructure, transportation systems, and schools; Globally, a recruiting bonanza for al Qaeda; a US military that is broken; and a USA that has lost the world’s trust, squandered our prestige, and weakened our position with many of our allies. Stay this course? You’d have to be an idiot, insane, or both. This course makes the Katrina response look like a well-oiled machine.

But instead of pointing this out, Dems are running from cut and run sloganeering, led by the likes of Lieberman and Hillary-have-it-both-ways Clinton.

This kind of calculated equivocation is morally reprehensible and cowardly; but it’s also bad politics.

Cut and Run, vs. Stay the Course. That’s the narrative according to Rove and it will stay that way until the Dems decide to take the Iraqi debacle on and talk straight to the American people. Not only about what they would do differently, but about what’s been done to us all by Bush’s lies, spins, distortions, and outright incompetence. The press is neither able or willing to do anything but mindlessly repeat what each side says, as if “balance” were the sine qua non of journalism, and there were no such thing as truth, reality, or facts.

In their effort to escape the charge of being the party of “cut and run” Democrats confirm in the voter’s mind that they are guilty as charged. By cutting and running from the charge of cut and run, they give it credence.

The Hilary have-it-both-ways Clinton arm of the Democratic party needs to just shut up. The public is tired of poll-pandering and focus-group-spinning. They want leadership. They want integrity. They want success. They want competence. And they want the truth.

Standing up to the Roves of the world on the issue of Iraq is simply the right thing to do, and we should do it whether it brings votes or not. But it just so happens to be the politically smart thing to do as well.

Repairing American Democracy

by Neal Peirce

American democracy, once the wonder of the world, is working about as well as the levees around New Orleans — “degenerated into a partisan brew of spin, scandal, name-calling, money chasing, and pandering.”

Florida’s Fear of History: New Law Undermines Critical Thinking

by Robert Jensen

One way to measure the fears of people in power is by the intensity of their quest for certainty and control over knowledge.

By that standard, the members of the Florida Legislature marked themselves as the folks most terrified of history in the United States when last month they took bold action to become the first state to outlaw historical interpretation in public schools. In other words, Florida has officially replaced the study of history with the imposition of dogma and effectively outlawed critical thinking.

A Pantomime President
From North Korea to Iraq to Lebanon, George Bush’s lack of policy has led to a string of disasters

by Sidney Blumenthal

President Bush was against diplomacy before he was for it. But with the collapse of US foreign policy from the Middle East to North Korea he has claimed to have become a born-again realist. “And it’s, kind of ... painful ... for some to watch, because it takes a while to get people on the same page,” he said at his July 7 press conference, adding, in an astonished tone, “Not everybody thinks the exact same way we think. Different words mean different things to different people.”

Two years ago at the Republican convention he boasted of his “swagger, which in Texas is called walking.” But in the face of the consequences of his failures, he has swaggered into a corner.

In a befuddled response to Israel’s reoccupation of Gaza and bombing of Lebanon, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, asked for restraint while the president offered support. Bush has regressed to embracing no policy, just as he did when he first entered office. His failure to give the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, any tangible gains to show his electorate helped Hamas win. Now the US’s abandonment of any peace process is yielding a downward spiral of mutual recrimination in the region.

Similarly, on Iraq, Bush has returned to mouthing inane platitudes about “victory.” He promises to “defeat” the enemy while ignoring his generals’ admonition that a political solution is critical as Iraq descends into civil war.

Bush’s policy toward North Korea is paralyzed, reduced to kowtowing to China in the forlorn hope that it would implore the hermit kingdom to forswear developing nuclear weapons and firing test missiles. But the Chinese have declared they will veto any US-initiated sanctions in the UN security council.

When Bush was president-elect, Bill Clinton’s national security team had a treaty with North Korea essentially wrapped up. The incoming secretary of state, Colin Powell, was enthusiastic. As president, Bush cut off diplomacy and humiliated Powell and the South Korean president, Kim Dae-Jung, for seeking to continue the process associated with Clinton. In Bush’s vacuum - a series of empty threats - North Korea predictably reacted with outrageous violations intended to capture US attention. The US negotiator, Charles “Jack” Pritchard, was constantly subverted by the then undersecretary of state, John Bolton.

After Pritchard quit in 2003, Bush sent a new negotiator to the six-party talks in 2004 but prohibited him from meaningful negotiation. The North Koreans responded with extreme gestures, and Bush has answered that he will not speak to them directly. “By not talking with North Korea,” Pritchard wrote last month in the Washington Post, “we are failing to address missiles, human rights, illegal activities, conventional forces, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and anything else that matters to the American people. Isn’t it about time we actually tried to solve the problem rather than let it fester until we blow it up?”

The North Korea debacle shows that Bush’s ruinous approach began before the Iraq invasion, indeed before 9/11. His latest pantomimes of policies recall Gertrude Stein’s description of Oakland, California: “there is no there there.”

Drought Threatens Amazon Basin
· Extreme conditions felt for second year running
· Record sea temperatures and illegal logging blamed

by Paul Brown

Afghanistan Close to Anarchy, Warns General

The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan has described the situation in the country as “close to anarchy” with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption. The stark warning came from Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato’s international security force in Afghanistan, who warned that western forces there were short of equipment and were “running out of time”.

Bush Blunders Roil the Mideast

“The latest violence in the Middle East demonstrates the bankruptcy of the Bush administration’s grand design for the region,” writes Robert Kuttner. “The Iraq war was going to display American power, promote democracy, strengthen moderates, and secure Israel. Instead, the quagmire has demonstrated the humiliating limits of US military power, fomented anarchy, recruited Islamist extremists, and strengthened a more radicalized Iran.”

It Was the Veto of a Lifetime

“President Bush’s veto of a modest bill that would have merely allowed surplus embryos from fertility clinics to be used for pathbreaking research instead of tossed in the garbage is more than a political blunder,” writes Jonathan Alter. “By slowing cures for several major diseases, this decision may well doom thousands to die prematurely. It contradicts the whole idea of what it means to be ‘pro-life.’”

Report: US Torture Widespread in Iraq

Iraqi detainees were routinely subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions and other forms of abuse by US interrogators, according to a Human Rights Watch report released on Sunday that offers first-hand accounts from three former soldiers.

Survey Says Scientists Feel Pressured

Food and Drug Administration scientists are often subjected to inappropriate political and commercial interference that compromises their mission to protect public health and safety, according to the findings of a survey released yesterday by two public interest groups.

Medication Errors Harming Millions

At least 1.5 million Americans are sickened, injured or killed each year by errors in prescribing, dispensing and taking medications, the influential Institute of Medicine concluded in a major report released yesterday.

While Beirut Burns

William Fisher writes, “As rockets rain down on Lebanon and Israel, and the world stares into the abyss of a catastrophic Middle East conflagration, it was comforting to note last week that members of Congress refused to get depressed about the scary state of world affairs. Instead, they busied themselves by concentrating their attention on some of the really crucial domestic issues facing our nation. Like a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.”

Rechecking the Balance of Powers

Glenn Greenwald writes, “The US Supreme Court’s June 29 ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld - that the Bush administration’s military tribunals violated federal law and the Geneva Conventions - resoundingly rejected the theories of radical executive power that the administration has used to justify a whole array of controversial governmental programs. But for now, it seems that the Bush administration remains intent on defending its actions while doing the minimum to comply with the ruling.”

Bush Nomination for Mine Overseer Decried

The nation’s largest environmental group says the Bush administration is burying any hope of implementing better coal-mining policies after nominating an industry-friendly candidate to the federal agency charged with setting environmental standards for surface-mining operations.

Science and Politics Collide as EPA Considers New Air Rule

Recent studies strengthen the evidence that exposure to fine and coarse particulate matter can cause serious health problems, including premature death, according to a review released Friday by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Environmentalists and public health advocates hope the new assessment will convince the Bush administration to tighten federal rules for particulate matter, but some Senate Republicans remain unconvinced the evidence justifies more stringent regulations.

9,000 EPA Scientists Call for an End to Compromising Safety

In 1996, under the Food Quality Protection Act, Congress gave the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 10 years to complete its assessment of the health impacts of hundreds of pesticides being used in homes, gardens and agriculture. August 3, 2006 marks the end of that 10-year period. Although the EPA apparently plans to have its review of most of the carbamates complete by that date, thousands of scientists within the Agency have expressed serious concern that the evaluations are incomplete and that the EPA is threatening to allow the continued use of toxic pesticides despite ample information showing that they are too hazardous to be used safely.

The Rise of the Super-Rich

“In the United States today, there’s a new twist to the familiar plot. Income inequality used to be about rich versus poor, but now it’s increasingly a matter of the ultra rich and everyone else,” writes Teresa Tritch.

Leading to Low Ground

“The United States had complete command of the moral and ethical high ground in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. Most of the world was with us,” writes Bob Herbert, “For some reason, the Bush administration deliberately abandoned those heights to pursue policies that were not just morally questionable, but reprehensible.”

US Thwarts Middle East Cease-Fire

As the fighting and bombing intensified in Lebanon and Israel, an urgently convened, high-level international conference in Rome concluded in open disagreement, failing to reach accord on a plan to bring a halt to the strife. The European Union has called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, while the United States has not.

Labor Pains of a Stillborn Foreign Policy

Robert Scheer argues that Condoleezza Rice, in calling the Israel-Lebanon crisis simply the “birth pangs of a new Middle East,” underscored the Bush administration’s blindness to the disastrous effects its foreign policy has wrought.

White House Bill Challenges Provision of the Geneva Conventions

The White House is challenging the recent Supreme Court decision that the provision of the Geneva Conventions known as Common Article Three applies to detainees. Bush’s draft bill asserts that the Geneva Conventions “are not a source of judicially enforceable individual rights,” meaning that in the future, terror suspects like Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni held at Guantanamo whose case resulted in the Supreme Court ruling Hamden v. Rumsfeld, cannot file lawsuits saying their Geneva Convention rights were violated.

Bombings Hit Children Hardest

55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University Hospital are children. Bilal Masri, assistant director of Beirut Government University Hospital, told IPS, “Not only are most of the patients children, but many of the injured have been brought in serious condition. Now we have a 30 percent fatality rate here in Beirut. That means that 30 percent of everyone hit by Israeli bombs are dying. It is a catastrophe.”

A GRAND TIME

“The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans,” reports the “http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/business/23tax.html?ex=1311307200&en=a1b03ade9e7403fc&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss” – “specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their children and others. …[S]ix I.R.S. estate tax lawyers whose jobs are likely to be eliminated said in interviews that the cuts were just the latest moves behind the scenes at the I.R.S. to shield people with political connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits. “http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/business/23tax.html?ex=1311307200&en=a1b03ade9e7403fc&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss””

BUT WARM

From the blog of sports columnist Peter King at “http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/peter_king/07/24/mmqb/1.html”:

Wherever you are, have you noticed the weird weather patterns in the last few months? Unending, intense rain. High winds. It was in the midst of a 12th day of measurable rain in a 14-day period that I saw An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore movie about global warming.

This is the most apolitical piece of advice I could ever give you, because I realize Al Gore is not popular with all of you. And I really don’t care very much about Gore weaving details of his personal life into the global-warming lecture. But you should see this movie and judge the facts for yourself. What’s happening out here is no isolated occurrence. It’s going to keep happening and it’s going to get worse. Facts are facts. And we all need to do something about this phenomenon of the Earth heating up and the polar ice caps melting. This is not exactly the venue to warn the world about global warming, but all you football junkies readying for your fantasy drafts should do one real-world thing in the next couple of weeks: take two hours to see this movie. I’m not saying you’ll be glad you did, because it’s going to slap you around mentally a bit. But it’s something you need to see. You don’t want to wake up in 15 years with the Earth permanently damaged and huge portions of the Earth’s surface under water, forever.

BEING STUPID IS APPARENTLY A CHOICE ALSO

From Sunday’s “http://www.dispatch.com/election/election.php?story=dispatch/2006/07/23/20060723-A1-02.html”:

I think homosexuality is a lifestyle, it’s a choice, and that lifestyle can be changed. I think it is a transgression against God’s law, God’s will.

– Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, running for Governor

F In other words, if God had meant for men to fly, He would have given them wings; and if he had meant for them to be gay, He would have wired them to be attracted to people of the same sex.

Oh, wait. He did.

(He also wired some people – perhaps Ken Blackwell – to fall close enough to the middle of the sexual orientation spectrum that, for them, it really can be a choice how to lead their lives. They deserve respect and equal rights, too. But in my experience, at least, most of us are wired to be essentially or entirely straight or gay.)

– the defeat of yet another attempt to write discrimination into the United States Constitution, this time in the House of Representatives.

Voting against the Republicans to defeat the Federal Anti-Marriage Amendment were 159 Democrats. Voting to pass it were 34 Democrats.

The whole point of the House vote, after all – since the Amendment was already dead, having gone down in the Senate – was nothing more than Republican political gain. The reasons the Republicans scheduled it were three, I think, and only three:

· Stoke the Republican base, who agree with Ken Blackwell (who would have been quoting Ephesians – “Slaves, obey thy masters” – in an earlier day).

· Defeat incumbent Democrats by turning their “pro-gay marriage” votes into attack ads in October.

· Deflect attention from the soon-to-be $10 trillion National Debt ($8 trillion of it racked up under Reagan, Bush and Bush) and stem cell research and Katrina and global warming and corruption and torture and our having weakened our Armed Forces and turned most of the world against us – and on and on and on and on.

***

7/29/06

Happy Birthday:

Alexis de Tocqueville, 7/29/1805 - 4/16/1859, French political scientist, historian, politician, aristocrat, wrote Democracy in America (1835, vol. I; 1840, vol. II), a compilation of observations and praises of American democracy.

Some of his comments were generally accurate... until about 2000!

“America demonstrates invincibly one thing that I had doubted up to now: that the middle classes can govern a State. ... Despite their small passions, their incomplete education, their vulgar habits, they can obviously provide a practical sort of intelligence and that turns out to be enough.”

***

Aug 2, 2006

Banking on War

William Rivers Pitt writes: “It is, at bottom, all about profit. We sell the weapons, which create warfare, which justifies our incredibly expensive war-making capabilities when we have to go in and fight against the people who bought our weapons or procured them from a third party. This does not make the world safer, but only reinforces the permanent state of peril we find ourselves in.”

Gonzales Fears War Crimes Charges

A law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters can be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted in US courts.

Report Alleges Bush Has Violated 26 Statutes

The Bush administration may have broken over two dozen federal laws and regulations - some of them multiple times - according to an unreleased report from House Judiciary Committee Democrats.

Worst Ever Security Flaw Found in Diebold TS Voting Machine

“Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant. If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS - and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver,” says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert.

House GOP Ties Min. Wage Hike to Estate Tax Cut

Having tried numerous other avenues to repeal a tax that affects only America’s wealthiest heirs, the Republican leadership last week tied its long-sought estate-tax cut to the minimum-wage hike hungrily sought by America’s poorest workers.

Environmental “Crisis” in Lebanon

The United Nations Environment Programme has expressed its “grave concern” about oil pollution in Lebanese coastal waters. An oil slick caused by Israeli bombing of the Jiyyeh power station now covers 50 miles of coast.

The Gas Menagerie

Amanda Griscom Little asks, “Is the sting of $75-a-barrel oil enough to convince Congress to finally boost auto fuel economy? Probably not, but a bipartisan coalition of senators led by Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is launching an admirable new effort anyway - the Fuel Economy Reform Act.”

Unnecessary Pain: The Medicare Drug Benefit

“There was a simple way to design a drug benefit - simply add on the benefit to the existing Medicare plan,” writes Dean Baker. “Medicare is by far the most efficient part of the country’s health care system (with the possible exception of the Veteran’s Administration hospitals). It would have been relatively simple to just attach the new drug benefit to the already existing Medicare program, so that Medicare could offer assistance in paying for drugs just like other health insurance plans.”

Tax Cheats Called Out of Control

So many super-rich Americans evade taxes using offshore accounts that law enforcement cannot control the growing misconduct, according to a Senate report that provides the most detailed look ever at high-level tax schemes.

***

8/16/06

“I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.”

– Donald Rumsfeld, November 14, 2002

**

US Casualties: 21, 861

American Deaths

Since war began (3/19/03): 2591

Since “Mission Accomplished” (5/1/03) 2454

Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 2126

Since Handover (6/29/04): 1725

Since Election (1/31/05): 1155

American Wounded Official Estimated

Total Wounded: 19270 48100

Latest Fatality August 6th, 2006

**

“http://www.borowitzreport.com/”:

Bush Urges Bin Laden to Take August Off Warns Terror Leader of Burnout
Having begun his month-long summer vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, President George W. Bush used his weekly radio address on Saturday to urge Osama bin Laden to take the month of August off as well.

President Bush said he was taking the “extreme step” of “slipping out of vacation mode for a few seconds” to address the al-Qaeda leader directly.

“I strongly recommend that you take August off, because if you don’t, you are greatly increasing your chances of burnout,” Mr. Bush told the al-Qaeda madman. “Even an evildoer like yourself cannot evildo twelve months out of the year.”

The president added that if Mr. bin Laden takes his advice, “In September, you will emerge from your vacation feeling rested, refreshed, and eviler than ever.”

The president’s extraordinary message to the world’s most wanted man may have come in part as a reaction to a Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) received last week entitled “Bin Laden Determined Not to Take a Summer Vacation.”

“The president was concerned that Osama bin Laden apparently is planning to work straight through the summer,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said today. “Also, he was very annoyed that he had to take time out of his vacation to read that two-page PDB.”

For his part, President Bush said he intends to spend this August much as he did last year, clearing his ranch of brush and antiwar activists.
**

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060806/ap_on_re_us/iraq_believing_wmd

Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Sun Aug 6, 7:43 PM ET

Do you believe in Iraqi “WMD”? Did Saddam Hussein’s government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.

People tend to become “independent of reality” in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.

The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.

Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents — up from 36 percent last year — said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.

“I’m flabbergasted,” said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration’s shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.

“This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence,” Massing said.

**

I give up.

Published on Thursday, August 10, 2006 by the Progressive

Half the Population Still Believes in WMDs

by Amitabh Pal

I nearly fell off my chair while reading the local newspaper two days ago.

There it was. Newsflash headline: Half of U.S. Still Believes Iraq had WMD

This is beyond baffling. And, wait, it gets worse.

The 50 percent figure is actually a substantial increase from the 36 percent who believed in this myth last year, and the 38 percent who believed it in 2004.

At first glance, all this is very disheartening for those of us who have faith in the power of information to drive away falsehoods.

On the other hand, maybe this isn’t so surprising. After all, in a poll last December [2], a full sixty-one percent of Americans said that they believed in the devil, forty percent of Americans admitted that they think that ghosts surround us, while one-third even accepted the existence of UFOs. Maybe there’s some overlap between these people and those who still believe in those spectral WMDs.

Seriously, let’s start apportioning blame for this state of affairs.

At the top of the list is the Bush Administration. It has mouthed this nonsense of “mushroom clouds” and “nuclear weapons” so insistently that it is hard for its supporters to admit to themselves that the White House took them for a ride. The closest Condoleezza Rice has come to admitting, for instance, that she and her colleagues were wrong is to say that WMDs were “perhaps” not present in Iraq. One hell of an admission.

Of course, the Republican echo chamber in the right-wing media is also to blame for the mass delusion among half the American public. FOX News is the leading weapon of mass deception. As a poll famously revealed [4] three years ago, forty-five percent of FOX viewers believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq and that Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda and that global opinion supported Bush’s Iraq invasion. An incredible 80 percent believed at least one of these fibs.

**

“Rules of engagement” are a set of guidelines for murder.

– Dr. Teresa Whitehurst

**

Ambassador claims shortly before invasion, Bush didn’t know there were two sects of Islam

Christian Avard
Published: Friday August 4, 2006

Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Galbraith further argues that the invasion of Iraq destabilized the Middle East while inadvertently strengthening Iran. One of the administration’s intentions in invading Iraq was to undermine Iran, but instead, the Iraqi occupation has given Tehran one of its greatest strategic triumphs in the last four centuries.

Once considered to be Iraq’s worst enemy, Iran has now created, financed and armed the Shiite Islamic movements within southern Iraq. Since the Iraqi Parliamentary elections of 2005, the Shiites have made considerable political gains and now have substantial influence over the country’s U.S.-created military, its police, and the central government in Baghdad. In addition, Iraq is developing economic ties with Iran that Galbraith believes could soon link the two countries’ strategic oil supplies.

Galbraith says that, “thanks to George W. Bush, Iran today has no closer ally in the world than the Iraq of the Ayatollahs.”

Galbraith fears the United States may have lost the war on the very day it took Baghdad. “The American servicemen and women who took Baghdad were professionals--disciplined, courteous, and task-oriented,” said Galbraith. “Unfortunately, their political masters were so focused on making the case for war, so keen to vanquish their political foes at home, felt certain that Iraqis would embrace American-style democracy, yet they were so blinded by their own ideology that they failed to plan for the most obvious tasks following military victory.”

**

Journalism Professors Pass an Official Resolution Protesting Bush’s Anti-Press Policies

08.05.2006 Jay Rosen

The key passage is: “The membership of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication urges the Bush administration to abandon its anti-press policies.”

**

Sen. Hagel: American Troops In Iraq Face “A Hopeless, Winless Situation”…

**

http://www.orionsociety.org/pages/om/03-1om/Duncan.html

WHEN COMPASSION BECOMES DISSENT DAVID JAMES DUNCAN

on the post-9/11 struggle to teach creative writing
while awaiting the further annihilation of Iraq

**

Published on Monday, August 7, 2006 by the “http://select.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/opinion/07herbert.html?pagewanted=print”

The Iraq War Enablers

by Bob Herbert

Despite the rationalizations now suddenly on the lips of so many, the problem with the current war in Iraq is not the way it was conducted, but the fact of the war itself. It was launched amid blinding, billowing clouds of deceit. There was never any legitimate reason for the war. Iraq had not attacked the U.S. and there was no imminent threat of attack.

The U.S. went in with guns blazing (“shock and awe”) like Matt Dillon shooting up the dusty streets of Dodge City. Only this was the real world, and the result has been unending tragedy.

The American occupation of Iraq was guaranteed, sooner or later, to provoke a sustained and bloody resistance, and it was inevitable that terror would be the resistance’s most effective tool. It was also certain that if the Shiites were empowered, there would be widespread retaliation for their many years of suffering under Saddam, and then the inevitable counterreaction of the suddenly disempowered Sunnis, and so on.

None of this was a secret. The warnings came from around the world before the first shot was ever fired.

This was not a war we were ever going to win. It’s time we brought our involvement to an end.

Americans no longer support this war, and there are few things more empty of meaning than dying in a war that one’s fellow citizens — safe at home — have already given up on.

We went into Iraq with bombs falling and guns blazing, insisting all the while that we were bringing the Iraqis the gifts of freedom and democracy. Instead, we gave them terror, chaos and civil war — in other words, a whole new generation of misery and mass death.

**

RE-PUBLICAN? OR RE-GRESSIVE?

Joe Vecchio: “The radical right have demonized the term liberal, causing progressive to replace it. Well, they are anti-intellectual, anti-labor, anti-science, anti-stem cell research, anti-universal health care, anti-Project Head Start; anti-environment, anti-choice, anti-equal rights . . . they are taking us into the past, not the future . . . so from this day forward we should call conservatives who align themselves with Bush what they really are: regressives. Use ‘regressive’ instead of ‘conservative’ until we get this country back for the people.”

F Joe goes on to suggest that Jesus advocated social justice, not tax cuts for the rich and attacking countries that had not attacked us. And he directs us to Wikipedia entry for liberal. In key part:

Broadly speaking, contemporary liberalism emphasizes individual rights. It seeks a society characterized by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on power, especially of government and religion, the rule of law, free public education, and progressive taxation, the free exchange of ideas, a market economy that supports relatively free private enterprise, and a transparent system of government in which the rights of all citizens are protected. [2] In modern society, liberals favor a liberal democracy with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law and an equal opportunity to succeed[3].

F Listen: There are tons of wonderful people who identify as Republicans but who, like Nancy Reagan, are deeply saddened that we are leaning against stem cell research rather than racing to the cures. Republicans who feel the government has no business in people’s bedrooms and even less business in Iraq – at least not without having a clue when we went in what might happen next. Republicans who, perhaps like you, are horrified that just three Republican presidents – Reagan, Bush, and Bush – will have accounted for $8 trillion of what will be our $10 trillion National Debt by the time the White House changes hands.*

(Remember the promised “humble foreign policy” from a “uniter not a divider” who would dip into “budget surpluses as far as they eye could see” in order to enact tax cuts – “by far the vast majority” of which would go “to people at the bottom end of the economic ladder”?)

And to those Republicans, we Democrats – like Howard Dean, who balanced Vermont’s budget in each of his six terms while cutting the state income tax twice and who was rated “A” by the National Rifle Association every year he was in office – say: welcome to the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. At least temporarily, until you get your party back. We need you.

*The annual interest on that debt, even at today’s relatively low interest rates, already eats up 40% of all the personal income tax we pay.

**

How is the Vice President kept alive through all his heart attacks and other ailments?
With fresh organs from the War on Terror.

The organs are harvested from dying insurgents and terrorists, then flown fresh daily from the Middle East to a secret medical facility in Virginia. There, in a former intensive-care nursery, rows of cribs hold hearts, livers, spleens, etc., ready for implantation.

**

Why They Hate Us

Julia E. Sweig writes that recovering our global standing will come not only from how we fight or prevent the next war, or manage an increasingly chaotic world. Domestic policy must change as well. Steering the body politic out of its insular mood, reducing social and economic inequalities, and decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels will help improve our moral standing and our security.

Hundreds of Fallujah Police Disappear After Threats

A Fallujah police major who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals said that at least 1,400 policemen had left their jobs since Friday, 400 of them above the rank of officer.

Bush “Viewed War in Lebanon as a Curtain-Raiser for Attack on Iran”

The Bush administration was informed in advance and gave the “green light” to Israel’s military strikes against Hezbollah, with plans drawn up months before two Israeli soldiers were seized it has been claimed. The US reportedly considered Israel’s actions as a necessary prerequisite for a possible strike against Iran. A report by a leading investigative reporter says that earlier this summer Israeli officials visited Washington to brief the government on its plan to respond to any Hezbollah provocation and to “find out how much the US would bear.”

“Swift Boat” Veterans Set Sights on Congressman Murtha

Two years after a cadre of veterans helped sink the presidential campaign of Senator John F. Kerry, they have found a new target in the old steel country of southwestern Pennsylvania: Democratic congressman John P. Murtha.

Lieberman Should Drop Out of Election Race

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Lieberman should support his party - and Lamont - rather than running against him to defeat the Republicans.

Times Call for New Pentagon Papers

Daniel Ellsberg writes, “What prompted me to begin copying 7,000 pages of highly classified documents - an act that I fully expected would send me to prison for life? I came to the conclusion that the system I had been part of as a Marine, a Pentagon official and a State Department officer in Vietnam lied reflexively, at every level, from sergeant to commander in chief, about murder. And I had the evidence to prove it.”

New York Times | Rewriting the Geneva Conventions

In January 2002, when the Bush administration created the camp at Guantanamo Bay for prisoners from the war in Afghanistan, President Bush said he would be “adhering to the spirit of the Geneva Convention” in handling the detainees. Unfortunately, like many of the things the administration said about Guantanamo Bay, this was not true.

Wanted: Terrorists to Resuscitate Republican Party

“September 11 is forever seared in our souls as the day our way of life changed. It could have been an opportunity. No one expected us to turn the other cheek. We should have pursued those responsible. And we should have examined why we’re hated, but this would have required a level of intelligence beyond the capacity of George W. Bush.,” writes Missy Comley Beattie.

John Dean Book Review: The Fast Lane to Fascism

“’How does the Bush administration get away with it?’ And: ‘How come, no matter what scandal or embarrassment or disaster Bush&Co. get enmeshed in, one third of the population still supports them?’ ... With the publication of former White House counsel John W. Dean’s compelling new book, ‘Conservatives Without Conscience,’ we now have more of a framework for understanding what drives the Busheviks, and why so many continue to stand behind them,” writes Bernard Weiner.

Resist the Taliban? What For?

Sara Daniel reports from Afghanistan: “As NATO takes over command of the international military operations in southern Afghanistan from the United States, the ‘students of religion’ are becoming ever more active in a country still gnawed by corruption, drug trafficking and rivalries between warlords...”

Governors Oppose Federal Control of Guard

The nation’s governors, protesting what they call an unprecedented shift in authority from the states to the federal government, will urge Congress today to block legislation that would allow the president to take control of National Guard forces in the event of a natural disaster or a threat to homeland security.

Planned Medicaid Cuts Cause Rift With States

The White House is clashing with governors of both parties over a plan to cut Medicaid payments to hospitals and nursing homes that care for millions of low-income people. The National Governors Association said it “would impose a huge financial burden on states” already struggling with explosive growth in health costs.

Why the US Has Not Stemmed HIV

Even as the spread of AIDS in Africa seems to have peaked, progress in the US appears stalled. The number of new HIV infections in the United States has been about 40,000 a year for the past decade and a half. Five years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched an effort to cut it in half. It did not move.

Israeli Leaders Fault Bush on War

Robert Parry reports that amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel’s faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military adventure against the Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon. Bush conveyed his strong personal support for the military offensive during a White House meeting with Olmert on May 23, according to sources familiar with the thinking of senior Israeli leaders.

Sickened Iraq Vets Cite Depleted Uranium

There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military’s new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick. Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon’s arsenal of it - thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.

A Deadly Airline Plot and Failed Bush Policies

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asserts that there is much that we don’t know about the plot uncovered last week to blow up 10 airliners over the Atlantic, flying between Great Britain and the United States. We know that the war in Iraq is not a “war on terror.” We know that the loss of 2,600 good Americans, the injuries of 19,000 others and the wartime expense of $320 billion have been a tragic waste. We know that because of the cost of Iraq, measures that might truly enhance homeland security, like technology that would spot sinister liquids at airport checkpoints, are hardly affordable.

The Frightened

William Rivers Pitt writes that the Bush administration and the GOP have spent the last year making political hay by being the frighteners in chief. Today, those same tactics carry a note of hysteria. They have nothing else to run on. They have become the frightened.

Watching Lebanon

According to Seymour Hersh, President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

Pacific “Dead Zone” Worse Than Thought

The oxygen-starved “dead zone” along the Pacific Coast that is causing massive crab and fish die-offs is worse than initially thought. Weather, not pollution, appears to be the culprit, scientists said, and no relief is in sight. Strong upwelling winds have pushed a low-oxygen pool of deep water toward shore, suffocating marine life.

Muslim Leaders Say Foreign Policy Makes UK Target

Leading UK Muslims have united to tell Tony Blair that his foreign policy in Iraq and on Israel offers “ammunition to extremists” and puts British lives “at increased risk.” An open letter signed by three of the four Muslim MPs, three of the four peers, and 38 organisations including the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain, was greeted with dismay in Downing Street.

US Muslims Bristle at Bush Remarks

US Muslim groups have criticized US President George W Bush for calling a foiled plot to blow up airplanes part of a “war with Islamic fascists,” saying the term could inflame anti-Muslim tensions.

Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheet May Speed Rise in Sea Level

Two new scientific studies measuring Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheet and the pace of Antarctic snowfall suggest that the sea level may be rising faster than researchers previously assumed. The Greenland ice sheet, Earth’s second-largest reservoir of fresh water, is melting at three times the rate at which it had been melting over the previous five years.

Ashcroft Profiting as National Security Lobbyist

Former US attorney general John D. Ashcroft has emerged as the highest-ranking former Bush administration official to lobby for and invest in companies involved in homeland security. Privacy experts and civil libertarians warn that these types of businesses are fast becoming a de facto branch of the government, beyond traditional oversight.

Bush Staff Wanted Bomb-Detect Cash Moved

While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology. A series of similar moves has left lawmakers and some of the Homeland Security Department’s own experts questioning the administration’s commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

9/11 Commissioner: Iraq War Hinders Anti-Terrorism Efforts

Former 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer argued that the recent terror plot in Britain illustrated why we need to direct resources from Iraq to the global terrorist threat. Roemer said, “It’s very important that we don’t put all our intelligence and military resources in Iraq and take our eye off the ball in other places in the world.”

Bush Versus the Constitution

“Last December, when Congressman John Conyers released a huge report documenting the evidence that Bush and Cheney had lied us into a war, he also introduced a bill to start a preliminary investigation of the matter and make recommendations on impeachment. Last week, Conyers released an expanded report, including new superfluous evidence of proved crimes related to the war, plus a lengthy Section 2 focused on illegal spying programs. The evidence of blatant criminality and threat to the Constitution in this new section is devastating. And the crimes have been confessed to,” writes David Swanson.

The War Bush Isn’t Fighting

“When unsmiling agents at the airport take away your contact lens solution, your toothpaste, and your cologne or after-shave, remember Osama bin Laden. Remember the real war on terrorism that the Bush administration and its allies decided not to fight, preferring cowboy-style military adventures,” reminds Eugene Robinson.

Paul Krugman: Nonsense and Sensibility

“After Ned Lamont’s victory in Connecticut, I saw a number of commentaries describing Joe Lieberman not just as a ‘centrist’ - a word that has come to mean ‘someone who makes excuses for the Bush administration’ - but as ‘sensible.’ But on what planet would Mr. Lieberman be considered sensible?”

Take a look at Thomas Ricks’s “Fiasco,” the best account yet of how the U.S. occupation of Iraq was mismanaged. The prime villain in that book is Donald Rumsfeld, whose delusional thinking and penchant for power games undermined whatever chances for success the United States might have had.

Documents Show BP Ignored Pipeline Woes for Years

“Hundreds of pages of documents highlighting BP’s nearly decade-long neglect of its Prudhoe Bay pipelines, its internal safety regulations, and the company’s alleged cover-up of past oil spills that resulted from severely corroded pipelines are archived on a little known web site maintained by a former oil industry analyst who also acts as a spokesman for BP whistleblowers,” writes Jason Leopold, “The documents showcase the genesis of a corporate scandal that parallels the financial machinations that brought down Enron Corp.”

Bush Seeks Political Gains From Plot

Bush seized on a foiled London airline bomb plot today to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having forgotten the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, Bush and his aides have tried to shift the national political debate from that conflict to the broader and more popular global war on terrorism ahead of the November Congressional elections.

Israel Asks US to Ship Rockets With Wide Blast

Israel has been using illegal cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon. Human Rights Watch researchers working on the ground confirmed that an attack with cluster weapons was carried out on the village of Blida on July 19, killing one and wounding at least 12 civilians, including seven children.

Mark LeVine | 101 Uses of Chaos

“With George Bush still insisting on the need to fight ‘Islamic fascism’ to the bitter end, Labor Party Defense Minister Amir Peretz imploring Israeli soldiers to turn southern Lebanon ‘to dust,’ and Iran’s Mahmud Ahmedinejad declaring the need to wipe Israel off the map, the hubris, arrogance, and utter disdain for human life that has brought the Middle East to its latest precipice continues to harden the hearts of leaders and peoples alike. And all will be the losers because of it.”

Mark LeVine is a professor of modern Middle Eastern History at UC Irvine and author of Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oneworld, 2005) and the forthcoming Heavy Metal Islam (Random House/Verso). His website is www.culturejamming.org.

Jeremy Scahill | Mercenary Jackpot

“While the Bush administration calls for the immediate disbanding of what it has labeled ‘private’ and ‘illegal’ militias in Lebanon and Iraq, it is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its own global private mercenary army tasked with protecting US officials and institutions overseas. The secretive program, which spans at least twenty-seven countries, has been an incredible jackpot for one heavily Republican-connected firm in particular: Blackwater USA.”

Bush Planning Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Cuts

The Bush administration has begun sounding out lawmakers and other key figures about mounting a new bipartisan effort to rein in the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security after the midterm elections.

War Critics Are Mainstream, Not Fringe

“For the neoconservatives,” writes Joe Conason, “the answer to every international conflict is shock and awe, so long as they remain safely distant from the carnage. The American people are turning away from that mindless and dangerous attitude, which is leading us toward disaster. Politicians of both parties should do likewise.”

Fascists of All Varieties

Marc Ash writes: “Since, Mr. Bush, you have chosen to put the issue of fascism before the public, it begs a broader dialog on fascism’s role in our lives today. I accept the challenge to enter that dialog. Frankly Mr. Bush, many Americans refer to you as a fascist.”

**

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51421

Reagan architect declares war on GOP
Viguerie says withhold money, stop calling yourself ‘Republican’

Posted: August 8, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
WASHINGTON – One of the architects of the Reagan Revolution is calling on fellow conservatives to withhold support of the Republican Party establishment – including most GOP incumbents in Congress this year.

In “Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause,” Richard Viguerie, the man who invented the idea of using direct mail as a means of going over the heads of what he considered to be a biased establishment press, says it’s time for radical action to save the Republican Party from itself.

In his new book, Viguerie shows federal spending under the Bush administration has grown five times larger than that during the second term of the Clinton administration, painting the president as a traitor to his party.

**

Published on Friday, August 11, 2006 by the “http://www.ipsnews.net”

Veteran Policy-Makers Fear Disaster in U.S. Course

by Jim Lobe

Alarms are definitely on the rise here.
And it’s not just because the British police arrested 21 people who were allegedly plotting to bomb up to 10 jetliners between London and the United States in mid-flight over the Atlantic Ocean. Although that probably didn’t help.
It’s more the sense that the growing number of crises in the “new Middle East”, proudly midwifed by the administration of President George W. Bush, is rapidly spinning out of control with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire region and beyond.
**

Published on Friday, August 11, 2006 by the Seattle “http://seattlepi.nwsource.com”

U.S. Wages War on a Concept

by Robert Sprackland

The U.S. is not waging war against Iraq, or Baathists, or even Muslims. It is not fighting a place or entity but a concept -- “terrorism.” What enemy can be more of a phantom, impossible to kill or contain, than an idea? That is why dictators so enjoy a good book burning -- books contain ideas.

The government, when queried about when troops will come home and the war will end, repetitively answers “we will stay the course until we defeat terrorists.” Yet the methods employed to attack terrorists provides precisely the feeding ground to produce their replacements. Worse, the largely artificial lines of nationhood drawn in the sands of the Middle East quickly blow away in the hot winds of fanatical Islam. Terrorists do not wear a national uniform, but come dressed as civilians.

Wars against ideas never achieve victory. China may have overthrown its 2,200-year tradition of emperors, but it is still an empire led by a hereditary aristocracy; the United States failed miserably in its wars against drugs, poverty and alcohol, but admitted defeat only when it repealed Prohibition. And although the Third Reich is a memory, Nazism is still among us. Were the goal of World War II to destroy the Nazis, it would still be fought today.

So I ask the president: How will we know when we have defeated terrorism? If it is outlawed by all the Middle Eastern nations, it will still exist, as do slavery and drug dealers. What will it take to recall U.S. troops, admit that this is a foe that armies are not meant to fight, and that the idea of fighting “terrorism” is as poor an idea as any that led to the debacle ongoing in the Middle East?

Regarding troops, Tennyson eloquently wrote: “Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do & die.” Those of us at home must hold government accountable and demand to know why. It may not be the most important way to support the troops, but after three years of war it certainly seems we should get answers.

**

Published on Friday, August 11, 2006

The Authoritarianism of Right-Wing Radio

by Guy Reel

In his new book “Conservatives Without Conscience,” John Dean describes his journey to discover why some of today’s right-wingers have drifted so far astray from many of the classic notions of conservatism – limited government, limited executive power, reduced foreign entanglements, respect for individual rights, etc. What he found is rather alarming – he concludes that among many of today’s right-wing are streaks of both authoritarianism and a personality type described as “social dominance orientation.”

**

Published on Thursday, August 10, 2006 by the St Paul “http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress” (Minnesota)

Enough Destruction, Desperation, Death

by Fouad Siniora

A military solution to Israel’s savage war on Lebanon and the Lebanese people is both morally unacceptable and totally unrealistic. We in Lebanon call upon the international community and citizens everywhere to support my country’s sovereignty and end this folly now. We also insist that Israel be made to respect international humanitarian law, including the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, which it has repeatedly and willfully violated.

As the world watches, Israel has besieged and ravaged our country, created a humanitarian and environmental disaster, and shattered our infrastructure and economy, putting an intolerable strain on our social and economic systems. Fuel, food and medical equipment are in short supply; homes, factories and warehouses have been destroyed; roads severed, bridges smashed and airports disabled.

**

Hoping for Fear

“All Mr. Bush and his party can do at this point is demonize their opposition,” writes Paul Krugman. “My guess is that the public won’t go for it, that Americans are fed up with leadership that has nothing to hope for but fear itself.

SEC Caves to Political Pressure Not to Investigate Bush Donors

The chairmen of two Senate committees have written to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission saying they are troubled by the agency’s handling of accusations that political considerations impeded the investigation of a prominent hedge fund, Pequot Capital Management.

Pre-Election Terrorizing

“The Bush administration is a past master at playing politics with terrorism, portraying critics of its various anti-terrorism initiatives as naive or even accusing them, in the words of former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, of giving ‘ammunition to America’s enemies,’” says the Los Angeles Times.

Violations by Military Recruiters Up Sharply

The number of alleged and substantiated violations by US military recruiters increased by more than 50 percent in one year, a rise that may reflect growing pressure to meet wartime recruiting goals, according to a Government Accountability Office report released yesterday.

Freed From Guantanamo but Stranded Far From Home

Mr. Qassim and four other men were deemed not to have been enemy combatants. “It’s a mystery as to why we were released and the others are still languishing behind bars. We still believe the US is a good country with good people, but the government has made a mistake and is still making it.”

Match: Negative Tie

“Israel, which couldn’t lose the war, didn’t win it and Hezbollah, which couldn’t win the war, didn’t lose it. It’s a sort of tie, in which no one can gauge exactly what each side of the scale really contains,” argues Gerard Dupuy, while Le Monde encourages Israel not to abandon the principle of “land for peace.”

http://www.justiceblind.com/airplanes.html

9/11: THREATS ABOUT AIRPLANES AS WEAPONS PRIOR TO 9/11

By: Dr. Matthew Robinson

Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
Appalachian State University

“mailto:robinsnmb@appstate.edu”

Senator Bob Graham, who held the highest Democratic position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who organized and co-chaired the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (House-Senate Congressional Inquiry), asserts that President Bush’s statements and those of his Administration about the 9/11 attacks are inaccurate. Graham says: “The first was that it was a surprise, a bolt from the blue. The second was that no one could have imagined such an attack carried out in such a manner. The third, that since no one could have envisaged the use of commercial aircraft as a weapon of mass destruction, no one could be held accountable. These are all false! In fact, the threats were many, and we knew it was coming ... Graham says there were at least 12 instances in which intelligence found information outlining terrorist plans to use airplanes as weapons, there were at least 12 instances in which the plot could have been interdicted but mistakes by individual people assured it did not happen (and yet not a single person has been held accountable for their failures.)

**The Lone Gunmen, TV Series, 2001:

“The pilot episode, which first aired on March 4, 2001, concerned a terrorist plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the World Trade Center towers.”

- “http://imdb.com/title/tt0243069/trivia”

**

RIGHT CONCLUSION, WRONG REASON

Religion News Service “http://www.beliefnet.com/story/197/story_19716_1.html” Pat Robertson said this about the recent heat wave:

“It is the most convincing evidence of global warming I’ve run into in a long time,” Robertson said Thursday (Aug. 3) during his “The 700 Club” television show. He previously had been critical of claims about the dangers of climate change.

F The scientific consensus failed to convince him (and yes, it is a consensus). But a really hot week – well, now maybe he agrees with the scientists . . . though surely not based on their thousands of man- and woman-years’ research and analysis. Just seems real damn hot.

**

Published on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 by “http://www.afp.com”

Ohio Voting Problems Deemed Severe

by Connie Mabin Problems with elections in Ohio’s most populous county are so severe that it’s unlikely they can be completely fixed by November, or even by the 2008 presidential election, a report commissioned by Cuyahoga County and released Tuesday says.

“It’s no disgrace not to be able to run a country nowadays, but it is a disgrace to keep on trying when you know you can’t.”

-Will Rogers

​“Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.”

-Albert Schweitzer, 1/14/1875-9/4/1965, Alsatian/German physician, theologian, musicologist, 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, Civilization and Ethics, Preface.—The Philosophy of Civilization, trans. C. T. Campion, part 2, p. 79 (1949, reissued 1981).

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1/30/1882 - 4/12/1945, 32nd US President (1933-1945)

“I have noted that persons with bad judgment are most insistent that we do what they think best.”

- Lionel Abe, Important Nonsense Prometheus 86, quoted in NY Times 6 Feb 1987

“The classical detective story affirms our belief that we live in a rational and generally benevolent universe.”

-P. D. (Phyllis Dorothy) James, 8/3/1920 - , British mystery author

To the BELOVED REPUBLIC under whose equal laws I am made the peer of any man, although denied political equality by my native land, I dedicate this book with an intensity of gratitude and admiration which the native-born citizen can neither feel nor understand.”
-Andrew Carnegie, 11/25/1835 - 8/11/1919, Scottish-born US industrialist, philanthropist, Dedication to Triumphant Democracy (Scribner’s, 1886)

“Democracy can disregard all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down, trample all the fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honor anyone who professes to be the people’s friend.”

- Plato, 428-347 B.C., Greek philosopher, Republic: Bock VIII

“A terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but doesn’t have an air force.”
-unknown

obligatory forward...

>A Cautionary Tale
>
>It started out innocently enough. I began to think at
>parties now and then
>-- just to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought
>led to another, and
>soon I was more than just a social thinker.
>
>I began to think alone -- “to relax,” I told myself --
>but I knew it wasn’t
>true. Thinking became more and more important to me,
>and finally I was
>thinking all the time.
>
>That was when things began to sour at home. One
>evening I turned off the TV
>and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent
>that night at her
>mother’s. I began to think on the job. I knew that
>thinking and employment
>don’t mix, but I couldn’t help myself.
>
>I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read
>Thoreau, Muir,
>Confucius and Kafka, the Holy Bible. I would return to
>the office dizzied and confused,
>asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”
>
>One day the boss called me in. He said, “Listen, I
>like you, and it hurts me
>to say this, but your thinking has become a real
>problem. If you don’t stop
>thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.”
>
>This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early
>after my conversation
>with the boss. “Honey,” I confess, “I’ve been
>thinking...”
>
>”I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a
>divorce!”
>
>”But Honey, surely it’s not that serious.”
>
>”It is serious,” she said, lower lip aquiver. “You
>think as much as college
>professors and scientists and they don’t make any
>money, so if you
>keep on thinking, we won’t have any money!”
>
>”That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently.
>
>She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I
>was in no mood to deal
>with the emotional drama.
>
>”I’m going to the library,” I snarled as I stomped out
>the door.
>
>I headed for the library, in the mood for some
>Nietzsche. I roared into the
>parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the
>big glass doors.
>
>They didn’t open. The library was closed.
>
>To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking
>out for me that
>night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for
>Zarathustra, a poster
>caught my eye, “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your
>life?” it asked.
>
>You probably recognize that line. It comes from the
>standard Thinkers
>Anonymous poster.
>
>This is why I am what I am today: a recovering
>thinker. I never miss a TA
>meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational
>video; last week it was
>”Porky’s.” Then we share experiences about how we
>avoided thinking since the
>last meeting.
>
>I still have my job, and things are a lot better at
>home. Life just
>seems easier, somehow, since I have stopped thinking.
>I think the road to
>recovery is nearly complete for me.
>
>Today I took the final step............ I joined the
>Republican Party.