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| P.M. Says He "Wouldn't Have Told" Dubya's Imbecilic WMD 'Joke' -- Nobody With A Brain Would!!! |
| 03.31.04 (5:04 pm) [edit] |
[b]The hapless boob Dubya will[i] do [/i]anything,[i] harm [/i]anyone, and[i] trample [/i]upon the grief of others, [i]in any circumstances[/i], in order to score some cheap 'brownie-points', garish-ugly laughs, and win some tinny 'popularity-contests' from neo-con buffoons, court-jesters and toadies too stupid, too insensitive and/or too corrupt (or [i]too cowardly and too intimidated[/i]) to [i]slap the stupid smirk off the mindless brain-dead face of[/i] the Mad King George ...[/b]
Other foreign leaders must wonder how dumb Americans must be to put up with the [i]idiot ne'er-do-well-cum-asshole [/i]occupying the White House ...
The Prime Minister, John Howard, today joined other critics in giving the thumbs down to United States President George W Bush's jokes about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.
The president hosted a black-tie media event in Washington in which he poked fun at his staff and himself for not finding the alleged stash of weapons that bolstered the case for invading Iraq.
But political rivals and family members of soldiers serving in Iraq quickly took him to task over the jokes' appropriateness.
"I wouldn't have told those jokes. I wouldn't have," Mr Howard told the [i]Nine Network[/i].
"Every country has it's own style but I'm an extremely cautious person about those things."
Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown last week said the jibes were in bad taste and warranted an apology.
"It was rotten to joke about a process which has cost 500 coalition lives and up to 50,000 Iraqi lives," Mr Brown said earlier today.
"His joke shows poor judgment, poor rapport with those in Iraq and appalling leadership."
The jokes came at Wednesday night's annual [i]Radio and Television Correspondents Association [/i]dinner in the US capital.
In a 10-minute, mostly puckish, self-deprecating speech, the president presented a slide show he called an election-year, White House photo album.
In several photos, he appeared to be searching the Oval Office. A photo of Mr Bush looking under a piece of furniture was flashed on the large projection screens in the ballroom.
"Those weapons of mass destruction got to be here somewhere," Mr Bush said in his narration, drawing laughter from the audience of journalists, politicians, bureaucrats and other guests.
Another photo showed him looking through a window. "Nope, no weapons over there," the president said.
[b]Tony Blair hasn't behaved so [i]stupidly[/i] either ... He would be[i] run out[/i] of the United Kingdom [i]on a rail [/i]if he made[i] such asinine, tasteless and stomach-turning [/i]"jokes [[i]sic[/i]]" [i]'off-the-backs' [/i]of over 599 U.S. Soldiers & over 10,000-15,000 innocent Iraqi civilians slaughtered because Dubya went to war based upon ([i]missing or fabricated?[/i]) WMDs posing a so-called "imminent threat" to our nation ...[i] Jeez [/i]... I'll bet both John Howard and Tony Blair thought to themselves: "What a [i]F*cking Jerk [/i]Dubya Really Is" ... And They Would Be Absolutely Right![/b]
[b]Sources:[/b]
"PM on Bush: I wouldn't have told those jokes", http://www.independent-media....%20Reported
"Beltway Humor: Media React to Bush's Weapons Jokes", http://www.independent-media....%20Reported
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| Cost of Probing Bill Clinton's Sex Life VERSUS Cost of Probing 9/11!!! ... |
| 03.31.04 (1:12 pm) [edit] |
[b]URGENT - UNANSWERED QUESTIONS OF SEPTEMBER 11 is a group of concerned citizens who[i] want the truth [/i]about what the corrupt Bush cabal of neo-con liars and neo-fascist traitors knew in advance of 9/11 [i]and [/i]when they knew it [i]and[/i] why they didn't warn us ... [/b]Please click on their website at http://bigeye.com/urgent.htm - and post questions that you would like answered by Condoleezza Rice, Bush-and-Cheney ([i]while holding hands together[/i]), and the 9/11 Commission (Refer to "[i][b]Why Are The 9/11 Commission Toadies Getting Away With This??? [/b][/i]..." on http://www.tblog.com/template... ) ...
[b]TWO YEARS OF OBSTRUCTION[/b] - http://www.unansweredquestion...
Coming soon with items on the following: The "airlift" of bin Laden family members out of the United States on Sept. 13, 2001. The Congressional rage at Rep. Nancy Pelosi's suggestion in Sept. 2001 that CIA-Bin Laden ties dating back to the 1970s were worthy of investigation. The crippling of the Sept. 11 investigation by the sudden arrival of the anthrax attacks in Oct. 2001. The resignation of the FBI's two top counterterror investigators in November, 2001. Cheney's Nov. 2001 revelation that a "Shadow Government" had been activated on Sept. 11. Cheney's and Bush's lobbying with Daschle not to go ahead with a 9/11 investigation in Jan. 2002. Cynthia McKinney's questioning of the official story in March 2002, and the outraged reaction it inspired. The FBI admission that they know nothing (Apr. 2002 speech by Mueller). The appointment and later resignation of CIA man Brit Snider to head the Congressional research team on 9/11. The intimidation of the Congressional inquiry by the White House and FBI. Further stonewalling before the appointment of an independent commission in November 2002. The incredible attempt to appoint Henry Kissinger to lead the independent commission. The publication of the Congressional report after many delays. The censorship of the report. A revealing statement by the dissenting members of the Congressional joint inquiry. Conflicts of interest on the Kean Commission. White House wrestling with the Kean Commission, refusing to release evidence. The "reclassification" of evidence.
[b]--- Cost of probing Bill Clinton's sex life: $65 million.
--- Cost of probing the Columbia shuttle disaster: $50 million.*
--- Funds assigned to independent Sept. 11 panel: $3 million.** [/b]
[b]Who knew? What did they know? Don't you deserve to know?[/b]
[b]Notes[/b]:
[i]* Independent panel approved the day after the Columbia tragedy.
** Kean commission, appointed under pressure from 9/11 families in Jan. 2002, after 19 months of active obstruction by White House and Bush's attempt to appoint Henry Kissinger as chairman. Commission members are currently challenging the Administration's attempt to "re-classify" already released documents. The White House has threatened to invoke "executive privilege." [/i]
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| Why Are The 9/11 Commission Toadies Getting Away With This??? ... |
| 03.31.04 (11:58 am) [edit] |
[b]Why are the 9/11 Commission toadies allowed to get away with giving the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] a [i]'Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free' Card[/i]??? ...[/b]
[b]I am a little surprised [/b]that the White House's new insistence on a [i][u]joint private[/u][/i] meeting with President Bush and Vice President Cheney hasn't elicited more notice.
In its Wednesday editorial the [i]Times[/i] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... writes ...
[i]"Yesterday, Mr. Bush's lawyer told the commission that Ms. Rice would testify. And after months of unacceptable delay, the lawyer said Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would also talk to the entire commission in private, not under oath. But the panel had to pay a price: it agreed, at the administration's insistence, that after Ms. Rice testifies, it will not call her back or ask any other White House official to testify in public[/i]."
So the[i] Times [/i]doesn't even mention the [i][u]jointness[/u][/i] issue or any problems it could raise.
Now, amidst all the stonewalling and foot-dragging and character assassination I guess this matter won't get top-billing. But just what is behind this demand -- to which the Commission has apparently agreed?
All the other arguments adduced for ducking the Commission investigators have had at least some conceivable constitutional basis, however weak: testimony in private, testimony not under oath, privilege for White House aides, etc.
(One might note that there will be no recording kept of this meeting -- just one sore-wristed Commission staffer allowed to take written notes of what is said by the ten Commission members, the president and vice president.)
In any case, clearly there cannot be any matter of constitutional precedent or principle involved in needing the president and vice president speak to the Commission together.
So, again, what's the deal?
Only[i] three scenarios [/i]or explanations make sense to me.
The[i] first [/i]-- and most generous -- explanation is that this is simply another way to further dilute the Commission's ability to ask questions.
If, say, the meeting lasts three hours, that's three hours to ask questions of both of them rather than three hours to ask questions of each -- as might be the case in separate meetings.
That wouldn't be any great coup for the White House. But it would be one more impediment to throw in front of the Commission's work, which would probably be a source of some joy for the White House.
From here the possible explanations go down hill -- in every respect -- pretty quickly.
Explanation[i] number two [/i]would be that this is a fairly elementary -- and, one imagines, pretty effective -- way to keep the two of them from giving contradictory answers to the Commission's questions. It helps them keep their stories straight.
(It's a basic part of any criminal investigation -- which, of course, this isn't -- to interview everyone separately, precisely so that people can't jigger their stories into consistency on the fly.)
The[i] third [/i]explanation is that the White House does not trust the president to be alone with the Commission members for any great length of time without getting himself into trouble, either by contradicting what his staff says, or getting some key point wrong, or letting some key fact slip. And Cheney's there to make sure nothing goes wrong.
These last two possibilities do, I grant you, paint the president and his White House in a rather dark light. But I would be curious if anyone can come up with another explanation for this odd demand.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
"Of Privilege and Politics", N.Y. Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
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| The Children Soldiers:-- The High Price Of Dubya's Insane Greed ... |
| 03.30.04 (2:07 pm) [edit] |
[b]Every time you observe one of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]neo-con, neo-fascist buffoons or mad-dogs[i] foaming at the mouth [/i]as they [i]scream-n-screech [/i]about how fantastic warfare is, [i]just remember [/i]the following letter ... [/b]
[i]I recently received the letter below. It's so moving, powerful and illustrative of the situation of many young US soliders in Iraq that I thought it was worth sharing. I am grateful to Marianne Brown and Michael Shepard for their kind and thoughtful words. Everyone at [i]The Nation [/i]hopes that their son will return safely and quickly[/i].
Dear[i] Nation[/i],
My stepson, who is in the 428th Military Police reserves, was just sent to Iraq. Needless to say, my husband and I now live daily lives of terror and worry. I want to thank Katrina vanden Heuvel for her persistence in bringing up the fact that 547 (and probably more) of our loved ones have died and thousands more wounded each time she speaks on TV.
She is one of the only people who has the goodness to remember these young people, some of them teenagers, who are being thrown into this bloodbath for who knows how many years. I did everything I could to talk our child out of going. He was a weekend warrior, a kid, a twenty one year old whose lack of worldly expertise and hopes of a grand college education would allow him the option to serve as a police officer someday.
If I hear one more flag draped miscreant sniff and tell me "well he signed up," I may slap them. No, he did not sign up for this bloodbath and occupation. I offered to send him overseas to hide. I offered him a lawyer to get out. I begged him to embrace jail time and a dishonorable discharge. But all to no avail.
How do you tell a twenty one year old what to do? He detests Bush, as do we, but he said, "I can't say anything bad about Bush in front of my unit commander. I'll lose my promotion." He didn't want a dishonorable discharge. The folly of youth. Now he is in Iraq. We don't know where yet. We don't know if we will ever see him again. What we do know is that he just walked into a civil war which, as I speak, is erupting daily into unadulterated hell on earth. We know he may come home in a box, or maimed for life, or psychogically damaged beyond comprehension.
He grew up in a small town and has no clue as to what he will see. When in 2003 my husband and I marched against the war in DC, when in 2001 we marched against the stolen election in DC, we had no idea this would become so personal, that it would hit us in the face and hearts by removing a loved one and put us in the position of being antiwar activists even more radical in our opposition to this occupation.
This hits home like nothing else does, not like losing my job or my elderly mother filing for bankruptcy. We can handle that, we can work that out. This time it's wondering daily, as our kid travels in inadequate Humvees, whether we will ever see him again, or see him again in one piece.
As a sidenote: the military is so desperate for warm bodies, they sent him over with scoliosis of the spine, which they verified he had at Fort Dix with an x-ray exam. I told my stepson to send me his medical records. I wanted a paper trail. The next day they loaded him onto a plane and took him away. The army says now, they lost his x-rays. How convenient for them.
I ask Ms. vanden Heuvel to please continue to speak with her eloquence she shows on TV to the anger many military families feel who watch the laughing, tittering talking heads on corporate TV make jokes all day, run puff pieces as news, and ignore the very real horrors of wondering where a child is in Iraq, will he come home, is he okay, what's it like for him to endure 120 degree heat, is he afraid, will someone be with him if he dies, or is wounded, will someone hold his hand and tell him we love him, is there a way out of this, when will he come home, will we ever see him again?
Thank you for remembering to bring up the children soldiers who have died and continue to be used as cannon fodder for this corporate bloodbath.
Respectfully, Mrs. Marianne Brown and Mr. Michael Shepard Parents of Michael Shepard, Jr. (428th MP army reserves) South Haven MI
[b][Isn't it [i]time[/i] for the neo-con arm-chair chicken-hawks and their neo-fascist corporate-take-all supporters [i]to go fight and die [/i]in their ugly wars to enrich their sluttish selves & their gluttonous pimps?][/b]
[b]Source[/b]:
[i]Katrina vanden Heuvel[/i], Editor's Cut, The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/edcu...
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| Whitewash:-- 9/11 Commission Give The Bushies A 'Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free' Card ... |
| 03.30.04 (10:38 am) [edit] |
[b][i]A whitewash[/i] by this despicable 9/11 Commission of corrupt Bush regime toadies and lackeys is taking place[i] before our very eyes [/i]... [/b]The 9/11 Commission have handed the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]a nasty, squalid [i]'Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free' Card [/i]because they have[i] eliminated the possibility of follow-up questions[/i] vital to any investigation that[i] really seeks [/i]to find and report the truth ... [i]Jeez[/i] ...
What if Condi Rice, when she testifies, makes statements in flat contradiction of earlier statements by Richard Clarke? Nothing, it would seem, since the Commission appears to have agreed not to "request additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice." That would seem to rule out testimony (at least[i] public [/i]testimony) from various aides who might be in a position to say which of the two is being truthful, should such a contradiction arise.
And then there's this, also from Al Gonzales' letter http://www.miami.com/mld/miam... to the Commission ...
[i]I would also like to take this occasion to offer an accommodation on another issue on which we have not yet reached an agreement - commission access to the president and vice president. I am authorized to advise you that the president and vice president have agreed to one joint private session with all 10 commissioners, with one commission staff member present to take notes of the session[/i].
Is that an '[i]accommodation[/i]'? [Who the hell are these bastards to '[i]accommodate[/i]' anything? Where the hell is the [i]accountability[/i] to the American people?]
Why is this is a [i]joint[/i] session? Why can't the president and the vice-president meet with the Commission members separately? Is there some, as yet unexplored, constitutional issue of the president and vice-president needing to appear jointly?
I hesitate to assay some jesting constitutional theory (the two jointly elected constitutional office-holders must appear jointly because they were elected jointly?) for fear that it might end up in Gonzales' next letter.
One can speculate about several reasons -- one in particular -- for making this stipulation. And, in addition to having no conceivable constitutional basis, none of them are flattering.
[Clearly, the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] are being given their criminal [i]'Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free' Card [/i]in order to cover-up their myraid [i]Crimes Against Humanity[/i]!]
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Bush Flip-Flops: The Question Condolizzard Should Be Asked In Public Under Oath!!! |
| 03.30.04 (8:35 am) [edit] |
[b]Another Bush flip-flop??? ... Neo-fascist Bush claimed to be standing on principle by not letting Condolizzard testify under oath in public ... But apparently under pressure, Herr Fuhrer Bush ([i]who is a dangerously stupid man, and just does what he is told by Reich Marshall Karl Rove[/i]) caves into pressure ... and his so-called 'principles' are flushed down the toilet ...[/b]
Of course, Condolizzard should have agreed to testify in public under oath weeks ago. Legal experts and constitutional scholars all agree that no precedent is set that will undermine the separation of powers http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/W... . It was a bogus excuse drummed-up by the corrupt Bushies to avoid having to perjure themselves, which [i]the sleezy Condolizzard will most likely do [/i]... Anything for vast power and riches ... We've already seen the weight of their vicious lies, deceptions and betrayals by their misleading the American people about phony WMDs in Iraq, their mendacious [i]casus belli [/i]for war ... The traitorous Bushies are all practiced liars, thieves and traitors ... [i]They won't fool all of us, however[/i] ...
Condolizzard should be asked the following question:
[b]Did you have foreknowledge of possible attacks upon America prior to 9/11???[/b]
John Ashcroft was warned not to fly in commercial aircraft prior to 9/11 http://www.takebackthepreside... ... also consider [b]"[i]Did Condi Have Foreknowledge Of 911 And Warn SF's Brown[/i]?"[/b] on http://www.libertyforum.org/s... :
Dear Mr. Rense,
There are many rumours here in Israel that Condoleezza Rice warned San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown about not flying on 911. The Mayor DID suddendly cancel a previously-booked flight on that day. I personally heard it from a source which I considered highly reliable. If its true, it means that Ms. Rice had foreknowledge of the 911 attack. I will appreciate if you would elaborate on your wonderful radio talk show with your guests. BTW, thank you for the wonderful improvements in your audio service, you are one of very few who provide FREE audio, we deeply appreciate it. You are a major source of RELIABLE information for us Israelis.
Can Americans force the San Francisco's Mayor to testify? Will Americans continue to be marched to the slaughter without getting to the bottom of the truth? With your untrustworthy White House, this is a golden opportunity for Americans to find the truth and get rid of your manipulative leadership!
How long will Americans continue to be gullible? How long will Americans agree to be held by the world as the most despised people on earth? When will Americans wake up? America today is an embarrassment to your founding fathers !!!
Now, when most of the world maintain that the pentagon is involved or behind the 911 attacks, and NOT bin-Laden, we need a change of leadership in America, and we need to clean up American military, too, otherwise we are at the end of our civilization!
I am enclosing two related articles which I found on Google.
Yours,
Danny Goldberg
dgoldberg@emailaccount.com
Tel Aviv, Israel
[u]Condoleezza Rice Warned Willie Brown Not To Fly On 9-11 [/u]
By Brasscheck. Monday August 11, 2003 at 02:42 PM - http://www.sf.indymedia.org/n... http://www.apfn.net/messagebo...
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| Fact Check: Condolizzard's Phony Neo-con Propaganda Circus Act on '60 Minutes' ... |
| 03.29.04 (3:48 pm) [edit] |
[b]Condolizzard's shabby performance on '60 Minutes' is making the over-rated, incompetent and corrupt National Security Amateur, the laughing stock of the intelligence community, the government and the informed citizenry here at home and abroad ... Refer to "[i]Condolizzard's Shabby Whitewash on '60 Minutes' [/i]..." on[/b] http://www.tblog.com/template...
Condolizzard's phony neo-con propaganda [i]circus act [/i] makes funny ([i]or, not so funny, when one considers the perilous impact of the neo-fascist Bush regime's heinous war crimes[/i]) "theatre [[i]sic[/i]]", but really, the[i] sleezy liar-cum-traitor [/i]should be[i] fired [/i]and [i]sent off-to-jail[/i], where she belongs for betraying the public trust and placing our national security in jeopardy ...
[b]Fact Check: [i]Condi Rice's '60 Minutes' Interview[/i][/b]
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared on [i]CBS's 60 Minutes [/i]in an effort to quell growing questions surrounding the Administration's inconsistent claims about its pre-9/11 actions. Not only did Rice refuse to take Richard Clarke's lead and admit responsibility for her role in the worst national security failure in American history, but she continued to make unsubstantiated and contradictory assertions:
[b]RICE CLAIM[/b]: "The administration took seriously the threat" of terrorism before 9/11.
[b]FACTS[/b]: President Bush himself acknowledges that, despite repeated warnings of an imminent Al Qaeda attack, before 9/11 "I didn't feel the sense of urgency" about terrorism. Similarly, [i]Newsweek[/i] reports that Bush's attitude was reflected throughout an Administration that was trying to "de-emphasize terrorism" as an overall priority. As proof, just two of the hundred national security meetings the Administration held during this period addressed the terrorist threat, and the White House refused to hold even one meeting of its highly-touted counterterrorism task force. Meanwhile, the Administration was actively trying to cut funding for counterterrorism, and "vetoed a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism" despite a serious increase in terrorist chatter in the summer of 2001.
[i]Source[/i]: "Bush At War" by Bob Woodward
[i]Source[/i]: Newsweek & vetoed request - http://foi.missouri.edu/terro...
[i]Source[/i]: Refusal to hold task force meeting - http://www.washingtonpost.com...
[i]Source[/i]: Only two meetings out of 100 - http://www.detnews.com/2002/p...
[b]RICE CLAIM[/b]: "I don't know what a sense of urgency any greater than the one we had would have caused us to do anything differently. I don't know how...we could have done more. I would like very much to know what more could have been done?"
[b]FACTS[/b]: There are many more things that could have been done: first and foremost, the Administration could have desisted from de-emphasizing and cutting funding for counterterrorism in the months before 9/11. It could have held more meetings of top principals to get the directors of the CIA and FBI to share information, especially considering the major intelligence spike occurring in the summer of 2001. As 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick said on[i] ABC [/i]this morning, the lack of focus and meetings meant agencies were not talking to each other, and key evidence was overlooked. For instance, with better focus and more urgency, the FBI's discovery of Islamic radicals training at flight schools might have raised red flags. Similarly, the fact that "months before Sept. 11, the CIA knew two of the al-Qaeda hijackers were in the United States" could have spurred a nationwide manhunt. But because there was no focus or urgency, "No nationwide manhunt was undertaken," said Gorelick. "The State Department watch list was not given to the FAA. If you brought people together, perhaps key connections could have been made."
[i]Source[/i]: Slash counterterrorism funding -http://www.criminology.fsu.ed...%20Sept_%2011%20Changed%2 0Goals%20of%20Justice%20D ept.htm
[i]Source[/i]: CIA knew 2 hijackers in the U.S. - http://www.newsmax.com/archiv...
[b]RICE CLAIM[/b]: "Nothing would be better from my point of view than to be able to testify, but there is an important principle involved here it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisors do not testify before the Congress."
[b]FACTS[/b]: Republican Commission John F. Lehman, who served as Navy Secretary under President Reagan said on [i]ABC[/i] this morning that "This is not testimony before a tribunal of the Congress…There are plenty of precedents for appearing in public and answering questions…There are plenty of precedents the White House could use if they wanted to do this." 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick agreed, saying "Our commission is [i]sui generis[/i]…the Chairman has been appointed by the President. We are distinguishable from Congress." Rice's remarks on [i]60 Minutes [/i]that the principle is limited to "sitting national security advisers" is also a departure from her statements earlier this week, when she said the "principle" applied to all presidential advisers. She was forced to change this claim for [i]60 Minutes [/i]after 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste "cited examples of non-Cabinet presidential advisers who have testified publicly to Congress." Finally, the White House is reportedly moving to declassify congressional testimony then-White House adviser Richard Clarke gave in 2002. By declassifying this testimony, the White House is breaking the very same "principle" of barring White House adviser's testimony from being made public that Rice is using to avoid appearing publicly before the 9/11 commission.
[i]Source[/i]: Quote from Tony Snow Show - http://www.usatoday.com/news/...
[b]RICE CLAIM[/b]: "Iraq was put aside" immediately after 9/11.
[b]FACTS[/b]: According to the [i]Washington Post[/i], "six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush signed a 2-and-a-half-page document" that "directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq." This is corroborated by a [i]CBS News[/i], which reported on 9/4/02 that five hours after the 9/11 attacks, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq." In terms of resources, the Iraq decision had far-reaching effects on the efforts to hunt down Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As the [i]Boston Globe [/i]reported, "the Bush administration is continuing to shift highly specialized intelligence officers from the hunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to the Iraq crisis."
[i]Source[/i]: September 17th directive - http://www.washingtonpost.com...
[i]Source[/i]: Rumsfeld orders Iraq plan - http://www.cbsnews.com/storie...
[i]Source[/i]: Shifting special forces - http://www.iht.com/articles/1...
[b]Source[/b]:
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Brain-Dead Buffoons Parrot Dubya's Idiotic Mantra: Blame Clinton - 9/11 - Blame Clinton - 9/11 - ... |
| 03.29.04 (11:33 am) [edit] |
[b]The neo-con, neo-fascist [i]brain-dead buffoons, mad-dogs and court-jesters[/i] in the corrupt Bush regime's[i] circus act [/i]keep parrotting Dubya's idiotic mantra: '[i]Blame Clinton ... 9/11 ... Blame Clinton ... 9/11 ... Blame Clinton ... 9/11 ... Blame Clinton ... 9/11 [/i]..." over and over and over again, [i]in mind-dumbing repetition[/i] ...[/b]
The vile and arrogant War Criminals, War-Profiteers, Liars, Traitors & Criminal Felons in the Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]"[i]aren't responsible for anything (?)[/i]", according to their neo-orwellian slut-dogs ... [i]Everybody else is (!)[/i]... Oh, how convenient ... Oh, how deceptive ... Oh, how phony, false and despicable these neo-con thugs and neo-fascist goons [i]really are [/i]... [i]Do you fall for their neo-con con-game and neo-fascist scam??? [/i]If [i]so[/i], Neil & Jeb Bush[i] have some swamp land [/i]to sell you in Iraq ... And, Dubya's [i]gotta' real whopper of a deal [/i]with you paying his lavish bills for the rest of your sorry life!!!
Consider "[i][b]Lies and character assassination are hallmarks of Team Bush[/b][/i]" by [i]Bev Conover [/i]on http://www.onlinejournal.com/... :
Even the word chutzpah isn't strong enough to account for the lies that flow daily from the mouths of the Bush team. Are these people so deranged that they actually believe they can get away with telling whopper after whopper after whopper or do they think the American people are so stupid that they will buy all the lies as long as the lies are humongous ones?
How many of you fell off your chairs when National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Supreme Court appointed Vice President Dick Cheney declared that Richard Clarke, who says the administration was soft on terrorism before 9/11, was out of the loop? That Clarke, the administration's top counterterrorism official, was not included in meetings where possible acts of terrorism were discussed?
The only thing Clarke may have been out of the loop on was the Bushies using the intelligence he provided them about impending al Qaeda attacks on US soil to either give CIA asset Osama bin Laden the green light or just sitting back and waiting for the attacks to happen. Either way, Bush and his neocons would get their "new Pearl Harbor" to pave the way for their long-planned illegal preemptive strike on Iraq, which was to be the first step in imposing US rule on the Arab states of the Middle East, in addition to neutralizing Team Sharon's enemies—real or perceived.
For those of you who still think that "our government wouldn't do that to us," the picture becomes clearer by the day that it is exactly what it did do. The only question remaining is whether the Bushies were complicit in 9/11 or did they just let it happen? Either way, it is not only an impeachable offense—one among a mountain of others—but a criminal, possibly even a treasonous, act.
How else to explain the waffling, the stonewalling, the hiding behind executive privilege and the fact that George W. Bush got to investigate himself and his underlings by appointing the members of the so-called independent 9/11 commission to do the investigating? That is the equivalent to a citizen accused of a crime appointing his own judge, prosecutor and jury.
Richard Clarke is no dove. He is an unabashed hawk. Clarke spent 30 years in government service. Beginning in 1973, he spent 19 years in the Pentagon, the intelligence community and the State Department. He served three presidents—Reagan, Bush I and Clinton—and the current White House resident. Under Reagan, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence. Under Bush I, he was Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs and coordinated diplomatic efforts for Poppy's Gulf War and was in charge of security. Under Clinton, he was National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counterterrorism. Under Bush II, he first was the chief counterterrorism official and later demoted to cyberterrorism czar.
Now Clarke, a true believer who votes Republican, must be destroyed. Then the Bushies are good at eating their own, especially those who dare to publicly disagree with them or those who no longer serve their purpose. Just ask Saddam Hussein or Manuel Noriega about that.
A savvy insider and wily tactician, Clarke is being savaged for being smart enough to respond only to questions he was asked in prior testimony to the 9/11 commission. That, according to Rice, waving an email he sent her regarding an issue the commission never asked him about, shows he lied.
It was Rice who ignored a letter from Clarke sent to her one week before 9/11, asking how the Bushies would feel if hundreds of Americans were killed in a terrorist attack.
When high administration officials aren't engaged in attempting to assassinate Clarke's character by charging that he was "disengaged," "disgruntled" over being demoted, and that he might even have a partisan agenda in the hopes of a getting a job in a Kerry administration—something he has flat out denied, saying he doesn't wish to serve in anyone's administration—they are whining and shedding crocodile tears over the timing of Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror." What the Bushies are failing to own up to is that Clarke's book was given to them last fall, which Clarke, as a former government official, was required by law to do. But they didn't scream and howl and shed false tears then, did they? Or did they fail to read the galleys, too? Is the whole Bush administration reading-challenged?
Clarke is only the latest target of the Bushies' fury, but he has shown himself well equipped to handle it, as did former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill before him. In going after former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV when he called the Bush lie about Saddam trying to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger, two administration officials, as yet unknown, committed a criminal act by outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative to a number of reporters, including Robert Novak who published it. When Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki, in testimony before Congress, disputed the Bushies over how many troops would be needed for the illegal war on Iraq, his military career came to an end.
Randy Beers, who succeeded Clarke, served only one month before resigning for the same reason Clarke quit. Beers told the Washington Post last June, "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terror. They're making us less secure, not more." He further told the Post, "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged, and generally underfunded." The Bushies have used the fact that Beers and Clarke are friends and that Beers is currently a volunteer security adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign more, at this point, to smear Clarke than Beers. But there is still time to punish Beers.
Richard Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, says he was threatened with being fired if he told Congress the truth about the cost of Bush's Medicare prescription drug program, which far exceeded what the administration had told Congress. Foster's revelations have sparked a congressional inquiry. Time will tell what fate Foster will suffer. The Bushies let no good deed go unpunished.
Lesser lights also have felt Team Bush's wrath. Tom Flocco yesterday reported that FBI translator Sibel Edmonds charged before some "50 reporters and 12 television cameras," following yesterday's Tuesday's to the 9/11 commission, that she was offered a "substantial raise and a full time job to encourage her not to go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001, by the FBI and CIA."
Edmonds is quoted as saying, "Attorney General John Ashcroft told me 'he was invoking State Secret Privilege and National Security' when I told the FBI I wanted to go public with what I had translated from the pre 9-11 intercepts."
And what was in her original translations that Ashcroft wanted suppressed? "My translations of the pre 9-11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date specific information enough to alert the American people, and other issues dating back to 1999 which I won't go into right now."
The term "State Secret Privilege," she told Flocco came to her in an October 18, 2002, memo from Department of Justice spokesperson Barbara Comstock.
Ms. Edmonds told Flocco that since her appearance on 60 Minutes she has been silenced by Ashcroft, followed by the FBI and, in 2002, threatened in 2002 with jail if she went public.
It is doubtful that all these people are liars or nutcases. Those honors belong to the Bushies whose nefarious schemes are coming unraveled. Truth is powerful stuff, so powerful that when it starts coming out, even a Karl Rove can't hold it back.
The biggest question is if and when the Democrats are going to pick up on all the Bush lies being handed to them on the proverbial silver platter. Must Bush and his evil twin, Ariel Sharon, set the world aflame before the Democrats wake up? Might there be some unwritten rule that a Bonesman (John Kerry) cannot speak the truth about another Bonesman (George W. Bush)? If so, all is lost.
On the lighter side (maybe not), a Condi Rice fan has set up an unofficial Condoleezza Rice for President in 2008 website on http://www.rice2008.com/ .
[Maybe someone should set up a Condi Rice for Corporate Slut, Liar and Traitor website.]
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| Condolizzard's Shabby Whitewash on '60 Minutes' ... |
| 03.29.04 (11:18 am) [edit] |
[b]Richard Clarke [i]testified under oath [/i]before the 9/11 Commission-- was [i]grilled for an hour [/i]on "[i]Meet the Press [/i]Mess" by Dubya's mad-dog-puppet [i]Timmy-boy[/i] Russert-- and, [i]spoke for at least 40 minutes [/i]on [i]'60 Minutes' [/i]...[/b]
Contrast[i] that [/i]with the Condolizzard's [i]continued refusal to testify under oath [/i]before the 9/11 Commission of toadies who are the neo-con Bush regime's corrupt [i]cronies-cum-cheerleade rs[/i]-- is treated like a Queen before whom media court-jesters[i] genuflect-and-bow [/i]in reverent obeisance-- and, [i]deigned to speak for less than 20 minutes [/i]on [i]'60 Minutes' [/i]tonight, giving a shabby whitewash of events using tired ole' cliches regurgitated [i]over and over and over again [/i]...
Condolizzard [i]is[/i] "good [[i]sic[/i]]" at the mind-numbing repetitive mantra of: "[i]Blame Clinton ... 9/11 ... Blame Clinton ... 9/11 ... Blame Clinton ... 9/11 [/i]..." that brain-dead buffoons and media circus-acts [i]pick-up and re-vomit [/i]on the airways and in chat-rooms across America ...
However, it is clear that Condolizzard is an over-rated, incompetent [i]hack-cum-traitor[/i], who should be wiping toilets in prison, perhaps sharing a prison cell with Martha Stewart with whom she could discuss fashion, design and recipes-- instead of doing irreparable damage to our nation ... Condolizzard is clearly [i]unfit[/i] to serve as National Security Amateur or in any other public office ...
[b]Tonight on [i]'60 Minutes'[/i][/b]:--
... Condolizzard[i] still refuses to testify under oath [/i]before the 9/11 Commission, using a non-sensical tortured "excuse" that quite frankly doesn't stand-up to scrutiny http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... ...
... Condolizzard is a perfect genius, [i]according to herself [/i]and she is amazed that anyone would dare to criticize her ... for [i]if she can't think-up anything else [/i]she and her Dubya could have done to avoid 9/11, nobody else sure as hell could either [[i]Uh-huh[/i]?]-- especially a veteran like Richard Clarke who had served loyally under four administrations and whose advise she certainly [i]could not [/i]have been expected to listen to because he is [i]so lowly in the 'bowels of the organization'[/i], while she is a Queen who [i]flies in 'high circles' [/i]...
... Condolizzard says that [i]we should never forget 9/11 [/i]and that [i]we should all focus upon the terrorists who were responsible [/i]for that tragic attack upon America ... Ah,[i] yes[/i], wouldn't[i] it have been nice [/i]if Dubya and Condolizzard [i]would have gone after [/i]Al Qaida and Osama bin Forgotten instead of being obsessed with Saddam Hussein and Iraq ([i]who had nothing to do with 9/11, Osama bin Laden and/or Al Qaida[/i])-- Except, consider:-- Where would all those [i]nice fat, juicy checks $$$ [/i]come from that she and Dubya[i] will someday be sent [/i]by Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex, etc. and the rest of their neo-fascist paymasters???
[i]Jeez[/i] ... Condolizzard: Go Back & Hide Under Your Rock!!!
[b]Source[/b]:
'60 Minutes', 28 March 2004
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| Can The Vile Condolizzard Continue To Get Away With Lying Under A Rock??? ... |
| 03.28.04 (12:46 pm) [edit] |
[b]Can the vile and traitorous Condolizzard [i]continue[/i] to get away with lying under a rock (... [i]T.V. shows where the GOP fascist Senator Bill Frist says its [u]okay[/u] to lie [/i]... http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... )??? ... [/b]The neo-con, neo-fascist Condolizzard flashes her fat ass on every T.V. show that will give her free air-time to spread her [i]squalid lies, deceptions and falsehoods [/i]... Meanwhile, the corrupt 9/11 Commission toadies http://www.tblog.com/template... let the sleezy Condolizzard crawl under a T.V. rock, refusing to issue a subpoena demanding that she testify under oath in public http://www.tblog.com/template... ... [i]Disgusting[/i] ...
Refer also to "[i][b]Truth (or something like it) under fire[/b][/i]" by [i]Greg Joseph[/i], on http://www.alternet.org/elect... :
After months of stating "this precedent" and "that precedent" the White House has finally given in to the chorus and offered up Dr. Condoleezza Rice to the [i]9/11 Commission [/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com... for another round of questioning. Dr. Rice, however, will once again testify in private and not under oath. Does it seem odd for the Bush administration to send a presidential appointee to sit before a panel of former governors, senators, judges and war heros and give her license to not "tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth"?
Even other Republicans have begun to question these kinds of decisions. Don Sipple, a Republican consultant, believes the American people are paying closer attention to the 9/11 Commission than to the step Republicans took yesterday toward [i]outlawing choice[/i]. http://wireservice.wired.com/... Sipple told the [i]New York Times [/i]that former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke has been "applauded" by [i]9/11 victims' families [/i] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... because he was the "first person who took any responsibility" and his apology, coupled with more White House stonewalling, "underscores his perception as a truth teller."
If George Bush and Condoleezza Rice want to emphatically state that they never knew Al-Qaeda was planning an attack on the U.S, perhaps the White House should allow Rice to make her statements under oath.
[b]Refer also to[/b]:
"Bush Whitewash: Conflict-of-Interest At The Heart Of The 9/11 Commission ..." on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Legal Scholars Dispute Dubya's Cover-up "Excuses" For Condolizzard!!!" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Legal Scholars Dispute Dubya's Cover-up "Excuses" For Condolizzard!!! |
| 03.27.04 (3:29 pm) [edit] |
[b]Legal scholars, constitutional experts, historians and journalists who have studied the U.S. Constitutional separation of powers and accountabilities, dispute Dubya's phony "excuse" used to keep Condolizzard from telling the truth or perjuring herself to protect the Bush regime's criminal negligence and corruptions.[/b]
Legal scholars, constitutional experts, historians and journalists provide examples where National Security Advisers and other White House administration officials have agreed to testify under oath in public, [i]in order to serve the public good[/i]. For example, other presidential aides have waived their immunity; President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, did, as did President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger. http://www.salon.com/news/wir...
The corrupt Bush regime has [i]no respect [/i]for the American public and certainly [i]doesn't give a damn [/i]about the public good. They will do [i]absolutely anything[/i], including the illegal and immoral [i]cover-up [/i]of their own lies, fraud, felonies and criminal activities, in their [i]never-ending lust for infinite power and riches[/i] ...
Condolizzard may be protected by the Mad King George and the 9/11 commission toadies who tragically and criminally let her [i]'off-the-hook'[/i] ... But history will recall that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]was a despicable and traitorous regime full of neo-con, neo-fascist thugs and goons like Condolizzard who runs around in a [i]panic-stricken modus operandi [/i]vomitting on the airways her mendacious falsehoods that she is [i]unwilling to confirm under oath [/i]...
Consider "[i][b]White House trying to explain Rice's failure to testify[/b][/i]" by [i]Terence Hunt[/i], Salon.com on http://www.salon.com/news/wir... :
Condoleezza Rice says the Bush administration has a good story to tell about fighting terrorism and she's pouring it out in television appearances, interviews and newspaper articles. The one place she won't talk is in public, under oath, before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
That is blossoming into a public relations nightmare.
The White House finds itself in the awkward position of trying to explain why Rice, the national security adviser to President Bush, can talk at length to reporters but not at the commission's televised hearings because of the constitutional principle of separation of powers.
"This is mostly about politics, not about the legalities," said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the College of William and Mary who specializes in separation of powers. "There's not much they can point to as settled law to prevent this. This is a matter of political judgment, not legal judgment. ... It hasn't kept her from talking to the press."
Instead of testifying publicly, Rice is requesting a private meeting with the commission -- her second such session -- to discuss what the White House says are mischaracterizations of her statements.
"I don't know necessarily what the difference is" between a private interview and public testimony, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said. "She's going to tell it exactly how it happened," he said.
Rice's selective silence denied the administration a chance to answer charges at the hearing by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke, who accuses Bush of squandering opportunities to undermine the terrorist group al-Qaida and politicizing the fight against terrorism.
Clarke's charges strike at the heart of Bush's re-election campaign, raising questions about credibility, trust and Bush's strongest issue in the polls, the war against terrorism.
"In many ways, having a guy like Clarke do this now is the White House's worst nightmare," said Norm Ornstein, political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Clarke's charges stole the momentum from the Bush campaign's effort to put Democratic rival John Kerry on the defensive with ads suggesting he was weak on national security and the economy.
Respected on national security issues, Clarke held posts at the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House in the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Trying to damage Clarke's credibility "is risky, first of all, because I think he's tough to pull down," Ornstein said.
Rice will try to gain ground in the public relations struggle Sunday by appearing on CBS' "60 Minutes," the same program Clarke used a week earlier to level his charges and promote his new book, "Against All Enemies." Bush's allies in Congress also sought to declassify two-year-old testimony by Clarke, suggesting he may have lied this week when he faulted Bush's handling of the war on terror.
Legal scholars say the White House has a difficult case on its hands as it tries to defend Rice's silence. [Particularly when Condolizzard is vomitting [i]crap[/i] on any TV show that she can find who will award her free air-time to spread her mendacious propaganda.]
"When courts see them coming they lock their doors and run for cover, admonishing the political branches to work out their own difficulties," said Douglas Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor who served as a constitutional specialist in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. "It really is a political question the judicial branch feels totally at a loss to resolve."
Princeton University politics professor Keith Whittington said administrations run the risk of looking bad when they invoke executive privilege.
"It's hard to explain this kind of concern to the public, given that there's a strong need for accountability for those in office ... some transparency about what's happening in the White House," said Whittington, a specialist in constitutional issues.
Some Republicans lamented the White House's refusal to put Rice under oath.
"Personally I think her voice is so good, so powerful ... it would be to the administration's benefit" if she testified publicly, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said.
Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican named by Bush to lead the commission, said, "I think this administration shot itself in the foot by not letting her testify in public."
But White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales said that in order for presidents to receive the most candid advice from their staffs, "it is important that these advisers not be compelled to testify publicly before congressional bodies such as the commission." [Bullshit.]
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| Condolizzard Slips Back Under Her Rock, Again!!! |
| 03.27.04 (2:41 pm) [edit] |
[b]Condolizzard is a slimy neo-fascist that has managed to slip back under her neo-con rock, [i]again[/i]!!! ... Tragically the 9/11 commission toadies are letting her [i]out-of-her-cage (and not holding her accountable to the American people for her lies and criminal activities, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people in the USA & Iraq), [/i]by [u]refusing[/u] to do their job and [u]not[/u] issuing her with a subpoena that would force the [i]over-rated, arrogant and incompetent liar-cum-traitor [/i]to testify under oath in public ...[/b]
Refer also to "[i][b]Condoleezza Rice's bad week[/b][/i]" by [i]Martin Sieff[/i], Salon.com on http://www.salon.com/opinion/... :
[u][b]Bush's national security advisor dodged the 9/11 commission, but she can't evade its judgment[/b][/u]
It was a catastrophic Wednesday for Condoleezza Rice, the worst of her more than three years as national security advisor.
First, the Bush administration's former counterterrorism chief, Richard A. Clarke, told the commission investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks that only a week before the attacks he had sent Rice a powerful and prophetic letter warning of the danger that hundreds of Americans could die in a terrorist strike.
"You urge policymakers to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home and abroad after a terrorist attack and ask themselves what else they could have done. You write this, seven days before 9/11?" former Democratic Rep. Tim Roemer asked Clarke in a nationally televised open session of the commission.
Clarke tersely confirmed he had sent the letter with a single word, "Yes."
It is a matter of record what Rice did on receiving this warning from her own top expert on the imminent mega-terrorist threat facing the United States. She did nothing.
The commissioners had more bad news for Rice. They were highly critical of her refusal to face them in public and testify openly about the Bush administration's counterterrorism policy, even though she has actively defended it on television and in the Op-Ed pages of the Washington Post.
Even the prominent Republican commission chairman Tom Kean, the former governor of New Jersey, was obviously irritated. "We are disappointed she is not going to appear to answer our questions," he said.
Commissioner Roemer was equally scathing. Rice's argument "belongs not on the airwaves" but in testimony before the commission, he said.
Clarke's dramatic letter, coupled with Rice's devastating refusal to risk appearing publicly to defend her record, may do what nothing else has done to strip the Teflon off Rice's questionable record as national security advisor.
It came in a week that started badly for her two days ago and only has gotten worse since.
The furor over Clarke's explosive new book, "Against All Enemies," about Bush administration incompetence and irresponsibility before and after 9/11, has so embarrassed and alarmed Rice that Monday she took the almost unprecedented step of responding to criticism publicly with a signed article on the Op-Ed page of the Post.
The article is a masterly example of evasion, answering accusations that have not been made and neatly avoiding troubling ones that have. Rice was briefly allowed to enjoy the perception that she had answered criticisms, even though she had not. But within two days, a claim she made in the Op-Ed was disputed head on.
For on Wednesday, commissioner Jamie Gorelick, the former deputy attorney general, asked Clarke, "When Dr. Rice writes in the Washington Post, 'No al-Qaida plan was turned over to the new administration [by the Clinton team when it left office],' is that true?"
Clarke again replied with a devastating single-word answer. This time it was: "No."
And he had the chapter and verse to prove it.
"I think what is true is what your staff found by going through the documents ... Early in the administration, within days of the Bush administration coming into office, we gave them two documents ... In fact, I briefed Dr. Rice on this even before they came into office," he told the commission.
In her article, Rice further claimed that through the summer of 2001 "increasing intelligence chatter" focused almost exclusively on potential attacks overseas. But this presumably was only true of National Security Agency intercepts. She acknowledges that U.S. officials realized that the potential for some kind of imminent airline hijacking operation was very real. She admits in the same article that the Federal Aviation Authority "even issued a warning to airlines and aviation personnel that 'the potential for a terrorist operation such as an airline hijacking to free terrorists incarcerated in the United States remains a concern.'"
In her Washington Post article, Rice also acknowledges that "according to the FBI, by June 2001, 16 of the 19 hijackers were already here" -- that is, within the United States. She argues that even if the United States had moved more forcefully to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan during 2001, it still would not have averted the hijack plot within the United States.
That part is obviously true, but of course it neatly sidesteps the real issues. For its full first eight months in office, the Bush administration never took seriously the threat of any kind of al-Qaida terrorist attack, let alone a mega one within the continental United States.
This complacent blindness toward the threat of al-Qaida continued right down to the wire. On Sept. 9, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told senators on Capitol Hill that the president was prepared, with his approval, to veto their efforts to shift $600 million from his precious anti-ballistic missile development to counterterrorism security precautions. Rice did not object.
Rice is, in fact, a classic example and beneficiary of the political mores of Bush's Washington. In the second Bush administration, to a degree unprecedented among any of its recent predecessors, Democratic or Republican, courtier skills matter far more in rising to and prospering in high political office than political skill, sagacity or knowledge of the issues. Being too attached to any principles or prudence will assuredly mar or destroy your career if they get in the way of key policy goals -- like blaming Iraq for 9/11, or backing the drive to conquer it. Rice has thrived in this environment.
Rice had neither academic background nor serious policy experience in dealing with the Middle East, terror groups or extreme Islam. She was the top national security official on watch for eight months before 9/11. As Clarke has made clear, that should have been ample time for her to ratchet up the national government's level of alert and efficiency against the well-documented threat about which she had been exhaustively and presciently warned. She did no such thing. Instead, she has used her first-rate forensic and diplomatic skills only to obfuscate, excuse and sidestep to protect Bush and maintain her own perfect record. In the year and a half since 9/11 Rice has compliantly served the personal obsession of the president and the neocon clique running the Pentagon to rush to war in Iraq.
Her unimpeded rise is especially remarkable because Rice's actual record as national security advisor has been, to say the least, spotty and controversial.
Indeed, the record of her failures and coverups is deep and long. Arguably, one has to go back to McGeorge Bundy and the Vietnam War to find a national security advisor with one half as bad a record. Clarke's new book, "Against All Enemies," adds further documentation to the record that Rice was blasé and unconcerned about the al-Qaida terrorist threat before 9/11. She received serious warnings about it, as Clarke has documented, from the outgoing Clinton administration and from Clarke personally. But she did not take them seriously and took no action to maintain the level of priority, let alone upgrade it.
Rice received clear warnings about the imminent nature of the al-Qaida threat of planning terrorist spectaculars against the U.S. homeland as late as Aug. 26, 2001 -- only 16 days before the attacks took place.
Now, Rice and her team are working overtime to deny, discredit, or at least blur Clarke's testimony. Stephen Hadley, Rice's deputy on the NSC, has flatly denied Clarke's allegation that the Bush administration ignored the ominous intelligence chatter in the summer of 2001. "All the chatter was of an attack, potential al-Qaida attack overseas," he told CBS' "60 Minutes." Bush, Hadley maintained, "got concerned about whether there was the possibility of an attack on the homeland. He asked the intelligence community: 'Look hard. See if we're missing something about a threat to the homeland.' And at that point various alerts went out from the Federal Aviation Administration to the FBI saying the intelligence suggested a threat overseas ... So the president put us on battle stations." Hadley then insisted that Clarke was "just wrong" in stating that the administration did not go to "battle stations."
However, Hadley's veracity was demolished by "60 Minutes'" Leslie Stahl, who confronted him with two independent witnesses who had testified that another encounter Clarke described with the president had actually happened -- that Bush on Sept. 12 demanded that Clarke find evidence of Iraq's involvement in 9/11 -- even though Hadley denied that the incident took place.
After 9/11, Rice went along enthusiastically with every effort by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz -- and his fellow neoconservative hawks running the Department of Defense -- to demonize Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein as the masterminds or key allies behind al-Qaida. She did not raise a single objection to their obsessive drive for war with Iraq, even though this automatically meant shifting enormous U.S. materiel and intelligence resources away from the priority goal of hunting down and destroying al-Qaida.
Rice's role was especially egregious on the issue of the entirely false report that Saddam Hussein had sought "yellowcake" uranium in Niger. On Jan. 23, 2003, she published an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times titled "Why We Know Iraq was Lying," in which she claimed Iraq's then-recent declaration of weapons "fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad." Five days later, Bush included the bogus allegation in his State of the Union speech. On June 8, 2003, Rice admitted on ABC's "This Week," "Clearly that particular report, we learned subsequently, was not credible." On July 9, 2003, then White House press secretary Ari Fleischer admitted, "This information should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech."
At no point has Rice played the wise and moderate "vicar" of national security policy, reining in the neocons and playing the moderate but crucial "swing" role between neocon hawks and old internationalist veteran Republicans in the administration. On the contrary, she has repeatedly opposed and undermined that "moderate" wing, led by Secretary of State Powell and his right-hand man, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, at every stage.
Her confounding of Powell did not start after 9/11. It has been true from the day the Bush administration took office. And it was largely overlooked for a variety of reasons, all boiling down to the same root cause. Even more than Wolfowitz, who affects a moderate, low-key gentlemanly demeanor in public but whose memoranda and policy papers have been notorious over more than a decade for their wild and risky recommendations, Rice always appears ladylike, low key and genteel. Her demeanor and charm are always impeccable. And this belies the reckless overconfidence of the policies she has in fact supported.
Will any or all of this come back to haunt Rice? If the president wins reelection, it certainly will not. Her access to Bush and her standing in his eyes remain unparalleled. As James Mann noted in his excellent new book on the Bush foreign policy team, "The Rise of the Vulcans," Bush has always felt more comfortable with Rice than with Wolfowitz. Bush and his political strategist Karl Rove still love the idea of countering their almost universal rejection by black America by having a black secretary of state. Since Powell has made clear he does not wish to endure a second term of consistent isolation, backstabbing and undermining, that leaves the way potentially clear for Rice to fill his chair.
The way therefore remains open for Rice to follow the path pioneered by her predecessors Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell in ascending from the National Security Council to become secretary of state. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a close buddy of Rumsfeld and associate of the neocon hawks who urged the invasion of Iraq, and who is a member of the Defense Policy Board, has salivated after the job, but his star has dimmed. Until the revelations and accusations this week, Rice seemed sure to face little competition in a second Bush term to be the second black and second female secretary of state. Now, however, it is a different story.
No wonder, therefore, that Richard Clarke now faces the same immense attack machine of discrediting that has been used on others like Paul O'Neill and Joe Wilson before him. For the president and Rice in their ambitions are joined at the hip. Clarke has hit them both where it hurts them the most. They must stand their ground, discredit him or politically bleed. In the face of this stark choice, no moderation or compromise is possible.
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| ... !!! A Strong Case That Bush Is Unhinged !!! ... |
| 03.26.04 (3:17 pm) [edit] |
[b]There is a very strong case that Bush is actually [i]unhinged [/i]... [/b]The corrupt, arrogant and dangerously stupid Dubya, Cheney, Rice along with their insane neo-con ideologues have taken us into an illegal and immoral war in Iraq, based upon[i] myriad lies, deceptions and falsehoods, [/i]resulting in the unnecessary and heinous deaths of nearly 600 U.S. Soldiers & over 10,000-15,000 innocent Iraqi Civilians ... Moreover, the dictatorial Bush regime dogmatically persists in their bizarre and demented fantasy that they can actually impose their neo-fascist Global Corporate Empire on the Middle East (and the rest of the planet), and that all peoples throughout the world are going to rejoice in being turned into indentured neo-slaves working in miserable neo-feudal slavery, in order to enrich the Bush Crime Family and their greedy neo-imperial paymasters ...
These neo-fascist con-men, embezzlers and thieves are trying to convince Americans that we're [i]lucky, lucky, lucky[/i] to be our losing jobs (they call their traitorous scam: [i]outsourcing[/i]) to poor countries where U.S. Corporate Pigs can gorge on fat profits because they exploit local people by paying slave labor wages, while American workers here suffer without unemployment benefits, watching aide to their families in dire need being slashed, and no health care in the event that a family member falls ill ... -- ... This barbaric, calamitous cruelty is inflicted upon working people around the world and here at home, in order that the crooked Bushies and Kenny-boy-(Enron)-Lay-typ es can live like Gluttonous Neo-Emperors!!! ...
If the traitorous Bushies' insane neo-con fantasy [i]isn't [/i]delusional, please tell me what [i]is[/i] ...
Consider "[i][b]Is Bush Unhinged?[/b][/i]" by [i]Robert Higgs[/i], The Independent Institute, on http://www.independent.org/ti... :
Before you conclude that I myself must be unhinged even to raise such a question, ask yourself this: If a man talks as if he has lost contact with reality, then might he actually have done so? Granted that this possibility deserves evaluation, then consider President George W. Bush’s rhetoric in his March 19 speech to diplomats and others at the White House.
The president begins by stating his interpretation of the recent bombings in Madrid, reiterating one of his recurrent themes of the past two and a half years: “[T]he civilized world is at war” in a “new kind of war.” The concept of war, of course, ranks high among evocative metaphors. Not by accident have politicians declared wars on poverty, drugs, cancer, illiteracy, and an assortment of other alleged enemies. A society at war, as William James observed in 1906 in his call for the “moral equivalent of war,” finds a reason for unaccustomed solidarity and—here’s where the politicians come in—for unaccustomed submission to central government authority. James himself, after all, was arguing that “the martial type of character can be bred without war.” Political leaders are always seeking to establish such character, with themselves in command of the battalions of “disciplined” subjects. Insofar as the so-called war on terrorism merely represents the latest attempt to bend the war metaphor to an obvious political purpose, we might well dismiss the president’s rhetorical flourish as nothing but the same old same old.
Bush, however, will allow no such dismissal. “The war on terror,” he insists, “is not a figure of speech.” Well, I beg your pardon, Mr. President, but that is precisely what it is. How can one go to war against “terror,” which is a state of mind? Even if the president were to take more care with his language and to speak instead of a “war on terrorism,” the phrase still could not be anything more than a metaphor, because terrorism is a form of action available to virtually any determined adult anywhere anytime. War on terrorism, too, can be only a figure of speech.
War, if it is anything, is the marshalling of armed forces against somebody, not against a state of mind or a form of action. Wars are fought between groups of persons. We might argue about whether the United States can wage war only against another nation state, as opposed to an indefinitely large number of individuals committed to fanatical Islamism who in various workaday guises are living in scores of different countries. The expression “war on certain criminals and conspirators of criminal acts” would fit the present case better and would entail far more sensible thinking about the proper way to deal with such persons. The idea of war, obviously, calls to mind too readily the serviceability of the armed forces. Hence the application of such forces to the conquest of Iraq in the name of “bringing the terrorists to justice,” although that conquest was actually nothing but a hugely destructive, immensely expensive diversion from genuine efforts to allay the threat posed by the Islamist maniacs who compose al Qaeda and similar groups. “These killers will be tracked down and found, they will face their day of justice,” the president declares, speaking as always as if only a fixed number of such killers exist, rather than a vast reservoir of actual and potential recruits that is only augmented and revitalized by actions such as the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It would be a boon to humanity if the president could be brought to understand the distinction between waging war and establishing justice.
Whatever our understanding of the president’s “war on terror” might be, however, he definitely parts company with reality when he states, “There is no neutral ground—no neutral ground—in the fight between civilization and terror, because there is no neutral ground between good and evil, freedom and slavery, and life and death.” Of course, this Manichean pronouncement echoes the administration’s previous declaration that everybody on earth is either with us or against us—and if they know what’s good for them, they’ll fall into line with our wishes. Aside from the undeniable fact that some nations simply prefer, as did the Spanish people (as opposed to the Aznar government), to avoid the blowback of U.S. interventions around the world, the president’s insistence on equating U.S. policy with good, freedom, and life and all alternative policies with evil, slavery, and death represents the sort of childish bifurcation one expects to find expressed by a member of a youth gang, not by the leader of the world’s most powerful government. To raise but a single example, though a highly relevant one in this context, can any dispassionate person argue that the U.S. position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is entirely good, whereas every alternative position is entirely evil?
Observers endowed with humane moral sensibilities recognize that there is plenty of evil to go around in Israel and elsewhere. In Iraq, for example, the U.S. government bears clear responsibility for killing and injuring thousands of noncombatants in the past year—not to mention the horrendous mortality and suffering it brought about previously by enforcement of the economic sanctions used to cripple that country for more than a decade. Some people maintain that the price was worth paying, that ultimately the good obtained will more than compensate for the harm caused in the process, but even if one accepts that assessment for the sake of argument, it remains true nevertheless that much harm was caused, that the burden of responsibility for evils perpetrated must be borne by the U.S. side as well as by the demonized enemy (Saddam Hussein having been made out after 1990 as “another Hitler”). International conflicts in the real world do not often divide neatly into nothing-but-good versus nothing-but-evil. For the president of the United States to employ such a juvenile characterization raises the possibility that his mind is so immature that he ought to be removed from office before he propels the world into even worse disasters.
Seemingly aware of previous criticism, the president declares that “the terrorists are offended not merely by our policies—they are offended by our existence as free nations.” I myself have seen no evidence to confirm such a statement; certainly the president has adduced none. I have seen, however, the translated testimony of one Osama bin Laden, who in a famous October 2001 videotape objects to U.S. support for Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to the presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and to U.S. economic sanctions and other hostile actions against Iraq—that is, to various U.S. policies. “Millions of innocent children are being killed in Iraq and in Palestine and we don’t hear a word from the infidels. We don’t hear a raised voice,” says bin Laden. In my ears, this statement sounds like an objection to U.S. policies. I have seen no evidence that bin Laden or any other known Islamic terrorist takes offence at our very existence, provided that we mind our own business in our own homeland.
In the president’s mind, however, every deviation from adherence to his promulgated national-security policy of U.S. world domination and preventive warfare represents a dangerous form of appeasement: “Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence, and invites more violence for all nations. The only certain way to protect our people is by early, united, and decisive action”—that is, by global military intervention by the United States, with all other nations serving as its lackeys. In the neoconservative vision to which the president has been converted, time stands still: It is always 1938, and if we fail to bring all our military might to bear preventively against the Hitler du jour, we shall certainly be plunged into global catastrophe.
Waxing positive, the president credits recent U.S. and allied military actions with bringing about “a free Afghanistan” and the “long-awaited liberation” of the Iraqi people. He maintains that the fall of the Iraqi dictator has removed a source of violence, aggression, and instability in the Middle East. . . . [Y]ears of illicit weapons development by the dictator have come to the end. . . . [T]he Iraqi people are now receiving aid, instead of suffering under the sanctions. . . . [M]en and women across the Middle East, looking to Iraq, are getting a glimpse of what life in a free country can be like. . . . Who would begrudge the Iraqi people their long-awaited liberation?
This effusion evinces a tenuous grip on reality. Nobody begrudges the Iraqi people their freedom, but many of us have serious doubts about just how much freedom those long-suffering people really have. Their country is occupied by a lethal foreign army whose soldiers roam freely, breaking into homes and mosques at will, maintaining checkpoints that often become the venues of unjustified killings, carrying out police activities by employing such means as aerial bombardment and bursts of heavy machine-gun fire. If this unfortunate scene is the “glimpse of what life in a free country can be like” that others throughout the Middle East are getting, then woe unto anyone who yearns to stimulate those Middle Easterners to seek freedom. “With Afghanistan and Iraq showing the way, we are confident that freedom will lift the sights and hopes of millions in the greater Middle East,” the president states. If he really harbors such confidence, one can only note how ill-founded it is.
The president seems to have no idea of what a free society consists of. Violent military occupation and the complete absence of the rule of law totally invalidate any claim that either Iraq or Afghanistan is now a free society. At present Iraq is awash with violence perpetrated by resistance fighters and occupation forces and with criminality of all sorts unleashed by the disruptions associated with the war and by the U.S. dissolution of the old police apparatus. “We will not fail the Iraqi people, who have placed their trust in us,” Bush declares. But they never placed their trust in us in the first place; they simply suffered our invasion and occupation of their country. In any event, we have already gravely disappointed the hopes that many Iraqis held for life after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The country is rife with resentment and hostility, and the people are eager for U.S. forces to get out. Although the president maintains that “[w]e’ve set out to break the cycle of bitterness and radicalism that has brought stagnation to a vital region,” one cannot help concluding from the facts on the ground that the upshot of the U.S. invasion and occupation has been just the opposite, that U.S. actions in Iraq have only poured fuel on the fires of terrorism there as well as in the wider world.
It is disconcerting for me to listen to the president’s speeches. I get the unsettling feeling that the man inhabits another world in which things are the exact opposite of how they seem to me. Of course, I may be the one whose perspective is askew. Unlike Bush, I cannot claim that the Almighty has licensed my position. Yet I fear that time will tell in favor of my view of the matter—a view shared, of course, by most people on the planet, indeed, by nearly everybody who has not been bribed, intimidated, or blinded by partisan loyalty to the Bush administration. For now, this difference of views might seem to be nothing more than that—just one man’s opinion jousting with another’s—but reality has a way of passing definite judgment, and I will not be surprised if Bush’s pronouncements ultimately come to be seen as having no more substance than a bad dream.
[b]* [i]Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute and editor of its scholarly quarterly journal, The Independent Review. He is also the author of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government and the editor of Arms, Politics and the Economy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. For further articles and studies, see the War on Terrorism and OnPower.org. [/i][/b]
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| Republicans For Kerry? Republican Moderates Are Mounting A CounterAttack Against Neo-Fascist Bushies |
| 03.26.04 (11:44 am) [edit] |
[b]A slow, but clearly identifiable defection by patriotic conservatives from the Republican neo-con extremists and neo-fascist warmongers, [i]started[/i] months ago ... Conscientious Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike rightly question the [i]heinous lies, deceptions and frauds [/i]perpetrated by the corrupt Bush regime upon the American people ... [/b]As more Republican patriots ([i]as opposed to corporate-take-all rapists, neo-con ideological neo-nazis, and dumb-bunny-buffoons-cum-b rain-dead-sheep[/i]) study the dire impact of Dubya's reckless and irresponsible foreign and domestic policies, an [i]"October surprise" [/i]may occur within the Republican ranks, that neo-Nazi Reich Marshal Karl Rove [i]didn't plan on [/i]...
Refer to "[b]Republicans for Kerry?[/b]" by[i] Michelle Goldberg and Paul J. Caffera[/i], Salon Magazine, on http://www.salon.com/news/fea... :
[i][b][u]After enduring a sustained offensive from conservatives, Republican moderates are quietly mounting a counterattack against Bush, DeLay & Co[/u][/b][/i].
Victor Fasciani, a 40-year-old asset manager, pays membership dues to the Republican National Committee, the only party he's ever belonged to. He was at the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia, where he was a New York delegate for John McCain. He's no fan of John Kerry, but come November, he says, "I'm probably not voting for Bush, and I'm not voting for Ralph Nader, so that leaves me with a quandary."
It's a quandary afflicting many moderate Republicans, who feel alienated by their party's rightward lurch and economic irresponsibility, and who fear that another four years of Bush will consolidate the power of the party's most hard-line conservative elements. Even as moderate Republicans make gains in liberal states like New York and California, they're feeling squeezed by their own party. Elements of the Republican right have declared jihad on the values party moderates hold dear, and though the White House claims to embrace all Republican factions, for most moderates there's little doubt where its loyalties lie.
Few politicians want to admit the split, but it's getting almost impossible to ignore. Former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, a Republican who has served four administrations -- three of them Republican -- slammed Bush this week for a weak response to the threat of terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks. Now he's being savaged by fellow Republicans who have, in essence, accused him of working to aid the Democrats. McCain, the Arizona senator, along with Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, have made headlines by openly defending Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a fellow Vietnam vet, against Bush campaign charges that Kerry is weak on national defense. The White House is incensed.
McCain and Hagel insist they still support Bush for reelection. The same holds for the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group of GOP moderates that includes Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, Gov. George Pataki of New York, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California; all of them claim to avidly support the president's reelection.
But there's little doubt that behind the scenes, some moderate Republicans are rooting for the other side. If Bush wins, one aide to a moderate Republican says privately, "that would be the worst possible situation."
That's because some Republicans say that a Bush loss may be their last chance to take their party back. "If Bush were defeated by Kerry, it would certainly call into question the Republican leadership, people like Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert," says Fasciani. "That axis of the party may lose its weight and its power. The Powell and Giuliani wing of the party would certainly gain some prominence and may, during the next four years of a Kerry administration, perhaps even gain control of the party and increase the tent." Such hopes have even led some Republicans to found a grass-roots group called Republicans for Kerry.
It's no wonder moderates are feeling desperate. After all, a faction within their own party is fighting to purge them -- and that faction includes some of the nation's most powerful Republicans. In 1999, right-wing operative Steve Moore founded the Club for Growth, an anti-tax lobbying group that targets moderate Republicans, which it calls RINOs, "Republicans In Name Only." Since then, the group, which funds right-wing primary challenges against centrist incumbents as well as general election campaigns, has become one of the most powerful financial engines of the right. Its Web site boasts: "We are now #1 in funds for Republican candidates outside the Republican Party itself!"
So far, the Club has failed to defeat any of the moderates it's set its sights on. But it plans to raise $15 million for conservative candidates this year, and it's going after one of the pillars of GOP centrism, veteran Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, by bankrolling U.S. Rep. Patrick Toomey's primary challenge. Specter's defeat, Moore has said, would be a "major scalp on the wall."
The right smells victory. On March 23, the National Review ran a story titled "The Specter of Defeat -- Pennsylvania polls look promising for Toomey." Specter is still ahead, but polls show that his once commanding lead has shrunk -- a recent poll by KDKA-TV Pittsburgh/WNEP-TV Scranton/Survey USA had him only nine points ahead of his challenger.
The primary contest is shaping up to be a referendum on the party's future. According to a March 1 Wall Street Journal article, "Rep. Toomey is testing the strength of what appears to be a growing fault line in the Republican Party this year, between ideologically pure but increasingly disgruntled conservatives and established, but more moderate, figures such as Sen. Specter. The April 27 Senate primary here will see the only major intraparty fight this election year, and is being closely watched as an indication of how deep conservative sentiment is running. 'It's the best battle for the soul of the GOP this year,' says Toomey consultant Keith Appell, referring to the name Grand Old Party."
It's hard to tell whose side the president is on. Karl Rove has reportedly repudiated the club for sowing discord in the party during the primaries, but Bush has undercut Specter on issues like overtime rules, an important one in an industrial state like Pennsylvania. "U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has denied a public request from Pennsylvania's senior senator to delay loosening the nation's overtime rules," said a Jan. 21 story in the Washington Times. Several paragraphs later, it continued: "Specter, facing a re-election fight against conservative Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., scheduled the hearing so the topic could get a 'full airing.' Besides asking Chao for the delay, Specter also asked her to remain in the hearing room for subsequent discussions." She refused.
Even as Bush holds himself somewhat aloof, other members of the Republican leadership have actively embraced the Club for Growth. In 2002, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, then House Majority Whip, gave $50,000 to the club through his political action committee, enraging party moderates.
More than anyone else, DeLay is a symbol of what moderates hate about the direction their party is going in, and he revels in displaying his power over his less zealous colleagues. As Nick Thompson wrote in Salon in September, DeLay has used the allocation of committee chairs to punish those who swerve even a little bit from his party line. "This is why moderate Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., who generally supports DeLay, was blocked from becoming chair of the Government Reform Committee, a move even he says he knew would be a consequence of his support for campaign-finance reform," Thompson wrote. "Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J., simply left Congress after DeLay boxed her out of several positions. In several primaries, DeLay has also worked against several moderate Republicans in favor of less electable conservatives, showing that the Texan would sometimes rather lose with a conservative than win with a moderate."
It's not surprising that some moderates are starting to feel similarly uncompromising. After all, old-fashion establishment Republicans have made a tactical alliance with fundamentalist right-wing revolutionaries like DeLay, but few want to see his vision of America realized.
Moderate Republicans are often fiscal conservatives but social liberals -- in many ways, the exact opposite of this administration. They believe in balanced budgets, environmental conservation and a foreign policy that's strong without being needlessly belligerent. They see themselves as the heirs of former President Teddy Roosevelt, the avid conservationist and trustbuster, and former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, the philanthropist, statesman and governor of New York. The party they joined was staid and dignified. It was the other party that seemed shrill and radical.
When George Bush was elected in 2000, moderate Republicans thought he was on their side. But that illusion was dispelled in his first few months of office. "When the president was elected, everyone was looking for a breath of fresh air -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- for the good of the country we wanted a bipartisan effort," Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., tells Salon. "We were all so weary of partisan trench warfare, and now it is deeper than ever."
"The president's agenda has been so different from his campaign rhetoric," Chafee says. "He is pushing an extreme agenda, from the abandonment of Kyoto, to banning access to abortions for service members overseas."
For a while, Bush's extremism was overshadowed by Sept. 11, and some moderates continue to support Bush because of the war on terror, despite being appalled by his domestic policies. Roger White, an associate professor of political science at Loyola University and self-described Rockefeller Republican, actually gave up his party membership four or five years ago out of disgust with the dominance of cultural conservatives like DeLay. Yet he supports Bush's foreign policy, and says, "I don't see the main danger as coming from cultural conservatives. I see the main danger coming from international terrorists."
But Bush has squandered much of his post-9/11 popularity by using it as cover to pass a right-wing domestic agenda. "After 9/11, Republicans could have become the majority party for the next 50 years," says professor Alan Wolfe, the founding director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "But for whatever reason, Bush kept up the same polarizing approach. Everyone wanted to rally behind Bush. This is the biggest act of political stupidity in my lifetime."
Moderates, says Chafee, "could have made a huge difference to the president," had he not abandoned them and tried to "bludgeon them into compliance." Now, those on the receiving end of that bludgeoning must decide whether they can support an administration that doesn't support them. Leaving the party can be a wrenching act of personal redefinition, but if Bush wins another term, there may be no hope of changing things from within.
"My decision to leave the Republican Party was deeply personal and one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made," former Republican Sen. Jim Jeffords told Salon. The Vermont independent famously quit the party in 2001, incurring the White House's wrath and briefly handing control of the Senate to the Democrats.
"I left the Republican Party because I feared the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled Congress was moving too far to the right, and not listening to moderate Republicans such as myself," he says. "Much of what we have seen since then has only confirmed those fears. We are in a war that we shouldn't be in; the wealthy get tax cuts while our schools get shortchanged; the deficit grows by the day while millions of jobs are lost here at home. Meanwhile, the White House tries to placate the far right by supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, diverting the nation's attention from where it should be focused. We are headed on the wrong course, and it troubles me deeply."
Despite the fervent hopes of many Democrats, it's unlikely that waves of Republican officials and voters are likely to follow Jeffords. Most Republicans continue to back their president. The moderates are a small group within the party, and it remains to be seen whether their unhappiness with Bush is a harbinger of electoral trouble for the administration in November.
"If I am talking anecdotally to moderate Republicans, it's very hard to find one who is going to vote for Bush, very difficult," says John Zogby, president and CEO of the polling firm Zogby International. "On the other hand, strangely enough it's not showing up in our polling." In fact, Zogby's latest polls show 87 percent of Republicans backing Bush. "I'm just watching and waiting and saying to myself maybe there's something going on here, because I'm hearing it," he says.
So if moderates are disenchanted, why isn't that showing up in the polls? In part, it's because moderate Republicans as a whole are a rapidly diminishing species in most of the country. According to Zogby, 80 percent of Republicans self-identify as conservative. Asked about the role of moderates in the party, Rick Shaftan, a conservative Republican pollster in New Jersey, says: "It's not that many individuals you're talking about in terms of votes."
Moderate Republicans, he says, are traditionally "mainline protestant WASPs like [former New Jersey Gov.] Christie Whitman. There aren't that many WASPs. I don't know where they're a significant share of the vote."
Those places where old-school Republicans are concentrated, on the East Coast and in California, are largely not in play in the 2004 election. Because they carry so little electoral weight, the national party has little incentive to cater to them.
The Republican Party has been moving away from its East Coast roots since the 1960s, when there was a split in the party between its liberal establishment wing -- so-called Rockefeller Republicans -- and the insurgent followers of Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, who lost the 1964 election in a landslide, but whose conservative movement went on to take over the party.
During the 1980s, as Southern conservatives flowed into the Republican Party, coastal sophisticates were again pushed out, and in the last two decades the Southern right has continued to consolidate its power. In a 1998 essay called "The Southern Captivity of the GOP," Weekly Standard editor Christopher Caldwell wrote of how even non-Southern conservatives were "put off to see that 'traditional' values are now defined by the majority party as the values of the U-Haul-renting denizens of two-year-old churches and three-year-old shopping malls."
Even Goldwater's widow, Susan Goldwater Levine, recently told Salon that he "hated it that the right-wing zealots took over the party."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, right-wing populist rhetoric, with its attacks on cosmopolitans and urbanites, has alienated those who don't like to think of themselves as Bible-thumping rubes. "I don't like the polarization, the idea that people who don't live on the coasts are morons who watch NASCAR and drink Budweiser all day," says Fasciani. "It's posturing. When it comes down to it, do they really care about Joe six-pack? I don't buy that populist notion that they espouse." Nor does he relate to it.
Fasciani, a native of Westchester, N.Y., is a Republican of the old school who counts Abraham Lincoln and Roosevelt among his heroes. He's proud of the party's tradition of environmental stewardship -- it was Richard Nixon, after all, who established the Environmental Protection Agency -- and the military valor shown by people like Eisenhower and McCain. The party he loves is one where strength and erudition aren't mutually exclusive.
"Teddy Roosevelt, this man read more books than Bush could name," says Fasciani. "He wrote 50 or a hundred books in his lifetime." (Fasciani is being hyperbolic -- Roosevelt authored a mere 36). "Then you've got a guy in the White House now who's probably read one book in the last 15 years and maybe didn't even finish it."
But unapologetic philistinism is considered an electoral virtue in many parts of the country, and it's practically a first principle of the contemporary right. "Every Republican candidate now has to 'make his bones,' to prove his good faith by declaring his unequivocal willingness to alienate the 'elites' of the country," wrote Caldwell in 1998.
Bush, of course, has been superbly willing to alienate such elites -- a term that, when used by the right, seems to encompass most educated people who live in coastal cities. "My values are not Mr. Bush's," says Susan Cosgrove, a 59-year-old lifelong Republican who owns a communications firm in Pittsburgh. "The Republican Party as I think of it -- the party of Rockefeller -- had a profound respect for character, and I don't think Mr. Bush is a man of character. I think his presidency is one of cronyism and pandering to the most radical wing of the party."
"What I see happening is a split among Republicans I know," she says. "A lot of them are becoming as alienated as I am, and a lot of them are moving in the same direction that the president is going. It makes for interesting dinner-table discussions."
Cosgrove isn't ready to leave the party yet. "There's something to be said for trying to change things from inside," she explains. Still, she's getting close.
"Maybe this is a lost cause. You try to change things from the inside and if you can't, it's time to step outside."
Meanwhile, she plans to volunteer for Kerry in the upcoming election. "I am in ABB mode," she says. "Anybody but Bush."
There's a group for people like her, though Cosgrove hadn't heard of it. Republicans for Kerry was founded on Jan. 16 and now has about 100 members who plan to do outreach to fellow moderate Republicans during the campaign. (At least, it had 100 members until recently, when it moved to a new Web site and started its membership roster from scratch.) Among them is Peter McLaughlin, a former McCain intern in Brookfield, Conn.
A volunteer firefighter who owns a security business with 35 employees, McLaughlin has seen the administration's failures close-up. "First responders are being underfunded at the same time that we're promoting the importance of the war on terror," he says. "I can tell in my town that if something happens here, we're going to be the first ones sent and as of today we don't have any particularly specialized equipment."
McLaughlin's problems with Bush are ideological as well as practical. "A conservative conserves," he says. "Blowing out the deficit by having these ill-advised tax cuts while conducting a war is not conservative. I'm a Teddy Roosevelt conservative, which means conserving the environment. Certainly, if you look back in history that was a Republican issue, and the Bush administration is trampling all over it. I think that's terrible for the world and for our country."
Bush's record has been so terrible, he says, that another term might drive him out of the party altogether.
"It would be very difficult to go through another four years of what we've seen in the last three-and-a-half years," says McLaughlin. "Certainly if there were another four years beyond that, I don't think there's any way that I can stay in the party. But I feel like this is my home too, and I want to fight for it. I don't want it to be taken over by this extreme group, and to feel like I have to leave my home."
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| Condolizzard Hissing & Pissing, But Unable To Escape From Tripping Over Her Own Lies!!! |
| 03.26.04 (10:44 am) [edit] |
[b]Condolizzard is a pathetic over-rated, self-obsessed slimy [i]liar-cum-traitor [/i]who should be fired and put on trial for perpetrating [i]heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods[/i] leading to the tragic and unnecessary deaths of many thousands of innocent people on 9/11 and in Iraq (... Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but the sluttish Bushies used neo-con warmongering, their neo-fascist scam: '[i]Get-Rich-Quick-Scheme '[/i], in order to enrich themselves via their corporate pimps, Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. ... Meanwhile, many innocent U.S. Soldiers & Iraqi Civilians are slaughtered, maimed for life and scarred in this illegal and immoral bloody guerrilla quagmire ...)[/b] ...
Instead of holding the Condolizzard accountable, the Stalinist-style bogus 9/11 commission (Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Phillip Zelikow co-wrote a book with his [i]vile partner-in-crime[/i], Condi Rice! http://wampum.wabanaki.net/ar... ) lets the stinking Condolizzard slither away and avoid testifying under oath ... But as the criminal Condolizzard slithers back under her rock, she cannot completely escape the judgment of history, as she [i] trips [/i]over her own lies while hissing and pissing all over anyone crossing her sleezy path ...
Consider "[b][i]In rush to defend White House, Rice trips over own words[/i][/b]" by [i]Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank[/i], San Francisco Chronicle, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
This week's testimony and media blitz by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has returned unwanted attention to his former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The refusal by President Bush's top security aide to testify publicly before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks elicited rebukes by commission members as they held open hearings this week. Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor Bush named to be chairman of the commission, said: "I think this administration shot itself in the foot by not letting her testify in public."
At the same time, some of Rice's rebuttals of Clarke's broadside against Bush, which she delivered in a flurry of media interviews and statements rather than in testimony, contradicted other administration officials and her own previous statements.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage contradicted Rice's claim that the White House had a strategy before Sept. 11 for military operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban. The CIA contradicted Rice's earlier assertion that Bush had requested a CIA briefing in the summer of 2001 because of elevated terrorist threats. And Rice's assertion this week that Bush had told her on Sept. 16, 2001, that "Iraq is to the side" appeared to be contradicted by an order signed by Bush on Sept. 17 directing the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq.
Rice, in turn, has contradicted Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Clarke was "out of the loop" and his intimation that Clarke had been demoted. Rice has also given various conflicting accounts. She criticized Clarke for being the architect of failed Clinton administration policies, but also said she had retained Clarke so the Bush administration could continue to pursue Clinton's terrorism policies.
National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack defended many of Rice's assertions, saying that she had been more consistent than Clarke.
Rice so far has refused to provide testimony under oath to the commission that could possibly resolve the contradictions. Wednesday night, she told reporters, "I would like nothing better in a sense than to be able to go up and do this, but I have a responsibility to maintain what is a long-standing constitutional separation between the executive and the legislative branch."
The White House, reacting to the public relations difficulties caused by the refusal to allow Rice's testimony, asked the commission Thursday to give Rice another opportunity to speak privately with panel members to address "mischaracterizations of Dr. Rice's statements and positions."
Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste disclosed this week that Rice had asked, in her private meetings with the commission, to revise a statement she made publicly that "I don't think anybody could have predicted that those people could have taken an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center ... that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." Rice told the commission that she had misspoken; the commission has received information that prior to Sept. 11, U.S. intelligence agencies, and Clarke, had talked about terrorists using airplanes as missiles.
In an op-ed essay Monday in the [i]Washington Post[/i], Rice wrote that "through the spring and summer of 2001, the national security team developed a strategy to eliminate" al Qaeda that included "sufficient military options to remove the Taliban regime" including the use of ground forces.
But Armitage, testifying this week as the White House representative, said the military part was not in the plan before Sept. 11. "I think that was amended after the horror of 9/11," he said. McCormack said Rice's statement was accurate because the team had discussed including orders for such military plans to be drawn up.
In the same article, Rice belittled Clarke's proposals by writing: "The president wanted more than a laundry list of ideas simply to contain al Qaeda or 'roll back' the threat. Once in office, we quickly began crafting a comprehensive new strategy to 'eliminate' the al Qaeda network." Rice asserted that while Clarke and others provided ideas, "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration." That same day, she said most of Clarke's ideas "had been already tried or rejected in the Clinton administration."
But in her interview with [i]NBC[/i] two days later, Rice appeared to take a different view of Clarke's proposals. "He sent us a set of ideas that would perhaps help to roll back al Qaeda over a three- to five-year period; we acted on those ideas very quickly. And what's very interesting is that ... Dick Clarke now says that we ignored his ideas, or we didn't follow them up."
Asked about this apparent discrepancy, McCormack pointed a reporter to a Clarke background briefing in 2002 in which the then-White House aide was defending the president's efforts in fighting terrorism.
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| Dubya & Condolizzard's Real Enemy:-- THE TRUTH!!! ... |
| 03.25.04 (5:24 pm) [edit] |
[b]Dubya and Condolizzard hate THE TRUTH -- THE TRUTH IS THEIR REAL ENEMY ... [/b]The Bush regime engages in a [i]continual sordid & squalid track-record of lies, deceptions and falsehoods [/i]...
Firstly, in the days leading up to 9/11, Dubya & Condolizzard[i] were watching football games together[/i], while Cheney & his energy cronies[i] were raping American working people in the biggest Energy Scam-N-Theft in our nation's history[/i].
Secondly, now in recent days, Dubya & Condolizzard [i]hide-out in the Oval Office [/i]and[i] refuse to testify under oath regarding what they knew, and when they knew it[/i], regarding their advance warnings of the 9/11 attacks upon America.
Finally, Dubya & Condolizzard committed a High Crime under the U.S. Constitution by [i]perpetrating heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods regarding phony WMDs in Iraq[/i] in order wage an illegal & immoral war to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex-- The insane neo-con, neo-fascist War-Turned-Bloody-Guerril la-Quagmire-in-Iraq has nothing to do with Dubya's phony Bogus-War-on-Terror, that the corrupt Bushies have [i]traitorously under-funded and only 'given-lip-service-to'[/i ], in their [i]demented lust for warfare-cum-war-profiteer ing [/i]in Iraq ... (Moreover, Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, Al Qaida or the real threat of terrorism affecting our national security.).
Refer to "[i][b]Bush's Brand New Enemy is the Truth[/b][/i]" by [i]Sidney Blumenthal[/i], Guardian UK, on http://www.commondreams.org/v... :
[u][b]Clarke's Claims have Shaken the White House to its Foundations[/b][/u]
One of the first official acts of the current Bush administration was to downgrade the office of national coordinator for counter terrorism on the National Security Council - a position held by Richard Clarke. Clarke had served in the Pentagon and State Department under presidents Reagan and Bush the elder, and was the first person to hold the counter terrorism job created by President Clinton. Under Clinton, he was elevated to cabinet rank, which gave him a seat at the principals' meeting, the highest decision-making group for national security.
By removing Clarke from the table, Bush put him in a box where he could speak only when spoken to. No longer would his memos go to the president; instead, they had to pass though a chain of command of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, who bounced each of them back.
Terrorism was a Clinton issue: "soft" and obscure, having something to do with "globalization", and other trends ridiculed from the Republican party platform. "In January 2001 the new administration really thought Clinton's recommendation that eliminating al-Qaida be one of their highest priorities, well, rather odd, like so many of the Clinton administration's actions, from their perspective," Clarke writes in his new book, [i]Against All Enemies[/i] http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob...%3Dnosim/104-1250273-6970 361 . When Clarke first met Rice and immediately raised the question of dealing with al-Qaida, she "gave me the impression she had never heard the term before".
The controversy raging around Clarke's book and his testimony before the 9/11 commission that Bush ignored warnings about terrorism that might have prevented the attacks revolves around his singularly unimpeachable credibility. In response, Bush has launched an offensive against him, impugning his personal motives, saying he is a disappointed job-hunter, publicity-mad, a political partisan, ignorant, irrelevant - and a liar.
Clarke's reputation in the Clinton White House was that he could be brusque and passionate, but also calm and single-minded. He was a complete professional, who was a master of the bureaucracy. He didn't suffer fools gladly, stood up to superiors and didn't care who he alienated. His flaw was his indispensable virtue: he was direct and candid in telling the unvarnished truth.
But his account need not stand on his reputation alone. Clarke was not the only national security professional who spanned both the Clinton and Bush administrations. General Donald Kerrick served as deputy national security adviser under Clinton and remained on the NSC into the Bush administration. He wrote his replacement, Stephen Hadley, a two-page memo. "It was classified," Kerrick told me. "I said they needed to pay attention to al-Qaida and counter terrorism I said we were going to be struck again. They never once asked me a question, nor did I see them having a serious discussion about it ... I agree with Dick that they saw those problems through an Iraqi prism. But the evidence, the intelligence, wasn't there."
Rice now claims about terrorism that "we were at battle stations". But Bush is quoted by Bob Woodward in Bush At War as saying that before September 11 "I was not on point ... I didn't feel that sense of urgency". Cheney alleges that Clarke was "out of the loop". But if he was, then the administration was either running a rogue operation or doing nothing, as Clarke testifies.
Bush protests now: "And had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on September 11, we would have acted." But he had plenty of information. The former deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, the only member of the 9/11 commission to read the president's daily brief, revealed in the hearings that the documents "would set your hair on fire" and that the intelligence warnings of al-Qaida attacks "plateaued at a spike level for months" before September 11. Bush is fighting public release of these PDBs, which would show whether he had marked them up and demanded action.
The administration's furious response to Clarke only underscores his book. Rice is vague, forgetful and dissembling. Cheney is belligerent, certain and bluffing. In Clarke's account, as in the memoir of former secretary of the treasury Paul O'Neill, Bush is disengaged, incurious, manipulated by those in the circle around him; he adopts ill-conceived strategies that he has played little or no part in preparing. Bush is the Oz behind the curtain, but unlike the wizard, the special effects are performed by others. Especially on terrorism and September 11, his White House is at "battle stations" to prevent the curtain from being pulled open.
· [i][b]Sidney Blumenthal is former senior adviser to President Clinton and Washington bureau chief of Salon.com [/b][/i], http://www.commondreams.org/v...
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| The Condolizzard & The Veep-N-Creep CAN'T Keep Their LIES Straight!!! HA HA HA!!! |
| 03.25.04 (1:35 pm) [edit] |
[b]The National Security Amateur-[i]cum[/i]-Asshol e Condolizzard and the Veep-[i]N[/i]-Creep Cheney,[i] just can't [/i]keep their myriad [i] lies, deceptions & falsehoods [/i]straight!!! ... HA HA HA!!! ...[/b]
In [i]their panic-stricken modus operandi [/i]to [i]ineffectually[/i] attempt to smear, libel and slander the[i] patriotic, highly credible and truthful [/i]Richard Clarke, the hapless boob Dubya's [i]traitorous henchmen-cum-fuckwits[/i] , are [i]stumbling, fumbling and bumbling [/i]all over each other!!! ... It would actually be terribly funny, if the neo-con Bush regime's serious crimes weren't such a heinous violation of our U.S. Constitution warranting [i]impeachment[/i]!!!
Consider "[i][b]Condoleezza Rice disputes comment by vice president[/b][/i]" by [i]N.Y. Times[/i], on
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0325ric e-loop.html" title="http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0325ric e-loop.html" target="_blank"http://www.azcentral.com/news... :
WASHINGTON - It is a strange occurrence in Washington when members of the well-ordered Bush White House publicly disagree with each other, but it happened on Wednesday.
Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, took exception to Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Richard A. Clarke, the administration's former counterterrorism chief, was "out of the loop."
On the contrary, Rice said, Clarke was very much involved in the administration's fight against terrorism.
"I would not use the word 'out of the loop,' " Rice told reporters in response to a question about whether she considered it a problem that the administration's counterterrorism chief was not deeply involved "in a lot of what was going on," as Cheney said on Monday in an interview on Rush Limbaugh's radio program.
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| Dubya Allows Gays to Be Fired for Being Gay ... Could Dubya be Gay & Not Know It? ... |
| 03.24.04 (8:00 am) [edit] |
[b]While the imbecilic[i] ne'er-do-well-cum-hapless -boob [/i]Dubya [i]ignored-and-ignores the [u]real[/u] terrorists [/i]and instead wages insane neo-con, neo-fascist warfare for his slimy war-profiteers (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) and commits illegal criminal activities resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent human beings-- Dubya apparently is[i] terrified, simply terrified [/i]of Gays ...[/b]
A study done a few years ago suggests that those who have a paranoid fear and hatred of gays may indeed harbor deep-seated anxieties and have hidden homosexual desires ... Hmmm ... Could Dubya be[i] Gay [/i]and [i]not know it[/i] ? ... The idiot Dubya [i]doesn't even know what day it is[/i]! ...
Consider "[i][b]Bush Allows Gays to Be Fired for Being Gay[/b][/i]" on http://www.misleader.org/dail... :
Despite President Bush's pledge that homosexuals "ought to have the same rights" 1 as all other people, his Administration this week ruled that homosexuals can now be fired from the federal workforce because of their sexual orientation.
According to the [i]Federal Times[/i], the president's appointee at the Office of Special Counsel ruled that federal employees will now "have no recourse if they are fired or demoted simply for being gay." 2 While the Bush Administration says it is legally prohibited from firing a person for their conduct, they have the legal right to fire or demote someone based on their sexual orientation. To carry out the directive, the White House has begun removing information from government websites about sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. 3
Not only does the new directive contradict the president's own promise to treat homosexuals as equals under the law, but it also contradicts what the Administration told Congress. As noted in a bipartisan letter from four Senators to the Administration, "During the confirmation process [of the president's appointee], you assured us that you were committed to protecting federal employees against unlawful discrimination related to their sexual orientation." 4
[b]Sources[/b]:
1. Debates, 10/11/2000.
2. "OSC to study whether bias law covers gays", Federal Times, 03/15/2004.
3. "Gay Rights Information Taken Off Site", Washington Post, 02/18/2004.
4. "Special Counsel Under Scrutiny", Washington Post, 02/23/2004.
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| Statistics Lie ... Beware When It Catches Up With Voters' Pocketbooks!!! |
| 03.23.04 (11:27 am) [edit] |
[b]Tax cuts don't pay for themselves [/b]... http://www.cbpp.org/3-19-04ta... ... Under the neo-con, neo-fascist[i] corporate-take-all [/i]Bush regime, the immoral and undemocratic [i]Gap [/i]between the [i]Hyper-Rich-Haves and the Over-Burdened-Donkey-Amer ican-Workers-(N-Unemploye d)-Have-Nots[/i], is skyrocketing to levels unseen in over 75 years ... The neo-feudal, neo-imperial Bushies' tax cuts ([i]welfare[/i]) for corrupt corporations, the gluttonous oligarchs and the greedy filthy rich plutocrats--[i] is being paid for by the rest of us [/i]... [u]It is time for us[/u] [i]to turn out-of-office these traitorous liars, thieves, embezzlers and swindlers (... and warmongers for war-profiteering ...) [/i]in the criminal Bush regime who are turning us into a [i]3rd world military junta [/i]... "We the People" are not meant to be [i]neo-slaves miserably bowing in indentured slavery to vile neo-slave owners [/i]like the Bush Crime Family, the Cheney Crime Family, the Kenny-boy (Enron) Lay Crime Family and the other neo-con traitors ...
Refer to "[b]Statistics Lie ... [i]The good economic news, alas, doen't accurately capture the reality of ordinary people[/i][/b]" by[i] Robert Kuttner[/i], The American Prospect, on http://www.prospect.org/webfe... :
[b]What is the matter with the whiny American voters?[/b] They keep telling pollsters that they think America is on the "wrong path." But don't they read the statistics? Don't they know that unemployment is at a comfortable 5.6 percent, that inflation is almost nonexistent, that the economy is growing smartly at around four percent?
These happy statistics, alas, don't accurately capture the economic reality of ordinary people. Take inflation. It's true that measured inflation is very low, but look at all that's left out.
In the case of health care, the government's consumer price index tracks the cost of medical services. But it is less precise about tracking who pays for them. If your employer's health plan is increasing your share of premiums and cutting the company's contribution or if the plan is increasing out-of-pocket charges or reducing what drugs it will cover, this shift is accounted for indirectly, after a lag of two years. But it hits your pocketbook immediately. And if rising medical costs deter you from seeing the doctor, that doesn't show up in the index at all.
Or consider housing. There are parts of the country where housing prices have been declining for a decade because few people want to move there. Statistically, these declines get averaged with astronomical housing costs in major metropolitan areas to show only modest average housing inflation.
Around big cities, prices have plateaued at very high levels that are plainly outstripping incomes. Try telling a young person in Greater Boston or New York or LA that there's no serious housing inflation or that rents have not increased faster than earnings.
Another case of hidden inflation: A great many people in late middle age find themselves subsidizing their newly launched young. The causes of this trend are multiple: low starting salaries, skyrocketing rents, and the high cost of college tuitions and health insurance. Is this a dent in the cost of living for the middle aged? You bet. Does it show up in government statistics? Nope.
The inflation numbers also fail to capture pocketbook realities for retired Americans. A low official inflation rate plays a cruel trick on seniors. For starters, it means that cost-of-living adjustments in Security Security checks are mere pocket change. One new prescription can more than eat up this year's Social Security increase.
Further, a low rate of inflation translates into a low interest rate on savings accounts, Treasury securities, and other prudent investments for the elderly. Moreover, older people on fixed incomes who are not homeowners are also at the mercy of rising rents.
And the same deficiencies in the consumer price index that fail to capture cost shifting in health care particularly affect the elderly, who spend a disproportionate share of their income on doctor's bills, hospital costs, and drugs.
Or take energy costs. Gasoline is near an all-time high. That doesn't affect the overall index much because energy costs are a relatively small share of average total consumer spending. But if you need your car for your business, you certainly feel it.
Then we have the unemployment numbers. Nominally, unemployment is a nice, manageable 5.6 percent - about where it was during much of the booming 1990s. But that statistic leaves out all the people who left the labor force because they gave up on ever finding a job. If you include those, the real unemployment number is more like 7.7 percent. The proof of the soft job market is that earnings have not kept up with inflation. In 2003, the official inflation rate was 2.3 percent. The median wage increase was just 2 percent. And the 2004 statistics are likely to be worse.
The "average" voter got a tax decrease that the administration likes to put at around $1,000. But that artful statistic averages Joe Sixpack with Bill Gates. The typical voter got a federal income tax cut of more like $300, and in many cases that small federal tax cut was overwhelmed by local property tax increases that were caused by declining federal aid to states and cities.
President Bush may have gotten away with telling the voters things about Iraq that just aren't true. But he'd better watch out when the evidence against his rosy statistics is right in voters' pocketbooks.
Ordinary people may not be professional statisticians, but they are not fools. America's voters know better than the experts whether their own personal economy is thriving. Bogus economic optimism only reinforces the growing sense that this president speaks with a forked tongue.
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| Cheney Says 'Terrorist-Experts' "Not-in-the-Loop" Before 9/11 ... No Wonder We're In Big Trouble!!! |
| 03.22.04 (4:50 pm) [edit] |
[b]It is emerging that the [i]Hapless-Boob-Dubya, Veep-N-Creep-Cheney, and the slimy Condolizzard [/i]were having fun[i] planning [/i]the riches they would amasse from invading Iraq, and moreover that [i]Terrorist-Experts were "not-in-the-loop"[/i] ... After all, the Condolizzard has already admitted that somewhere in the "bowels of the organization" people [i]know things [/i]that the imperial fuckwits at the top [i]don't want to know [/i]because they are [i]too high-and-mighty[/i] to get their sticky hands dirty!!![/b]
Condolizzard also[i] refuses [/i]to answer questions regarding what the corrupt Bushies knew, and when they knew it, in advance of the 9/11 attacks upon America ... "[i][b]National Security Adviser Rice Will Sit Out 9/11 Panel Hearing in Washington[/b][/i]" on http://www.miami.com/mld/miam...
In "[i][b]White House rebuts former adviser's harsh book[/b][/i]" on http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/Art... : - [i]Excerpt[/i] -
In a phone interview with talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Vice President Dick Cheney suggested Clarke "may have had a grudge to bear," because he had left the White House after being passed over for a promotion.
Other focussed on the fact that Clarke just "[u]wasn't in the loop[/u]."
"[u]Dick Clark[/u] just doesn't know what he's talking about, [u]he wasn't involved in most of the meetings in the administration[/u]" said U.S. Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. "The president told me on September 16th ... that Iraq was to the side and we were going to deal with Afghanistan." [The Condolizzard is a well-paid liar who should be shipped off to live with Saddam Hussein.]
...
In his book, Clarke wrote that when he first spoke to Rice, shortly after Bush's inauguration, he wasn't sure Rice was fully aware of al Qaeda. "Her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before," Clarke wrote.
"He has chosen at this critical time, in the middle of a presidential campaign, to inject himself into the political debate," said White House spokesman Dan Bartlett. "But in so doing, his judgments -- his actions, or the lack thereof, should also come under scrutiny.
Clarke says when he finally met with senior cabinet leaders to discuss what he calls "the imminent al Qaeda threat," U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said, "You give bin Laden too much credit." Clarke said Wolfowitz, like Bush, wanted to concentrate on Iraq instead of al Qaeda.
Clarke also criticizes Bush personally in his book. He says Bush's decision to invade Iraq produced anti-American sentiment among Arabs. He says when he told Bush there was no evidence to connect Iraq to al Qaeda, the president responded, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection."
The author is expected to testify Tuesday before a panel investigating the attacks. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States will also hear from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet.
[b]Yeah, but isn't it [i]interesting[/i] that Richard Clarke is willing to testify before a panel investigating the 9/11 attacks, but that the sleezy Condolizzard and other Bush neo-con goons & neo-fascist thugs will [i]not[/i] testify!!!
Isn't it also[i] interesting [/i]that Terrorist-Experts in the neo-fascist Bush regime [i]weren't/aren't invited [/i]to meetings!!! What the hell [i]was/is [/i]going on in those "meetings"???
No Wonder We're In Big Trouble!!![/b]
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| When Rupert Murdoch Calls, the Condolizzard Jumps ... But She Won't Tell the Truth ... |
| 03.22.04 (1:50 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush's neo-con slut, the Condolizzard, National Security Amateur ([i]cum-Asshole[/i]) doesn't waste any time jumping, squealing and whoring for the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] neo-con, neo-fascist propaganda network, [i]Fox[/i] owned by the neo-hitlerian Rupert Murdoch ...[/b]
Condolizzard will [i]leap through hoops [/i]whenever one of her corporate pimps telephones ... but she can't be bothered to testify before the 9/11 commission regarding the traitorous Bush regime's advance warnings of 9/11 ... The tyrannical Bushies consider the American people are simply cannon fodder, slaves-cum-serfs and useful-idiots to be abused, manipulated and exploited ... So is it any wonder[i] why[/i] the Condolizzard refuses to be held accountable to WE THE PEOPLE??? ...
Consider [i][b]"When Rupert Murdoch Calls ..." [/b][/i]by[i] John Nichols, The Online Beat[/i], The Nation on http://www.thenation.com/theb... :
Last Friday, the Bush Administration was busy pumping up hopes that the war on terrorism was about to yield a victory: the capture along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan of the reputed No. 2 man in Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. As it turned out, Dr Ayman Al-Zawahri was probably not among the militants holed up in the heavily fortified compounds that were assaulted by Pakistani troops and their US advisors.
But, by most measures, the prospective capture of what Administration aides described as "a high-value target" was treated as a very big deal by the Bush White House. At the same time, Administration aides were busy trying to hold together the coalition of the sort-of willing that was cobbled together to support the invasion of Iraq. With Spain's new prime minister declaring the occupation "a disaster" and threatening to withdraw that country's troops from Iraq, and with Poland's president telling European reporters that his country was "misled" about the nature of the threat posed by Iraq, the Administration has its hands full. And, of course, top administration aides were already scrambling to counter charges by Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism aide, whose new book reveals that prior to 9/11 the Bush team ignored "repeated warnings" about the threat posed by Al Qaeda.
Surely, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, a key player on all the fronts that were in play, had a very long list of responsibilities. No time for diversions on Friday, right? Wrong.
Rice took time out of the middle of the day to address a secretive gathering that included global media mogul Rupert Murdoch and top executives from television networks, newspapers and other media properties owned by [i]Murdoch's News Corp[/i]. conglomerate. Rice spoke at some length via satellite to Murdoch and his cronies, who had gathered at the posh Ritz Carlton Hotel in Cancun Mexico, according to reports published in the British press.
The [i]Guardian[/i] newspaper, which sent a reporter to Cancun, revealed that Rice was asked to address the group by executives of the Murdoch-controlled[i] Fox [/i]broadcast and cable networks in the US. The [i]Fox[/i] "family" includes, of course, the[i] Fox News [/i]cable channel, which the [i]Guardian[/i] correctly describes as "hugely supportive of President George Bush."
"Although she is not there in person, the presence of Ms. Rice underlines the importance of Rupert Murdoch's news operations to the Bush administration, which may face growing criticism that it led the country into war on false pretences ahead of November's presidential election," the [i]Guardian[/i] account of the Cancun gathering explained.
In addition to Fox, Murdoch controls the Bush-friendly [i]Weekly Standard [/i]magazine and [i]New York Post [/i]newspaper, as well as 35 local television stations and the 20th Century Fox movie studio. Thanks to Bush Administration appointees to the Federal Communications Commission, Murdoch's reach is rapidly expanding in the US. In December, the FCC approved [i]News Corp.'s [/i]$6.6-billion takeover of [i]DirecTV,[/i] the country's leading satellite television firm.
That decision made Murdoch the only media executive with satellite, cable and broadcast assets in the US.
In other words, Rupert Murdoch is a very powerful player in the media – and, because of his willingness to turn his properties into mouthpieces for the administration, in the politics of the United States. So it should probably not come as any surprise that, like the politicians in any number of countries where Murdoch has come to dominate the discourse, Bush Administration officials answer Rupert's call – even when they are supposedly preoccupied with national security concerns.
Rice's willingness to brief [i]Fox [/i]executives is especially intriguing in light of the fact that she continues to refuse to brief the bipartisan panel that is investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is expected to hear this week from Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet, Secretary of State Colin Powell and his predecessor, Madeleine Albright; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his predecessor, William Cohen; and President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger. But Rice has rejected invitations to testify in public.
So it seems that, when the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States calls, the Bush Administration's national security is not available. But when Rupert Murdoch calls, well, how could Condoleezza Rice refuse?
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| Ugly Right-Wing Neo-Conservative Smearing of Opponents is Growing!!! |
| 03.22.04 (10:19 am) [edit] |
[b]The ugly right-wing neo-conservative smearing, libelling, slandering and denouncing of political opponents, [i]neo-nazi style[/i], is growing!!! [/b]
It is imperative that we [i]fight back [/i]to show our sleepy-headed fellow-citizens who [i](instead of using their critical faculties and thinking)[/i], are nodding foolishly like [i]dumb-sheep-led-to-the- slaughter[/i], whenever a corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] mad-dog court-jester, buffoon-cum-liar, and/or neo-con, neo-fascist thug[i] vomits an atrocious lie, deception and/or falsehood [/i]regarding someone who [i]refuses to bow-down and genuflect [/i]before the Mad King George and their insane Fascist New World ([i]Dis[/i])-Order for Corporate War-Profits & Corporate Slavery.
For another heinous sample of the vile Bushies' obscene smear campaign(s) waged at those who oppose their illegal & immoral neo-con warmongerings, refer to "[i][b]Conservative Smearing of Opponents Grows[/b][/i]" by [i]The Center for American Progress [/i]on http://www.americanprogress.o... :
Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert yesterday leveled more unsubstantiated and false charges that the Spanish people "had a huge terrorist act within their country and they chose to change their government and to in a sense, appease terrorists." Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) similarly claimed, "The vote in Spain was a great victory for al Qaeda." On the same day, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admitted the rejection of Prime Minister Jose Aznar's Popular Party in the Spanish elections on Sunday "was a protest by the people against the handling of the terrorist event by the sitting government of Spain," – not a victory for the terrorists – and reports emerged that Bush administration officials may have been complicit in withholding evidence that Muslim extremists were behind the Madrid bombings.
[b]1. The Spanish elections show that leaders who deceive the people will face scrutiny at the polls.[/b] The facts are clear at this point. Prime Minister Aznar deceived his people in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings. His party lost the subsequent elections. There was no capitulation to a terrorist agenda; just an outpouring of democratic anger at a leader who misled the public.
[b]2. Conservatives should stop using the Madrid bombings to smear opponents and show some empathy for the Spanish people who are every bit as traumatized as Americans were in the aftermath of 9/11. [/b]The intention of conservative leaders like Hastert and Hyde is clear: anyone who dares to deviate from the current approach to terrorism will be smeared as an appeaser and supporter of terrorists. Instead of vitriol and blame, conservatives should consider a little empathy and support for the victims of terrorism in Spain.
[b]3. The administration must come clean about any information it was provided by Aznar's government and how much senior administration officials knew about the attacks prior to the Spanish elections.[/b] The public deserves to know the full extent of the Bush administration's involvement in any deceptions about the Madrid bombings prior to the Spanish elections.
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| Welcome to Dubya's Bloody Guerrilla Quagmire ... |
| 03.21.04 (6:56 pm) [edit] |
[b]Why don't we seem to be interested in the truth??? ... Is it that the truth is too hard to bear, and the fantasy of placing our hopes in a "[i]father-like [sic]" [/i]figure that we childishly wish would take care of us, [i]comforts us[/i]??? ...[/b]
[i]God help us if we prefer a fantasy, an illusion over reality ...[/i] Please read the outstanding and highly respected book "[i]Hitler: 1889-1936 HUBRIS[/i]" by Ian Kershaw, and you will conclude that putting your faith and your conscience in the hands of corrupt fascist leaders only leads to [i]chaos, destruction, death and misery [/i]... We must expel the corrupt Bush regime who have committed heinous atrocities and [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]before we condemn future generations to the most brutish form of enslavement and torture in the history of our planet ...
An example of [i]our delusional fantasy [/i]is the situation in Iraq, an illegal & immoral neo-con, neo-fascist incursion, also very badly bungled by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], and reported by [i]Juan Cole[/i] as follows:--
... The [insane neo-con] Bush administration's hope for a clean, quick transition to a sovereign Iraqi government on June 30 has been dealt a series of blows by local Iraqi political forces, of which the bombing campaign by insurgents is only one. Only a year before, the Americans who planned the invasion were largely ignorant of these groups and their leaders. In their haste to hand over Iraq to someone, the Americans have ceased even trying to find solutions to the most divisive issues, creating a series of political time bombs for the future.
Last summer, the U.S. civil administrator, Paul Bremer, said: "We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country." But by early November, it had become absolutely clear that the U.S. could not hope to rule Iraq by fiat for a matter of years, as the Bush administration had earlier envisioned. The ongoing Sunni Arab insurgency and widespread lack of security had already made the center-north of the country ungovernable. It even made the capital unsafe, as the recent horrific bombings at Kazimiyah and at the Mount Lebanon Hotel have demonstrated.
The Kurds had blocked an American attempt to bring in 12,000 Turkish troops to fight the insurgents in the Sunni Arab areas, ensuring that U.S. soldiers remained on the front line in Fallujah and Ramadi. The U.S. was weak in the north and relied heavily on the Kurdish militias, or peshmergas. Were the majority Shiites to grow weary of Coalition Provisional Authority rule and begin an uprising of their own, the Americans in Baghdad came to recognize, the entire country could fall into chaos.
By Nov. 15, Bremer had hammered out an agreement with Iraqis on the appointed Interim Governing Council that would allow a transition to a sovereign and more legitimate Iraqi government by June 30. But then everything fell apart, as Bremer's plan smashed into one brick wall after another.
Today, a year after the invasion, the dream of a democratic Iraq sits on a foundation that is fractured by rivalries, conflicts and schisms. Will Iraq be a secular state or governed by Islamic law? Will it have a strong central government or a loose federalism? Will women retain their legal rights or face fundamentalist patriarchy? Will the ethnic Kurds become semi-autonomous and gain a consolidated Kurdish super-province?
Any one of those questions, by itself, could be enough to tear the country apart. The hopes of some in Washington that Paul Bremer would be a second Gen. MacArthur, crafting a permanent Iraqi constitution and imposing a new government, were brought down by the unexpected guerrilla resistance. And the administration of President Bush, for all of its early optimism, has found that it has at best limited leverage over the underlying conflicts.
Imposing solutions by force of will has proven impossible. Bremer struck temporary compromises with the Shiites, who make up a majority of Iraq's population, and with the Kurds, who have been longtime allies, but all the difficult decisions have been put off because of weakness or fear. And now, as the administration looks for a way to resolve the quagmire before it turns into an election-year debacle, it must seem to Bremer that even with superlative diplomacy, the U.S. risks extraordinary turmoil no matter whether it pulls out or stays.
The Bush administration plan for democratizing Iraq implied from the very beginning that the country would be dominated by Shiites, who comprise 65 percent of the population. Not only would that be unacceptable to the Sunni Muslim minority who make up the nation's elite, but a Shiite-led Baghdad is highly likely to enjoy warm relations with Shiite Iran, as well as with the Arab Shiites of southern Lebanon (think Hezbollah). The administration of the first President Bush in the early 1990s declined to overthrow the Baath regime or to help the Shiite uprising in the spring of 1991 precisely because it feared this outcome.
Most of the obstacles to the Nov. 15 plan were rooted in ethnic politics. Bremer had wanted the new government to be elected by provincial councils. He recognized that for elections to be held, an interim constitution would have to be hammered out. In turn, the negotiations would have to settle a number of outstanding conflicts. Would the Kurds be allowed to create a semi-autonomous ethnic enclave? Would the religious parties accept a separation of religion and state? Would the long-dominant Sunni Arabs (about 15 percent of the population) acquiesce in their demotion to a small minority in a democratic system?
Only days after the announcement of the Nov. 15 accord, Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani came out against it, on two main grounds. First, there had been no mention of the place of Islam in the initial plan, nor any guarantee that the new government would avoid passing laws that contradicted Islam. Second, the plan called for elections by provincial and municipal councils rather than by the electorate at large.
Those provincial and municipal councils had in some instances been appointed by the Coalition or by military officers, or had been chosen by a handpicked group of local notables gathered for that purpose by the Coalition or its subcontractors. In short, they were not democratic.
Sistani had read some Western political science in translation, and adopted into his reading of Islamic law Jean-Jacques Rousseau's principle that the only legitimate government is one that "derives from the will of the people." He wrote in November that the council-based method of election "does not guarantee the formation of an assembly that truly represents the Iraqi people. It must be changed to another process that would so guarantee, that is, to [direct] elections. In this way, the parliament would spring from the will of the Iraqis and would represent them in a just manner and would prevent any diminution of Islamic law."
Sistani mattered, as Bremer had already discovered to his dismay. In the Shiite Muslim system, each believer is expected to choose a great cleric and to follow implicitly his rulings on disputed matters in Islamic law. The more learned and upright the cleric is perceived to be, the greater authority he tends to have.
As the leading scholar of Islamic law in the holy city of Najaf, Sistani is the cleric most widely respected and obeyed (the technical term is "emulated") by Iraqi Shiites. His authority extends beyond Iraq, as well, to Lebanon, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Sistani came to Najaf from Iran in 1952, and spent years studying with the great scholars of Najaf, rising to become one of a handful of grand ayatollahs by the 1980s. In 1992, the mantle of "Object of Emulation" or most-respected religious jurisprudent, fell on his shoulders.
Under Saddam, Sistani was under constant threat of execution, and he tended to stay quiet and to avoid conflict with the regime. He also was at odds with Ayatollah Khomeini and the clerical leaders of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, since he rejected Khomeini's doctrine that clerics must rule society. Sistani believes that clerics should stay out of day-to-day government, but should intervene in social matters with their rulings or fatwas. These are legally non-binding, but exercise great moral authority, rather like papal encyclicals for believing Catholics.
Bremer responded to Sistani's demands in two ways. He immediately gave in to the insistence that the interim constitution recognize Islam as the religion of state, attempting to neutralize that hot-button issue. But on the issue of direct elections, he succeeded in convincing even Shiites like Ahmad Chalabi on the Interim Governing Council to vote against the grand ayatollah. Bremer held that without voting rolls or voting laws, elections were not possible.
Sistani would not be put off. He demanded that United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan become involved, by sending a commission to Iraq that would investigate the situation and certify whether direct elections were possible. The Bush administration had long attempted to keep the U.N. out of decision-making on Iraq. When the members of the Interim Governing Council warmed to the idea of meeting with Annan on the issue, the Americans were reportedly "extremely offended."
By setting a fixed date, June 30, for the end of their rule, the Americans and the Coalition had made themselves lame ducks. They had also set in motion a scramble for power among the major Iraqi leaders. In late December, two sets of politicians on the Interim Governing Council made their move.
Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and a member of the Interim Governing Council scheduled a vote at the interim council on the issue of personal status law. Al-Hakim wanted to abolish the 1959 civil code that governs marriage, divorce, inheritance and other such issues and go back to religious law. He held the vote when two women members of the IGC were absent, and it passed 11 to 10.
The new law was highly controversial, especially among women. Most Muslim clerics interpret Islamic personal status law in ways that make women unequal to men. In Iran, a woman receives only half the inheritance that her brother does. Her testimony in court is worth half that of a man (making it impossible for her to convict her own rapist if she has no witnesses). She is not owed alimony on being divorced. A man can take up to four wives, and, in Shiite Islam, can have temporary wives with whom he signs a contract. Women's groups took to the streets in protest, and the only female minister appointed by the IGC, Nasrin Barwari, joined the demonstrations.
In the meantime, the two major Kurdish leaders made their play. Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani had battled shoulder-to- shoulder against Saddam, but occasionally had also fought one another. Kurds probably make up around 15 percent of Iraqis, with a current population of nearly 4 million, and they predominate in the far northeast of the country. The Kurds have run their own mini-government in the north since the early 1990s, when the U.S. established its no-fly zone.
Barzani and Talabani announced that they would form a unified provincial government of the Kurdistan region, and that they sought the addition to their territory of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and other regions with substantial Kurdish populations. Kurds marched in favor of the plan, carrying their firearms.
Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk organized counter-demonstrations, but were told by the largely Kurdish police that they had to disarm. Turkmen, a Turkic-speaking people close to a million strong, predominated in Kirkuk traditionally. Oil-driven urbanization in the north, combined with Saddam's expulsion of Kurds and his policy of relocating hundreds of thousands of Arabs to the north, left the city of 900,000 evenly divided among Turkmen, Arabs and Kurds.
When Arabs demonstrated against the annexation of the city to the planned Kurdish canton, they came into armed conflict with the largely Kurdish police. Later in January, Coalition authorities arrested a high Kurdish official whom they charged with ordering peshmergas to shoot at protesting Arabs and Turkmen.
As if the Kirkuk situation were not sufficiently complicated by ethnic divisions, religion also enters into the disputes. A significant proportion of Turkmen belong to the Shiite branch of Islam, and some follow the radical young cleric, Muqtada al- Sadr. Some of the transplanted Arabs in the city are also Shiite. Al-Sadr preached against annexation of Kirkuk by the Kurds, and denounced Kurdish plans for semi-autonomy. He is said to have sent fighters up to Kirkuk to help the Shiites there. The Kurds have many more trained fighters than the other communities, and their decade-old experiment in self-rule made them politically savvy, so that they seem confident they can meet these challenges from smaller ethnic groups in the north.
In mid-February, the Kurdish regional government presented a blueprint to Baghdad that laid out its aspirations. They want a provincial national guard, which will absorb the Kurdish guerrillas or peshmergas. They declaim, "Except for the Iraqi Kurdistan National Guard ... the Armed Forces of Iraq shall not enter the territory of the Kurdistan Region without the consent of the Kurdistan National Assembly." The latter is not a demand to which any sovereign government could accede, but the Kurds harbor deep bitterness about the history of Baghdad's military interventions in their territory.
The Kurds would like to merge the three provinces in which they form a substantial majority into a single canton. They would like to add to it tracts from three other neighboring provinces where there are significant Kurdish populations. Not surprisingly, they would like to annex to this Kurdish super-province the city of Kirkuk and the hundreds of petroleum wellheads around it. Their plan states, "The natural resources located on the territory of the Kurdistan Region, including water, petroleum and subsoil minerals, belong to the Kurdistan Region."
The CPA decided leave the semi-autonomous Kurdish parliament and government temporarily intact in the north as Iraq moved toward self-rule. The future Iraqi government and the constitutional convention will have to hammer out a compromise on Kurdish semi- autonomy. This process will be fraught with dangers for the new Iraqi state, since any decision reached on the disposition of Kirkuk and its petroleum will displease some faction, and all the factions are heavily armed.
Meanwhile, the Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Sistani was growing impatient with the failure of the U.S. to acquiesce in holding early direct elections. Now he played his trump card. On Jan. 15, he had his lieutenants in the southern Shiite city of Basra bring 30,000 disciplined protesters into the streets, demanding direct elections. It was the largest demonstration postwar Iraq had yet seen.
Then on the following Monday, he had 100,000 protesters rally in Baghdad. A mass movement among the Shiites, at a time when the Sunni Arab provinces were the site of a guerrilla war, was precisely the development that the new government had been intended to forestall. Instead it seemed set to provoke it.
In the face of Sistani's demonstration that he could turn out the masses at will, and could keep them at home if he so ordered, the United States and the United Nations suddenly became more cooperative. Kofi Annan agreed to send special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to assess the possibility of elections. Brahimi's team produced a report confirming the American position, that direct elections before June 30 were impossible, much to the disappointment of Sistani and the Shiites.
The U.N., along with the Americans and the Interim Governing Council, worked out a two-stage plan for a new government. Sovereignty would be handed over to an expanded Interim Governing Council in the summer. It would then arrange for direct elections, of the sort that Sistani demanded, in December of 2004 or January of 2005. There would be no provincial council-based elections. Sistani got what he wanted, with only a six-month delay.
The entire point of the hand-over of sovereignty in the summer of 2004, however, had been to create a new Iraqi government with legitimacy. Now, the Coalition would likely be handing power over to its own appointees, most of whom lacked any real grass-roots popularity.
By early March, the Interim Governing Council passed a basic law or interim constitution. It set Islamist Shiites against Kurds and secular women. The women and secularists on the council reversed the earlier decision to abolish civil personal status, reinstating the secular code. The religious Shiite party leaders on the council were so furious that they stormed out of the meeting. They pledged to agitate for Islamic law in subsequent negotiations.
The interim constitution was roundly denounced as illegitimate and a foreign imposition by mosque preachers the following Friday. Kurds in Kirkuk, who mistakenly thought it gave the city to them, fired off their guns in celebration, accidentally killing a Turkmen, and setting off an ethnic riot. Sunni Arab insurgents paid no attention to the document, simply continuing their deadly bombing campaign in a bid to destabilize Iraq so as to expel the Americans and forestall a Shiite and Kurdish takeover of the country. Many Sunni Arab militants are convinced that democratic rule is a big mistake that will allow the rabble of the other communities to dictate Iraqi politics. They seek some sort of Sunni oligarchy, backed up by arms. Since Sunnis have long been the best-educated Iraqis, who occupied high government posts and dominated the officer corps, many are confident they can return to power as a minority regime (though they would insist they are in fact the majority).
Any transitional government that comes to power in Iraq will have to hold elections and will have to arrange for the drafting of a new constitution. All the issues and conflicts that have bedeviled the writing of the basic law will at that point be revisited. A spokesman for one of the holdouts, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, had said that it was thought unnecessary to fight too hard over the text of the basic law, since it was only temporary. The drafters of the permanent constitution will be less willing to compromise because they will have to live with the resulting document for a long time.
If acceptable compromises cannot be reached among the major players, the country could easily fall into chaos. All the leading factions, including the Kurds and the more militant Shiites, have large, well-armed militias at their beck and call. The low- grade guerrilla insurgency of the Sunni Arabs also is likely to continue for some time. It may not, however, be the most challenging issue Iraqis face as they attempt to hammer out a new destiny -- a destiny not imposed on them by the will of the Bush administration.
[i][b]About the writer: Juan Cole is professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and author of "Sacred Space and Holy War" (IB Tauris, 2002). [/b][/i], http://www.independent-media....%20Reported
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| He Was Proud to Have Served in the Alabama Guard for Both Days!!! ... (Cartoon) |
| 03.21.04 (12:47 pm) [edit] |
![]() =http://img27.photobucket.com/...
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| The Squalid, Fascist Bush Crime Family Values Photo Album!!! |
| 03.21.04 (9:31 am) [edit] |
[b]The squalid, fascist Bush Crime Family has been traitorously betraying, exploiting and embezzling our nation for generations ...[/b]
Please visit the "[i][b]Bush Family Values Photo Album[/b][/i]" web-site on http://www.hereinreality.com/...
For more than a half century, members of the squalid, fascist Bush Crime Family have been setting policy and making decisions for all Americans. Let's look at the family that has had such an impact on the lives of human beings worldwide ... The vile mafia-style Bush Crime Family is a disgrace to our nation and it is time they were exposed for the destructive traitors, liars, thieves, war criminals and Nazi collaborators that they really represent http://www.hereinreality.com/... .
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| QUID PRO QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!!! ... |
| 03.20.04 (8:45 pm) [edit] |
[b]Supreme Court Fascist Antonin Scalia reminds one of the German High Court Judge Dr. Ernst Janning in [i]Judgment at Nuremberg[/i], who pathetically tries to justify-[i]cum[/i]-ration alize his heinous [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]... Dr. Janning abused the rule of law and twisted the law in order to serve his Nazi paymasters ...[/b]
Fascist Scalia [i]isn't fit to serve [/i]on the Supreme Court -- "Quack-Quack" Scalia [i]isn't fit to serve on [u]any[/u] [/i]court-- he is a corrupt mafia-style [i]neo-fascist toady [/i]who has [i]obstructed the proper course of justice [/i]in our nation and should be [i][u]impeached[/u][/i] for [i]betraying his oath of office [/i]in acting as a neo-nazi slut taking favors, bribes and goodies from his traitorous neo-con pimps: Herr Fuhrer Bush and Reich Marshal Cheney ...[i] Sign the '[u]Impeach Supreme Court Justice Scalia[/u]' Petition [/i]on http://www.petitiononline.com...
"[i][b]Quid Pro Quack[/b][/i]", by [i]Maureen Dowd[/i], N.Y. TIMES on http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... :
That incandescent intellect, the Stephen Hawking of jurisprudence, has been kind enough to take time from his busy schedule to explain to us how the Republic really works.
Antonin Scalia has devoted 21 pages to illuminating the impertinence of those who suggest that it is wrong for a Supreme Court justice to take favors from a friend with a case before the court.
Res ipsa loquitur, baby. Why should the justice who put Dick Cheney in the White House stop helping him now? It's the logrolling, stupid!
"Many justices have reached this court precisely because they were friends of the incumbent president or other senior officials," the justice sniffs.
That elite old boy network can really help in those dicey moments when you need to stop the wrong sort, like Al Gore, from getting ahead.
You don't stop ingratiating yourself with your powerful friends and accepting "social courtesies" from them just because you get on the court. Ingratitude is a terrible vice.
Anyway, what's the point of being in the ultimate insiders' club if you have to fly coach, eat at IHOP and follow silly rules on conflict of interest?
Justice Scalia proffers that while he accepted the vice president's offer of a ride on Air Force Two to Louisiana for a duck hunting trip, taking along his son and son-in-law, there was no quid pro quack. "I never hunted in the same blind as the vice president," he says. No need for justice to be blind when the blinds are just.
Not since Tony Soprano discovered ducks in his swimming pool have ducks revealed so much about the man.
The justice elucidates that if he and his family had not accepted a free ride on Air Force Two, there would have been "considerable inconvenience" to his other friends, who would have had to meet a commercial plane in New Orleans and arrange car and boat trips to the hunting camp.
What is integrity compared to inconvenience?
"I daresay that, at a hypothetical charity auction, much more would be bid for dinner for two at the White House than for a one-way flight to Louisiana on the vice president's jet," he writes wittily. "Justices accept the former with regularity." Now there's an argument that requires a first-rate mind: Everybody does it.
Only a few casuistical steps away from parsing the meaning of "is," Justice Scalia writes that it is fine for him to be friends with Mr. Cheney and hear his case as long as it doesn't concern "the personal fortune or the personal freedom of the friend."
Holy Halliburton, whatever were we thinking?
The Sierra Club suit is against Mr. Cheney in his official capacity, not in his camouflage capacity.
"Political consequences are not my concern," says the justice. Unless, of course, it's about picking the president of the United States.
He reassures us that "Washington officials know the rules, and know that discussing with judges pending cases — their own or anyone else's — is forbidden." We must simply trust them, for they were bred to lead. Watching Mr. Cheney and Justice Scalia in action is all the proof one needs that Washington officials would never break the rules or engage in cronyism.
"If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined," the justice scoffs.
That's for sure.
Justice Scalia says, "The people must have confidence in the integrity of the justices, and that cannot exist in a system that assumes them to be corruptible by the slightest friendship or favor, in an atmosphere where the press will be eager to find foot-faults." He observes that it would be nonsensical for him to recuse himself simply because the press has the effrontery to point out when someone has done something wrong.
We, the press, are supposed to be the handmaidens and the manservants of our rulers. If we fulfilled our duties properly, our reports would go something like this:
In an admirable spirit of uncommon objectivity, in the pursuit of truth, justice and the American way, Associate Justice Scalia made time to poke around in the marshes of Louisiana with the equally scrupulous Dick Cheney, and then, refreshed by a well-deserved plane trip at our expense, he continued to transmit his enlightenment to a grateful nation.
[b]Other Sources:[/b]
"Justice Antonin Scalia is George Bush's man on the Supreme Court--and if Bush is reelected, the Court will be packed with Antonin Scalia Justices!" on http://www.interventionmag.co...
"Should Justice Scalia be impeached?, Improper duck hunt-or case talking! [i]Sign petition[/i]" on http://www.petitiononline.com...
"A Supreme conflict of interest: Scalia took trip set up by lawyer in two cases" on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Is Dubya's So-Called "Coalition of the Willing" [Idiots] Losing Their Will??? ... |
| 03.20.04 (1:04 pm) [edit] |
[b]The million dollar question that the media pundits are contemplating is as follows:-- [i]Is the hapless-boob-and-ne'er-do -well-cum-congenital-assh ole-Dubya's so-called "Coalition of the Willing" [Idiots] losing their will[/i]??? ...[/b]
Of course, most powerful nations [[i]Russia, China, Germany, France, Switzerland, Canada, etc[/i].] as well as some not-so-powerful nations [[i]Mexico, Syria, Sweden, Brazil, Ireland, etc.[/i]] all [i]stood-up and opposed [/i]the corrupt Bush regime's[i] illegal and immoral incursion turned bloody-guerrilla-quagmire [/i]in Iraq ...
However, for those nations whose[i] corrupt-or-intimidated-or -bribed[/i] leaders[i] opposed the will of their people [/i]and stupidly stood by the Mad King George and his cabal of neo-con, neo-fascist liars, thieves, crooks, war-profiteers and war criminals:-- "[i]the chickens are coming home to roost[/i]" ... and the [i]so-called "Coalition of the Willing" [Idiots], the laughing stock of the entire world[/i], seems to be [i]starting[/i] to fall apart ...
Consider "[i][b]Some in Bush's 'coalition of the willing' are suddenly losing their will[/b][/i]" by[i] Robert Burns[/i], Salon News, on http://www.salon.com/news/wir... :
President Bush's prized ``coalition of the willing'' -- the three dozen countries that are contributing military forces in Iraq -- appears suddenly to be losing some of its will.
First Spain said it was getting out, then Poland said it might leave early, and on Friday the South Korean Ministry of Defense announced that it will not send its troops to the area of Iraq that U.S. commanders had requested, although it said it would position them elsewhere in Iraq.
The coalition may not be crumbling, but neither is it gaining the political traction that the Pentagon had hoped for as it tackles the difficult task of finding fresh forces for the Iraq mission in 2005 and beyond.
A key element of the Bush administration's strategy for Iraq is to put an international face on the military force that is not only helping rebuild the country but also to trying to snuff out a resilient insurgency.
That strategy is meant to counter the charge by critics that the administration took a unilateral action in attacking Iraq, and that it has failed to garner sufficient allied support in the war's aftermath.
It's possible, of course, that security conditions in Iraq will improve so markedly over the remainder of this year that a military force much smaller than the current one of about 140,000 will be required. In that case the United States may not need additional allied troop contributions.
But if the insurgency persists or gains ground, then any slack in coalition contributions _ as suggested by Spain, Poland and possibly South Korea _ may have to be made up by deploying even more American forces.
Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an Associated Press interview Thursday that there are now about 115,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, plus about 24,000 coalition troops. Nearly half of the coalition contribution is from staunch ally Britain.
Pace said it was too early to conclude that Spain will follow through on its pledge to withdraw.
"It's not clear that Spain will withdraw,'' he said. The new government has indicated ``there are conditions under which they can stay, and that would be up to their sovereign government to make their
Spain's Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who gained office in an election held just three days after terrorist train bombings that killed 201 people in the Spanish capital, said Wednesday that the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq ``is turning into a fiasco.'' He said he will pull 1,300 Spanish troops out of Iraq unless the United Nations takes control of military mission.
Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, said in a CNN interview Thursday it was up to the Spanish government to decide whether to end its role as a key American military ally in Iraq.
"Whatever they decide about their forces in Iraq, that's up to the Spanish government,'' she said.
Poland's President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Thursday that his country might pull its 2,400 troops out of Iraq early next year, about six months ahead of schedule. Polls show about half of Poles are opposed to involvement in Iraq. Kwasniewski said he was misled by Bush administration assertions before the war that Saddam Hussein had threatening stockpiles of germ and gas weapons. No such weapons have been found.
Kwasniewski's comments were the first by a Polish leader to raise doubts about the intelligence behind Washington's decision to go to war and the latest signs of a weakening of support for the war among coalition members. He tempered his remarks by stressing that Poland has not intention of abandoning its role in Iraq, and said Iraq was a better place without Saddam.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Thursday would not comment directly on Kwasnieski's remarks.
"Poland is a strong ally in the war on terrorism and we appreciate their strong support,'' McClellan said. "They reaffirmed they stand with us in the war on terror.''
South Korea's announcement, which had not been foreseen in Washington, may be more problematic.
U.S. commanders had counted on South Korea to send about 3,600 troops to the Kirkuk area of northern Iraq, to be part of a multinational force led by the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division. Without the Koreans there, the Pentagon might have to find another U.S. ground unit to fill the gap.
A Defense Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "We value South Korea's contribution in fighting terrorism as we value the contributions of the more than 90 countries that have joined the coalition in fighting terrorism. It is up to each country to decide what type, duration and scope of support it may provide the coalition.''
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| Iraq: One Year Later ... |
| 03.20.04 (9:10 am) [edit] |
[b]Thank goodness for the brave, conscientious and patriotic citizens [i]out-in-force today [/i]to show the world that we're not all bamboozled, scammed and neo-con conned by the [i]imbecilc ne'er-do-well-cum-hapless -boob, Dubya [/i]and his [i]crooked, lying and traitorous gang of thieves, murderers and war criminals [/i]...[/b]
Thousands are protesting all across America and throughout the world against the dictatorial neo-con tyrants and neo-fascist Bush regime's vile [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]... http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/...
Review "[b]Iraq: [i]One Year Later[/i][/b]" by the [i]Center for American Progress [/i]on http://www.americanprogress.o... :
"At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger." - President George W. Bush, March 19, 2003
A year ago today, the United States invaded Iraq. American troops fought bravely and secured Baghdad, set up an interim Iraqi government and, eventually, captured Saddam Hussein. The Center for American Progress recognizes these achievements and salutes the American soldiers and their families who have sacrificed so much over the past year. At this time we remember the more than 566 members of our armed forces who have given their lives and the more than 3,200 who have been injured.
To mark this anniversary, [i]American Progress Fellows [/i]and other experts look back on the events in Iraq over the last year:
[b]A Grand Bargain for Iraq[/b], [i]by Ivo H. Daalder and Anthony Lake[/i]
Former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and American Progress Special Adviser Ivo Daalder argue that the United States must cede some control to help Iraqis take the next step toward democratic government. [i]More on [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]The Cost of Failing to Plan[/b], [i]by Lawrence J. Korb[/i]
Senior Fellow Lawrence J. Korb analyzes the lack of planning for the military's role in post-war Iraq and its long-term impact on the all volunteer force.[i] More on [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]Why We Went In: Version 10.0[/b], [i]by Robert O. Boorstin and P.J. Crowley[/i]
National security experts P.J. Crowley and Robert O. Boorstin offer their take on a year of confident statements and backpedaling by the Bush administration. [i]More on [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]Putting People Last[/b], [i]by Gayle Smith and Sonal Shah[/i]
Development experts Gayle Smith and Sonal Shah warn that efforts to rebuild Iraq will fall short without investments in the Iraqi people and efforts to diversify the country's economy. [i]More on [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]How Public Opinion Has Changed[/b], [i]by Ruy Teixeira[/i]
It's the one year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That makes it a very good time to review how public opinion on Iraq has evolved since the invasion. [i]More on [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Condolizzard Rice Caught Squirming & Hissing Another LIE!!! |
| 03.19.04 (3:37 pm) [edit] |
[b]Condolizzard Rice, the [i]National Security Amateur-cum-Asshole[/i], should have been [i]fired for gross negligence, incompetence and corruption [/i]on 12 September 2001-- Instead, she is "[i]doing[/i]" for Bush far more than Lewinsky ever "[i]did[/i]" for Clinton ...[/b]
The sleezy Condolizzard is again caught squirming and hissing another of her many [i]despicable and treasonous neo-con lies, deceptions and falsehoods [/i]... because Dubya, [i]the Ne'er-do-Well-cum-Hapless -Congenital-Idiot [/i]squandered 3 chances to get rid of Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11 ... http://abcnews.go.com/section...
Why did the Bush White House [i]fail[/i] to remove Osama bin Laden when they had the chance(s) ... [i]3 chances[/i]??? ... [i]Ask[/i] Poppy Bush and the Carlyle Group who were "[i]meeting[/i]" with the bin Laden family on 9/11!!! ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
In an interview with Lisa Myers of [i]NBC[/i] this week, Condi Rice went on record with an easily provable lie. She claims one reason Osama Bin Laden wasn't taken out in the summer or early autumn of 2001 before the 9/11 disaster is because the armed Predator surveillance craft - which had had OBL in its sights - was not operational. But according to several sources, this is a lie. The "[i]Washington Post[/i]" http://www.washingtonpost.com... reported: "On September 15, 2001, CIA Director Tenet tells Bush, 'The unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft that was now armed with Hellfire missiles had been operating for more than a year out of Uzbekistan to provide real-time video of Afghanistan.'" See also http://www.cooperativeresearc...
[b][i]Connect-the-Dots [/i]regarding the sleezy, oily and slippery Condolizzard[/b]:
"Condolizzard Rice Is Slithering Out Of Testifying On 9/11 ..." on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Condolizzard Rice on "Meet the Mess" ..." on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Mad King George & Queen Condi Grant Knighthood to Court-Jester Hastert ..." on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Condi Rice: The Arrogant & Incompetent National Security Adviser" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ACT NOW: Iraq: One Year Later - Join Any Of The Hundreds Of Anti-War Protests On Saturday!!! |
| 03.19.04 (2:42 pm) [edit] |
[b]On the heels of yesterday's car-bomb attack against a central Baghdad hotel, Iraqi insurgents launched more deadly attacks today in advance of the first anniversary of the US invasion of the country, leaving at least eight Iraqi civilians dead in several incidents and eight US soldiers wounded in a mortar attack in the restive city of Fallujah. [/b]
Meanwhile, around the world in Washington, DC, a group of antiwar activists, veterans and military family members leaned into two microphones this morning on a stage in the park across from the White House and called out the names of American soldiers who have been killed in Iraq.
This reading, part of a demonstration that was more memorial service than street protest, was one of hundreds of antiwar events scheduled across the globe leading up to Saturday's one-year anniversary http://www.thenation.com/doc.... of the invasion of Iraq. In the United States, the antiwar coalition [u]United for Peace[/u] http://www.unitedforpeace.org... is calling for a massive march in New York City along with dozens of local and regional demonstrations nationwide, including a major protest in Fayetteville, NC, http://www.unitedforpeace.org... the home of Fort Bragg.
In Manhattan, the permitted march and rally will assemble at noon on Madison Avenue stretching north from 23rd Street. Click here http://www.unitedforpeace.org... for downloadable posters, leaflets and flyers, here http://www.unitedforpeace.org... for transportation info and here to donate to [u]United for Peace[/u] http://www.unitedforpeace.org... .
San Francisco is also expecting a sizable contingent of marchers to gather near the 18th and Church St. corner of Dolores Park at 11:00am under the banner of immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, repeal of the Patriot Act http://www.thenation.com/dire... and a repudiation of the preemptive doctrine of foreign policy. Click here http://unitedforpeace.org/cal... for info on what's planned in SF.
Or check out UFP's regularly-updated calendar http://www.unitedforpeace.org... for info on the dozens of other rallies scheduled in places like Anchorage, Alaska; Jacksonville, Florida; Little Rock, Arkansas; Phoenix http://www.unitedforpeace.org... , Arizona; Honolulu, Hawaii; New Haven, Connecticut and Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio.
A coalition of groups, including UFP, is also sponsoring "[u]National Iraq Call-in Day[/u]" http://www.unitedforpeace.org... next Wednesday, March 24. Encourage people to call their elected reps in Washington and politely ask them to make every effort to ensure that the June 30 transfer of power be transparent and inclusive and to make sure that any un- elected government not be allowed to make laws that will bind future representative bodies. Click here http://www.capwiz.com/thenati... for contact info for your elected reps (if you're in the US.)
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]ActNow[/i], Peter Rothberg, TheNation, http://www.thenation.com/actn...
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| MISSION DEMOLISHED ... |
| 03.19.04 (11:06 am) [edit] |
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction ..." - [i]Third of Sir Issac Newton's laws of physics[/i]
[b]Watch the [i]effects [/i]... It isn't the insane Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]neo-orwellian propaganda, lies, deceptions and falsehoods spewed by the neo-con mad-dogs, court-jesters, and neo-fascist buffoons that really [i]matter[/i] if we [i]catch them at it and hold them accountable [/i]... [/b]Is is the [i]effects[/i] of their vile, rapacious corporate-take-all "policies" and "actions" resulting in neo-hitlerian pre-emptive doctrines and their neo-imperial economic rape and enslavement of working people across the globe, that warrants their [i]removal from office [/i]in November ... ([i]that is, if we are unable to get the corrupt Bush regime impeached beforehand[/i])!
Refer to "[i][b]'Mission demolished'[/b][/i]" by [i]Mike Shannon [/i]on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
If it wasn't that I believe Mr Bush to be corrupt to his core, shamelessly self-serving, malignantly mendacious and thoroughly ill prepared for the grave challenges of his high office, I could almost feel sorry for the guy. Here it is, the one year anniversary of what was supposed to be his moment of grand triumph -- one can only imagine the delusions he and his handlers had dancing through their heads in the weeks leading up to this ignominious occasion. It is hardly a stretch to contend that they wished to put on a spectacle that would have put the USS Lincoln farce to shame. -- and he is faced with a military and geo-political disaster of proportions rarely experienced in American history. Not that this has stopped him from pretending otherwise. After all one of Mr Bush's most ingratiating traits is to merely ignore that which is not what he wishes it to be. Regardless of how contrary to reality his position is.
Even taking this tendency into account, the reality of the situation in Iraq is far too bleak to permit a naked basking in vainglory. Instead the President chose to stage his triumphal address at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; the home of the 101st Airborne. A division that was at the front of the battle line in both Afghanistan and Iraq. While it was wholly fitting that Mr Bush acknowledged the immeasurable sacrifices these brave young men and women endured, choosing to give such a speech there was in keeping well within the strict guidelines of what constitutes a suitable audience for Mr Bush. The man has not given a speech in front of anything less than a carefully selected audience in years.
Not that these young men and women do not deserve the appreciation and gratitude of their country. They most certainly do. By all accounts, the servicemen and women of the American armed forces conducted themselves with great professionalism and courage, and to question either is as misguided as it is insulting. But at the same time, for their commander in chief to announce that it was a "job well done" is for said commander to engage in fantasy. We know the man doesn't read books, or even the newspaper for that matter -- he has practically bragged about it! -- but for the love of Pete, doesn't he ever watch television? Did he not see like the rest of the world the destruction and carnage that played out on CNN the entire day before his Fort Campbell address? Here he was telling the nation/world had terrific everything is and the smoke from what had been the Mount Lebanon Hotel hadn't even stopped curling into the skies above Baghdad.
Even more startling in contrast to the mood of Mr Bush's message was the fact that in the twenty four hours period preceding his address the American soldiers still on station in Iraq had come under attack in at least six separate locations, resulting in 3 dead and at least 2 dozen wounded. Of course, the most important and distressing aspect of these casualties is the human pain and suffering they represent. But it is also important to take note of the nature of the means by which these casualties were inflicted. In his address to the troops at Fort Campbell Mr. Bush told them that they and their comrades had not only done great harm to many of the "terrorists" but that they were keeping the rest of them "on the run." This once again is completely contrary to reality. All of the most recent US casualties mentioned above were the direct result of attacks initiated by parties unknown upon US bases or within areas ostensibly under US control. Belligerents who not only have the military competency to engage in mortar and rocket attacks upon the most powerful military in the world may be a lot of things but "on the run" is definitely not one of them.
Mr Bush also remarked that because of the efforts put forth by the American military "the Mideast, and the world, are safer." I am sure that the people of Madrid, Istanbul, Bali, Riyadh, Baghdad, Najaf, Basra, Tel Aviv et al would find little comfort in those words.
We are all going to hear a great deal of talk in the months to come about the competency and worthiness of Mr Bush's leadership; many coming directly from his own mouth. We would be well advised to spend less time listening to the intent of his words and more time studying their effect.
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| Fascist Herr Dubya Fired US General Opposed To Raping Iraqi People & Stealing Iraqi Resources!!! |
| 03.18.04 (7:47 pm) [edit] |
[b]Tragically, the neo-orwellian corporate-owned media in the U.S. does not report upon the heinous lies, crimes and atrocities committed by the corrupt Bush regime ... We must seek the truth in the foreign media and press outlets ...[/b]
The [i]BBC[/i] has interviewed Ret. US General Jay Garner who admits that he was[i] fired [/i]because [i]he wanted to organize elections for the Iraqi people [/i]and was[i] opposed to Dubya/Cheney's economic rape of Iraq [/i]by their blood-thirsty neo-con, neo-fascist corporate paymasters: Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. ... The Bush Crime Family, Cheney Crime Family, and their [i]associates-cum-corpora te blood-suckers [/i]who are [i]profitting from the massacre, misery and mayhem [/i]in Iraq should have their [i]assets confiscated [/i]and should be tried for[i] Crimes Against Humanity [/i]...
Consider "[i][b]General Sacked by Bush Says He Wanted Early Elections[/b][/i]" by [i]David Leigh[/i], Guardian UK, on http://www.commondreams.org/h... :
Jay Garner, the US general abruptly dismissed as Iraq's first occupation administrator after a month in the job, says he fell out with the Bush circle because he wanted free elections and rejected an imposed program of privatization.
In an interview to be broadcast on [i]BBC Newsnight [/i]tonight, he says: "My preference was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can, and do it with some form of elections ... I just thought it was necessary to rapidly get the Iraqis in charge of their destiny."
Asked by the reporter Greg Palast if he foresaw negative repercussions from the subsequent US imposition of mass privatization, Gen Garner said: "I don't know ... we'll just have to wait and see." It would have been better for the Iraqis to take decisions themselves, even if they made mistakes, he said.
"What I was trying to do was get to a functioning government ... We as Americans like to put our template on things. And our template's good, but it's not necessarily good for everyone else."
Describing his dismissal after he called for elections , he said: "The night I got to Baghdad, [the defense secretary Donald] Rumsfeld called me and told me he was appointing Paul Bremer as the presidential envoy ... The announcement ... was somewhat abrupt."
Gen Garner was careful not to criticize his successor directly. He said the imposition before elections of free market economic schemes drawn up by the US as early as 2001 "was a more orderly approach" than his own.
But he had wanted the Iraqis to decide economic policy for themselves. "They'll make mistakes, and that's OK ... I don't think they need to go by the US plan."
Despite being a protege of Mr Rumsfeld, Gen Garner was the subject of what was alleged to be a White House whispering campaign, describing him as weak.
A year after the invasion, his disclosure of policy differences with the White House highlights the dilemma still faced by the US occupation forces.
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| Condolizzard Rice Is Slithering Out Of Testifying On 9/11 ... |
| 03.18.04 (1:43 pm) [edit] |
[b]Condolizzard Rice, the National Security Asshole, is slithering out of testifying before the 9/11 commission ... What are the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta'[/i]s neo-con[i] liars, thieves and war criminals [/i]trying to [i]hide[/i]??? ... [/b]Did they indeed have advance warning of the attacks on 9/11 and simply let it happen for [i]nefarious "justifications [sic]" [/i]to bambozzle Americans into supporting their insane, illegal and immoral war-turned-bloody-guerril la-quagmire in Iraq (... [i]Saddam Hussein & Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Qaida, although the traitorous Bushies mendaciously implied that they did [/i]...) to enrich their neo-fascist pimps (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Bechtel, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ... Poppy Bush was "[i]in bed[/i]" at a "[i]meeting[/i]" with the Bin Laden family at the time of the attacks upon 9/11 http://www.tblog.com/template... !!! ... [i]Hmmm[/i] ... "[i]Connect-the-Dots[/i]" folks ...
Consider "[i][b]Rice still not on list to testify to 9/11 panel[/b][/i]", the Boston Globe on http://www.boston.com/news/na... :
WASHINGTON, D.C.The federal panel reviewing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks disclosed its witness list yesterday for its two-day hearing on counterterrorism next week. But the list omits one invited official: national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. She has repeatedly declined on the advice of the White House, citing separation of power concerns. Commission officials haven't ruled out a possible subpoena. ([b]AP[/b])
Also, refer to "[i][b]Condolizzard Rice on "Meet the Mess" ...[/b][/i]" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Poodle Powell Admits The Mad King George Supports Outsourcing ... |
| 03.18.04 (10:49 am) [edit] |
[b]The Mad King George doesn't give a damn about the level of unemployment which he and his neo-con, neo-fascist corporate cronies have purposely [i]devised to skyrocket [/i]in order that these economist rapists and traitors can [i]gorge-and-swill on ill-gotten profits [/i]from slave labor wages abroad ...[/b] Our nation's nighmarish tragedy is that these gluttonous and obscene Bush [i]liars, embezzlers, fraudsters and thieves [/i]are turning the U.S.A. into a 3rd world military[i] junta[/i], with increased poverty, misery and joblessness here at home, in order to [i]enslave our citizenry as neo-serfs [/i]paying homage to these Neo-Emperor-Caligulas who should be summarily [i]impeached and tried for treason [/i]for [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]and [i]Crimes Against the U.S. Constitution [/i]...
[b]Protectionism [i]Or [/i]Protecting Our People???:[/b] Only if you consider that without worker's rights and safety-nets to ensure that people are not forced into miserable destitution without any assistance-- the Bush Crime Family and Corporations are committing treason by raping our citizenry to embezzle vast wealth [i]off of the suffering [/i]of vulnerable human beings (... [i]ain't very "christian" is it [/i]...) [The insane and callous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] have slashed unemployment benefits and aide to families in dire need.] -- These corrupt Bushies behave [i]worse [/i]than Saddam Hussein who ensured that his people were not impoverished, enslaved and/or left bereft of health care, food, shelter and the basic necessities of life!!! It is time for corporations, filthy rich oligarchs and obscene plutocrats to start paying their [i]fair share [/i]back into our society-- Call for Congress http://www.congress.org to repeal Bush's insane and traitorous tax cuts for the rich!!!
Refer to "[i][b]Powell Admits Bush Supports Outsourcing[/b][/i]" on http://www.misleader.org/dail... :
Last month, President Bush strongly endorsed1 the loss of U.S. jobs to foreign labor markets, personally signing a report2 that touted overseas outsourcing despite more than 8 million3 Americans being out of work. After the public reacted with outrage, the White House tried to back off4 its endorsement of outsourcing, with the president reassuring America that he is concerned about "people looking for work because jobs have gone overseas"5 and saying that "we need to act to make sure there are more jobs at home." However, as the controversy subsides, the president is apparently endorsing outsourcing once again.
Specifically, the president has deployed Secretary of State Colin Powell6 to India "to assure Indians that the Bush administration would not try to halt the outsourcing of high-technology jobs to their country." The admission came despite a new study showing that up to 14 million American jobs7 could be lost to outsourcing in the coming years. Instead of endorsing congressional action8 to prevent such a tide of lost jobs,"the White House endorsed Mr. Powell's comments" that outsourcing is just "a natural effect" that cannot be stemmed.
The president's support for outsourcing is less puzzling when considering who is funding his campaign. As an earlier Daily Mislead9 report showed, the president's campaign pocketed more than $440,000 and his party more than $3.6 million from the companies that are most exploiting outsourcing to ship U.S. jobs overseas.
[b]Sources:[/b]
1. "Bush Econ Advisor: Outsourcing OK," CBSNews.com, 2/13/04.
2. "Exporting American Jobs: Bush Adviser's Comments Ignite Firestorm, Bring Attention to Trend," ABCNews.com, 2/13/04.
3. "Employment Situation Summary," Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 3/5/04.
4. "Bush adviser backs off pro-outsourcing comment," CNN, 2/13/04.
5. "Presidential Speech," WhiteHouse.gov, 2/12/04.
6. "Powell Reassures India on Technology Jobs," New York Times, 3/17/04.
7. "Outsourcing Hits Close to Home for Workers in Northwest Ohio," Miami Herald, 3/14/04.
8. "Senate votes to stop outsourcing," BBC News, 3/5/04.
9. Daily Mislead, 3/10/04.
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| Dubya, the Hapless Boob's Camp Exposed As Criminal Serial Liars ... |
| 03.17.04 (4:59 pm) [edit] |
[b]Dubya, the Hapless Boob and his neo-con, neo-fascist goons and thugs are exposed as criminal serial liars by the Congressional House Government Reform Committee ...[/b]
Now is the time for all American citizens to demand that the despicable Dubya, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Rumsfeld, Powell and the rest of their criminal regime be [i]impeached[/i] by Congress http://www.congress.org ...
Consider "[i][b]Bush camp exposed as 'serial liars'[/b][/i]" on http://english.aljazeera.net/... :
US President George Bush and his four top advisers made a combined total of 237 misleading public statements on the threat posed by Iraq.
The claim was made in a congressional report released on Tuesday.
Compiled by Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee, the report examined assertions made by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The document was requested by California Representative Henry Waxman - the most senior Democrat on the committee and a tenacious critic of some of the contracts awarded to businesses to rebuild Iraq.
[b]Report details[/b]
"Prior to the war in Iraq, the president and his advisers repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that jeopardised the security of the United States.
"The failure to discover these weapons after the war has led to questions about whether the president and his advisers were candid in describing Iraq's threat," the report said.
Most of the statements were misleading because they expressed certainty where none existed or failed to acknowledge the doubts of intelligence officials, according to the report.
Ten statements were just completely false.
[b]Waxman dommentary[/b]
Waxman said it demonstrated a "systematic distortion of the intelligence on Iraq," which he said urgently needed investigation.
"Most of the misleading statements about Iraq - 161 statements - were made prior to the start of the war in Iraq.
"But 76 misleading statements were made by the five administration officials after the start of the war to justify the decision to go to war."
[b]White House response[/b]
According to the report, the campaign of misinformation began at least a year before the start of the war in Iraq, when Cheney stated on 17 March 2002: "We know they have biological and chemical weapons."
A White House spokesman said he had not yet seen the document and could not comment specifically on its contents.
But despite not having seen the document, the spokesman could still comment: "I can say that the president and his advisers spoke clearly to the American people and the world and their statements accurately reflected the intelligence that was available to them."
HA HA HA!!!
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| Looney-Buffoon-Boy Dubya: I'm God's Delivery Boy ... Jeez ... |
| 03.17.04 (4:47 pm) [edit] |
[b]Adolf Hitler thought he was delivering the world from the "Jewish Scourge" ... Adolf Hitler was an insane tyrannical war criminal who perpetrated heinous atrocities for which history has rightly condemned him ...[/b]
Looney-Buffoon-Boy Dubya thinks he is delivering the world from "Terrorists" ([i]whatever that means ... as Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups[/i]) ... Dubya is an insane tyrannical war criminal who has perpetrated heinous atrocities for which history will rightly condemn him ...
Dubya's death toll is over 560 U.S. Soldiers and over 10,000-15,000 Innocent Iraqi Civilians "[i]liberated[/i]" by the corrupt Bush regime's insane neo-con, neo-fascist war machine for his ghoulish, blood-thirsty war-profiteers (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ... Jeez ...
God save us from insane tyrannical ideologues who massacre innocent human beings in their misguided and ignorant foolishness ...
Refer to "[b]Bush: [i]I'm God's Delivery Boy[/i][/b]" by [i]Matthew Rothschild[/i], The Progressive, on http://www.progressive.org/we... :
Bush's messianic militarism was on full display on March 11, when he addressed, via satellite, the National Association of Evangelicals Convention in Colorado Springs.
First, acting as pastor in chief, he said, "You're doing God's work with conviction and kindness, and, on behalf of our country, I thank you."
Separation of church and state, anyone?
Bush charged right through that wall, citing religion as his basis for opposing stem-cell research, abortion, and same-sex marriage.
He also ignored the wall when he returned to his favorite, post 9/11 theme: that God is calling America to free the world, and Bush himself is heeding that call.
"America is a nation with a mission," Bush said, not afraid, in this crowd, to connote the crusade he is on.
"We're called to fight terrorism around the world," he said, intentionally using the religious term "called," a term he has repeatedly invoked over the last two and a half years.
"As freedom's home and freedom's defender, we are called to expand the realm of human liberty," he said. Viewing himself as the Great Liberator, he said, "By our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 50 million people have been liberated from tyranny."
And then he laid the religion on thick: "Yet I know that liberty is not America's gift to the world-liberty and freedom are God's gift to every man and woman who lives in this world."
[b]Follow the logic here[/b]: [i]If God's gift is liberty, and if Bush has liberated millions, then he is God's delivery boy[/i].
Now while Bush may invigorate himself by aligning his policies with the presumed wishes of the Almighty, there is something deeply offensive about foisting this theology on our constitutionally secular government.
And the tautological conviction that whatever he is doing he is fulfilling God's will defies democratic discussion and debate.
With his messianic strivings, Bush may not be satisfied believing that he has liberated 50 million people. He may feel it is his religious duty to liberate 22 million more living in godless North Korea.
The President told Bob Woodward in [i]"Bush at War"[/i] that Kim Jong Il's massive prison complex "appalls me." He added: "It is visceral. Maybe it's my religion, maybe it's my-but I feel passionate about this." Toying with the idea of toppling Kim, Bush said, "I just don't buy" the argument that we need to worry about the financial burdens South Korea might have to assume if North Korea collapses. "Either you believe in freedom, and want to-and worry about the human condition, or you don't," he said.
The problem with such black-and-white thinking is that it could lead Bush to make a rash decision to attack North Korea.
The toll, according to the Pentagon's own war games, would be astronomical, perhaps as high as a million. But notice that Bush did not count the casualties of the Iraq War or the Afghan War. [b]Everyone there was liberated, according to his speech, [i]even the dead[/i][/b].
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| Heaven Forbid We Be Unpopular ... But Can't We At Least Be 'Right'??? ... HA HA HA!!! |
| 03.17.04 (3:59 pm) [edit] |
[b]Now the neo-con, neo-fascist right-wing buffoons and court jesters are [i]scrambling to come-up with a new spin [/i]because they are confronted with the fact that Dubya, the Hapless Boob is [i]universally hated [/i]around the world ... HA HA HA!!![/b]
So [i]is it important [/i]to be popular or unpopular??? Of course not!!!
[i]But can't we at least be '[u]right[/u]'??? [/i]... Jeez ... The[i] real problem[/i] is that the [i]Liar-N-Thief Dubya [/i]and the [i]Veep-N-Creep Cheney [/i]([i]and their neo-con traitors in their corrupt regime[/i]) are [i]liars, thieves and war criminals [/i]who have illegally and immorally invaded a sovereign nation based upon [i]heinous lies, deceptions & falsehoods[/i] ... Jeez ... These neo-con goons and neo-fascist thugs are all arm-chair chicken-hawks who have screwed-up their botched-up war-turned-bloody-guerril la-quagmire and post-war [[i]sic[/i]] occupation which is a [i]bloody fiasco [/i]...
At least, if you are going to be hated, be[i] right[/i]!!!
[b]Dubya is [i]both[/i] hated and a wrong-headed neo-nazi war criminal and corporate-take-all puppet-cum-rapist!!! ...[/b]
Consider also "[i][b]The politics of inexperience[/b][/i]" by [i]Scott C. Smith[/i], Democratic Underground, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
The George W. Bush Google bomb has been pretty successful. The idea was for folks to put the phrase "miserable failure" into a web page with a link to Bush's official White House biography. The [i]Google[/i] search engine would then record that link, so that a search on [i]Google[/i] for "miserable failure" produces Bush's bio as the first hit.
As a participant in this experiment, I actually had never bothered to go to the White House web page and read Bush's biography. As I was waiting for a freshly painted wall to dry, I thought I'd give it a look.
What struck me first was not the horror of Bush's mug staring right at me (I think the eyes move) nor the temptation to run the Barney Cam (Barney looks like the White House spong monkey), but rather the section which lists Bush's previous job experiences, a sort of mini-resume. Here's what it says: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Which Nation On Planet Earth Likes Dubya, Butt-head the Hapless Boob??? ... HA HA HA!!! |
| 03.17.04 (2:10 pm) [edit] |
[b]Name a [i]single[/i] Nation on Planet Earth where the [i]majority[/i] of its' citizens [i]like[/i] Dubya, Butt-head the Hapless Boob??? ...
Answer: [i]NONE[/i]
HA HA HA!!![/b]
[b]Sources[/b]:
The PEW Research Institute's New Study: "[i]A Year After Iraq War Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists[/i]" on http://people-press.org/repor... : - [i]Excerpt[/i] -
Large majorities in almost every country surveyed think that American and British leaders lied when they claimed, prior to the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction. On balance, people in the United States and Great Britain disagree. Still, about three-in-ten in the U.S. (31%) and four-in-ten in Great Britain (41%) say leaders of the two countries lied to provide a rationale for the war.
In that regard, opinions of both President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are negative. Large majorities in every country, except for the U.S., hold an unfavorable opinion of Bush. Blair is rated favorably only by a narrow majority in Great Britain but fully three-quarters of Americans. In contrast, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is viewed positively in nearly all nine countries surveyed, with Jordan and Morocco as prominent exceptions.
... [i]and [/i]...
USA Today's "[i]Poll finds pessimism about U.S. direction[/i]" on http://www.usatoday.com/news/... : - [i]Excerpt[/i] -
Americans are increasingly gloomy about the state of the economy and the direction of the country, a [i]Gallup Poll[/i] has found. That state of mind is a warning flag for President Bush as his re-election campaign begins in earnest. (Related item: [i]Poll results[/i] http://www.usatoday.com/news/... )
In the poll, 60% said they were dissatisfied with "the way things are going in the United States at this time." Except for a survey two weeks before the invasion of Iraq a year ago, that is the most negative reading since 1996.
The question about the general direction of the country is one of the fundamental judgments voters make in deciding whether to support a president for re-election. That makes the public's pessimism, if it persists, a serious problem for the Bush campaign.
[b]SO FOR DIFFERENT REASONS, THE CONCLUSION IS THE SAME:-- NOBODY [i]REALLY [/i]LIKES DUBYA ... NOT EVERYBODY IS FOOLED BY DUMB DUBYA, THE CORRUPT AND USEFUL IDIOT OF CORPORATIONS AND PLUTOCRATIC PUPPET-MASTERS!!![/b]
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| Kerry Is Right, Foreign Leaders Want Bush Beaten ... So Do Many Americans ... |
| 03.17.04 (9:55 am) [edit] |
[b]Senator John F. Kerry is [i]right[/i] ... Senator Joe Biden also confirmed that Kerry is [i]right[/i] ... Many Americans [i]also agree [/i]with foreign leaders who want Bush beaten in November ...[/b]
Who in their[i] right mind [/i]could want the[i] imbecilic ne'er-do-well-cum-AWOL-dr unkardly-deserter [/i]and [i]congenital idiot-cum-liar [/i]to remain in office??? ... The blood-thirsty neo-con traitors and rapacious neo-fascist corporations, robber-barons, and gluttonous plutocrats: [i]that's who [/i]... but [i]for the rest of us[/i], Bush is a [i]miserable failure [/i]and a [i]bloody disaster [/i]...
Refer to "[i][b]Kerry is right, foreign leaders want Bush beaten[/b][/i]" by Joshua Micah Marshall, The Hill, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
An ominously off-balance White House finally seems to have found a bit of traction in taking John Kerry to task for claiming that many foreign leaders are hoping he ousts President Bush from the White House this November.
White House surrogates have spent several days pressing Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) to name names. And yesterday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan upped the ante by claiming Kerry was lying. "Either [Kerry] is straightforward and states who they are, or the only conclusion one can draw is that he is making it up to attack the president," McClellan intoned.
Late Monday, [i]Boston Globe [/i]reporter Patrick Healy, who filed the pool report that included the quote in question, announced that he'd gotten it wrong. Kerry said "more leaders," not "foreign leaders." Still, the context shows pretty clearly that foreign leaders of some sort were the folks Kerry was talking about. And in the week since the quotation was first reported, he's never denied that this was what he meant.
The first thing to note about this brouhaha is that this was a really foolish thing for Kerry to say.
As we've already seen, it's left Kerry open to all sorts of [i]dingbat Manchurian-candidate-type slurs [/i]about his being a pawn of foreign governments or his having made unknown, scary promises to foreign heads of state.
Last week, the Republican National Committee put out a memo darkly claiming that "Communist North Korea Is Only Government On Record Supporting John Kerry."
Then a slightly less breathless Vice President Dick Cheney demanded that Kerry tell Americans what he'd promised to those foreign leaders to make them so supportive of his candidacy.
American elections aren't about the views of foreigners. They're about the views of Americans. If most people around the globe think the American president is reckless, untrustworthy or simply dangerous, that may be something American voters want to take into account in making their judgments. But that's a more subtle point -- and there are better ways to address it than the one Kerry chose.
[i]But McClellan's claim that Kerry is lying just doesn't pass the laugh test[/i].
Yes, Kerry's remark was ill-advised. But one of the main reasons that it was a bad idea to say this is that it's so obviously true.
Indeed, up until the White House glommed onto this recent line of attack, the administration's contempt for the views of foreigners has been something it had been proud of and boasted of often. Remember the president's cocky boasts about not needing anybody's "permission" to launch the Iraq war?
[i]Just consider a few facts[/i].
The record of foreign elections over the last two and a half years is telling. It is difficult, if not impossible, to find a foreign leader who has supported Bush in any high-profile way and then survived a national election. True, it's hard to find many examples beside Jose Maria Aznar. But that's because it's hard to find any foreign heads of state who have been supporters of the president.
More revealing is how many foreign heads of state and candidates for national office from traditional American allies have successfully played the anti-Bush card in their election campaigns.
The clearest examples are President Roh Moo-hyun, who won election two years ago in South Korea as the first South Korean presidential candidate to openly question the U.S.-ROK security alliance, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who pulled out a razor-thin victory in his 2002 re-election campaign by campaigning against Bush's Iraq policy.
Washington has tended to view Schroeder's gambit as cynical and craven, particularly for the leader of a country that has been so closely allied to the United States for half a century. But there's seldom a shortage of craven or cynical politicians in the world. For understanding America's current standing in the world, the key point is not so much that Schroeder was or wasn't craven as that his tactic was successful.
[i]Nor is it much of a surprise[/i].
As Fareed Zakaria -- hardly a lefty or a Bush-hater -- noted a year ago, the president's policies have "alienated friends and delighted enemies. Having traveled around the world and met with senior government officials in dozens of countries over the past year, I can report that with the exception of Britain and Israel, every country the administration has dealt with feels humiliated by it."
For anyone who follows foreign policy even remotely closely, it has to be close to a given that the overwhelming majority of foreign heads of state and foreigners in general hope that Bush will be heading back to Crawford next January.
The president's deep unpopularity among foreigners and foreign governments is a fact that either campaign could probably use to its advantage. But the fact itself can't be denied.
Also, refer to "Senator Supports Kerry's claim that foreign leaders want a change in America" on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4...
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| Stringent Military Screening May Explain Dubya, the Hapless Boob's AWOL Gaps ... |
| 03.16.04 (7:27 pm) [edit] |
[b]Dubya, the cowardly arm-chair chicken-hawk was AWOL, a deserter who was partying in a drunken stupor during Vietnam, while better men faced battle, died or were maimed, injured or scarred for life ...[/b]
New information has been revealed that may explain (partially:[i] it doesn't explain why Dubya, the Hapless Boob & Ne'er-do-Well Failure was shoved ahead of 500 others by his Poppy into a Champaign Brigade unit that the Trashy Slob didn't even bother to show-up to ...[/i]) why Dubya was grounded from flying ... Stringent military screening may have prohibited the drunkard from doing untold damage to his fellow service men and innocent civilians ...
Consider "[i][b]Bush's partial history[/b][/i]" by [i]Bill Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele[/i], The Spokesman Review, on http://www.spokesmanreview.co... :
[b]Stringent military screening program may explain gaps on president's record[/b]
Military rules used in 1974 to ground two Washington Air National Guard airmen with access to nuclear weapons also applied to a Texas Air National Guard unit where Lt. George W. Bush was a fighter pilot.
Some military researchers and a former Texas Guard lieutenant colonel believe the stringent regulations -- known as the Human Reliability Program -- may have been invoked to stop Bush from flying Texas Air National Guard jets in 1972.
Bush's military service more than 30 years ago during the Vietnam War has been an issue since his first campaign for president. More recently, some researchers and national media outlets have been investigating the period from May 1, 1972, to April 1, 1973, when Bush left his unit in Texas and moved to Alabama.
Bush's military records from that period are spotty, and have led some to suggest he was avoiding his Guard obligations.
The [i]Boston Globe[/i], on the forefront of the issue, reported Feb. 12 that Bush's acknowledged 1972 suspension from flight status for failing to take a required physical should have generated an investigation and subsequent trail of documents, which have not been found.
To address critics, the White House released Bush's military records in mid-February, asserting he left his Texas Air National Guard squadron two years before the end of his enlistment because he was no longer needed to fly jets.
But if the human reliability rules were invoked, as they were in thousands of other cases, Bush may not have voluntarily stopped flying.
There is no mention of the [i]Human Reliability Program [/i]in the documents released by the White House.
The White House documents do show that Bush's military job description, called an Air Force Specialty Code, or AFSC, was listed as ‘‘1125D, pilot, fighter interceptor.”
Bush's pilot code was among those covered by Air Force Regulation 35-99, a previously undisclosed document recently obtained by [i]The Spokesman-Review. Regulation [/i]35-99 contains an extensive explanation of the Human Reliability Program.
Human reliability regulations were used to screen military personnel for their mental, physical and emotional fitness before granting them access to nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
Under the rules, pilots could be removed immediately from the cockpit for HRP issues, which happened in the 1974 Washington Air National Guard case. The two Washington airmen were suspended on suspicion of drug use, but eventually received honorable discharges.
A second previously unreleased document obtained by the newspaper, a declassified Air Force Inspector General's report on the Washington case, states that human reliability rules applied to all Air National Guard units in the 1970s. From 1968 to 1973, Bush was assigned to the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston.
‘‘The Human Reliability Program, in a nutshell, applied to every U.S. Air Force and Air Guard pilot in any aircraft they would fly,” said Marty Isham, a former Air Force briefing officer.
Now a military historian and researcher, Isham is writing a book about the Air Defense Command, which controlled Air Guard units nationwide, including the Washington and Texas squadrons.
Isham said there is a ‘‘good likelihood” HRP regulations were either applied or about to be applied against Bush and that is why he stopped flying on April 16, 1972.
White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said last week he couldn't answer any questions about HRP.
‘‘That's a question I'd refer to the Department of Defense,” Lisaius said when asked if the regulations led to Bush's giving up flying in the Texas Air Guard.
‘‘We've released the president's complete military records, with the exception of his medical records, and they speak for themselves.” [[i]Complete? ... Uh-huh, yeah, right [/i]...]
‘‘The president was honorably discharged,” Lisaius said. [[i]He'll be getting an invitation to the White House[/i]]
At the National Guard Bureau, now headed by a Bush appointee from Texas, officials last week said they were under orders not to answer questions.
The bureau's chief historian said he couldn't discuss questions about Bush's military service on orders from the Pentagon.
‘‘If it has to do with George W. Bush, the Texas Air National Guard or the Vietnam War, I can't talk with you,” said Charles Gross, chief historian for the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C.
Rose Bird, Freedom of Information Act officer for the bureau, said her office stopped taking records requests on Bush's military service in mid-February and is directing all inquiries to the Pentagon. She would not provide a reason.
Air Force and Texas Air National Guard officials did not respond to written questions about the issue.
James Hogan, a records coordinator at the Pentagon, said senior Defense Department officials had directed the National Guard Bureau not to respond to questions about Bush's military records.
[b]Air Defense Command [[i]Good soldiers, who will cover-up Dubya's crimes [/i]...][/b]
Bush received a direct commission to the Air National Guard in 1969, pledging to be a fighter pilot for five years during the height of the Vietnam War.
He was trained to fly F-102 Delta Dagger jets for the Texas Air National Guard.
Like the Washington Air Guard in Spokane, the Texas fighter squadron was part of Air Defense Command, assigned to defend U.S. borders.
Both units had F-102s and F-101s, which routinely carried conventional warheads, but were also capable of carrying nuclear-tipped missiles, according to military experts.
The Air National Guard ‘‘had airto-air nukes -- the Genie and Falcon missiles -- and a huge air defense program. The F-102 had nuclear capability,” said nuclear analyst Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Norris is co-editor of the[i] Nuclear Weapons Databook [/i]and the author of a new book, ‘‘[i]Racing for the Bomb[/i],” about Gen. Leslie Groves and the Manhattan Project, the secret World War II plan to build the world's first atomic bombs.
In the 1970s, during the Vietnam War and the Cold War, Air Guard units were a crucial part of the Air Defense Command and the North American Air Defense Command, or NORAD, involving the United States and Canada, Norris said.
As part of that mission, the Air Guard's F-102 and F-101 fighterinterceptor pilots pulled round-theclock runway alert duty in Houston, Spokane and other bases throughout the United States.
The air-to-air missiles in the jets were intended to destroy Soviet bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles in midair before they could strike the continental United States.
According to White House documents, Bush flew his F-102 in a deployment to Canada in 1971 -- part of the NORAD mission.
Records show Bush had a ‘‘secret” security clearance for Cold War fighter-interceptor missions and was certified ‘‘combat-ready” to engage Soviet bombers. [[i]God, and you think the Hapless Boob is dangerous now[/i]]
In April 1972, at the same time the military began drug and alcohol testing for the first time, Bush stopped flying the F-102, and according to White House documents, did not take a required physical in May. He was formally suspended in September 1972 for failing to take the test. What followed was a period in which Bush sporadically attended Guard drills, according to White House documents, and spent the summer in Alabama.
In May of 1972, the Texas Air National Guard was given an enhanced mission of protecting U.S. borders by then-Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird.
Laird's directive came after a Cuban airliner arrived undetected at the New Orleans airport, nine years after the Cuban missile crisis. Congressional hearings at the time criticized the Pentagon for the Oct. 26, 1971, incident.
Bush was not given a required annual Officer Efficiency Report ‘‘for administrative reasons” for the one-year period after he stopped flying in April 1972, according to the White House records. That period of time is what some critics refer to as Bush's ‘‘missing year,” when records of his service are sketchy.
White House officials have said Bush didn't take his required physical because he went to Alabama to work on a political campaign.
The documents also include the Sept. 29, 1972, order suspending Bush from flight status for ‘‘failure to accomplish” the mandatory physical.
In a book released last week, ‘‘[i]Bush's War for Re-election[/i],” Texas journalist James Moore calls the phrase ambiguous.
‘‘Failure to accomplish” the medical exam ‘‘can imply that Bush did not show up, or he was examined, and a foreign substance was discovered in his blood,” Moore argues in his book.
When pressed by the national media during the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush said he quit drinking in 1986 and hadn't used any illegal drugs since 1974.
The White House records revealed for the first time that as a teenager, Bush had four citations on his driving record for speeding and collisions, which would have required a special enlistment waiver for him to get into the Air Guard. No waiver, however, was found in the records released by the White House, USA Today reported.
[b]Records draw interest [[i]Until the Bushies shut-up everyone in the know [/i]...][/b]
Marty Heldt, a private researcher who has spent several years examining Bush's military records, said the human reliability rules may answer the mystery of why Bush abruptly stopped flying.
‘‘It seems entirely plausible to me, particularly given what we know about that period of his life,” Heldt said. ‘‘We know that he was a drinker, going out a lot,” Heldt said. ‘‘That is something that could get him suspended under the human reliability program.”
Heldt, an Iowa farmer, is part of a network of amateur researchers who have used the federal Freedom of Information Act to examine Bush's military records. Researchers use the Internet to share information.
Heldt said he tends to vote Democratic, but is not a party activist. Some of his interest in Bush goes back to the 2000 presidential campaign when the issue of Bush's military service first received national attention, he said.
Retired Lt. Col. Bill L. Burkett, a strategic planner at Texas Guard headquarters in Austin when Bush was the governor of Texas, also confirmed that the HRP regulations applied to the Texas Air National Guard at the time Bush served.
In a [i]New York Times [/i]interview and in Moore's new book, Burkett claims he saw some of Bush's military records being destroyed in the mid-1990s.
Bush's file was scrubbed for embarrassing information, Burkett alleges, at the direction of Daniel James III. James headed the Texas National Guard, and Burkett was his chief military adviser when Bush was governor of Texas.
After becoming president in 2000, Bush appointed James to head the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C., which oversees all state Air Guard operations.
In a prepared statement released Thursday, James denied Burkett's allegation.
‘‘I have never been involved in, nor would I condone, any discussion or any action to falsify any record in any circumstance for anyone,” James said.
The issue of Bush's military records, Burkett told The Spokesman-Review, ‘‘has gone into a can so tight you wouldn't believe it.”
He acknowledged, however, that he couldn't say conclusively whether Bush was suspended under HRP rules. ‘‘That is a perfect question -- one that needs to be pursued,” he said.
[b]Recollections differ [[i]Yeah, I'll bet [/i]...][/b]
Former members of Bush's squadron differ in their recollections of the human reliability rules.
Dean Roome, Bush's former roommate and fellow Texas Air Guard pilot, said he doesn't think Bush was suspended under the nuclear safety rules. [[i]Of course, the boob doesn't know for sure[/i]]
‘‘I don't think anybody was suspended under them, that I can recall. I think you're making a whole lot out of nothing,” said Roome, who criticized the media for pursuing issues involving Bush's military record. [[i]Uh-huh, don't ask ... don't tell [/i]...]
Tom Hail, a civilian historian for the Texas Air National Guard, said the unit's F-102s were nuclearcapable. But he wasn't familiar with the human reliability regulations.
Retired Chief Master Sgt. Joe H. Briggs, a crew chief in Bush's squadron and later a recruiter for the Texas Air Guard, recalled references to the Human Reliability Program.
Young recruits with possible drug histories frequently were given medical screenings under the regulations, he said.
‘‘I remember hearing, `This is going to be an HRP issue,”' Briggs said.
He worked as a crew chief on the Texas Guard's F-102 and F-101s, and two other jets, the F-4 and F-16, between 1957 and 1972.
Retired Brig. Gen. Walter Staudt, who gave Bush his direct commission as a second lieutenant out of Yale University in May 1968, said the Texas Air Guard had nuclear-capable jets, including F-101s and F-102s.
‘‘But I never heard of an F-102 carrying a nuclear weapon, so I don't see why you think these regulations would have applied,” the 81-year-old retired general said.
‘‘I love the guy,” Staudt said of Bush. ‘‘I'm so tired of this negative crap about him that I'd like to volunteer to build a barn and take you press guys out behind it and kick your asses.” [[i]There's a toady in every crowd[/i]]
[b]Rules were strict [[i]No wonder Dubya didn't make it ...[/i]][/b]
Thousands of pilots and other military personnel have lost their job assignments under the human reliability regulations, which were established in the 1960s, according to academic researchers.
The regulations were made stricter in the 1970s when the military started screening for drug abuse, said Dr. Herbert Abrams in a 1991 research paper.
Abrams, a former professor of medicine at Harvard and Stanford universities and a research fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, has written extensively about the military's Human Reliability Program.
Citing statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Abrams said military personnel are twice as likely as their civilian counterparts to drink heavily.
From 1975 through 1984, Abrams' research shows 51,000 personnel, or about 4.5percent a year on average, were decertified from the Human Reliability Program.
Most of those investigated and decertified were in the Air Force.
‘‘The military takes this very, very seriously,” said Lloyd Dumas, professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is the author of ‘‘Lethal Arrogance,” a 1999 study of human foibles and dangerous technology.
‘‘People of a lesser rank can even remove their superiors (under HRP). It's one of the few areas where rank doesn't matter,” Dumas said.
Bush's suspension, his spotty final year of military service and his failure to take his flight physical are puzzling, Dumas said.
‘‘If Bush was under the Human Reliability Program, there should be a paper trail. And if there's not, that's very, very unusual,” the University of Texas professor said. [[i]Unless the Bushies destroyed it [/i]...]
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| Dubya Orders His Own Neo-Con Thugs & Goons Not To Campaign!!! HA HA HA!!! |
| 03.16.04 (4:57 pm) [edit] |
"[b]We're a [i]liability[/i]!"[/b]
[b]Dubya doesn't want his own neo-con thugs and goons out on the campaign trail, because[i] no one with an iota of brain-matter believes them or their mendacious neo-orwellian lies, deceptions and falsehoods [/i]... HA HA HA!!! ...[/b]
[b]Donald Rumsfeld [i]indirectly [/i]admits that the Iraq War and our foreign policy are a miserable failure ... and that Dubya's puppet-masters [i]don't want [/i]Rummy or Poodle-Powell [i]out on the campaign trail [/i]... HA HA HA!!![/b]
That is what War Secretary Don Rumsfeld told Bob Schieffer on this last Sunday's edition of [i]CBS' Face the Nation[/i] -- but not in those exact words.
We don't usually watch [i]Face the Nation[/i], but one of our readers related the gist of Rumsfeld's appearance:
Schieffer didn't ease up on Gramps [Rumsfeld]. His questions were hostile and follow-ups were not any easier. Gramps said that the Preznit has made it clear that he and [Secretary of State] Colin [Powell] are not going on the campaign trail with him this time around.
HA HA HA!!!
Now, isn't [i]that [/i]interesting?
The Bush Boy has no compunctions about loosing Rumsfeld, Powell, and National Security Amateur Condi Rice on the Sunday shows, whose viewers are mostly press professionals, politicos and news junkies who already have their mind made up one way or the other. After all, these shows are not about deep, probing insight into the issues of the day -- they are vehicles for propagating and testing the latest spin and talking points, and a thermometer/barometer of how issues are playing out inside and outside the Beltway.
But keeping them off the campaign trail? Particularly Colin Powell, at a time when the smarter players in the GOP know full well that their outreach to minorities is a laughable failure?
[u]The message is clear[/u]: George Bush Jr.[i] is trying to conceal his failures, trying to hide the players who only serve to remind the nation that they were lied to about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the extent of the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to our nation (read: none), trying to conceal two people who serve as reminders of the disastrous failures [/i]that are the Bush Doctrine, Bush Foreign Policy, and Bush League Diplomacy.
In fact, the concealment of Powell says more about how severely Bush has bungled his usurpation of the executive branch than Rummy's exile to the Sunday chat shows. Of all the people originally named to his cabinet, Powell seemed to have the best reputation and credibility (questions surrounding his so-called "charity" aside) of any of George the Lesser's appointees. Now, he is an international laughingstock, revealed as nothing more than a toady to the Neoconservative chickenhawks who pulled and continue to pull the Smirkster's strings.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Pundit PAP, American Politics Journal, http://www.americanpolitics.c...
CBS Face the Nation, Sunday, 14 March 2004
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| Dubya's Iraq Getaway??? ... Or, Will We Stop The Liar-N-Thief In His Dirty Tracks!!! ... |
| 03.16.04 (3:00 pm) [edit] |
[b]A year after the invasion of Iraq, it is increasingly clear that the pre-war "debate" was a stage-managed manipulation of the American people, aided and abetted by a [neo-orwellian] U.S. press corps ([i]corporate-owned[/i]) that was too timid to ask tough questions when it mattered most.[/b] Now, with over 560 U.S. soldiers dead along with uncounted thousands of Iraqis, the Bush administration has entered what might be called its "[i]getaway[/i]" period.
The key now for George W. Bush is to manage a political escape from his mugging of a fundamental precept of democracy - an informed electorate - and still win a second term. To achieve that, Bush has employed some tried-and-true tactics, like hand-picking a presidential commission that will report on his use of intelligence [i]after[/i] the November elections. But most importantly, he is still trusting that the U.S. news media is incapable of sustaining much scrutiny.
In that regard, Bush has reason for optimism. Even dramatic disclosures over the past few months have failed to attract or hold the attention of the [neo-fascist] U.S. press corps.
[b]For the [i]Full Story [/i]click on[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
[b]Let's not let Dubya fool us all again, [i]this time [/i]... Let's [i]stop the Liar-N-Thief [/i]in his dirty and squalid tracks!!! ...[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
"'Bush's Iraq getaway'" by Nat Perry, Consortium News, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| The Disquieted American Predicts Something Worse Than 9/11 Attacks ... |
| 03.16.04 (2:35 pm) [edit] |
[b]Author Chalmers Johnson, who published "[i]Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire[/i]" predicted that America's imperial designs to enslave the rest of the world under its' Global Corporate Empire would result in severe consequences and retaliatory action against our illegal and immoral domination of other sovereign nations ... Johnson predicted this destructive reaction[i] prior [/i]to 9/11 ... [/b]He now concludes that we are facing the end of the American Republic and the beginning of an American Empire involving the transformation of the U.S.A. into a Fascist Military Dictatorship that [i]exerts its' will through the force-of-arms [/i]and who will[i] destroy our freedoms and way-of-life here at home [/i]...
Many of us already see this happening [i]before our very eyes[/i], by the traitorous neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], who represents the most corrupt regime ([i]who has criminally hijacked the U.S. government[/i]) in our nation's 229 year history ...
It is worth reading "[i][b]The Disquieted American[/b][/i]" by [i]Jim Benning[/i], San Diego City Beat, on http://www.alternet.org/story... :
Author Chalmers Johnson was asleep in his San Diego-area home on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the telephone rattled him awake.
Metropolitan Books publicist Tracy Locke was on the line from her Manhattan office two miles from Ground Zero. The previous year, she had promoted Johnson's book, [i]Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire[/i], which warned that U.S. policies abroad were creating the potential for retaliatory attacks. "[i]Blowback[/i]" is the term the CIA uses to describe the unintended consequences of covert actions.
The book had generated only modest interest when it was published, but with the events of the morning, Locke knew that was about to change. Before rushing home, she spoke into the telephone in a voice flattened with shock, telling the author, "Turn on your television. The World Trade Center has just been hit. The worst kind of blowback has happened."
Johnson was stunned. He hadn't exactly predicted the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the book, but he had come close. "World politics in the twenty-first century," he wrote, "will in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the second half of the twentieth century – that is, from the unintended consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision to maintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War world."
Blowback shot up bestseller lists and was reprinted thirteen times as Americans struggled to make sense of the attacks. Impressed with Johnson's prescience, the German magazine[i] Der Spiegel [/i]labeled him the "California Cassandra" after the mythological Greek prophesier who often went ignored. Johnson had more to say, however. In January 2004, his follow-up book hit stores and soon landed on bestseller lists. [i]The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic [/i]rails against America's vast military presence abroad and warns that more harm is on the way, including perhaps the end of the republic itself, if the nation does not rein in its military and change its aggressive posture.
Neoconservative thinkers behind the [i]Project for the New American Century[/i] would beg to differ with Johnson's analysis, of course, but many others have embraced the book. The [i]Los Angeles Times [/i]and the [i]San Diego Union-Tribune [/i]praised it, and writers as diverse as William Greider of [i]The Nation [/i]and James Fallows of [i]The Atlantic Monthly [/i]have voiced their enthusiasm. Wrote Fallows: "Chalmers Johnson's relentless logic, authoritative scholarship, and elegantly biting prose distinguish the [i]Sorrows of Empire[/i], like all his other work."
Author Noam Chomsky agrees. "I think his work is excellent," he told [i]CityBeat.[/i] "He's picking up the most important topics."
Suddenly, at the age of 72, the retired political science professor finds himself a leading critic of U.S. policies abroad, and a strong new voice from the left. In recent months, Johnson has published articles in [i]Harper's[/i] and the [i]Sunday Los Angeles Times [/i]opinion section. He has traveled the West Coast, speaking to standing-room-only crowds. At his home overlooking the Pacific, he fields questions from journalists the world over inquiring about his perspective on the American empire – a term Johnson insists must now be used.
"Americans may still prefer to use euphemisms like 'lone superpower‚'" he writes, "but since 9/11, our country has undergone a transformation from republic to empire that may well prove irreversible."
[b]Empire Revealed [/b]
It's an unexpected personal transformation for a man who once worked as a consultant for the CIA, supported the Vietnam War as a professor at UC Berkeley, and who described himself just 15 years ago as a staunch "cold warrior." If the turnabout isn't unlikely enough, Johnson is carrying forth his message from San Diego County, which is hardly a hotbed of dissent, or even modest countercultural enthusiasm. "In Berkeley, they put up mildly obscene statues," Johnson remarked recently. "You come down here to San Diego and the idea of public art is an anchor painted white lying around on the grass somewhere."
Yet, on a cool January evening, there was Johnson at [i]The Book Works [/i]in Del Mar, a mile from the historic racetrack, facing a crowd of eager listeners. At least 100 locals had endured rush-hour traffic to hear him speak. They filled rows of chairs and stood elbow-to-elbow at the bookstore's coffee counter. They collected several deep in doorways and peered in through the front window. Steadying himself with the help of a cane, Johnson waited in the wings as his literary agent, Sandra Dijkstra, introduced him.
"In these times especially, we need angry people," she told the audience, made up largely of men and women well into mid-life. "We need people... who will call a pig a pig.... If you saw Chalmers' [i]L.A. Times [/i]op-ed recently, you saw that it said next to his name 'Cardiff-by-the-Sea.'" She paused and scanned the San Diego crowd, then added with satisfaction, "It shows that people can have radical thoughts by the sea."
As the audience broke into applause, Johnson approached the microphone. Wearing gray slacks and a dark sweater, with short dark hair and piercing eyes behind big round glasses, he looked every bit the retired university professor. He spoke in a deep, resonant voice of his longtime support for America's military during the Cold War. He noted his consulting work for the CIA during the 1960s and 1970s, when he was asked to critique intelligence estimates. If anyone doubted Johnson's cold-warrior credentials, or wanted to dismiss him as an old Berkeley lefty, he wasn't about to hear it. The former Navy officer eyed the audience, cracked a sly smile and said, "Anybody who wants to play security clearance with me, I'll beat you."
With that, Johnson launched into a critique of the Bush administration and U.S. foreign policy: How could President Bush have asked Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Why do they hate us?" He needed only to look at members of his own administration, Johnson said, who had served in previous administrations that supported the likes of Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. "It's a remarkable litany of characters we have decided have worn out their usefulness for us," he said.
Johnson spoke of the many military bases the U.S. maintains around the globe and the animosity the bases engender in so many countries. He could understand such a strong global military presence during the Cold War, when the U.S. needed to contain the spread of communism. But why did the U.S. continue to maintain such a vast military presence at such a high cost? There was only one answer, he said: empire.
How would Americans feel, he wondered, if they found themselves in the position so many citizens of other countries are now? "If we had a division of Turkish troops in San Diego," Johnson said, "we'd have a few patriotic young [American] men who would kill a couple [of Turks] every weekend."
Johnson said he fears America's aggression will come back to haunt the country. He spoke of the rise of China and the costs of the U.S. military bases. He invoked the fall of the Roman Empire and recalled how rapidly the empires of Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union had fallen in his own lifetime. He worried about the military industrial complex, which he fears will only grow stronger and more dominant in guiding U.S. policies abroad in the years to come. "I'm 72 years old," he said. "Given the pace of events, I think there's a good chance I'll live to see the end of the American empire."
When Johnson asked for questions, one woman wondered how he could offer such a grim forecast with so little hope. Johnson nodded. He had heard the complaint before. "My wife keeps saying to me, 'You cannot go on without ever having a hopeful message,'" he said. The truth is, Johnson isn't too optimistic, but he maintains a sense of humor.
"Plan your escape route," he has joked. "Think about Vancouver."
Johnson conceded, however, that all is not yet lost. He said he believes change would have to come from the grassroots level. He spoke of the anti-globalization protests that began in Seattle in 1999, as well as the millions around the world who protested the war in Iraq. There is still cause for hope. "It's not to say that this couldn't be turned around," he said. That, after all, was one of the reasons he wrote the book.
[b]New Information [/b]
Fifteen years ago, Johnson wouldn't have dreamed of delivering such a talk. On a sunny afternoon several days after his bookstore appearance, Johnson sat in his living room in Cardiff, surrounded by Asian art he had collected over the years, and discussed his transformation. During much of the Cold War, Johnson was a political science professor on the Berkeley and San Diego campuses of the University of California. He specialized in China and Japan, and wrote more than a dozen academic books on the region. Although many of his Berkeley students protested the Vietnam War, he backed it. He continued to support America's containment policies throughout the Cold War. "I regarded the Soviet Union as a menace," he said. "I felt that it was a matter of national security for us to counter it."
Then came 1991 and the demise of the Soviet Union. "I was shocked by our country's reaction," he said. "I expected a much larger peace dividend. I expected a demobilization of our massive Cold War apparatus. I believe we behaved outrageously, in the sense that our government began immediately to search for a replacement enemy: China, instability, drug wars, terrorism, damn near anything they could find." Johnson reassessed where he stood. "It raised the question," he said, "Was the Cold War a cover for a deeper and more fundamental American imperial project?"
He concluded that it was, and he changed his views on a wide range of issues, including the Vietnam War. Johnson has a favorite explanation for his reversal. "When someone once accused the economist John Maynard Keynes of being inconsistent, Keynes responded, 'When I get new information, I change my position. What, sir, do you do with new information?'" Johnson grinned. "That is the point," he said. "I got some new information."
Johnson's willingness to change his views impressed many who know him. "You could go through those years since the Vietnam War looking for people of his background who had reversed their positions on Vietnam and not find any," said Tom Engelhardt, Johnson's editor at Metropolitan Books.
One of Johnson's former Berkeley students, E.B. Keehn, 48, now a clinical psychologist, is equally admiring. "Chalmers is that rare pubic intellectual who bases his views on information and striving for the truth, and who is willing to adopt new views," he said.
Keehn recalled Johnson as a wildly popular professor whose classes filled quickly and who routinely attracted long lines of students outside his office. "It wasn't just that he could answer any question thrown at him," Keehn said, "but his answers would always include a thorough presentation of all the possible theories and conclude with which theory was most likely. People would sit back and say, 'Wow, I don't have an intellect like that.'"
That uncannily sharp mind is no less apparent these days. Back in his living room, holding forth for a moment on what he sees as the sorrows of globalization, Johnson complained that policies at institutions such as The World Bank are tied to closely to U.S. interests. Without missing a beat, he said, "The World Bank is located at 1818 H Street Northwest in Washington, not far from the Treasury Department."
[b]Ace of Bases [/b]
Johnson retired from academia in 1992 and founded the Japan Policy Research Institute, over which he still presides, publishing books and academic papers. It was in Japan in 1996 that Johnson had another revelation that would shape his worldview. He traveled to Okinawa at the invitation of the island's governor to speak about the U.S. presence after a 12-year-old Japanese girl was raped by two American marines and a sailor. The U.S. has maintained a military presence on Okinawa since 1945. Even though Johnson had studied Japan extensively, he hadn't paid much attention to U.S. bases on the island, or to U.S. bases anywhere. "I was shocked by what I saw," he said.
Johnson was surprised to learn that the U.S. maintained 38 military bases on Okinawa, an island smaller than Kauai. Military personnel had exclusive access to beaches, golf courses and other recreation facilities on prime real estate, Johnson said. If that wasn't enough, Johnson discovered that, but for the age of the girl, the recent rape wasn't an aberration. The rate of sexually violent crimes committed by American troops leading to court marshal on Okinawa, he said, was averaging about two per month and had been since 1945.
The Japanese he spoke with were openly resentful of the U.S. presence, and Johnson could see why. "There were 1.3 million Okinawans living cheek-by-jowl with war planes, the Third Marine Division and environmental pollution," he said. "I am not anti-Marine. I attended assault boat school at Camp Pendleton in 1954. But in my view, we shouldn't be there."
Johnson believes the U.S. shouldn't be in a lot of places. He suspects many in the Bush administration who are crafting the nation's foreign policy are operating on misconceptions about the reasons the Soviet Union collapsed and the U.S. became the dominant power. "I believe they erroneously concluded that we had won the Cold War," he said. "We simply didn't lose it as quickly or badly as the Soviet Union did because we were inherently richer. But I personally believe that we are today afflicted by many of the same problems that brought down the Soviet Union."
That conclusion led Johnson to write [i]The Sorrows of Empire[/i], published as part of Metropolitan Books' [i]The American Empire Project[/i], which also includes Noam Chomsky's latest book, [i]Hegemony or Survival[/i].
Angered by the Bush administration's aggressive response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, as well as the large number of bases the U.S. continued to maintain around the globe, Johnson set out to explore U.S. militarism and its dangers. The distinction between the military and militarism is critical, he said. He supports a strong military.
"But militarism doesn't mean the defense of the country," he said. "It means a deep fundamental vested interest in the military as a way of life, as a way of making money, as a secure form of state socialism, of expansion into areas usually thought of as off the reservation for the military."
In researching the book, Johnson studied the [i]Department of Defense's Base Structure Report [/i]and other government documents to gauge the extent of the military presence abroad. According to the Defense Department, as of September 2001, the U.S. was deploying 254,788 military personnel in 153 countries, Johnson writes. It maintained 725 foreign bases in 38 countries. The reports paint a portrait of a nation dominating the globe through military force to a degree most Americans fail to appreciate, Johnson believes.
"Due to government secrecy, they are often ignorant of the fact that their government garrisons the globe," he writes. "They do not realize that a vast network of American military bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire." The nation's military dominance extends well beyond planet earth these days, Johnson hastens to add, because the U.S. is now militarizing outer space.
This imperial quest did not begin with the current Bush administration, Johnson said, but he believes the situation has grown more dangerous since the World Trade Center attacks, and particularly since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "The Bush administration is now creating conditions in which any nation on earth has got to think, if the U.S. juggernaut starts to come after us, what will stop them?" he said. "The conclusion they're inevitably drawn to is that what was wrong with Saddam Hussein was not that he had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't have them. When a nation actually has them, the U.S. pays attention, as in the case of North Korea."
That fact, Johnson fears, will inspire other nations to develop nuclear arms for self-defense. "These policies have produced a catastrophe of nuclear proliferation around the world," he said.
[b]The end of the republic could result from four potential consequences of all this, Johnson believes: (1) The Pentagon could play an increasingly prominent role in foreign policy, which could lead to perpetual war and more terrorist attacks. (2) As security becomes a greater concern, U.S. citizens would lose more of their constitutional rights. (3) To counteract declining morale, propaganda glorifying war and power would increase. (4) And, finally, the escalating costs of the war machine could simply drive the nation into bankruptcy[/b].
Not surprisingly, some critics take issue with Johnson's analysis, or at least aspects of it. Andrew J. Bacevich complains in the [i]Washington Post [/i]that [i]The Sorrows of Empire [/i]muddles history and fails to clarify who is responsible for the rise of American militarism. "Thus, history considerably complicates the question of assigning responsibility for what Johnson clearly views as a perversion of U.S. policy," Bacevich writes. "Indeed, it suggests the possibility that a militarized policy may not be a perversion at all, but an authentic expression of American statecraft."
Writing in [i]Foreign Affairs[/i], G. John Ikenberry argues that Johnson sees imperialism in everything the U.S. does. "Ultimately," Ikenberry writes, "it is not clear what the United States could do – short of retreating into its borders or ceasing to exist – that would save it from Johnson's condemnation."
Johnson concedes that he could be wrong about all this. Perhaps U.S. militarization doesn't pose a threat. Maybe the United States will indeed spread democracy and prosperity around the globe until all nations coexist peacefully. Johnson doubts it, but if he is proven wrong, he said, that's just fine with him.
Leaning back in his chair, the "California Cassandra" glanced out the window at the fading afternoon light, considered the possibilities and smiled. "If I'm mistaken, you're going to forgive me," he said. "You're going to be so pleased I was wrong."
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| Canadians Overwhelmingly Agree: Bush Is A Liar / We're Right To Stay Out Of Iraq ... |
| 03.16.04 (12:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]Canadians are apparently [i]much smarter [/i]than Americans ... [/b]They overwhelmingly recognize ([i]as do the majority of citizens throughout the civilized world[/i]) that the neo-fascist Dubya is a [i]stinking liar [/i]and[i] they support [/i]their government's decision to[i] stay out [/i]of the corrupt Bush regime's illegal and immoral neo-con war-turned-bloody-guerril la quagmire in Iraq ...
The Canadians don't want their kids dying, maimed or scarred for life, in order to enrich the vile Bush & Cheney Crime Families, Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. ... Most of the despicable and cowardly neo-fascists goons and thugs in the Bush regime never served in war and aren't fit to send others off to die in insane warmongerings for war-profiteering ... Apparently more Americans [i]are recognizing [/i]that the Bushies are war criminals and are protesting this blood-thirsty annihilation of Arabs for oil, riches and at the behest of Ariel Sharon ... [Consider "[i]Relatives of US soldiers killed in Iraq protest outside US base[/i]" on http://www.independent-media....%20Reported ]
Refer to "[b]Canadian Poll: [i]Bush lied to justify Iraq war, Canada right to stay out[/i][/b]" by Jeff Sallot, Globe and Mail, on http://www.independent-media....%20Reported :
Ottawa — Canadians overwhelmingly believe President George W. Bush lied to justify the Iraq war and their own government was wise to stay out of the conflict, a new poll suggests.
Two-thirds (67 per cent) of adult Canadians said they agreed with the statement that Mr. Bush "knowingly lied to the world to justify his war with Iraq" a year ago, [i]The Globe and Mail-CTV News [/i]poll says.
Moreover, almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of the poll respondents said the federal government made the right decision by not joining the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq, the polling data show.
The poll, conducted by[i] Ipsos-Reid[/i], suggests that most Canadians (61 per cent) are pessimistic about the chances of democracy ever taking root in the Middle East.
On the other hand, nearly nine of every 10 respondents (87 per cent) said they think the world is a better place without Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in power.
These results show Canadians are pleased with the regime change in Baghdad, but "they believe the means did not justify the end," said John Wright, senior vice-president of Ipsos-Reid.
The poll, conducted Tuesday through Thursday of last week, shows a sharp increase in the percentage of Canadians who think the United States made a mistake in going to war. Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) now say the United States blundered, compared with just under half (47 per cent) who felt that way when polled last December.
This shift is most likely the result of recent disclosures about faulty prewar intelligence concerning Iraq's presumed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Wright said.
Canadians, however, seem to be in a forgiving mood with the U.S. administration. Nearly seven in 10 (69 per cent) believe that the United States will "learn a valuable lesson" that it is better to work with Canada and other countries around the world when there is a global crisis rather than acting unilaterally.
Just more than half (54 per cent) said the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are not a justification for the United States to take "any action" — including unilateral action — to protect itself against future attacks.
"The numbers speak loudly and clearly," Mr. Wright said. "You come through with a consistent theme that is, 'We're glad we didn't go. Bush lied.'."
With the benefit of 12 months of hindsight, Canadians are "now more resolute than they ever have been that it was a good thing Canada stayed out of this," he added.
Canadians seem to be saying the motive for the war was wrong and if the end was to promote a democratic Iraq, it is probably not going to mature, Mr. Wright said.
Yesterday, while in Montreal, Prime Minister Paul Martin reiterated his support of Canada's decision not to send troops to participate in the U.S.-led effort to topple Mr. Hussein.
"I think all countries are partners and in solidarity with Spain and the United States and with Britain. I think the decision we took on Iraq was a good decision, but at the same time, we share values with Spain, the United States and Britain and we support them."
Mr. Martin, who was asked to comment on the most recent terrorist attacks in Spain, said Canadian security has been beefed up since the attacks on the United States in 2001 and has continued at a heightened level.
Earlier polls suggested that people in Quebec and British Columbia were the most skeptical about the Iraq war while Albertans were more likely to give Washington the benefit of the doubt.
But now, even a majority of Albertans believe Ottawa was right to stay out of the war and that Mr. Bush lied, according to the poll when broken down regionally.
Similar polls in the United States show that Americans have grown more skeptical about the way Mr. Bush has handled the Iraq issue.
A [i]Washington Post/ABC News [/i]poll earlier this month showed only 46 per cent of Americans approved of the way Mr. Bush was handling Iraq, down from a 75-per-cent high last April when U.S. troops were engaged in combat.
The poll also showed a majority (55 per cent) of Americans thought the Bush administration "intentionally exaggerated its evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction." That's a sharp increase over the 37 per cent of Americans who told the[i] Harris Poll [/i]last June that they thought their government had "deliberately exaggerated" reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
[i]Ipsos-Reid [/i]polled a randomly selected sample of 1,116 adult Canadians. With a sample this size, the results should be accurate plus or minus three percentage points 19 times out of 20.
Full poll results can be viewed at www.ipsos-reid.com
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| If Bush Refuses to Debate Kerry: Voters Deserve Explanation ... Not Smirks from Butt-head!!! |
| 03.16.04 (7:52 am) [edit] |
[b]If Bush refuses to debate Kerry ([i]who has issued a challenge for monthly debates that would inform our public on the vast differences between Kerry's brain-power and Dubya's congenital stupidity[/i]), then not only do voters deserve an explanation, instead of one of Dubya's imbecilic smirks ... We should rally and demand that Dubya be [i]impeached[/i] ... [/b]
We live in a democracy and not a military dictatorship ([i]although Dubya and his corrupt cabal of neo-con, neo-fascist thugs & goons are trying to turn us into a 3rd-world military junta-cum-dictatorship[/i ]) ... [Of course, the real problem is that the American people would see a laughable one-sided debate between Brains ([i]Kerry, who can actually think[/i]) and Butt-head ([i]Dubya, the spoiled ne'er-do-well-cum-AWOL deserter-and-failure who Poppy has bailed out of one disaster-n-mess after another, his entire squalid life ... Dubya-the-Hapless-Boob can barely remember his own name [/i])...] ... Refer to "[i]Kerry Challenges Bush to Monthly Debates: Brains Versus Butt-head[/i]!!!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...
Consider [i][b]"Why Not Debate?" [/b][/i]in [i]The Washington Post[/i], on http://www.washingtonpost.com... :
YES, DEMOCRATIC candidate John F. Kerry's challenge to President Bush last weekend for a series of monthly debates was more political stunt than serious suggestion. The presumptive nominee's proposal was a bit hokey -- issued, as it was, in Quincy, Ill., the site of one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. It was also a little hard to take Mr. Kerry's pontificating about the need to elevate the tone of the campaign. "Americans shouldn't have to put up with eight months of sniping," Mr. Kerry said -- this after referring to his opponents as "the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen." And, yes, Mr. Kerry's zeal for an in-depth discussion of critical issues is tough to square with his dismissive attitude when Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) proposed one-on-one debates at the end of the Democratic primary season. Somehow, we didn't hear Mr. Kerry talking then about how the "American people are hungry for a genuine conversation about the fundamental questions before us."
And yet: [i]He has a good idea[/i]. There will probably be three presidential debates this fall, the same number as four years ago. But the general election campaign, for better or worse, is already underway, and there is no shortage of critical issues on which voters ought to have the chance to compare and contrast the candidates. Real encounters between the two men would help voters far more than will any number of slick campaign ads in which the candidates hurl accusations that do little to explain where they would lead the country or to illuminate the differences between them. From the environment to civil liberties, from health care for the uninsured to reducing the deficit, from nuclear proliferation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- suffice it to say, it would be easy to come up with numerous useful subjects for debate between Messrs. Bush and Kerry. Most fundamentally: What are their visions of the proper role of the United States in the world today? And debates would provide a forum to prod candidates to address matters that both would rather duck -- for example, how they would tackle the growing demands on Social Security and Medicare.
Of course, no one expects the president to take Mr. Kerry up on his challenge. "Senator Kerry should finish the debate with himself before he starts trying to explain his positions to the voters," a Bush campaign spokesman said Saturday. [b]But if the president doesn't want to debate anytime soon, the voters deserve a better explanation of why not than that[i] snide brushoff[/i].[/b]
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| Bush Threatened to Fire Official for Telling the Truth ... |
| 03.15.04 (7:23 pm) [edit] |
[b]Intimidation, threats and coercion waged against government officials and/or civilians who are told[i] not to tell the truth [/i]should be criminally prosecuted ... Is the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] turning us into a neo-fascist dictatorship [i]aka Joseph Stalin[/i]??? ...[/b]
Refer to "[i][b]Bush Threatened to Fire Official for Telling Truth[/b][/i]" on http://www.misleader.org/dail... :
During this time of record deficits, President Bush promised the country that his drug-industry backed Medicare bill would cost $395 billion.1 But just weeks after he signed the bill into law, his own budget office admitted that the bill would actually cost well over $500 billion.2 And today a new report shows that the President knew that the bill cost more than he had claimed, and yet he deliberately hid the information from the public until the legislation was already signed into law.
As revealed in an exclusive[i] Knight-Ridder [/i]report, the White House threatened to fire its own top Medicare actuary "if he told lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates" that priced the bill at more than $500 billion.3 At the time, conservative Republicans had "vowed to vote against the Medicare drug bill if it cost more than $400 billion." This means that the president deliberately misled members of his own party on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry that pushed the bill and has been a top contributor to his campaign.4 As Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) said, "I think a lot of people probably would have reconsidered" voting for the bill had they not been deliberately misled by the White House.
At [i]Knight-Ridder's [/i]website you can see the full text of the 6/26/03 email that Medicare's top actuary Richard S. Foster sent to colleagues informing them of the White House threat.5
[b]Sources:[/b]
1. "Federal Deficit Hits Record $374B", CBS News, 10/20/2003.
2. "Medicare drug plan balloons", Washington Times, 01/29/2004.
3. "Bush administration ordered Medicare plan cost estimates withheld", Knight Ridder, 03/11/2004.
4. Open Secrets.Org.
5. "E-mail from Richard S. Foster, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services", Knight Ridder, 03/11/2004.
[b]Refer also to [/b]"A Brief History of Bush Regime Intimidation, Threats & Defamation ..." on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Bush Regime's Shills Pose as Journalists for Bogus TV News Segments ... |
| 03.15.04 (4:17 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush regime will do [i]anything[/i] ... and I mean [i]absolutely anything [/i]including lying, cheating, stealing and murdering, in order to "[i]win[/i]" ... "Win-at-all-costs" using neo-orwellian propaganda is the [i]modus operandi [/i]in the never-ending litany of Bush's deceptions and falsehoods:-- The American people will pay the price of their crimes while these neo-con, neo-fascist thugs & goons "take-the-money-and-run" ...[/b]
Consider "[i][b]Bush administration shills pose as journalists for bogus TV news segments[/b][/i]" by [i]Robert Pear[/i], New York Times, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines.
The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8.
The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called them video news releases, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."
But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government.
Another video, intended for Hispanic audiences, shows a Bush administration official being interviewed in Spanish by a man who identifies himself as a reporter named Alberto Garcia.
[b]Read the [i]Full Story [/i]on[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Condolizzard Rice on "Meet the Mess" ... |
| 03.15.04 (3:07 pm) [edit] |
[b]A pretty accurate assessment of last Sunday's "[i]Meet the Press[/i]" or should we start saying "[i]Meet the Mess[/i]" with Timmy-boy Russert, the corrupt Bush regime's mad-dog court-jester ... whose guests were his paramour Condolizzard Rice, the National Security Asshole and Howard Dean who showed Russert that we're not all blithering idiots who lap-up Dubya's mendacious brain-dead vomit like blind sheep ...[/b]
The voiceover at the beginning of [i]Meet the Mess [/i]this morning was enough to throw any political junkie into orgasmic paroxysms of bloodlust…
[u]For the War[/u]: Dr. Condolizzard Rice, Parrot Extraordinaire and leading contender for the starring role in "I, Robot".
[u]Against the War[/u]: Governor Howard Dean (no honorific, of course, other than "former presidential candidate" -- although he has actually treated patients, while Condo and her cronies merely create them).
Then the heartstopping phrase: "Rice and Dean square off on the War in Iraq, only on [i]Meet the Press[/i]…" I thought for a minute there I had died and gone to heaven. Howard Dean and Condolizzard in the same room, throwing barbs if not fists across the table???? Be still, my heart.
Ah well, truth in advertising has never been a strong point with Timmy Russert, who always looks as though he would rather be sitting under a bridge waiting for the three Billy Goats Gruff to come trip, trip, tripping across. Rice and Dean never got anywhere near each other, although truthfully it would have been the show of the century had it occurred.
...... We began with Condolizzard tap-dancing around the question as to whether or not the tragedy in Spain was an Al Qaeda operation by claiming that terrorism is terrorism. Duh. Tim pointed out that there was a tape allegedly from Al Qaeda claiming that the attack was a response to the collaboration between Spain and the United States, and that with 90% of the Spanish people opposed to Spain's participation in Iraq there was a possibility that the Spanish government may fall in today's election.
Condolizzard, by the way, has some trouble in distinguishing between a President, which we (kinda) have in this country, and a Prime Minister, which is what happens in a country with a King, such as Spain. She referred to Prime Minister Aznar as "President Aznar" more than once. Yeah, that's the kind of error a National Security Princess should be making, and should be a major clue as to the problems with foreign policy in the current administration.
Anyway, the Gospel according to the Condolizzard is that the Spanish people know they have had a good strong leader and... meanwhile, [i]CNN[/i] is showing video of people bandaged and in wheelchairs from the attack casting votes and looking distinctly pissed off.
I dunno, Condo…
Tim, apparently confused as to whether Condolizzard is the National Security Adviser or the Psychic Adviser, wanted to know if she didn't find it "eerie" that the Spanish attack happened exactly 911 days after the events of 9/11. She didn't bite, but she did go on and on about how we are making the world smaller for the terrorists, we are winning the war on terrorism and we have to be "bold and forceful" and "aggressive and tough," and that 200 dead and 1,500-odd injured Spaniards are only a "skirmish," --which the terrorists will win from time to time ("Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain….").
SKIRMISH? SKIRMISH????
Tim asked her about unmanned Predators spotting Osama bin Laden, and she leapt to insist that people should stop speculating and we'll get him when we get him. Obviously she is taking the same pills as Donald Rumsfeld, who likes to rhapsodize on the things we know that we don't know we know and other assorted obfuscations. The administration position seems to be "hey, there's an election coming up, maybe we can throw Osama into the mix and get a bump in the polls…"
Was it worth it? Well, according to Condolizzard we all grieve with the families who have lost loved ones, but this is after all a war and this stuff happens in war, and there is a greater good, and to hell with David Kay, there ARE weapons of mass destruction and we will by God find them. She denied that George Bush made remarks that we all heard him make, she denied that CIA director Tenet said the things to Congress that we all heard him say and then…and THEN…we had the following exchange:
MR. RUSSERT: On September 11, there is a commission now in place which the administration originally resisted and also resisted extending the deadline. They now want to interview the president. He has said he'll only sit down with the chairman and cochairman of the committee for one hour. Will the president meet with the full commission and will he do it for longer than an hour?
DR. RICE: The president, of course, is the president, and he does have a schedule to keep, but he has said that he will sit with the chairman and with the cochairman and that he will answer whatever questions they have. And I'm quite certain he will take as long as they need to answer those questions.
MR. RUSSERT: Several hours, a day if they need?
DR. RICE: Well, I would hope that they would recognize that he's president and that people would be judicious in the use of his time. But he wants as much as anyone to understand what happened on September 11, the causes of that, and what we can do to prevent future September 11s.
The president is the president and he has a schedule to keep. She would hope that people would be judicious in the use of his time.
SAY WHAT????????????????????? ???? SAY WHAT????????????????
Hey, Condo, if this were Bill Clinton you and yours would be doing the old Frankenstein movie thing of heading to the White House in the dead of night with flaming torches and screaming for his head. Over a blowjob. But a war on the wrong enemy for the wrong reasons with dead bodies all over the map doesn't warrant more than an hour of this president's time? You wouldn't have released Bill Clinton YET to get back to the business of running America, and you would have begun before the second tower hit the ground.
I have long believed that the attack on America happened when it did because a man was in the White House who was perceived by the rest of the world, loudly, whether or not it was correct, as a hapless boob. All the screaming in the world about how it was being planned for the last blah blah blah years does not change the fact that it happened on Gweeb's watch, which was apparently not set to standard time.
MR. RUSSERT: John Kerry said, "The president has time to go to a rodeo but not spend time with the commission."
DR. RICE: As I've said, Tim, I believe the president is prepared to spend whatever time they need to answer their questions, but I hope that people will be judicious with his time.
Ohman.
For the last few minutes of her time, she said that Aristide should not go to Jamaica, it was his idea to leave, he was not duped or coerced and -- oh yeah -- Vladimir Putin and George Bush are still the best of friends, even if there does seem to be a little problem with the march to democracy in Russia. There was an interesting little bit of business as they faded to station break with Tim putting his files away and tapping papers together, studiously avoiding looking at Condo, who was staring at him.
...... Moving right along, next up was Howard Dean, sounding precisely the way he should have sounded a couple of months ago. Tim began by asking him the same thing he had asked Condolizzard…was it worth it?
Dean pointed out that you never say to a grieving family that their family member died in vain or for the wrong cause. He did say he would have handled the situation differently. And he quickly moved to the real issue, which is not should we be fighting terrorism -- of course we should. The real issue, according to Dr. Dean, is one of truth -- did Gweeb tell the truth? And he proceeded to document precisely the proof that Gweeb did not.
Howard was rightfully dismissive of Condolizzard's claim that Saddam Hussein's regime was the most dangerous in the world. He referred to Saddam as a pathetic old man who had been contained for the past twelve years. He said that he had believed that there were weapons of mass destruction because the president said that there were.
Then came the $64,000 dollar question and it was from Dean to Tim: If the rationale was that dangerous regimes should be unilaterally brought down by the United States, why didn't we go after Kim Il Jung in North Korea?
And Tim, God bless his shortsighted heart, gave the answer that should have been blindingly obvious to every congressman in Washington, DC I quote:
MR. RUSSERT: Because he has nuclear weapons and can use them against us.
DR. DEAN: Exactly so…
Exactly so, infreekingdeed. The only, and I do mean ONLY, logical extension of that answer is that the powers that be KNEW that there were no weapons that could be used against us in Iraq, or we would not have attacked.
Howard Dean stated that the United States had lost the moral leadership in the world that we had enjoyed since the end of WWI the day that we went into Iraq, and pointedly quoted Paul O'Neill's remarks that George W. Bush had planned going to Iraq long before the opportunity actually presented itself. He also mentioned George Tenet's statements that he had repeatedly gone to Bush and Cheney to warn them that they were making claims that were not so. And he said that for Gweeb to declare that the world is safer because Saddam is in custody is ludicrous given the events in Spain three days ago.
Interestingly enough, Timmy spend the rest of the interview trying to foment a disagreement between Dean and Kerry, and failed resoundingly. Dean was consistently gracious in defeat and supportive of Kerry, pointing out that campaigns were hard-fought and tough and that after campaigns were over it was important for the Democrats to pull together as a team. He laughed when Tim threw up a bumper sticker that read "Dated Dean, Married Kerry" and said he hadn't thought about Tim's suggestion that Dean was the wild and crazy boyfriend and Kerry the somber husband.
Howard stated that he did not want to speak for Kerry, as that was not his purpose in appearing on the show, but did define Kerry as a multinationalist as opposed to Gweeb's position of "I can do it without anybody else, and don't you forget it". He fended off questions about his availability as a running mate or as a member of a Kerry Cabinet and said that he thought the economic situation, particularly the job market, would be the defining issue, suggesting that personal security as opposed to national security was important to the electorate.
And the Corvair Candidate came up yet again, with Dean very clearly stating that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush.
Timmy asked about Dean's comments later this week about the future and his plans (You could all but hear Dean say "Yeah, and I'm doing it with Larry King and not you, nyah, nyah, nyah"). He did in fact mention Larry King, and Timmy said lamely, "and we'll be covering it…" So it ended.
Not as interesting as it would have been with Dean and Rice simultaneously, but then again, we ARE talking about [i]Meet the Mess[/i].
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Sherrie Gogerty Geeting[/i], The Pundit Pap Team, on http://www.americanpolitics.c...
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| FOUR MORE YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH??? ... |
| 03.15.04 (2:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]Four more years of Traitor-Bush and his corrupt cabal of neo-con thugs and liars & neo-fascist goons and corporate rapists is[i] unthinkable [/i]...[/b]
Read [i]Tom Engelhardt's [/i]article entitled "[i][b]Four More Years of Camp Bush?[/b][/i]" on http://www.nationinstitute.or... :
"[i]We are heroes in error… What was said before is not important[/i]." (Ahmad Chalabi on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction http://slate.msn.com/id/20968... )
The papers and the television news are all but convulsed with the onrushing presidential campaign: the Bush 9/11 ads and the reactions of 9/11 families; the job situation in Ohio and its effect on the vote; Kerry's off-stage, on-mike comments about Republican "crooks"; the first attack ads; Cheney as a possibly debilitating running mate; the latest presidential approval figures; Kerry and Dean in a kiss-and-make-up session; the Nader factor, and so on and so forth. Almost eight months to go and it's already a deluge.
Of course, there's a sense among Democrats, for the first time in years -- as ever, among Republicans -- that this may be a make-it or break-it election and that means more eyes than usual attracted to presidential campaign news earlier than ever. But here's the strange thing: I have yet to see a word in print about what those next four years might actually be like, should the Bush administration be returned to office.
This is all the more surprising given that our brains are speculation machines, which means fiction machines, which means prediction machines. Maybe it was once simply a matter of a large-brained, relatively defenseless creature benefiting from imagining the dangers that lurked around the corner or in the dark of night. Explain it as you will, we live a remarkable amount of our time in imagined futures, even if few of us are able to write them up à la Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, or William Gibson. But here's an unnerving fact: Put any of us in the unmade future and, while we automatically start telling ourselves stories, we also instantly become the most unreliable of unreliable narrators.
Maybe our distant ancestors gained a slight advantage over death by constantly dreaming of and naming dangers to come. But you have to wonder. Or maybe we were just better at it then. Maybe we're devolving as speculative creatures. After all, the striking thing is how wrong we -- especially the class of pundits who increasingly populate our TV screens and newspapers -- regularly are in our predictions. Sometimes it seems to me that our media is made up largely of pundits predicting a near-future which is almost guaranteed not to be. Certainly, I'd hate to see the scorecards of most of the people who, for a living, offer daily predictions of what's likely to happen to the rest of us. On the other hand, one appeal of the job must be that you can predict away and never have to say you're wrong or sorry or a fool, because no one ever goes back and checks out your predictions. Punditry is, it seems, a profession without accountability.
In the Clinton-scandals era, I used to love to tune into Ted Koppel's [i]Nightline [/i]just to listen to George Stephanopoulos and David Gergen predict upcoming events. My rule of thumb was that, whatever they said, I immediately expected the opposite and I was seldom disappointed. And look at Stephanopoulos; now, he can be wrong on his very own Sunday morning show. Of course, no one's immune from this disease, though I try not to offer too desperately many predictions myself. Fortunately, for instance, I kept my e-mouth shut when I mentally dumped Senator Kerry in the trash bin of history many, many months ago.
All of this I mention only because I find it curious, given our propensity for prediction, that there has been so little mention of the world beyond November 2. So here goes, a quick leap into a future in which George Bush has won a second term. [b]Continue on [/b] http://www.nationinstitute.or...
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| U.S. Is Unloading WMDs in Iraq!!! ... What is the Neo-Con Bush Cabal UP TO??? ... |
| 03.13.04 (12:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]Reports are "out" that the[i] U.S. is unloading WMDs in Iraq[/i]!!! ... What is the Neo-Con Bush Cabal [i]UP TO[/i]??? ...
Could the Bushies be [i]planting WMDs [/i]in Iraq??? If so,[i] do they actually think that they can get away [/i]with such a [i]crime[/i]??? ... Or, is[i] this [/i]the neo-con's preparatory efforts for an [i]insane imminent invasion of Iran, Syria and Libya[/i] as per Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's [i]request[/i] http://www.haaretzdaily.com/h... ??? ...[/b]
Consider "[i][b]U.S. Unloading WMD in Iraq[/b][/i]" on http://www.propagandamatrix.c... :
TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) – Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution, there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq.
A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions.
He added that the cargo was unloaded during the night as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the deadly bombings in Karbala and the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution.
The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s.
He mentioned the fact that the United States had facilitated Iraq’s WMD program during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq and said that some of the weapons being downloaded are similar to those weapons, although international inspectors had announced Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime had destroyed all its WMD.
The source went on to say that the rest of the weapons were probably transferred in vans to an unknown location somewhere in the vicinity of Basra overnight.
“Most of these weapons are of Eastern European origin and some parts are from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. The U.S. obtained them through confiscations during sales of banned arms over the past two decades,” he said.
This action comes as certain U.S. and Western officials have been pointing out the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq and the issue of Saddam’s trial begins to take center stage.
In addition, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has emphasized that the U.S. and British intelligence agencies issued false reports on Iraq leading to the U.S. attack.
Meanwhile, the suspicious death of weapons inspector David Kelly is also an unresolved issue in Britain.
[b]------[i]Occupation Forces Official Claims to Have No Information About Transfer of WMD to Iraq [/i]-------[/b]
A security official for the coalition forces in Iraq said that he has not received any information about the unloading of weapons of mass destruction in ports in southern Iraq.
Shane Wolf told the Mehr News Agency that the occupation forces have received no reports on such events, but said he hoped that the coalition forces would find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction one day.
Coalition forces and inspectors have so far been unable to find any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretext that Iraq possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
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| Kerry Challenges Bush to Monthly Debates: Brains Versus Butt-head!!! |
| 03.13.04 (10:15 am) [edit] |
[b]Senator John F. Kerry has issued a challenge to Bush to hold [i]monthly debates[/i]!!! ... [/b]It's a case of [i]Brains Versus Butt-head[/i], so of course, Dubya won't agree to debate, would be my prediction!!! ... However, wouldn't it be the [i]best way [/i]([i]instead of mendacious campaign ads that smirk lies about Kerry[/i]) for the American people to judge these candidates' respective policies and their ability to think ([i]or not[/i]) on their feet??? ...
Of course, the neo-con Bush mad-dog campaign machine doesn't want Dubya to debate ([i]because the imbecilic ne'er-do-well can barely remember his own name[/i]) and hope that they can [i]scam, fool and hoodwink [/i]us into lapping-up their [i]neo-orwellian lies and falsehoods [/i]regarding their insane neo-fascist policies that are destroying our nation as well as [i]Weapons of Mass Deceptions [/i]waged at Kerry ... The sluttish Bushies have amassed over $200+ million from their pimps: corporations and special interests paying massive bribes to Dubya ([i]Dubya's payback to these corporate robber-barons: illegal and immoral rape of America by traitorously being able to hijack our government and define our foreign and domestic policies-- in the biggest swindle of the U.S.A. in our history[/i]). These corporate bribes will be used by the corrupt Bush regime to[i] rig-cum-steal [/i]the election ... [i]if we don't stop them [/i]...
Consider "[i][b]Democrat Kerry Challenges Bush to Monthly Debates[/b][/i]" by [i]John Whitesides, Political Correspondent[/i], Reuters, on http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... :
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, visiting the site of one of the most famous political debates in U.S. history, planned to challenge President Bush on Saturday to a "real discussion about America's future" in a monthly series of debates.
Kerry, already engaged in a running exchange of negative ads with Bush eight months before the November election, planned to deliver the challenge at the site of the historic Abraham Lincoln-Stephen Douglas debates in Quincy, Illinois.
That series of 1858 senatorial debates between Douglas and Lincoln, who lost the Senate election but won the presidency two years later, is legendary in U.S. political history for elevating crucial issues like slavery and states' rights to the front of the U.S. political agenda.
"Surely, if the attack ads can start now at least we can agree to start a real discussion about America's future," Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery in Quincy, Illinois, later on Saturday.
Bush and Kerry have exchanged negative ads in the past few days, with Bush criticizing Kerry by name for planning to raise taxes and threatening to weaken U.S. security and Kerry firing back at his "misleading" accusations.
Kerry challenged the Republican president to monthly debates on the "great issues" of the day, including the war on terrorism, the loss of U.S. jobs and the plight of Americans without health care.
"2004 can't be just another year of politics as usual," Kerry said in the text. "The challenges we face are just too grave and too great.
"We confront big issues -- as big as any in our history -- and they call for a new and historic commitment to a real and informed exchange of ideas."
Quincy was the site of the sixth of seven Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, with 20,000 people - double the town's population -- gathering to hear the two men, who shared a river steamer to their next debate.
"Maybe George Bush and I won't travel on the same boat or the same airplane, but we can give this country a campaign that genuinely addresses our real issues and treats voters with respect," Kerry said.
After the Quincy rally, Kerry planned to travel to Pennsylvania and Ohio on Sunday as he continues appearances in states with upcoming primaries, even though he has clinched the Democratic nomination.
After a brief vacation next week, Kerry will embark on a 20-city fund-raising tour at the end of the month to try to close the cash gap on Bush, who had $100 million more on hand at the end of January. Kerry has raised more than $10 million on the Internet since he effectively clinched the nomination on March 2.
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| Special Interest Industries That Give to Bush Get Their Money's Worth |
| 03.12.04 (2:20 pm) [edit] |
[b]The Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] have let their corporate cronies[i] take over [/i]our nation and install their ruthless Global Corporate Empire that [i]now[/i] ([i]illegally and immorally[/i]) [i]sets[/i] our [i]insane[/i] corporate-take-all: neo-con foreign and neo-fascist domestic policies ...
Bush Campaign Ads . . . Brought to You by Special Interests ...[/b]
[i][b]Industries That Give to Bush Get Their Money's Worth[/b][/i]
[u]Get the report here:[/u] http://www.whitehouseforsale....
As President Bush's $10.5 million campaign ad blitz begins today, Public Citizen released a report outlining who helped pay for the campaign ads and what favors they have received during his presidency.
In the report, Bush Campaign Ads . . . Brought to You by Special Interests, Public Citizen details how much money representatives from key industries - including finance, real estate, communications, energy, health care, and insurance - have helped raise and lists the tax breaks, regulatory changes, legislative favors and plum appointments Bush has given his backers. Many of the beneficiaries of his policies are Rangers and Pioneers, terms Bush gives donors who bundle contributions that total at least $200,000 and $100,000 respectively.
The ads will run on cable networks and will target voters in 17 battleground states. Bush had spent at least $41 million of his campaign money by the end of January; his war chest holds another $110 million. He is expected to raise another $50 million before September's nominating convention and accept $75 million in public financing for the two months before Election Day.
Public Citizen's report finds that the 416 Bush Rangers and Pioneers have bundled together at least $58.1 million for the 2004 campaign and that 90 percent of them (374) represent the special interests of America's corporations.
The report details how Bush has given tax breaks that benefit the finance industry, made it easier for real estate developers to build on wetlands and in the Florida Everglades, reneged on a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions (pleasing the electric utility and mining industries), increased the amount of public land available for oil and gas exploration and coal mining, filled top Interior Department positions with executives from the mining industry, and aided the pharmaceutical industry by pushing pro-industry Medicare drug legislation.
[b]Among the industries highlighted in the report are:[/b]
[b]... The financial industry.[/b] Bankers, stockbrokers, venture capitalists and wealthy private investors have contributed at least $38.4 million to Bush's campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004 and produced more Rangers and Pioneers than any other industry - 73 who have bundled at least $10.8 million this cycle. Bush's tax cut dramatically reduced the "double taxation" of dividends, the securities industry's No. 1 priority. His other major tax cuts benefited the securities industry and its CEOs, who personally will save hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in taxes a year. Social Security privatization, likely to be a top Bush priority in a second term, would shift trillions of dollars of retirement savings to private sector investment accounts.
[b]... Real estate developers.[/b] The real estate industry has donated $32.2 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004, and 37 real estate developers have qualified as Rangers or Pioneers in 2004, bundling at least $5.4 million. The Bush administration has made it easier for developers to build on wetlands, has attempted to narrow the Clean Water Act so that it no longer covers many ponds, streams and wetlands, and has appointed crusading opponents of the Endangered Species Act to key positions at the Interior Department.
[b]... Electric utilities.[/b] The electric utility industry has donated nearly $6 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004. In return, in 2000 three industry Pioneers got slots on the transition team at the U.S. Department of Energy. The administration also rewrote a key Clean Air Act rule to effectively neutralize existing government lawsuits against energy companies and prevent future challenges. Bush launched a "Clear Skies" initiative that would dramatically delay emissions reductions and do nothing to contend with carbon dioxide, and has proposed mercury regulations indistinguishable from industry proposals.
[b]... Oil and gas.[/b] Oil and gas companies gave $15.8 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004. Bush has opened federal land for oil and gas exploration and coal mining, targeted Wyoming's Powder River Basin for coalbed methane drilling, and required federal agencies to consider how agency rules will affect energy supply, distribution and use.
[b]... Mining companies.[/b] The mining industry has contributed at least $3.1 million to Bush campaign efforts in the 2000 and 2004 cycles. Mining executives have been appointed to top posts in the Interior Department, and Bush's Environmental Protection Agency has permitted mountaintop removal for coal mining, is trying to lift a Reagan-era regulation that banned mining within 100 feet of a stream and increased the amount of public land available for mining company waste dumping.
[u]Get the report here:[/u] http://www.whitehouseforsale....
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| Nobody Can Flip-Flop Like The Biggest Flip-Flopper of Them All, Dubya!!! |
| 03.12.04 (1:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]Get[i] Smart [/i]People ... [i]Kerry [/i]A Flip-Flopper? ... I [i]Don't [/i]Think So ... Nothing Like The Biggest Flip-Flopper of Them All: [i]the Mad King George[/i]!!! ...
If the Democrats are [i]smart[/i], they'll [i]give it back [/i]to Dubya, better than they get, because [i]they've got plenty of ammunition[/i] ...[/b]
Living proof that the Democrats haven't gotten any smarter since the last time they ran a candidate for president.
Much huffing (and a huffy Democrat is a terrifying sight) over the fact that George W. Bush used images of 9-11 and of the firefighters at ground zero to tout his candidacy in his first campaign ad. How crass, said the D's.
But the problem is not that the ad is in bad taste -- the problem is that Bush [i]flim-flammed the firefighters [/i]in a famous case of his favorite [i]bait-and-switch [/i]tactic, and now he has the [i]chutzpah[/i] to exploit them anyway.
[b]Flip-Flopping While Flim-Flamming the Firefighters ...[/b]
For those of you who have forgotten what happened: Shortly after the 9-11 attacks, Bush promised a $3.5 billion aid package to provide equipment and training in dealing with such attacks to local police and fire departments.
For more than 18 months, no money appeared, and when it finally did, it was nowhere near the promised levels. (Hey, he had to cut those taxes on the richest 1 percent of Americans.)
Furthermore, the New York City firefighters who worked ground zero were specifically swindled.
They were promised $90 million to monitor the long-term health effects of breathing in all that ash for months while they cleaned up. The money was to have been included in the overall post-9-11 aid package for New York City, but it got shifted to another bill that Bush rejected the following August. About half the workers screened before the money ran out suffered from respiratory problems.
Republicans in Congress twice voted down first-responder money. New York's congressional delegation, led by Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, put up a huge battle before the long-promised $90 million was finally pried out of a reluctant Congress and White House, but the responder money is still not fully funded to this day.
You can see that this is already shaping up as a campaign where the media observe John Kerry under a microscope and neglect to point out the obvious facts about Bush's record. Kerry, say the Republicans solemnly, is given to flip-flopping. [i]Kerry[/i] is?
[b]Let's just start counting off the top of our heads[/b]:
...... George W. Bush was opposed to a commission to investigate how and why 9-11 occurred, but then he changed his mind and backed it.
...... He was certainly opposed to a commission to investigate the intelligence failures on Iraq, but then he changed his mind and backed it.
...... He now brags, "I went to the U.N. [before invading Iraq]"? Who recalls why he changed his mind about doing that? He originally said he not only did not need to consult the United Nations -- he did not even have to consult the U.S. Congress.
...... Anyone remember how Bush, the corporate ethicist of Harken Energy, opposed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill? Sarbanes-Oxley was a mildly reformist piece of legislation deemed slightly necessary in the wake of the staggering accounting scandals that caused the collapse of Enron, Tyco and WorldCom.
...... There seemed to be a new record bankruptcy every week, but our president didn't think we needed any new laws to prevent such things -- my, no. When did he change his mind and decide to sign it? After it passed the House with one vote against it.
...... Remember when we weren't going to negotiate with North Korea? Then we weren't going to negotiate with North Korea again, but we would "talk" to North Korea, but only in multilateral "talking," until Bush changed his mind yet again and now we're in multilateral negotiations.
...... Remember when the United Nations was "unnecessary" and "irrelevant," and boy was Bush ever ready to tell it to go jump in the lake? We now think the United Nations is so useful and necessary that we call on it not just for Iraq but for Haiti and other trouble spots as well.
...... Remember when we didn't need any civilian or international advice about how to pacify and reconstruct Iraq -- our military could do it just fine, thank you?
Remember when [i]nation-building [/i]was a dirty word?
Boy, that John Kerry -- he just flip-flops all the time, doesn't he?
[b]Source:[/b]
"For a clean presidential mind, change it often" by Molly Ivins on http://www.dfw.com/mld/starte...
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| Corrupt Bush Regime Ordered Medicare Plan Cost Estimates Hidden From Congress!!! |
| 03.12.04 (9:22 am) [edit] |
[b]Will the [i]wonders[/i] never cease??? ... [/b]The corrupt Bush regime is [i]again caught-out [/i]in one more [i]lie, felony and criminal activity after [/i]another!!! ... Why aren't[i] impeachment hearings [/i]being called for by Congress ([i]oh yeah, it's a corporate-bought-and-paid -for Republican majority of sluts paying homage to their corporate pimps[/i])??? ...
Read this [i]"one" in a series [/i]of the criminal neo-fascist Bushies' potentially [i]illegal [/i]activities ... The vile Bush regime are [i]not to be trusted [/i]as this represents[i] another sordid example [/i]of their [i]squalid and dishonest tactics [/i]exploited to achieve their [i]blood-thirsty aims[/i], even if they[b] destroy our nation in the process[/b]:--
Refer to "[i][b]Bush administration ordered Medicare plan cost estimates withheld from Congress[/b][/i]" by [i]Tony Pugh[/i], Corvallis Gazette-Times, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
WASHINGTON - The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan.
When the House of Representatives passed the controversial benefit by five votes last November, the White House was embracing an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that it would cost $395 billion in the first 10 years. But for months the administration's own analysts in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had concluded repeatedly that the drug benefit could cost upward of $100 billion more than that.
Withholding the higher cost projections was important because the White House was facing a revolt from 13 conservative House Republicans who'd vowed to vote against the Medicare drug bill if it cost more than $400 billion.
Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, one of the 13 Republicans, said she was "very upset" when she learned of the higher estimate.
"I think a lot of people probably would have reconsidered (voting for the bill) because we said that $400 billion was our top of the line," Myrick said.
[b]For the [i]Full Story [/i]click on[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| The Empire Backfires ... |
| 03.11.04 (8:25 pm) [edit] |
[b]The first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is upon us, and instead of reflecting upon why we actually went to war and why we are still there-- we seem to be pushing the national debate off into[i] never-never-time [/i]... [/b]It is [i]unpleasant to confront[/i], but we will ultimately be forced to account for the [i]Crimes Against Humanity[/i] committed by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], and probably, in the [i]not-too-distant future [/i]...
As Jonathan Schell so eloquently points out, the consequences of the insane neo-con Bush Doctrine are devastating to the civilized world order, because the neo-fascist Bushies have completely [i]undermined the rule of law [/i]and they have wantonly betrayed the [i]trust of the world [/i]that the USA respects international treaties and upholds the principles of justice for all ...
Consider "[b]The Empire Backfires[/b]" by [i]Jonathan Schell[/i], The Nation, on http://www.commondreams.org/v... :
The first anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq has arrived. By now, we were told by the Bush Administration before the war, the flower-throwing celebrations of our troops' arrival would have long ended; their numbers would have been reduced to the low tens of thousands, if not to zero; Iraq's large stores of weapons of mass destruction would have been found and dismantled; the institutions of democracy would be flourishing; Kurd and Shiite and Sunni would be working happily together in a federal system; the economy, now privatized, would be taking off; other peoples of the Middle East, thrilled and awed, so to speak, by the beautiful scenes in Iraq, would be dismantling their own tyrannical regimes. Instead, 530 American soldiers and uncounted thousands of Iraqis, military and civilian, have died; some $149 billion has been expended; no weapons of mass destruction have been found; the economy is a disaster; electricity and water are sometime things; America's former well-wishers, the Shiites, are impatient with the occupation; terrorist bombs are taking a heavy toll; and Iraq as whole, far from being a model for anything, is a cautionary lesson in the folly of imperial rule in the twenty-first century. And yet all this is only part of the cost of the decision to invade and occupy Iraq. To weigh the full cost, one must look not just at the war itself but away from it, at the progress of the larger policy it served, at things that have been done elsewhere-some far from Iraq or deep in the past-and, perhaps above all, at things that have been left undone.
[b]Nuclear Fingerprints [/b]
While American troops were dying in Baghdad and Falluja and Samarra, Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman, was busy making centrifuge parts in Malaysia and selling them to Libya and Iran and possibly other countries. The centrifuges are used for producing bomb-grade uranium. Tahir's project was part of a network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of the Pakistani atomic bomb. This particular father stole most of the makings of his nuclear offspring from companies in Europe, where he worked during the 1980s. In the 1990s, the thief became a middleman-a fence-immensely enriching himself in the process. In fairness to Khan, we should add that almost everyone who has been involved in developing atomic bombs since 1945 has been either a thief or a borrower. Stalin purloined a bomb design from the United States, courtesy of the German scientist Klaus Fuchs, who worked on the Manhattan Project. China got help from Russia until the Sino-Soviet split put an end to it. Pakistan got secret help from China in the early 1980s. And now it turns out that Khan, among many, many other Pakistanis, almost certainly including the highest members of the government, has been helping Libya, Iran, North Korea and probably others obtain the bomb. That's apparently how Chinese designs-some still in Chinese-were found in Libya when its quixotic leader, Muammar Qaddafi, recently agreed to surrender his country's nuclear program to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The rest of the designs were in English. Were Klaus Fuchs's fingerprints on them? Only figuratively, because they were "copies of copies of copies," an official said. But such is the nature of proliferation. It is mainly a transfer of information from one mind to another. Copying is all there is to it.
Sometimes, a bit of hardware needs to be transferred, which is where Tahir came in. Indeed, at least seven countries are already known to have been involved in the Pakistani effort, which Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, called a "Wal-Mart" of nuclear technology and an American official called "one-stop shopping" for nuclear weapons. Khan even printed a brochure with his picture on it listing all the components of nuclear weapons that bomb-hungry customers could buy from him. "What Pakistan has done," the expert on nuclear proliferation George Perkovich, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has rightly said, "is the most threatening activity of nuclear proliferation in history. It's impossible to overstate how damaging this is."
Another word for this process of copying would be globalization. Proliferation is merely globalization of weapons of mass destruction. The kinship of the two is illustrated by other details of Tahir's story. The Sri Lankan first wanted to build his centrifuges in Turkey, but then decided that Malaysia had certain advantages. It had recently been seeking to make itself into a convenient place for Muslims from all over the world to do high-tech business. Controls were lax, as befits an export platform. "It's easy, quick, efficient. Do your business and disappear fast, in and out," Karim Raslan, a Malaysian columnist and social commentator, recently told Alan Sipress of the Washington Post. Probably that was why extreme Islamist organizations, including Al Qaeda operatives, had often chosen to meet there. Global terrorism is a kind of globalization, too. The linkup of such terrorism and the world market for nuclear weapons is a specter that haunts the world of the twenty-first century.
[b]The War and Its Aims [/b]
But aren't we supposed to be talking about the Iraq war on this anniversary of its launch? We are, but wars have aims, and the declared aim of this one was to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In his State of the Union address in January 2002, the President articulated the threat he would soon carry out in Iraq: "The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." Later, he said we didn't want the next warning to be "a mushroom cloud." Indeed, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Colin Powell explicitly ruled out every other justification for the war. Asked about the other reasons, he said, "The President has not linked authority to go to war to any of those elements." When Senator John Kerry explained his vote for the resolution authorizing the war he cited the Powell testimony. Thus not only Bush but also the man likely to be his Democratic challenger in this year's election justified war solely in the name of nonproliferation.
Proliferation, however, is not, as the President seemed to think, just a rogue state or two seeking weapons of mass destruction; it is the entire half-century-long process of globalization that stretches from Klaus Fuchs's espionage to Tahir's nuclear arms bazaar and beyond. The war was a failure in its own terms because weapons of mass destruction were absent in Iraq; the war-policy failed because they were present and spreading in Pakistan. For Bush's warning of a mushroom cloud over an American city, though false with respect to Iraq, was indisputably well-founded in regard to Pakistan's nuclear one-stop-shopping: The next warning stemming from this kind of failure could indeed be a mushroom cloud.
The questions that now cry out to be answered are why did the United States, standing in the midst of the Pakistani nuclear Wal-Mart, its shelves groaning with, among other things, centrifuge parts, uranium hexafluoride (supplied, we now know, to Libya) and helpful bomb-assembly manuals in a variety of languages, rush out of the premises to vainly ransack the empty warehouse of Iraq? What sort of nonproliferation policy could lead to actions like these? How did the Bush Administration, in the name of protecting the country from nuclear danger, wind up leaving the country wide open to nuclear danger?
In answering these questions, it would be reassuring, in a way, to report that the basic facts were discovered only after the war, but the truth is otherwise. In the case of Iraq, it's now abundantly clear that some combination of deception, self-deception and outright fraud (the exact proportions of each are still under investigation) led to the manufacture of a gross and avoidable falsehood. In the months before the war, most of the governments of the world strenuously urged the United States not to go to war on the basis of the flimsy and unconvincing evidence it was offering. In the case of Pakistan, the question of how much the Administration knew before the war has scarcely been asked, yet we know that the most serious breach-the proliferation to North Korea-was reported and publicized before the war.
It's important to recall the chronology of the Korean aspect of Pakistan's proliferation. In January 2003 Seymour Hersh reported in [i]The New Yorker [/i]that Pakistan had given North Korea extensive help with its nuclear program, including its launch of a uranium enrichment process. In return, North Korea was sending guided missiles to Pakistan. In June 2002, Hersh revealed, the CIA had sent the White House a report on these developments. On October 3, 2002, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James Kelly confronted the North Koreans with the CIA information, and, according to Kelly, North Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister, Kang Suk Ju, startled him by responding, "Of course we have a nuclear program." (Since then, the North Koreans have unconvincingly denied the existence of the uranium enrichment program.)
Bush of course had already named the Pyongyang government as a member of the "axis of evil." It had long been the policy of the United States that nuclearization of North Korea was intolerable. However, the Administration said nothing of the North Korean events to the Congress or the public. North Korea, which now had openly embarked on nuclear armament, and was even threatening to use nuclear weapons, was more dangerous than Saddam's Iraq. Why tackle the lesser problem in Iraq, the members of Congress would have had to ask themselves, while ignoring the greater in North Korea? On October 10, a week after the Kelly visit, the House of Representatives passed the Iraq resolution, and the next day the Senate followed suit. Only five days later, on October 16, did Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, reveal what was happening in North Korea.
In short, from June 2002, when the CIA delivered its report to the White House, until October 16-the period in which the nation's decision to go to war in Iraq was made-the Administration knowingly withheld the news about Korea and its Pakistan connection from the public. Even after the vote, Secretary of State Colin Powell strangely insisted that the North Korean situation was "not a crisis" but only "a difficulty." Nevertheless, he extracted a pledge from Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, that the nuclear technology shipments to North Korea would stop. (They did not.) In March, information was circulating that both Pakistan and North Korea were helping Iran to develop atomic weapons. (The North Korean and Iranian crises are of course still brewing.)
In sum, the glaring contradiction between the policy of "regime change" for already-disarmed Iraq and regime-support for proliferating Pakistan was not a postwar discovery; it was fully visible before the war. [i]The Nation [/i]enjoys no access to intelligence files, yet in an article arguing the case against the war, this author was able to comment that an "objective ranking of nuclear proliferators in order of menace" would put "Pakistan first," North Korea second, Iran third, and Iraq only fourth-and to note the curiosity that "the Bush Administration ranks them, of course, in exactly the reverse order, placing Iraq, which it plans to attack, first, and Pakistan, which it befriends and coddles, nowhere on the list." Was nonproliferation, then, as irrelevant to the Administration's aims in Iraq as catching terrorists? Or was protecting the nation and the world against weapons of mass destruction merely deployed as a smokescreen to conceal other purposes? And if so, what were they?
[b]A New Leviathan [/b]
The answers seem to lie in the larger architecture of the Bush foreign policy, or Bush Doctrine. Its aim, which many have properly called imperial, is to establish lasting American hegemony over the entire globe, and its ultimate means is to overthrow regimes of which the United States disapproves, pre-emptively if necessary. The Bush Doctrine indeed represents more than a revolution in American policy; if successful, it would amount to an overturn of the existing international order. In the new, imperial order, the United States would be first among nations, and force would be first among its means of domination. Other, weaker nations would be invited to take their place in shifting coalitions to support goals of America's choosing. The United States would be so strong, the President has suggested, that other countries would simply drop out of the business of military competition, "thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace." Much as, in the early modern period, when nation-states were being born, absolutist kings, the masters of overwhelming military force within their countries, in effect said, "There is now a new thing called a nation; a nation must be orderly; we kings, we sovereigns, will assert a monopoly over the use of force, and thus supply that order," so now the United States seemed to be saying, "There now is a thing called globalization; the global sphere must be orderly; we, the sole superpower, will monopolize force throughout the globe, and thus supply international order."
And so, even as the Bush Administration proclaimed US military superiority, it pulled the country out of the world's major peaceful initiatives to deal with global problems-withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol to check global warming and from the International Criminal Court, and sabotaging a protocol that would have given teeth to the biological weapons convention. When the Security Council would not agree to American decisions on war and peace, it became "irrelevant"; when NATO allies balked, they became "old Europe." Admittedly, these existing international treaties and institutions were not a full-fledged cooperative system; rather, they were promising foundations for such a system. In any case, the Administration wanted none of it.
Richard Perle, who until recently served on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, seemed to speak for the Administration in an article he wrote for the [i]Guardian[/i] the day after the Iraq war was launched. He wrote, "The chatterbox on the Hudson [sic] will continue to bleat. What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order. As we sift the debris, it will be important to preserve, the better to understand, the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions."
In this larger plan to establish American hegemony, the Iraq war had an indispensable role. If the world was to be orderly, then proliferation must be stopped; if force was the solution to proliferation, then pre-emption was necessary (to avoid that mushroom cloud); if pre-emption was necessary, then regime change was necessary (so the offending government could never build the banned weapons again); and if all this was necessary, then Iraq was the one country in the world where it all could be demonstrated. Neither North Korea nor Iran offered an opportunity to teach these lessons-the first because it was capable of responding with a major war, even nuclear war, and the second because even the Administration could see that US invasion would be met with fierce popular resistance. It's thus no accident that the peril of weapons of mass destruction was the sole justification in the two legal documents by which the Administration sought to legitimize the war-HJR 114 and Security Council Resolution 1441. Nor is it an accident that the proliferation threat played the same role in the domestic political campaign for the war --by forging the supposed link between the "war on terror" and nuclear danger. In short, absent the new idea that proliferation was best stopped by pre-emptive use of force, the new American empire would have been unsalable, to the American people or to Congress. Iraq was the foundation stone of the bid for global empire.
The reliance on force over cooperation that was writ large in the imperial plan was also writ small in the occupation of Iraq. How else to understand the astonishing failure to make any preparation for the political, military, policing and even technical challenges that would face American forces? If a problem, large or small, had no military solution, this Administration seemed incapable of even seeing it. The United States was as blind to the politics of Iraq as it was to the politics of the world.
Thus we don't have to suppose that the Bush officials were indifferent to the spectacular dangers that Kahn's network posed to the safety of the United States and the world or that the Iraqi resistance would pose to American forces. We only have to suppose that they were simply unable to recognize facts they had failed to acknowledge in their overarching vision of a new imperial order. In both cases, ideology trumped reality.
The same pattern is manifest on an even larger scale. Just now, the peoples of the world are embarked, some willingly and some not, on an arduous, wrenching, perilous, mind-exhaustingly complicated process of learning how to live as one indivisibly connected species on our one small, endangered planet. Seen in a certain light, the Administration's imperial bid, if successful, would amount to a kind of planetary coup d'état, in which the world's dominant power takes charge of this process by virtue of its almost freakishly superior military strength. Seen in another, less dramatic light, the American imperial solution has interposed a huge, unnecessary roadblock between the world and the Himalayan mountain range of urgent tasks that it must accomplish no matter who is in charge: saving the planet from overheating; inventing a humane, just, orderly, democratic, accountable global economy; redressing mounting global inequality and poverty; responding to human rights emergencies, including genocide; and, of course, stopping proliferation as well as rolling back the existing arsenals of nuclear arms. None of these exigencies can be met as long as the world and its greatest power are engaged in a wrestling match over how to proceed.
Does the world want to indict and prosecute crimes against humanity? First, it must decide whether the International Criminal Court will do the job or entrust it to unprosecutable American forces. Do we want to reverse global warming, and head off the extinction of the one-third of the world's species that, according to a report published in [i]Nature[/i] magazine, are at risk in the next fifty years? First, the world's largest polluter has to be drawn into the global talks. Do we want to save the world from weapons of mass destruction? First, we have to decide whether we want to do it together peacefully or permit the world's only superpower to attempt it by force of arms.
No wonder, then, that the Administration, as reported by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in these pages, has mounted an assault on the scientific findings that confirm these dangers to the world [see "[i]The Junk Science of George W. Bush[/i]," March 8]. The United States' destructive hyperactivity in Iraq cannot be disentangled from its neglect of global warming. Here, too, ideology is the enemy of fact, and empire is the nemesis of progress.
If the engine of a train suddenly goes off the rails, a wreck ensues. Such is the war in Iraq, now one year old. At the same time, the train's journey forward is canceled. Such is the current paralysis of the international community. Only when the engine is back on the tracks and starts in the right direction can either disaster be overcome. Only then will everyone be able to even begin the return to the world's unfinished business.
. [i]Jonathan Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute and the author of the recently published The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People[/i].
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| Lest We Forget ... |
| 03.11.04 (4:07 pm) [edit] |
[b]How [i]soon [/i]we forget ...[/b]
...... Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), said Kerry should apologize for a comment "outside the bounds of where people who want to hold the highest office in this country should be making."
-- [i]Washington Post[/i], March 11th, 2004
...... Bush, standing on a stage outside of Naperville North High School, pointed reporter Adam Clymer out to his running mate, former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. Then Bush described Clymer using a common obscenity:--
"There's Adam Clymer, major-league [u]asshole[/u] from the New York Times," Bush said.
"Oh, yeah, he is, big-time," Cheney responded.
-- [i]Houston Chronicle[/i], September 5th, 2000
[b]A[i] major-league [/i]Santorum??? ...[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Bush Alienating Military Voters Who Helped Him 'Win' in 2000 ... |
| 03.11.04 (12:09 pm) [edit] |
[b]Last night a U.S. soldier interviewed on the [i]Newshour with Jim Lehrer[/i] said that he was disappointed in Bush ... [/b]He said that he is patriotic and willing to fight to defend our country, but that what the corrupt neo-con Bush regime is doing in Iraq isn't "defending our nation" ... nor are we "helping the Iraqi people" ... He could see that the traitorous Bushies and their corporate cronies pre-occupation in Iraq is OIL ... It is time for our nation to [i]wake-up [/i]to the atrocities and war crimes committed by the neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] and demand that they be [i]impeached[/i] by Congress on http://www.congress.org ...
Refer to "[i][b]Bush alienating some military voters who helped him win in 2000[/b][/i]" by [i]William Douglas[/i], Knight Ridder Newspapers, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
WASHINGTON - When the Bush campaign asked James McKinnon to co-chair its veterans steering committee in New Hampshire - a job he held in 2000 - the 56-year-old Vietnam veteran respectfully, but firmly, said no.
"I basically told them I was disappointed in his support of veterans," said McKinnon, who served two tours in Vietnam with the Coast Guard. "He's killing the active-duty military. ... Look at the reserves call-ups for Iraq, the hardships. The National Guard - the state militia - is being used improperly. I took the president at his word on Iraq, and now you can't find a single report to back up or substantiate weapons of mass destruction."
President Bush is seeking re-election as a "war president" whose decisive leadership steered the military to victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. But as guerrilla warfare drags on in both countries, casualties mount and the Army is stretched ever thinner, many voters in or affiliated with the military are no longer saluting the commander in chief.
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or evidence that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida, lengthy deployments of active-duty soldiers and reservists and proposed cuts in veterans' benefits and perks to military families are threatening to erode Bush's once-strong support among military voters.
[b]For the [i]Full Story[/i], click on[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Bush Regime Exposed on Bogus Use of Intelligence ... |
| 03.11.04 (10:23 am) [edit] |
[b]No one on the [i]entire planet with an iota of brain-matter[/i] will ever trust the ghoulish neo-con Bush regime again ... [/b]The neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] ruthlessly [i]lied, deceived and falsified [/i]phony propaganda ([i]non-existent WMDs posing a so-called imminent threat, and other falsehoods[/i]) used to [i]mislead[/i] us into a horrific war-turned-bloody-guerril la quagmire in Iraq, that has resulted in the unnecessary and tragic deaths of over 555 US Soldiers and over 10,000-15,000 innocent Iraqi civilians: all [i]slaughtered--massacred -wiped-out-killed [/i]in order to enrich the [i]slut-puppet Dubya's war-profiteers[/i]: Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, the Bush Crime Family, the Cheney Crime Family, the Chalabi Crime Family, the Neo-con thugs & goons, etc. etc. etc.
Bush & Cheney's [i]war crimes [/i]are in violation of the U.S. Constitution and are considered [i]High Crimes [/i]that require [i]impeachment[/i]. Please contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that [i]impeachment hearings [/i]be held immediately.
Consider "[b]Administration Exposed on Bogus Use of Intelligence[/b]" on http://www.americanprogress.o... :
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, CIA director George Tenet exposed the Bush administration's misleading statements on the use of prewar intelligence on Iraq. Tenet told the committee he personally intervened on several occasions to correct public statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney falsely claiming "conclusive evidence" of Iraqi efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Tenet revealed he learned just last week that in August 2002, senior aides to Vice President Cheney were presented – without the CIA’s knowledge – false and misleading evidence linking Saddam and al Qaeda by Pentagon officials running a separate intelligence unit. The vice president trumpets this evidence today despite repeated warnings about its veracity.
[b]1. The Bush administration knew its statements about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were false, yet continued to mislead the American public about the need for war.[/b] In January 2002, Tenet specifically intervened to correct President Bush’s claim about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa – the now infamous "16 words" from the State of the Union address. Later that month, he also corrected a statement by Vice President Cheney falsely portraying mobile trailers as biological weapons labs. Despite these warnings, the Bush administration continued to hype the need for rapid war in Iraq by elevating public fear about imminent threats that never existed.
[b]2. The Bush administration continues to push discredited information today.[/b] As recently as January 2004, Vice President Cheney publicly presented false evidence linking Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News, the vice president referred to a memo from Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, as "your best source of information" on the link – an illegally leaked memo never endorsed by any credible intelligence agency.
[b]3. In refusing to acknowledge or correct its deceptions on intelligence, the administration’s word on national security cannot be taken at face value.[/b] Instead of admitting past mistakes the current administration continues a now long standing practice of deception. Instead of fixing intelligence failures it stonewalls investigations and stymies reforms. And instead of reassuring the American public it has learned from mishaps, the administration acts like it has done nothing wrong. This is not a recipe for future trust on national security matters.
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| Majority of Americans Disapprove of Bush's Exploitation of 9/11 Victims |
| 03.11.04 (9:59 am) [edit] |
[b]A solid majority (54%) of Americans polled disapprove of Bush's cynical and ruthless exploitation of 9/11 victims in his mendacious neo-orwellian campaign ads, used to prop-up the spoiled [i]ne'er-do-well-cum-over -the-hill-cheerleader-for -corporate-rapists [/i]...[/b]
Today, many Americans[i] cheered [/i]when Senator John F. Kerry was overhead summarizing the blunt truth of it: "[b]These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary[/b]." http://www.chicagotribune.com...,1,2510781.story?coll=chi-news-hed ... Damn [i]right[/i], Kerry!!! ...
Refer to "[b]GOP learns Bush, [i]gasp[/i], is the problem[/b]" by[i] Cragg Hines[/i], Houston Chronicle, on http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/s... :
Like antsy dogs before an earthquake, some Republicans sensed trouble. They were barking about the deficit, chasing their tails over the immigration proposal. A number had even begun baying about Vice President Dick Cheney. But when the tremor struck Monday ([i]on the evening news[/i]) and the strong aftershocks continued Tuesday (in [i]the morning newspapers[/i]), the party seemed astonished at the real cause of their prescient unease: President Bush.
The White House and Republicans came face-to-face with a pair of new national surveys that not only show Democrat John Kerry leading the president in the horse-race question (For whom would you vote if the election were held today?) but also find Bush trailing even more distantly in other key measures of voters' underlying sentiments. Taken together, the surveys are much more dire news than the White House had been predicting and for which it has been struggling to steel the faithful.
Perhaps the worst news for Bush and the Republicans was a question in the [i]Washington Post-ABC [/i]survey (1,202 adults, Thursday-Sunday) that asked: "Which of these two statements comes closest to your own views: A. After four years of George W. Bush, we need to elect a president who can set the nation in a new direction. B. We need to keep the country moving in the direction Bush has taken us." Same direction got 41 percent, new direction 57 percent. Two percent, bless their indecisive hearts, expressed no opinion.
That is the type of Bush-specific finding that defies malinterpretation by the wiliest of White House spinmeisters. A clear majority of Americans say (at least at the moment) that they are looking for something different. It is one growing deficit the administration will kiss off at its peril. It is a finding that does not meld well with the overarching Bush campaign themes of steadiness and staying the course. What if the course is one on which Americans do not wish to stay?
The exact same split showed up when the [i]ABC-Washington Post [/i]respondents were asked: "Please tell me whether the following statement applies to George W. Bush or not: He understands the problems of people like you." Yes, 41 percent. No, 57 percent.
These inquiries paint an even worse picture for Bush and his campaign strategists than his precarious rating in the new[i] USA Today-CNN-Gallup [/i]poll (503 adults, Friday-Sunday), which found 49 percent approve and 48 percent disapprove of the way the president is handling his job (a record-tying low for Bush in that survey).
That same sort of narrow divide was reflected in response to a question in the [i]Washington Post-ABC [/i]poll: "Overall do you think George W. Bush has done more to unite the country, or has done more to divide the country?" Unite, 48 percent; divide 49 percent. Again, worrisome territory for an incumbent whose first campaign was based (fraudulently as it has turned out) on his stated desire to bring us together.
In policy terms, the findings of both surveys buttress Bush's decision to run as a war president. It's about all he's got. He can't run as the jobs president, the education president, the Social Security president, the health care president. Unfortunately for Bush, those issues -- and not the fight against terrorism or the war in Iraq -- are the ones on which most of the surveys' respondents say they will base their vote in November.
Thankfully, Bush's exploitive use of scenes from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in his campaign-opening television ads was seen as inappropriate by a majority (54 percent) of the [i]USA Today-CNN-Gallup [/i]respondents. Not that it will have any effect on Bush's refusal to drop the ads. While raising even more campaign funds in Texas on Monday, Bush again defended the use of the images by recalling how he had gone to Ground Zero. Fine. He can use pictures of himself standing on the rubble, not the flag-draped corpse of a fireman being carried from the wreckage.
Bush also used his trip back home to pounce on what he called Kerry's attempt "to gut" the budget of the nation's intelligence services. Kerry proposed in 1995 to cut $1.5 billion from the CIA's appropriation over five years. How kind of the president to point out a sensible proposal that would have helped to shut down what Kerry's campaign called "essentially a slush fund for defense contractors." Kerry's proposed cut would have amounted at the time to about 1 percent of the CIA's annual budget. Some gut.
The best news for Bush came in the [i]USA Today-CNN-Gallup[/i] poll. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they think that Bush will win the election. Bush would take that margin in a heartbeat.
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| Yet Again, Another Of Hypocritical Bush's Flip-Flops:-- ... One Of Many In A Series!!! ... |
| 03.10.04 (4:06 pm) [edit] |
[b]The first in a series of hypocritical Bush's "flip-flops" was posted yesterday on http://www.tblog.com/template...
Yet again, [i]another [/i]Sen. John F. Kerry [i]so-called [/i]"flip-flop"??? ... Ha Ha Ha!!! ... The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] neo-orwellian campaign machine can't [i]pin this one[/i] on Kerry or anyone else ...
How about hypocritical Bush, who is the biggest "flip-flopper" of them all ... [i]Read on, for another "classic" [/i]...[/b]
...... No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam.
-- [i]George W. Bush, White House Press Conference[/i], March 6th, 2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov/new...
...... After insisting for a week that it would force a vote in the Council, the White House has over the last few days waffled about its intentions Today, administration officials did not rule out the possibility that the three leaders would decide on Sunday to abandon the resolution altogether.
-- [i]The New York Times[/i], March 15th, 2003
...... The United States, Britain and Spain at the United Nations _ facing certain defeat in the Security Council _ announced they would withdraw their resolution setting a deadline for full Iraqi disarmament and authorizing war.
-- [i]Knight-Ridder[/i], March 18th, 2003
[b]So many [i]"John Kerry"[/i] flip-flops. Ha Ha Ha!!! ...[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Poppy Bush Involved With Donations To Terrorists??? ... Follow The Leader!!! ... |
| 03.10.04 (2:24 pm) [edit] |
[b]What happens to a society that [i]loses touch [/i]with the [i]truth[/i], the[i] meaning [/i]of words and with [i]reality[/i]??? ...[/b]
The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]have distorted what is left of our democracy by [i]trampling on the rule of law[/i]-- and these neo-cons have so brutally and callously perpetrated [i]heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods, [/i] that these traitorous neo-fascists deserve[i] impeachment[/i]!!! ...
In such a tyrannical climate, why not play "[i]follow-the-leader[/i] ", as [i]Robert Jensen [/i]rightly points out??? ... [i]Read on [/i]...
Consider "[i][b]Former President Bush Involved with Donation to Group with Terrorist Connections[/b][/i]" by [i]Robert Jensen[/i], on http://www.commondreams.org/v... :
OK, perhaps the headline stretches the truth a bit. But being a good American, I'm simply following the lead of my president.
Here's what actually happened: On Saturday I gave a talk on the news coverage of current President Bush and the Iraq War at a conference on presidential rhetoric at Texas A&M University in College Station. One of the conference co-sponsors was the Bush Presidential Library Foundation, and the honorarium I received came from "The Associates of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation."
So, it was sort of like former President George H.W. Bush paid me for my talk, kind of.
When I returned to Austin, I signed the check over as a donation to the Third Coast Activist Resource Center, http://www.thirdcoastactivist... a local group I work with. At Third Coast we consider ourselves part of the growing movement to dismantle the U.S. empire, focusing on efforts to resist war, militarism, racism, and corporate domination. Many consider such groups to be, if not terrorists, perhaps fronts for terrorists, or at least sympathetic to terrorists.
That's what Attorney General John Ashcroft seems to think. In December 2001 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he addressed people who criticized the U.S. government's response to 9/11: "Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends."
So, Third Coast is sort of like a terrorist group, kind of.
Therefore, George H.W. Bush was involved with a donation to a group with terrorist connections. Sort of, kind of.
Now, some may want to criticize me for contorting the facts to fit a political agenda. That is, some might want to accuse me of lying. But I don't think it is fair to criticize me for simply adopting the standards of our highest officials in Washington. The headline doesn't distort the truth to any greater degree than the pronouncements of Bush administration officials, as they try to squirm their way out of pre-war lies that are becoming more difficult to dodge given post-war problems in Iraq.
First, let me explain that much of the information on which I based my statements came from our intelligence agencies. If I was wrong, it was an intelligence failure. I've appointed an independent commission to investigate. The report will be out in a year or so.
Second, let's be precise about my statement: I didn't say George H.W. Bush gave a donation to a terrorist group. All I said is that he was involved with a donation. He certainly was involved; if he hadn't been president, there would be no presidential library with his name on it and no Associates of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation -- and that was the name on the check I received. I also didn't say Third Coast was a terrorist group. All I said is that they have terrorist connections. It's certainly true that people involved in Third Coast oppose the U.S. wars and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we know the terrorists also oppose those wars and occupations -- that's a connection of some kind.
Now, you may want to press me, suggesting that I'm just trying to weasel out of responsibility for a lie, looking for technicalities to cover my nefarious intentions. My response?
Let's look back at President Bush's December 2003 interview with [i]ABC Primetime's [/i]Diane Sawyer, who questioned him about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Sawyer reminded the president that administration officials before the war had said they knew Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons -- not just the intent to acquire them or programs to produce them, but actual prohibited unconventional weapons.
Bush's response? He avoided the question.
Sawyer tried again: "But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still ."
Bush: "So what's the difference?"
Sawyer continued to try to get Bush to address her question, but he refused.
"Diane, you can keep asking the question. I'm telling you I made the right decision for America," Bush said.
So, I'm taking my cue from our Glorious Leader. To those who want to claim that my headline was not the real truth but a carefully crafted statement that shamelessly manipulated some small kernel of truth to create a false impression, I say: What's the difference?
My goal was to highlight that the people running this country have taken the art of creative lying and propaganda to new heights. If we are going to be something more than spectators in a political spectacle -- if we are going to be real citizens in a functioning democracy -- it's important for us to come to terms with that, and to learn to combat it.
If I had to be a little, well, let's say creative with the facts to do that, I'm telling you I made the right decision for America.
[i]Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of "Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity" (www.citylights.com). The text of his talk -- "Getting away with murder (literally): Presidential lying, journalistic malfeasance, and the manipulation of public opinion" -- will be available in a few days on www.nowarcollective.com. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu[/i].
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| Rummy's Personal Spy Unit Did an End-Run Around CIA on Iraq Intelligence! |
| 03.10.04 (11:16 am) [edit] |
[b]Why haven't Rummy Rumsfeld and Traitor Tenet been fired??? ... [/b]Could it be because they could[i] "tell a few sordid tales" [/i]about their corrupt paymasters-[i]cum[/i]-pim ps: Bush & Cheney??? ... Methinks that this neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] will become [i]increasingly unpalatable, distasteful and disgusting [/i]to the American people, who will [i]oust[/i] them from office in November!!!
Consider "[b]Rummy's personal spy unit did an end-run around CIA on Iraq intelligence[/b]" by [i]Greg Miller[/i], Los Angeles Times, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
WASHINGTON — A special intelligence unit at the Pentagon privately briefed senior officials at the White House on alleged ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda without the knowledge of CIA Director George J. Tenet, according to new information presented at a Senate hearing Tuesday.
The disclosure suggests that the controversial Pentagon office played a greater role than previously understood in shaping the administration's views on Iraq's alleged ties to the terrorist network behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and bypassed usual channels to make a case that conflicted with the conclusions of CIA analysts.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Tenet said he was unaware until recently that the Pentagon unit had presented its findings to the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice. It is not clear whether Cheney or Rice were present for the briefing, which was mentioned in a Defense Department letter released by the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
In a wide-ranging hearing, Tenet said violence in Iraq was on the upswing, but that he thought there was a "low probability" that strife would prevent the United States from handing authority to an interim Iraqi government on July 1.
Although the hearing was billed as a session to discuss international security concerns, it was marked by heated exchanges reflecting the political tensions over the Iraq war and the failure to find weapons the Bush administration cited as the principal reason for last year's U.S.-led war.
Tenet came under sharp attack from Democrats, who called the prewar intelligence a "fiasco," pointed to what they said were disturbing disparities between classified CIA estimates and more alarming versions released to the public before the war, and criticized the CIA director for saying recently that the agency never portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat.
"The fact that the intelligence assessments before the war were so wildly off the mark should trouble all Americans," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the committee.
It was under questioning from Levin that Tenet acknowledged that he did not know until within the last few weeks that a special Pentagon intelligence analysis unit had briefed the White House on ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
"I did not know that at the time, and I think I first learned about this at [a congressional] hearing last week," Tenet said. A U.S. intelligence official said Tenet first learned of the White House briefing Feb. 24 during a closed hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The Pentagon unit was created by Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The unit was a handful of intelligence analysts, Feith has said, and was established to examine state sponsorship of terrorism, but is principally known for its efforts to assemble evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda.
It has been reported previously that the so-called Policy Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group presented its findings to the CIA in August 2002. But in a letter to Warner released Tuesday for the first time, Feith said the group's briefing "was also given to National Security Council and Office of Vice President staff members."
Levin asked Tenet whether it was "standard operating procedure" for intelligence analysis to be presented to the White House without his involvement.
"I don't know," Tenet replied. "I've never been in the situation."
Tenet emphasized that he briefed President Bush personally almost daily, and that his was "the definitive view about these subjects."
"I know you feel that way," Levin replied, making it clear he wasn't convinced.
Levin said the committee had obtained copies of the Pentagon group's written briefing material, and that the version presented to the White House included material omitted from the briefing for the CIA. He declined to elaborate, saying the documents were classified.
A government official familiar with the briefings said the presentation for the White House included a slide sharply critical of the CIA for failing to recognize evidence pointing toward collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda. That slide was excluded from the briefing at CIA headquarters at Langley, Va.
The government official said those briefed at the White House included the staff of Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security advisor, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.
The Pentagon intelligence group was disbanded before the war, but remains under scrutiny because of its controversial mission and role.
Critics say it sifted through years of intelligence reports on Iraq, seizing on shards that supported the contention that there was collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and then funneling the information to senior policymakers to help bolster the case for war. Pentagon officials reject that characterization.
Many of the group's findings have been disputed by the CIA and other agencies, who say there is a history of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda but no evidence of an operational relationship. But administration officials continue to cling to the theme, and polls show many Americans believe that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
In January, Cheney said "there's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government." Cheney has touted the work of the Pentagon group, saying a Feith memo that lists Iraq-Al Qaeda connections and was leaked to the media is the "best source" on the subject.
Tenet said Tuesday that the CIA "did not agree with the way the data was characterized in that document," and that he intended to contact Cheney to caution him about its conclusions. "I learned about [Cheney's] quote last night when I was preparing for this hearing," Tenet said. "And I will talk to him about it."
Some lawmakers said that if Tenet did not believe Iraq was an imminent threat — as he said in a recent speech at Georgetown University — he should have done more to challenge the prewar assertions by Bush and others casting Hussein's regime as a danger that required immediate military intervention.
"You can't have it both ways, can you, Mr. Tenet?" said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "You can't on the one hand just say look, we never said that war was imminent, and then have this superheated dialogue and rhetoric [from the White House] … and tell us here before the committee that you have no obligation to correct it or didn't even try."
Tenet shot back: "I'm not going to sit here today and tell you … what I did or what I didn't do, except that you have the confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence I said something about it."
Kennedy then asked Tenet whether he believed the administration "misrepresented the facts to justify the war." Tenet responded, "No, sir, I don't."
Dissecting a key prewar intelligence estimate on Iraq's weapons program, Levin cited a number of cases in which he said the CIA or the administration hardened its language or dropped caveats to bolster the case for war. A declassified version of the report warned that Iraq's alleged weapons stocks could be used "against the U.S. homeland," language he said was missing from the classified text.
In another example, Levin cited the CIA's assessment in its classified analysis that Iraq would supply weapons to Al Qaeda only under "desperate" or "extreme" circumstances, qualifiers missing from the public version of the report.
Democrats attacked Tenet for allowing recent statements by administration officials to go unchallenged. Cheney, in particular, has reiterated claims that the intelligence community has backed away from, including comments suggesting Iraq might have been complicit in the Sept. 11 attacks, and that Iraqi trailers seized by American forces are "conclusive" evidence that Iraq had banned weapons.
Urged by Levin to be more swift and assertive in correcting public statements by White House officials, Tenet said, "Sir, it's a fair point."
Republicans on the committee accused Democrats of using the hearing to score political points against the Bush administration as the presidential election is heating up.
Some Republicans defended Tenet, and said he should not have to answer for the prewar claims made by policymakers. The CIA director "is not their keeper," said Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the chairman of the committee.
Even Republicans who were not involved in the hearing reacted to Democrats' criticisms. One, Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in a television interview called Kennedy and Levin "two old attack dogs gumming their way through artificial outrage about something they should know a lot more about and be more responsible about."
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| 'The Jobs Crisis and the GOP' by Patrick J. Buchanan |
| 03.10.04 (10:57 am) [edit] |
"The crisis of the Bush dynasty is that, like the Bourbons of France, they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. They do not understand that we have entered a new world where the old ways no longer work. They yet recite the old litanies that lost their relevance in the Reagan decade." - Patrick J. Buchanan
[b]Americans cannot be [i]so easily fooled [/i]by Bumbling Bush, who is currently [i]running around like a desperate chicken-(hawk)-with-his-h ead-cut-off [/i]telling people how he is "creating jobs" [[i]ha ha ha[/i]]--[/b] while instead, there are over 9-15 million Americans who actually have[i] no jobs[/i] and [i]can't find work[/i]!!! Our citizenry is not going to idiotically agree to be[i] neo-con conned, scammed and swindled [/i]by the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] neo-orwellian campaign machinery ... Even conscientious [i]conservatives[/i] are sounding the alarm bells ...
Refer to "[b]The jobs crisis and the GOP[/b]" by Patrick J. Buchanan on http://www.wnd.com/news/artic... : - [i]Excerpt[/i] -
President Bush and his advisers are puzzled and worried.
Economic liftoff took place right on schedule in July when the tax cuts took effect. In the last six months of 2003, the economy blazed along on a growth path of 6 percent. But where are the jobs?
Last week's jobs report, with hundreds of thousands giving up the search for work, and manufacturing jobs disappearing for the 43rd straight month, jolted the White House. What is going on?
They're calling it a jobless recovery. Wrong. Millions of jobs are being created. They're just not being created here in the United States.
The reasons can be traced to these four acronyms: NAFTA, GATT, WTO, PNTR. These are the trade treaties and global institutions that have permitted the historic substitution of foreign labor for American labor, to the enrichment of the transnational companies that look upon the Congress as a wholly owned subsidiary.
Numbers do not lie. In 2003, America exported $1 trillion in goods and services. Almost 10 percent of GDP. Excellent. By the Clinton-Bush I rule – $1 billion in exports creates 20,000 jobs – that $1 trillion worth of exports created 20 million jobs. Exports are good for America.
The problem? We imported $1.5 trillion in goods and services. That created or supported 30 million jobs abroad. But even this understates the case. For foreign workers can be hired at a fraction of the cost of a U.S. worker. Our $1.5 trillion in imports is probably supporting 150,000,000 jobs abroad.
The U.S. trade deficit is the greatest foreign aid and wealth transfer program in history, and our workers are paying for it by the loss to their families of the American Dream.
...
Republican free-trade dogma inhibits action to protect U.S. jobs. The GOP is hogtied and hamstrung by its ideology in dealing with the crisis. Its only response is to mutter with Dr. Pangloss that it is all for the best.
...
[b]For the Bush Republicans, the chickens are coming home to roost.[/b]
[b]For the[i] Entire Article[/i], click on[/b] http://www.wnd.com/news/artic...
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| Scientist Says US Bullied UN Inspectors into Hiding Fact that Iraq was Free of WMDs |
| 03.09.04 (7:25 pm) [edit] |
[b]The U.S. is the most powerful nation on this planet and consequently has a greater responsibility to lead the world community towards noble endeavours and to uphold the rule of law.[/b]
Tragically, the corrupt Bush regime has abused its powers of office and has resorted to barbaric strong-arm tactics to pressure officials at the U.N. and also here at home, to [i]mislead the public[/i], in order to achieve their sordid and squalid aims of[i] warmongering for war-profits [/i]in Iraq ... The neo-con, neo-fascist Bushies are neither morally fit, nor competent, to serve our nation's interests ...
Refer to "[i][b]Scientist Says US Bullied UN Inspectors into Hiding Fact that Iraq was Free of WMDs[/b][/i]" by [i]Cilina Nasser[/i], Daily Star, on http://www.dailystar.com.lb/0... :
[b]Former head of nuclear program claims Baradei, Blix bowed to US pressure [/b]
BEIRUT: A leading Iraqi nuclear scientist accused UN inspectors Monday of succumbing to US pressure by keeping their findings silent that Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) before the US-led invasion last year.
Jaafar Jaafar, once the head of the nuclear program in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, called on the United Nations to look into the reasons that hindered inspectors from formally reporting to the Security Council on their findings prior to the war.
“It was clear that reports of the UN (inspectors) to the Security Council should have been clear and brave,” Jaafar said, addressing some 150 Iraqi, Lebanese and Arab politicians, academics, and journalists who gathered at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Beirut for a three-day conference organized by the Center of Arab Unity Studies to discuss the repercussions of the occupation of Iraq.
“I believe the UN should also investigate the facts that were known before the war and look into the reasons why (inspectors) did not declare them to the Security Council,” said Jaafar, who was jailed by Saddam Hussein in 1979, and took charge of the uranium enrichment program following his release after nearly two years of imprisonment.
Jaafar singled out the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed al-Baradei, and the head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), Hans Blix, for “not wanting to declare the truth.”
The United States led a devastating war on Iraq under the pretext that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction. Almost a year after the US-led invasion started on March 20, 2003, the US has failed to provide evidence of the presence of WMD in Iraq.
“We can confirm with certainty that Iraq no longer possesses WMDs since (Iraq’s Republican Guards) destroyed all its components in the summer of 1991,” said Jaafar. “(Iraq) did not resume any such activity because the basis that allows the initiation of such activity no longer existed.”
The issue of WMDs attracted much of the attention during the first day of the conference. Political scientist and director of the Fares Foundation in Lebanon, Paul Salem, said US inability to find WMDs in Iraq would have a negative impact on US President George W. Bush in the election in November.
“His image has changed radically, because it appears that WMDs do not exist and the US administration has lied to the American people,” Salem said.
The repercussions of the occupation of Iraq for the United States were raised by Michael C. Hudson, a Georgetown University professor of international affairs and Arab studies.
Hudson said he believed Americans have become less secure than they were before the war on Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2001.
“Will Iraq become a plus for Bush or a minus? The Iraqi resistance will determine that,” he said.
Hudson criticized US neoconservatives, saying their policy debates fell along two dimensions: establishing a viable security architecture for the region, and reshaping the region’s domestic politics, economics and culture through liberal reforms that will “drain the swamp” of anti-US elements.
But he cast doubts over the achievement of these goals.
“The neoconservative dream is increasingly questioned,” he said. “Even neoconservatives … are saying, ‘We’re biting off more than we can chew.’”
Another issue, the impact of the occupation of Iraq on the Arab world, was raised by former Lebanese Premier Salim al-Hoss, who said by waging war on Iraq, the US sought to terrify the entire Arab world.
“Arab rulers are scared and, sometimes, terrified when dealing with the superpower state. Some have even started to take any position dictated by the US,” Hoss said.
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| Hypocritical Bush's Flip-Flop:-- ... One of Many!!! ... |
| 03.09.04 (4:09 pm) [edit] |
[b]Another Sen. John F. Kerry [i]so-called [/i]"flip-flop"??? ... Ha Ha Ha!!! ... The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]neo-orwellian campaign machine can't[i] pin this one [/i]on Kerry or anyone else ...
How about hypocritical Bush, who is the biggest "flip-flopper" of them all ... [i]Read on [/i]...[/b]
...... Senators Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Thursday proposed the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security with the authority and resources to carry out its mission effectively, while still being accountable to the public.
[i]-- Sen. Committee on Governmental Affairs Press Release[/i], October 11th, 2001, http://govt-aff.senate.gov/10...
[i]Q.[/i] ... But if we're talking about consolidating all of these agencies, why not create a department of homeland security, as may lawmakers have suggested? And rather than take Customs, Border, whatever, and put it all under DOJ, why not bring it all under the auspices, under one umbrella of homeland security?
[i]MR. FLEISCHER[/i]: The reason for that, John, is if you take a look at how the federal government is set up across the myriad of agencies or more than a dozen agencies, many of which have components that deal with homeland security in one form or another, I'm not aware of a single proposal on Capitol Hill that would take every single one of those agencies out from their current missions and put them under homeland security. So even if you took half of them out and put them under a Cabinet-level office of homeland security, the White House would still need, in the president's estimation, an adviser on how to coordinate all the myriad of activities the federal government's involved in. So, creating a cabinet office doesn't solve the problem. You still will have agencies within the federal government that have to be coordinated. So the answer is that creating a Cabinet post doesn't solve anything. The White House needs a coordinator to work with the agencies wherever they are.
[i]Q.[/i] ... So why, then, is the Lieberman bill a bad idea, in your estimation?
[i]MR. FLEISCHER[/i]: The Lieberman bill. I don't -- (inaudible) -- specifics. Do you want to define the Lieberman bill?
[i]-- Ari Fleischer, White House Briefing[/i], March 19th, 2002
...... Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa, and Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., Thursday called for a new structure within the executive branch to help fight the war against terrorism within United States borders. The proposal, building upon a bill introduced by Lieberman and Specter last year, would create a National Department for Homeland Defense to focus federal attention and resources on securing our borders and protecting the critical infrastructure.
[i]-- Sen. Committee on Governmental Affairs Press Release[/i], April 11th, 2002, http://govt-aff.senate.gov/04...
...... The Cabinet post idea has political appeal. For instance, a major sponsor is freshman Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., who sees it as enhancing his credentials on terrorism-related issues in a tough re-election fight with the expected GOP primary winner, Rep. Saxby Chambliss, chairman of the House subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security. Yet creating the 16th Cabinet department would represent an expansion of big government, a concept that the president makes a point of opposing.
[i]-- Marianne Means, Seattle Post-Intelligencer[/i], May 14, 2002
...... Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said today he would advise President Bush to veto any legislation creating a congressionally authorized Office of Homeland Security if Congress approves a bill this year. "I'd probably recommend he veto it," Ridge told a National Journal Group editorial board meeting.
[i]-- CongressDaily[/i], May 30, 2002
...... So tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single, permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the homeland of America and protecting the American people.
[i]-- George W. Bush, Address to the Nation[/i], June 6th, 2002
...... Hundreds of lawmakers attending the White House barbecue Wednesday night had no idea what was unfolding. The only two believed to have been briefed, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), were told during the picnic. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), author of legislation much like the White House's proposal, got a call from Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge Wednesday night asking about details of his bill -- but Ridge didn't give a hint of what was coming in the morning.
[i]-- Washington Post[/i], June 7th, 2002
...... I asked the Congress to work with me to come up with a new Department of Homeland Security to make sure that not only can this administration function better but future administrations will be able to deal with the true threats we face as we get into the 21st century, a Homeland Security Department which takes over the 100 different agencies and brings them under one umbrella so that there's a single priority and a new culture, all aimed at dealing with the threats ... The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people. I will not accept a Department of Homeland Security that does not allow this President and future Presidents to better keep the American people secure.
[i]-- George W. Bush, Trenton, New Jersey[/i], September 23rd, 2002
[b]Like there's not more where that came from??? ...[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Bush's Insider Trading: Why Isn't Bush In Jail Where He Belongs??? ... |
| 03.09.04 (12:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush should be in [i]jail wiping toilets[/i], instead of [i]soiling the White House [/i]with his myriad heinous crimes and acts of treason against our nation ...[/b]
Bush has lied to the nation over phony non-existent WMDs in Iraq and waged an illegal & immoral neo-con aggression-[i]cum[/i]-war -[i]turned[/i]-bloody-gue rrilla-quagmire in violation of the U.S. Constitution & International Law ... Bush was a drunkardly AWOL deserter during Vietnam, for which anyone other than a "Bush" was sent to jail ... Bush has defrauded the nation with his irresponsible malfeasance and reckless mis-management creating the largest deficit-spending (... [i]on behalf of his corporate-take-all pimps [/i]...) in our nation's history! ... Bush has reigned over the largest job losses since the Great Depression, a crumbling infrastructure, and skyrocketing poverty, homelessness and lack of health care, here at home ...
Why isn't Bush in jail, [i]where he belongs[/i]? Partly, due to Poppy, who has bailed the [i]failure-cum-bum [/i]out of one failed botch-up after another ... Now, due to his corrupt neo-con cronies and neo-fascist thugs & goons who protect the [i]ne'er-do-well-cum-crim inal[/i], who otherwise would indeed be serving time in jail, [i]where he belongs[/i] ... [[i]With Martha Stewart[/i]? ...]
Amongst Bush's [i]many, many, many [/i]criminal activities, includes Insider Trading ... [i]Read on [/i]...
Consider "[i][b]Bush’s Insider Connections Preceded: Huge Profit On Stock Deal[/b][/i]" by [i]Knut Royce[/i], The Center for Public Integrity, on http://www.truthout.com/docs_... :
It has been widely reported that Texas Gov. George W. Bush made money over the years with a little help from his friends. But new details show that he served on an energy corporation’s board and was able to realize a huge profit by selling his stock in the corporation because an accounting sleight-of-hand concealed it was losing large sums of money. Shortly after he sold, the stock price plummeted. That profit helped make him a multimillionaire.
The year 1986 was very good for George W. Bush.
After a decade of striking Texas brown dust instead of oil, his luck finally turned that year when go-for-broke Harken Energy Corp. bought his failing oil exploration firm for stock. Four years later the company concealed large losses just before the GOP presidential hopeful unloaded those securities for a nice profit. That, in turn, helped finance his stake in the Texas Rangers baseball club and catapult him into the ranks of multimillionaires.
And it was in 1986, too, that Harken’s CEO introduced Bush, the company’s new director and consultant—as well as son of then-Vice President George Bush--to a little startup health-care company. He put in a modest investment, and a few years later walked away with a six-figure windfall.
There also was a little benefit on the side. In 1994, when Bush was running for Texas governor, and scrambling for campaign cash, insiders in that health-care company, now known as Advance Paradigm, contributed $23,700.
Bush’s sale of the Harken stock in 1990 attracted the attention of regulators and the national media because he was tardy in filing the required public disclosure, and because the trade came shortly before the company reported for the first time that it was incurring huge losses.
[b]Hemorrhaging Concealed[/b]
But The Public i has found that Harken was bleeding profusely even before Bush unloaded his stock. Harken effectively concealed the hemorrhaging by selling a retail subsidiary through a seller-financed loan but recording the transaction in its 1989 balance sheet as a cash sale. Securities and Exchange Commission records suggest that Bush, a company director who sat on Harken’s audit committee and was a paid consultant to the firm, may nonetheless have been unaware of the sleight-of-hand accounting or, for that matter, other significant company actions Nevertheless, SEC accountants cried foul when it discovered Harken had recorded the 1989 sale as a capital gain.
But it was months after Bush’s June 1990 sale of the stock at $4 a share, for a total of $848,560, that the SEC directed Harken to recast its 1989 annual report and to publicly disclose the extent of its losses that year, according to records reviewed by The Public i.
It is unclear how a timely acknowledgement of the true losses would have affected the value of the stock when Bush sold. But most investors look at a company’s balance sheet, among other indicators of corporate well-being, before parting with their money.
Two months after Bush’s sale, Harken reported for the first time in a quarterly report that it was losing a lot of money, and the stock dropped to $2.37 a share. By the end of the year, it was trading at about $1.
Harken masked its 1989 losses when in mid-year it sold 80 percent of a subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, to a partnership of Harken insiders called International Marketing & Resources for $12 million, $11 million of which was through a note held by Harken. By Jan. 1, 1990, IMR, in turn, sold its stake in Aloha to a privately held company called Advance Petroleum Marketing, and the Harken loan was effectively transferred to Advance, though garanteed by IMR.
[b]‘George and I Became Friends’[/b]
Advance Petroleum was headed by a Texas entrepreneur, David Halbert, who had been a friend and business partner of Harken’s CEO, Mikel Faulkner. In 1986, Faulkner had introduced Harken’s newest director, Bush, to Halbert. Harken, in a stock swap, had just acquired the ailing Spectrum 7 Energy Corp., where Bush had been CEO and a significant shareholder.
“George and I became friends,’’ recalled Halbert in a telephone interview with The Public i. Halbert said that at the time Faulkner introduced Bush to him he had just formed a little home-health-care firm, Allied Home Pharmacy, and was in the process of raising $250,000 in seed money.
“Mikel said (to Bush), ‘Hey, you might want to invest in this,’” Halbert recalled. “I said fine. I don’t remember how many people we brought in, but it wasn’t that many. Maybe 25 or 30 . . . It was sort of friends and family, and George invested.’’ So did Faulkner. Halbert said Bush also put in a little more money in an offering to existing shareholders in 1991.
Halbert said he did not recall how much Bush invested in the company.
Allied Home Pharmacy became known as Advance Paradigm, one of the nation’s leading pharmacy benefits management companies, when it went public in 1996. Two years later, Bush’s trust sold his stock in the firm.
Public records give no precise amount of how much he earned on the Advance stock sale, but Bush’s financial disclosure form made public last year shows that he realized a capital gain, or profit, of as much as $1 million on the sale. Asked how much the Texas governor paid for the stock and how much he profited from the sale, spokesman Scott McClellan referred all questions to the manager of Bush’s blind trust, Robert McCleskey. McCleskey declined to discuss his client’s investment in the Advance stock. He said that under the terms of the Texas blind trust—a legal requirement for the governor but less rigorous than the blind trust that applies to federal executive branch officers—he cannot tell even Bush how much profit he made on the sale.
[b]SEC Probe Was Limited[/b]
The SEC’s division of enforcement launched a probe of Bush’s sale of his Harken stock the day after the Wall Street Journal on April 4, 1991, reported that he had been eight months late in filing the required insider-trading form with the regulators. This investigation was separate from the earlier division of corporation finance probe that resulted in Harken’s recasting its 1989 balance sheet.
SEC enforcement investigators focused on whether Bush dumped his stock on June 22, 1990, because he knew that the company’s second-quarter report, announced on Aug. 20, would show a $23.2 million loss and depress the stock. Part of that loss was $7.2 million that Harken wrote off because it was being pressed by a nervous bank and renegotiated the Aloha sale to generate quick cash. Aloha’s buyer, Advance Petroleum, was a clear winner in the renegotiated deal.
The SEC probe was limited to whether Bush had inside knowledge of the red ink that would be reported in the August filing and concluded that he did not.
It is unclear whether Bush, who holds a master’s degree from the Harvard Business School, knew that the company, after five straight years of profits, began to bleed profusely in 1989, its first year of being traded on the New York Stock Exchange, though in its annual report for that year it had declared a net loss of only $3,300,000.
Even that small loss would have surprised readers of the January 1990 issue of National Petroleum News, a trade publication. Interviewed some time during the fourth quarter of 1989 for a lengthy and glowing article on Harken, company president Faulkner said that based on the strong earnings during the first three quarters, he expected that year to be the most profitable yet. “We made $6 million last year (1988) . . .We’ll certainly be ahead of last year.’’
Alas, a year later, in an amended 1989 annual report filed on Feb. 5, 1991, the company reported that after “discussions” with the SEC, which insisted that Harken use the traditional “cost recovery’’ method of accounting, it was revising its declared 1989 net loss of $3,300,000 fourfold--to $12,566,000. Harken also filed an amendment to its third quarter report for 1989 revealing that over the first nine months of that year it had lost nearly $4 million, rather than the $4.6 million profit it had declared.
Faulkner, now Harken’s chairman, did not return repeated calls from The Public i seeking comment on the Aloha sale and the subsequent public filings.
[b]Company Directed to Correct Reports[/b]
The SEC can prosecute company officers for willfully filing fraudulent reports. But in the Harken case, as in most similarly questionable filings, the investigation was conducted by the agency’s accounting staff, which did not believe there was intent to defraud and therefore did not refer the matter to the SEC’s enforcement division. Instead, the agency directed the company to publicly correct its reports, according to a retired SEC official familiar with aspects of the case.
It is also clear that Harken did not draft the misleading 1989 annual report, filed with the SEC on April 16, 1990, merely to buttress the value of Bush’s stock. The filing date was two months before the company reported it became aware that Bush wanted to sell.
In its 1989 annual report, Harken recognized a profit of $8 million on the sale, which allowed it to limit its declared losses to only $3,300,000 for the year. But the SECobjected, saying that the income can be recognized only as the principal of the loan is reduced—that is, when real cash comes in.
A corporate accountant interviewed by The Public i agreed with the SEC’s claim, saying he found it “unusual’’ for a company to declare an earning on the sale when it is contingent on a loan. The accountant, who asked to not be further identified, said he knew of no other instance when a company declared full gain on a sale based on a loan.
Why Harken initially sold to IMR is unclear. But a senior tax lawyer who works for a leading auditing firm told The Public i after reviewing portions of the SEC filings that he believes Harken wanted to show a cash infusion to mitigate the 1989 losses.
“It looks like the sale was done (to IMR) in order to show a book gain of $7 or $8 million,’’ said the attorney, who also asked not to be further identified. “That would have eliminated a good part of their loss during that time. Given the fact that the sale was to a related entity, I would guess they were just trying to show a better financial statement at that time.’’
Advance’s Halbert said that he believes IMR bought, and then quickly sold, Aloha because of a sudden change of heart. “I think it had something to do with IMR wanting to own it [Aloha] but there was some concern about the affiliate relationship [between Harken and IMR],’’ he said.
The SEC, too, was curious about the transaction, according to agency records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Six weeks before Harken publicly announced in January 1991 that it was revising its 1989 losses upward, the SEC asked the company to explain “whether the sale of Aloha to Advance was contemplated at the time IMR purchased Aloha from Harken.’’ In a letter, it also asked Harken to explain why the company and its independent accountants concluded it could declare a capital gain on the sale.
The SEC declined to provide Harken’s responses to The Public i.
[b]Conflicting Accounts Offered[/b]
In its public filings to the SEC, Harken gave conflicting accounts of who sold Aloha, who bought it, and even when the sale occurred.
In its 1989 annual report, for example, it declared that it sold Aloha to IMR on June 30. In one passage of the report, it says that IMR then sold Aloha to Advance on Jan. 1, 1990; in another it says IMR sold on March 30.
But in its 1990 report, Harken declared that it was its subsidiary E-Z Serve Holding Co. that sold Aloha to IMR.
Adding to the confusion, E-Z Serve, which shortly after the transaction was spun off as a separate publicly traded company, claimed in its 1991 annual report that it had sold Aloha to Advance Petroleum—not IMR—in 1989.
Harken was notorious during that period for filing confusing reports. In 1991, Harken founder Phil Kendrick told Time magazine that the company’s annual reports “get me totally befuddled.’’Quoted in the same article, Faulkner had this advice to those trying to figure out the company’s financial statements: “Good luck. They’re a mess.’’
The corporate fog did not, however, obscure the fact that by the time the SEC directed Harken to recast its 1989 report, Bush already had already sold his stock in the company.
The bulk of the $848,560 went to pay off a bank loan he had taken out in 1989 to buy a partnership interest in the Texas Rangers for $600,000. He received nearly $16 million for his stake when the team was sold two years ago.
Bush’s run of financial good luck starting in 1986 is in stark contrast to the woeful performance of his previous oil ventures, which he had launched in 1977. Though he had little difficulty in rounding up investors for his Arbusto, Bush and Spectrum 7 oil exploration firms, they were all money losers.
Even as Harken in late 1989 and early 1990 appeared to be trying to minimize its losses, its bankers were clamping down because the company was having trouble meeting its loan payments.That led to a renegotiated loan agreement in May 1990, which required Harken to come up with fresh cash, raised the interest rate, required new guarantees from major shareholders and featured stricter terms overall.
“After closure (on the sale of Aloha) Harken discovered they had trading losses on gasoline purchases and they came back to us and said, ‘We really need some cash,’” Halbert recalled.
[b]Cash Raised in Nick of Time[/b]
Halbert said he was able to raise the cash in the nick of time—just three days before Iraq invaded Kuwait, setting in motion huge gasoline-price increases that drove numerous small distributors out of business.
Under the original contract, Harken had given Advance an option to purchase the remaining 20 percent of Aloha, or 60,000 shares, for $50 each, or a total of $3 million.
By the time the contract was renegotiated in August, Advance agreed to pay off the $10 million note by the following year, which it did, instead of in March 1993 as stipulated in the original contract.It also relieved Harken from picking up the cost of fixing leaking underground tanks to meet environmental standards.
In turn, Advance got the $3 million of Aloha stock for $1. Harken also forgave $5 million in loans it had made to Aloha and about $1 million in interest payments.
The renegotiated contract reduced Harken’s bottom line, and the SEC clearly believed the write-off might have helped depress the stock. During its investigation of whether Bush benefited from insider information when he sold his stock, the SEC on July 25, 1991, asked both Bush and Harken to disclose when the company’s officers and directors “first became aware . . . that the Advance note . . . was going to be renegotiated; and that Harken intended to write down its investment in Aloha.’’
[b]Unaware of Magnitude[/b]
After the SEC ended its investigation, according to one of its memos, the regulators concluded that Harken and Bush were unaware of the magnitude of the write- downs until at least mid-July, or after Bush’s stock sale.
While the renegotiated contract clearly hurt Harken’s bottom line, Halbert admits it clearly was beneficial for Advance Petroleum.
Meanwhile, Bush was generating admirers among Advance Paradigm’s insiders, the limited number of shareholders.
In 1994, when the company was known as Advance Health Care and Bush was making his first run for Texas governor, those insiders gave him $23,700 for his first gubernatorial run, including $14,500 from Halbert, his brother, Jon, their father and their wives. Virtually all the money came on the same day, July 22.
“That was his first time around, and he was trying to raise money any way he could,’’ recalled Halbert.
And, as has been the case throughout Bush’s career, a long-time friend of the family came to his aid.
This time it was Benno C. Schmidt, the pioneering venture capitalist and partner in J. H. Whitney & Co. in New York. Schmidt, who died last October at age 86, had been a director of Advance Health Care, and J. H. Whitney had provided the firm with much needed capital in 1993.
“Benno was an old friend of the Bush family. He called me one day and said, ‘David, I think we ought to do something for young George,’” Halbert recalled. “He said, ‘I think we ought to have a fund-raiser.’”
So after a board meeting on July 22, Bush spoke at a private little dinner attended by the directors and their wives and walked away that night with $20,750.
. [i]Knut Royce is a senior fellow at the Center for Public Integrity[/i].
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| Bush Continues To Mislead On Job Creation ... |
| 03.09.04 (12:20 pm) [edit] |
[b]Lies, lies and more lies churned out by the neo-orwellian Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] mendacious propaganda machine that is spreading[i] libelous, slanderous and hilariously insane [/i]falsehoods: [/b]-- about their opponent, the Democratic Candidate Senator John F. Kerry-- about their illegal & immoral neo-con bloody guerrilla quagmire in Iraq-- and, about the U.S. economy that they have irresponsibly mis-managed in order to enrich themselves, their corporate cronies, special interests, Halliburton, Bechtel, Big Oil, the Carlyle Group, the Military Industrial Complex ...
Indeed, the traitorous Bushies have pandered to every corporate top-dog and fat-cat who bribes them for "favors", [i]harmful to American workers and our nation's welfare[/i]-- The corrupt Bush regime should be [i]impeached[/i] from office for their many heinous crimes against our nation and the entire world community ...
Refer to "[i][b]Bush Continues To Mislead on Job Creation[/b][/i]" on http://www.misleader.org/dail... :
Last month, President Bush released a personally signed report promising that his economic plan would create 2.6 million new jobs by 2004. 1 When data suggested that this would not be possible, he "distanced himself" from the report and "declined to endorse the jobs estimate" publicly during an Oval Office appearance.2 Now, with a new jobs report showing that his economic program continues to fall short, the president has resorted to outright dishonesty.3
Specifically, the president deployed Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to Capitol Hill last week to claim that he never actually signed the report. She told lawmakers the president "doesn't sign this report."4
[b]Sources:[/b]
1. "2.6 million jobs on way, Bush says", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 02/11/04
2. "The Challenger Gets Mentioned Early", Washington Post, 03/09/04.
3. "Bush declines to endorse prediction of 2.6 million jobs", Baltimore Sun, 02/19/04.
4. "Americans Drop Out of Labor Force, Posing Risks for Bush, Fed", Bloomberg, 03/08/04.
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| How Cheney Helped Cover-up Pakistan's Nuclear Proliferation! |
| 03.09.04 (12:20 pm) [edit] |
[b]The Veep-N-Creep Cheney has a sordid & squalid history of [i]selling weapons [/i]to thugs like Saddam Hussein and [i]sucking-up [/i]to 3rd world military tin-pot dictators and tyrants ... [/b]The hypocritical and traitorous criminal Cheney has enriched himself [i]off-of-the-blood spilt [/i]of innocent people, while he panders to murderous regimes and corporate rapists ([i]of whom he is one[/i]) ...
"Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top members of the administration reacted with shock [[i]uh-huh, phony shock, shock, shock[/i]!] when they found out that Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, spent the past 15 years selling outlaw nations nuclear technology and equipment. So it was sort of a surprise when Bush, upon finding out about Khan's proliferation of nuclear technology, let Pakistan off with a slap on the wrist. But it was all an act. In fact, it was actually a cover-up designed to shield Cheney because he knew about the proliferation for more than a decade and did nothing to stop it."
Consider "[i][b]How Cheney helped cover up Pakistan's nuclear proliferation[/b][/i]" by[i] Jason Leopold[/i], CounterPunch on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
[i][b]The Veep and Pakistan: Cheney Helped Cover-Up Nuclear Proliferation in 1989, So Pentagon Could Sell Pakistan Fighter Jets[/b][/i]
When news of Pakistan's clandestine program involving its top nuclear scientist selling rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, blueprints for building an atomic bomb was uncovered last month, the world's leaders waited, with baited breath, to see what type of punishment President Bush would bestow upon Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaff.
Bush has, after all, spent his entire term in office talking tough about countries and dictators that conceal weapons of mass destruction and even tougher on individuals who supply rogue nations and terrorists with the means to build WMDs. For all intents and purposes, Pakistan and Musharraf fit that description.
Remember, Bush accused Iraq of harboring a cache of WMDs, which was the primary reason the United States launched a preemptive strike there a year ago, and also claimed that Iraq may have given its WMDs to al-Qaeda terrorists and/or Syria, weapons that, Bush said, could be used to attack the U.S.
[b]For the [i]Full Story[/i], click on[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Job Shortage May Cost Bush His Job, Just Like Poppy ... |
| 03.09.04 (11:39 am) [edit] |
[b]Bush's lousy performance on the U.S. economy gets a [i]failing grade [/i]for malfeasance, fraud and irresponsible mis-management ... In fact, it is a[i] fiasco [/i]... [/b]Over 9-15 million citizens are unemployed and unable to find jobs, because the corrupt neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]and their gluttonous corporate cronies are shipping jobs [i]overseas [/i]to immorally profit from[i] slave labour [/i]wages ... and ultimately are [i]mis-leading [/i]our nation into a neo-Great Depression in order to create a [i]slave class [/i]that they can [i]ruthlessly and callously exploit [/i]here at home, as well as abroad ...
Consider "[i][b]Job Shortage Is Kerry's Best Bet to Unseat Bush From His[/b][/i]" by [i]Ronald Brownstein[/i], L.A. Times, on http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,2304483.column?coll=la-headlines- nation :
By now, the Bush family must consider jobs a four-letter word. Anemic job growth helped to sink George H.W. Bush after one term in 1992. Under his son, President George W. Bush, the employment picture is even more dismal. So dismal, in fact, that it's the job market Democrats have most in mind when they gibe: Like father, like son, one term and he's done.
The economy's continuing failure to produce meaningful numbers of jobs, reinforced by other bread-and-butter concerns such as rising healthcare costs, looms as the greatest vulnerability for Bush in the general election campaign that effectively began last week.
But in seeking to survive a poor performance on jobs, this Bush has two advantages his father lacked. National security issues are more relevant today than in 1992, and John F. Kerry, the all-but-certain Democratic nominee, offers a more tempting target on values and cultural issues than Bill Clinton presented against the elder Bush.
There's no guarantee the younger Bush can overcome economic anxiety by exploiting these other issues. But it does mean that he and Kerry face an electoral environment in which the differences from 1992 are as important as the similarities.
The biggest parallel is the gloomy job market. During the four years of the first President Bush, the economy created just 2.6 million jobs. The economy generated nearly four times as many jobs during Jimmy Carter's four years and more than six times as many during Ronald Reagan's eight. Those contrasts helped explain why George H.W. Bush was out of a job after the 1992 election.
Job growth zoomed again under Bush's successor. During Clinton's eight years, the economy generated 22.7 million jobs — the most created under any single president since the 1920s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But job growth has stalled again under the second President Bush. With the government report Friday that the economy produced just 21,000 new jobs in February, total employment is down by more than 2.2 million since he took office. Barring a miraculous recovery, Bush is fated to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to suffer a net loss of jobs over a full presidential term.
There aren't many inviolate rules in American politics, but in an election year it's safe to say no president wants his name plausibly placed in the same sentence as Herbert Hoover's.
The White House blames the meager performance largely on the slowdown it inherited from Clinton (job growth was still positive, but slower, in the second half of 2000 than the first). But the job loss has persisted long after the recession officially ended in fall 2001.
Fewer Americans were working in January 2003 than in January 2002. Even fewer Americans were working in January 2004 than in January 2003. Manufacturing employment has declined in every single month of the Bush presidency.
These are not numbers that scream four more years.
Bush supporters argue that it's unfair to blame or credit a president too much for the economy's performance. Yet Americans have been doing exactly that for more than 200 years.
Many Democrats agree Kerry has to flesh out his own ideas for stimulating job growth (which now center on tax credits for manufacturers, grants to states, a tougher line on trade and reducing employers' healthcare costs).
But even if Kerry holds up a blank piece of paper as his recovery plan, it will be tough for Bush to win an argument about the economy unless job growth revives.
The difference from 1992 is that this Bush has a better chance of surviving even if he loses the economic argument. One key reason: National security is much more relevant to voters today than it was then.
Americans may or may not accept Bush's contention that we are living in an ongoing state of war that makes him a "war president." But there's no doubt that Americans see terrorism as a continuing threat. No one felt that way about Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991.
As a result, voters are likely to place much more weight than in 1992 on the candidates' credentials as commander in chief. Democrats hope that Kerry's record in Vietnam will blunt that advantage for Bush. But credibility on national security is still likely to help this Bush more than it did the first.
Compared to his father, this Bush may have an even wider advantage on values issues. Against Clinton, the elder Bush tried mightily to replicate his successful strategy from 1988, when he portrayed Democrat Michael S. Dukakis as outside the cultural mainstream.
But Clinton offered few targets. He supported the death penalty, insisted that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" and backed work requirements for welfare recipients.
By neutralizing the values issues, Clinton kept the campaign focused on the economic concerns where his opponent was weakest.
That won't be nearly as easy for Kerry. He opposes the death penalty in all cases except terrorism and says he will only appoint Supreme Court justices who explicitly support the right to abortion. Kerry also opposed legislation Clinton signed to ensure that states need not recognize gay marriages performed in other states.
So far, Kerry has parried Republican thrusts on these issues mostly by dismissing them as a diversion from the real — i.e., economic — problems facing the country.
Even many Democrats recognize Kerry will need a better response. "If this comes down to a campaign between Kerry … on the economy … versus George Bush arguing social issues and values, then Bush wins," says Leon Panetta, Clinton's White House chief of staff.
Discontent over jobs remains Kerry's best hope of taking the one belonging to Bush. But without convincing answers on national security and values, come November Kerry may have more in common than he'd like with all those Americans unable to land the jobs they want.
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| New Poll:-- Support For Bush At An All Time LOW!!! ... |
| 03.09.04 (11:25 am) [edit] |
[b]Can we be optimistic that Americans are finally [i]waking up[/i] to the reality that we've been ruthlessly [i]defrauded, scammed and betrayed [/i]by the neo-con con-artists, the Bushies??? ... [/b]Hmmm ... It is [i]hard to tell[/i], as yet, since the neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]have not seriously [i]dipped-into[/i] their deep, deep neo-orwellian propaganda [i]war chest filled with corrupt ill-gotten corporate riches [/i]to be used to [i]neo-con con, bamboozle, hoodwink and scam[/i] us senseless ... We'll [i]see [/i]...
Consider "[i][b]Support for Bush Falls On Economy and Iraq[/b][/i]" by [i]Richard Morin and Dana Milbank[/i], Washington Post, on http://www.washingtonpost.com... :
President Bush, the target of months of criticism during the Democratic primary season, has seen public support fall to the lowest level of his presidency for his performance on the economy and the situation in Iraq, a new [i]Washington Post-ABC News poll [/i]has found.
A majority of Americans -- 57 percent -- say they want their next president to steer the country away from the course set by Bush, according to the survey. Bush's standing hit new lows in crucial areas such as the economy (39 percent support him), Iraq (46 percent) and the budget deficit (30 percent).
Bush's overall support, 50 percent, was unchanged from February and equal to the lowest of his presidency; only the war on terrorism continues to garner him the support of more than six in 10 Americans.
As a result of these doubts, Bush narrowly trails likely Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry by 4 percentage points, 48 to 44 percent, among registered voters in a hypothetical presidential matchup. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, an independent, claims 3 percent. Of a dozen policy areas, Kerry leads Bush in eight, including the economy, education and health care, while Bush leads only in the war on terrorism. The two candidates are virtually tied in the other three: Iraq, same-sex marriage and civil liberties.
In a bit of good news for Bush, Nader is drawing essentially all of his support from Kerry, who leads Bush by 9 percentage points in a two-way matchup with the president -- an indication Nader could play the spoiler for Democrats in 2004 as he did four years ago. Underscoring that potential, nearly two-thirds of Democrats opposed Nader's decision to run, while nearly half of all Republicans supported his move.
Also, Bush begins the campaign with a strong reservoir of support that Kerry lacks: Nearly nine in 10 Bush supporters say they "strongly" support him, compared with two in three Kerry voters. In addition, six in 10 Kerry supporters say they are voting for the Democrat more as a protest against Bush and his policies, and not because they are attracted to Kerry. By contrast, nearly nine in 10 Bush voters say their support is based on their feelings toward the president, not disapproval of Kerry.
The Bush campaign said the deterioration in the president's standing is a natural result of the Democratic nominating contest, in which the candidates all took aim at Bush. While predicting that Bush will remain tied with or trailing Kerry until the GOP convention this summer, Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd said Kerry's support is "soft," as Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis's was early in the 1988 campaign against George H.W. Bush. Kerry's high standing, Dowd added, "just shows you how little [voters] know about him," Dowd said, and is bound to change once Republicans step up their criticism of him.
The Kerry campaign rejected the 1988 comparison, noting that there was no incumbent in that race and that Dukakis did not lead Bush until later in the campaign. "At this moment George Bush is pushing the boulder up the hill in a significant way," said Mark S. Mellman, Kerry's pollster. "People have made a judgment about him, and they've decided they don't like the way he's dealing with key issues and they want fundamental change."
The [i]Post-ABC [/i]survey reflects the pounding Bush has taken from Democrats during the primaries, as well as disappointing news about job creation and more signs of difficulty in Iraq. While half approve of the overall job Bush is doing, the proportions of Americans who disapprove (48 percent) and strongly disapprove (36 percent) have never been higher. Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq has shifted from strength to weakness, with a double-digit increase in opposition this year.
Bush no longer is viewed as someone who can bring the country together. Slightly less than half the public says the president has done more to unite the country, while just as many say he has done more to divide Americans. Fifty-four percent of Americans view Kerry favorably, while 26 percent take an unfavorable view (respondents were evenly divided on Bush, 47 to 46). Nearly half -- 49 percent -- of those interviewed said they trusted Kerry to handle the biggest issues facing the country, while 44 percent preferred Bush. In mid-January, the two were tied.
More Americans also view Kerry as being honest and trustworthy, more understanding of the problems of "people like you" and more tolerant than the president. On the key issue of leadership, a strength GOP strategists are featuring in ads supporting the president, the two candidates are virtually tied, with 63 percent saying Bush is a strong leader and 61 saying the same of Kerry. The two are also closely matched on ideology: A third see Bush as too conservative, and a third see Kerry as too liberal.
Democratic attacks on Bush as a president who favors the interests of large corporations over working people clearly have had an effect. Two in three now say Bush cares more about protecting the interests of large business corporations, up from 58 percent in December.
Kerry's advantage on many key issues was large. The Democrat currently has double-digit advantages over the president as the person best able to handle the economy (Kerry leads Bush by 12 percentage points), Social Security (16 points), education (12 points), the budget deficit (15 points) and health care (20 points). On only one major issue is Bush preferred to Kerry: the war on terrorism, where the president has a 21-point advantage.
While Americans, by 57 percent to 41 percent, would prefer a new direction over Bush's leadership, that does not necessarily mean they will remove him from office in November. In May1988, a similar number favored a new direction, but then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was elevated to president. In March, 1992, 66 percent favored a new direction and he ultimately lost the election. At a similar point in 2000, the country was evenly split.
A total of 1,202 randomly selected adults nationwide were interviewed March 4 to 7 for this telephone survey. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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| A Calculator Is A Terrible Thing To Waste ... |
| 03.08.04 (3:03 pm) [edit] |
[b]The [i]Liar-N-Thief[/i], Dumb-Dubya is "at it" [i]again[/i] ... [/b]Just as Bush & Co. continue to [i]spew, smirk and spit [/i]their many, many, many[i] lies, deceptions and falsehoods [/i]regarding phony WMDs in Iraq, so do they also continue to [i]fabricate, fumble and bumble [/i]through many, many, many[i] more lies, deceptions and falsehoods[/i] regarding phony job growth (...[i] that and growth in wages are the only "growth" that is worth anything to working people ... not gluttonous profits from GDP "growth" if it simply ends-up in the bulging pockets of rapacious corporate fat-cats & top-dogs [/i]...) ...
Whom have the Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]so-called tax "relief [sic]"-[i]cum[/i]-cuts [i]really[/i] helped? ... Corporations, hyper-wealthy oligarchs and filthy-rich plutocrats ... It [i]ain't[/i] helped Middle-Class and Working Americans and in fact, it has [i]severely hurt[/i] the rest of us, in the [i]short and long term [/i]...
[b]A CALCULATOR is a terrible thing to[i] waste [/i]...[/b]
The labor force typically expands by about 150,000 a month. This has led economists to estimate that payrolls must rise by more than 200,000 a month to reverse the damage in the job market.
[i]Dallas Morning News[/i], January 10th, 2004, http://www.dallasnews.com/sha...
We've added more than 350,000 new jobs over the last six months. The tax relief we passed is working.
[i]George W. Bush, Dallas[/i], Texas, March 8th, 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov/new...
[b]Where's that [i]calculator[/i]?[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Bush's Halliburton Swindle, Scam & Neo-Con Con-Game in Iraq!!! ... |
| 03.08.04 (12:25 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] massive [i]corporate-take-all [/i]swindle, scam and neo-con con-game in Iraq is the [i]big story, untold [/i]as yet to the American people ...[/b]
Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex are raping American taxpayers and the Iraqi people (... [i]whose oil is being stolen before their very eyes-- as is our US taxpayer dollars ... which is why warfare is needed to "shock-and-awe" and kill 'em so fast that they can't complain [/i]...) ... Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of this vile gang of traitors, liars, war criminals and crooks should be [i]shipped off [/i]to the Hague and tried for [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]...
Consider "[i][b]Never Saying 'Sorry'[/b][/i]" by [i]Laura Flanders[/i], on http://www.guerrillanews.com/... :
When Halliburton, the vice president's former firm, received a no-bid contract to do billions of dollars worth of work in Iraq, the public was told that Halliburton got that contract, and that much money, in that way, because in a fast response situation like the one in Iraq, Halliburton was simply the best in the business. Now one Halliburton unit stands accused of over-charging the U.S. taxpayer for millions of dollars and its own internal reviewers are acknowledging that the unit took on work for which it was in fact, ill-suited.
Since January, the Pentagon has been engaged in a criminal investigation of Halliburton's unit, Kellogg Brown and Root. The Defense Criminal Investigative Unit, an arm of the Pentagon's Inspector General's office, is examining whether KBR engaged in "substantial overcharging" on millions of troop meals overseas. Pentagon investigators charge that KBR charged for nearly four million meals that were never served. There is also the question of whether KBR paid as much as $61 million too much for fuel last year by buying it from a Kuwaiti source rather than from cheaper sources in Turkey. The billings now under review bring the total cost to the U.S. taxpayer to more than $176 million.
The [i]Wall Street Journal [/i]is virtually alone in following this juicy story. For months, staff reporter Christopher Cooper and his colleagues have been digging up revealing documents. In February, the paper reported that two former employees of Halliburton's Kellogg Brown and Root unit were "coached by their superiors to evade competitive bidding rules by breaking up purchases into small pieces." (Pentagon procedures require contractors to seek competitive bids on supplies costing more than $2,500.) The latest revelation is an internal KBR report which calls the company's cost controls "antiquated" and "inadequate."
The memo amounts, said the Feb. 27 Journal, "to a frank admission that Kellogg Brown and Root's critics are voicing valid concerns about the possibility of overcharges under the company's massive contract to supply U.S. troops."
The company's procurement system is "disorganized," and marked by "weak internal controls," declare the company's internal review team. As Cooper and company point out, KBR's reviewers also challenge KBR's President and CEO Randy Harl's claims made in January. The company has "a rigorous system of internal controls for government contracts" Harl said in a conference call on the company's fourth-quarter earnings. In fact, the memo acknowledges that KBR's "paper-based, labor intensive and bureaucratic procurement system isn't suitable for a fast-response situation like Iraq."
It boggles the mind why this isn't a bigger story.
Pressed on the appearance of impropriety last fall, Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke defended the no-bid contract awarded KBR. "If you actually look at the facts, there are actually very few companies around the world that are the size and scope to handle some of these tasks in the rebuilding of Iraq," Clarke told Paula Zahn on [i]CNN[/i] last September."
Now the Pentagon itself is weighing criminal charges against KBR, the company has been forced to withhold billing on some $140 million while that investigation proceeds; KBR's own reviewers say the unit wasn't up to the Iraq work, and just one U.S. newspaper appears to be interested.
KBR has its defenders. Critics are just partisan, they allege. Until 2000, Halliburton was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, and the VP still holds stock and receives monthly deferred payments from the company.
"In spite of the many misleading and inaccurate reports you may hear or read, we are proud of the work we are doing and appreciative of the continuing confidence of our customers," Harl said in the Jan. 29 conference call.
The fact is, he's right. Being Halliburton seems to mean never having to say you're sorry. In the Balkans, Harl recalled, a similar situation arose in 2000. Indeed it did. KBR stands accused of overcharged the U.S. government for millions of dollars. (Among other things, KBR purchased plywood in Texas at inflated prices, instead of buying cheap wood locally.) "Issues like this do occur, and investigations can take a while," said Harl.
Meanwhile, since 2000, the number of U.S. contracts awarded to KBR has mushroomed—from $500 million in 2002 to $3.9 billion last year following the Iraq invasion and occupation. Halliburton is now the government's seventh-largest contractor in terms of work awarded. Allegations notwithstanding, the company recently signed some "impressive" new contracts for work in the Caspian, said Harl. In fact, "KBR is in a good position to expand our business in the rapidly growing Caspian market."
. [i]Laura Flanders is the host of "Your Call" heard on KALW-FM in San Francisco, and on the Internet, and author of "Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species," forthcoming from Verso Books in March 2004[/i].
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| Fascist GOP Run Anti-Kerry Ads But Pressure Networks To Pull Anti-Bush Ads ... |
| 03.08.04 (12:00 pm) [edit] |
[b]The neo-nazi, neo-fascist GOP Bushies are [i]pressuring[/i] networks to [i]pull [/i]anti-Bush ads, but [i]simultaneously[/i], these un-democratic demagogues and un-republic([i]an[/i]), ideological mad-dogs are [i]running[/i] anti-Kerry ads ...[/b]
Boycott all of the[i] neo-orwellian anti-Kerry propaganda bullshit [/i]and the [i]dumb-bell Bush funny-farm ads [/i]that these GOP bloodthirsty thugs & goons are propagating [i]off-the-back [/i]of the carnage, misery and destruction waged upon America on 9/11 ...
Refer to "[i][b]Republican Party urges broadcasters to refuse ads that criticize Bush[/b][/i]" by [i]Cable News Network [/i]on http://www.unknownnews.net/04... :
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Republican National Committee is warning television stations across the country not to run ads from the MoveOn.org Voter Fund that criticize President Bush, charging that the left-leaning political group is paying for them with money raised in violation of the new campaign-finance law.
"As a broadcaster licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, you have a responsibility to the viewing public, and to your licensing agency, to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity," said the RNC's chief counsel, Jill Holtzman Vogel, in a letter sent to about 250 stations Friday.
"Now that you have been apprised of the law, to prevent further violations of federal law, we urge you to remove these advertisements from your station's broadcast rotation."
But MoveOn.org's lawyer, Joseph Sandler, said in a statement that the ads were funded legally, calling the RNC's letter "a complete misrepresentation of the law."
"The federal campaign laws have permitted precisely this use of money for advertising for the past 25 years," he said.
And MoveOn.org, which was planning to spend $1.9 million on an ad buy that started Thursday, said Friday that it would spend another $1 million.
The RNC charges that because the ads are designed to help defeat President Bush, the group cannot pay for them with unlimited "soft money" contributions but only with contributions raised in amounts less than $5,000.
Although MoveOn.org is a so-called "Section 527" organization that is legally allowed to raise soft money in unlimited amounts from donors, the new campaign-finance law prohibits the group from using those funds to pay for ads that directly attack Bush, Vogel said.
And in a bit of political one-upmanship, the letter quotes the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry, as saying that the objective of the new law "is to eliminate altogether the capacity of soft money to play the role that it does in our politics."
But MoveOn.org says it has raised $10 million for advertising from 160,000 donors, in amounts averaging $50-$60. It is running two ads in 67 TV markets in what its Web site describes as 17 "battleground" states.
"It's not surprising that [RNC Chairman] Ed Gillespie continues to make false claims about the legality of our campaign in order to silence us," Wes Boyd, president of the voter fund, said in a statement. "Our lawyers continue to assure us that our advertising, and the small contributions from tens of thousands of our members that pay for it, conform in every way to existing campaign-finance laws."
[b]P.S. I watched the [i]hilarious mad-fuck [/i]attack on Kerry ad by the[i] Bush GOP dumb-bunnies [/i]on TV this morning ... After I picked myself up off the floor and recovered from hysterical laughter at such [i]clumsy buffoonery vomitted by Bush's pimps [/i]and read this article ... [i]I couldn't stop laughing[/i]!!![/b]
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| The Myth of Bush Leadership ... It's Really a Joke!!! ... |
| 03.08.04 (8:34 am) [edit] |
[b]Americans [i]enmasse[/i] don't seem to comprehend the difference between a[i] true leader [/i]and a[i] puppet-cum-over-the-hill- cheerleader[/i]!!! ...[/b]
Bush doesn't have a [i]shred [/i]of real leadership capability, and is instead, a [i]mediocre sort of puppet-cum-over-the-hill- cheerleader [/i]for corporations and the greedy rich robber-barons who are destroying our nation through their [i]insane neo-con wars for riches [/i]and their [i]insane neo-fascist economic policies turning the USA into a 3rd world-style military junta-cum-slave state[/i] ...
And, [i]now[/i] Bush [i]abuses, exploits and props himself up[/i], using the 9/11 tragedy ... [i]Jeez[/i] ...
Consider "[i][b]Bush and the myth of great leadership[/b][/i]" by [i]Bill Maxwell[/i], St. Petersburg Times, on http://www.sptimes.com/2004/0... :
President Bush's new campaign ads are on the air and generating unintended consequences.
Nov. 2, of course, will tell us if these ads were effective. We do not need to wait until November to know, however, that these ads are some of the most cynical, tasteless, deceptive and exploitative the nation has ever seen.
I have seen the ads, by the way. They make heavy visual use of the charred, smoldering remains of the World Trade Center. One clip even shows firefighters ferrying what appears to be the flag-draped body of a terrorist victim.
Remember now, these ads are the work of the same George W. Bush who, when seeking more money from Congress in 2003 to fight terrorism, said: "I have no ambition whatsoever to use this as a political issue."
The president lied. The World Trade Center tragedy is being used politically. Americans can see for themselves by watching the ads on TV.
Although some families whose loved ones died during the attacks support the ads, many others do not. Andrew Rice of Oklahoma, whose brother died in the south tower, said on national television that he thought the image of "a real dead body" was "irresponsible to use in such a context." One relative's objection is enough cause to pull the ads.
The International Association of Fire Fighters, which supported Sen. John Kerry in the primaries, has asked the Bush campaign to take the commercials off TV.
Obviously, the ads are intended to portray Bush as "a steady leader" during dangerous times. To my mind, the ads perpetuate the myth of Bush's leadership. I say myth because Bush did what any person in the White House would have done: stayed on TV reading speeches (which he did not write) that consoled the nation and promised to bring the terrorists to justice.
And anyone in the White House at this time would have sent the U.S. military into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban. Americans would have demanded as much.
A smart person in the White House would not have raced into Iraq, however. Bush did. And by doing so, he has increased terrorist threats in places where they did not exist with such ferocity. Only Republican ideologues claim that the world, including the United States, is safer now. Given the number of their flights that have been canceled, we would be hard pressed to find many officials of British Airways who believe the world is safer.
Such a state of affairs does not reflect steady leadership. It reflects the poor leadership of a man hell-bent on invading Iraq long before the World Trade Center attacks.
The Bush commercials exploit the suffering of the surviving relatives and friends of the dead, and they abuse the fears of the nation.
In an editorial, even the staid New York Times assails the president for his tastelessness: "When we think of 9/11, we think of loss, and of the heroism of average people who reached out in ways great and small to help their fellow men and women. Any political candidate who attempts to piggyback onto those emotions deserves to be shunned by the electorate."
Bush and his supporters, of course, are defending the ads. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican, got into the act - after the Bush campaign asked for his help - and praised the ads and Bush's leadership.
"Sept. 11 is the defining event of our times," Giuliani said. "This was a shared experience that the American people have all been through together."
Giuliani has the same problem that Bush has: The World Trade Center tragedy created a myth of great leadership around the former mayor. Does anyone remember that Hillary Clinton ran Giuliani out of the New York Senate race? Does anyone remember that before the attacks many New Yorkers viewed Giuliani as an adulterer and a bully?
As with Bush, Giuliani happened to have been in office at the time of the attacks. He, too, delivered speeches that consoled residents. Nothing else about Giuliani changed. Many New Yorkers simply forgave his warts in the aftermath of the terror. Anyone who had been the mayor following the attacks would have done what Giuliani did.
As with Bush, Giuliani's apotheosis is the result of his merely being in office at the time of the tragedy and for performing the duties expected of him.
Campaigns should be run on records. They should not prey on the suffering and fears of those who will vote.
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| Middle-Class Working Americans Are Crushed While Bush Gives Tax Cuts for the Rich!!! ... |
| 03.08.04 (8:33 am) [edit] |
[b]Prominent economists and business leaders ([i]with a shred of integrity[/i]) agree that Bush has irresponsibly, recklessly and immorally pandered to corporations and the richest among us-- [/b]while placing [i]back-breaking debts and record-level-spending-def icits-to-enrich-corporate -top-dogs-and-fat-cats [/i]on the shoulders of the American Middle-Class and Working People of this country ... Refer to [b]Warren Buffett Urges Higher Corporate Taxes[/b] on http://www.commondreams.org/h... .
Unemployment is still a chronic problem for over 9-15 million of our fellow citizens, with Bush destroying over 3 million jobs in order that corporations and his corporate cronies can [i]exploit slave labour overseas[/i], and drive workers in this country into desperate Great Depression circumstances, so that these same corporate traitors can [i]gluttonously profit from slave labour wages here at home, too[/i].
The corrupt Bush regime should be[i] impeached [/i]from office, not only for having waged an illegal and immoral [i]neo-con war in Iraq[/i], based upon myriad [i]lies, deceptions and falsehoods[/i]-- but also for having waged an illegal and immoral [i]neo-fascist war on the economy [/i]here at home, based upon myraid[i] lies, deceptions and falsehoods[/i].
Refer to "[i][b]A Punitive Parallel World[/b][/i]" by LA Time Editors, on http://www.latimes.com/news/o...,1,1097192.story?coll=la-news-commen t-editorials :
President Bush went on the offensive again Wednesday about the need for further tax cuts. "The voters," he announced to campaign donors at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, "will have a very clear choice this year between keeping the tax relief that is moving this country forward, or putting the burden of higher taxes back on the American people."
But what if those very tax reductions make middle-class families owe more by shoving them into the poorly understood but punitive Alternative Minimum Tax system? Families with several children or who have relatively high state and local taxes (as in California) may see their tax relief wiped out because such credits are disallowed under the AMT.
Say a family with six children that makes $90,000 a year takes the standard deduction for 2003 — $9,500 for a married couple — and personal exemptions totaling $24,400 for each person in the family, plus the special $1,000 per child tax credit. It has a tax liability of $1,715. Not so under the AMT. The AMT doesn't include exemptions for children, and the family's tax liability increases by 35%. The child tax credit softens the blow somewhat, but the family still owes $605 more than it would under the regular income tax — and in coming years, families will owe far more because the AMT is on track to increase rapidly unless Congress reforms it.
This is only one of the unintended consequences of a parallel tax system that IRS National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olsen warned Congress about in January, saying it is "a time bomb on a short fuse." Congress approved the tax in 1969 after public outrage arose over 155 millionaires who, because of deductions and shelters, weren't paying any income taxes. But the AMT has morphed into a complicated stealth tax that hits millions of middle-class families every year. Unless Congress reforms the AMT, an estimated 37% of households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 and 73% making $75,000 to $100,000 will be paying it by 2010, adding from hundreds to thousands of dollars to their taxes.
Taxpayers who have any chance of being covered by AMT are supposed to calculate what they owe on the standard 1040 form, then rerun the figures — minus standard deductions and certain exemptions — on the dreaded IRS form 6251.
What's worse is that the truly wealthy have more options and can easily avoid much of the alternative tax. For one thing, the AMT has no curbs on the most basic tax shelters for protecting capital gains.
Bush is proposing a one-year remedy in his 2005 budget by temporarily extending provisions that shield millions in the middle class from the alternative tax. However, he's loath to propose a permanent cure because that would make tax cuts for the wealthy even more unaffordable, swelling the deficit by more hundreds of billions.
Firefighters and nurses shouldn't be paying for tax cuts for the wealthy. The AMT needs radical surgery, not a Band-Aid.
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| Is Dubya In Trouble??? ... |
| 03.07.04 (2:55 pm) [edit] |
[b]Is Dubya [i]in trouble[/i]??? ...[/b] Let's [i]hope so[/i], because that will be a [i]good sign [/i]that the American people are [i]not fooled, bamboozled and hoodwinked [/i]by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] and their neo-con [i]con-artists [/i]and neo-fascist[i] liars, thieves and criminals [/i]who have hijacked our nation ...
[b]The White House is worried about the Plame investigation. But I'll bet this [i]poll[/i] http://www.miami.com/mld/miam... -- or their own internal ones that match it -- is what has their attention.[/b]
According to a [i]Miami Herald [/i]released this morning, John Kerry is beating the president 49% to 43% among registered voters in Florida, with Ralph Nader picking up 3%.
That's [i]bad news [/i]for the White House.
It will be difficult for John Kerry to win this election without winning Florida. But it will be all but impossible for the president to win without winning there.
I think most political professionals would agree that the significant number here isn't Kerry's relatively strong 49%, but Bush's pretty poor reelect number of 43%.
Incumbent presidents, the known quantity in a national election, tend to get what they poll. That's one reason why the 1996 presidential election turned out closer than many expected. Clinton was polling around 49% with Bob Dole trailing far behind him.
But if you hadn't decided to vote for Bill Clinton after watching him for four years on the job, there was probably a reason. And the undecideds broke heavily for Dole, thus making the final margin seem closer than the polls suggested.
Let's of course do the standard disclaimer: these are early numbers which are likely to change. After all, if John Kerry ended up beating President Bush by six points in Florida I suspect that would mean that he'd crushed the president nationwide. I don't expect that to happen. But if the Kerry campaign can make the Bush campaign fight hard for what is at least marginally their home turf, that's a big deal in itself which could have ripple effects in Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania and other states across the country.
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Bush's Economic Indicator: 2 New Jobs!!! ... Jeez ... |
| 03.07.04 (2:55 pm) [edit] |
[b]The rapacious Bushies have driven the economy [i]off-of-the-cliff[/i], with their irresponsible & immoral tax cuts for the rich and their record-level deficit spending[i] run-amok [/i]on behalf of corporations, while jobs [i]are not[/i] being created (... [i]to make-up for Dubya's record-level job losses, the highest since the Great Depression[/i] ...) by the corporate top-dogs & fat-cats who have betrayed our nation, and are [i]living the Belle Epoque [/i]while tens of millions of our fellow citizens are[i] living in dire poverty[/i], [i]without health care[/i], and are [i]unable to find work [/i]...[/b]
Two or three more jobs at a [i]taxpayer-bought-and-pa id-for[/i] campaign stunt??? ...[i] Jeez [/i]...
Consider "[b]Bush's Economic Indicator: [i]2 New Jobs[/i][/b]" by [i]Mike Allen[/i], Washington Post, on http://www.washingtonpost.com... :
[i][b]President Campaigns on Tax Cuts at Stock-Car Chassis Maker [/b][/i]
President Bush rhapsodized Thursday about the possibility that a stock-car firm in this hot, dry community will add two jobs this year, as he refined his campaign message of economic optimism.
Bush, seated on a highchair along with five small-business workers and owners, was speaking at a "conversation on the economy," a talk-show-type event the White House stages regularly in front of television-friendly signs that say, "Strengthening the Economy."
Prompted by the president, chassis-maker Les DenHerder said the tax cuts Bush backed might allow him to hire two or three more people.
"When he says he's going to hire two more, that's really good news," Bush said. "A lot of people are feeling confident and optimistic about our future so they can say, 'I'm going to hire two more.' They can sit here and tell the president in front of all the cameras, 'I'm going to hire two more people.' That's confidence!"
Bush's future may depend on it at least as much as DenHerder's does. Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), who cemented the Democratic nomination this week, wants to make Bush's economic leadership a central issue in the campaign and has promised to restore 3 million jobs in the first 500 days of his administration.
Bush's focus on two jobs suggests how critical the issue is to his reelection. At the end of January, the economy had lost a net 2.2 million jobs over the course of Bush's term. Bakersfield is in Kern County, where the unemployment rate in January was 13.6 percent.
Television market by television market and state by state, the president is trying to make the case that his tax cuts were good for the economy even though they have failed to produce the jobs he forecast. Employment figures remain disappointing, and Democrats are accusing him of having the worst record on jobs since President Herbert Hoover.
On Friday, the Labor Department will report employment growth for February, and Wall Street traders are awaiting the figure as a key indicator about the economy. The consensus forecast is that about 125,000 jobs were added, but the monthly number has defied market expectations before. And the University of Michigan reported last week that consumer confidence fell sharply in February.
Reframing the jobs issue in the face of mixed indicators is one of the most daunting challenges for Bush's campaign. That is how the president of the United States came to be chatting animatedly and at length about two or three jobs, paying around $19 an hour, that may be added by DenHerder's Victory Circle Inc., which makes fiberglass stock cars.
Bush has held 11 "conversation" events this year, the past six on the economy. DenHerder, 47, said he plans to spend $50,000 on a welding machine and pipe-bending equipment, and expects to save about $7,000 because of the new tax laws.
"That's how the economy works," Bush said. "He makes a decision. It affects a lot of people, the decision you make. So when you hear 'tax relief,' I hope people connect tax relief with decision-making -- and decision-making to jobs. That's what we're talking about. That's why the tax relief was important for job creation."
After the 42-minute economic event, Bush headed north to Silicon Valley to collect $700,000 at a $2,000-a-plate fundraiser for his campaign. He has raised $12.5 million in California, which in 2000 was the second-largest contributor to his treasury, after his home state of Texas.
Bush lost California by 11 percentage points. GOP officials contend that the overwhelming election of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) in October gives them more hope this time, although Bush aides concede it is a long shot. "By electing Governor Schwarzenegger, the voters of California have shown that no party can take California for granted," Bush said in Santa Clara. "The vice president and I are going to be spending some quality time here this coming year."
Repeating comments he made in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, Bush attacked Kerry by name, asserting that he would raise taxes and would produce "an America that is uncertain in the face of danger," and saying the senator "has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue."
After two days in the state, Bush flew to his ranch in Crawford, Tex., where immigration will be part of the agenda for talks with his weekend visitor, Mexican President Vicente Fox.
As a concession to Fox, the administration is considering backing off plans to require Mexicans to be fingerprinted and photographed even if they have "laser visas" that allow them to remain only three days and require them to stay close to the border.
The [i]Associated Press [/i]first reported the plan. A decision has not been made, said an administration official who refused to be named. But Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson told reporters after appearing before a congressional panel, "I think that is what probably will be necessary."
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| It's War - The Top 1% vs The Rest Of Us ... |
| 03.07.04 (9:12 am) [edit] |
[b]WE ARE FACING perhaps the most important [i]turning point [/i]in our nation's history in the upcoming presidential election this November ...[/b]
The corrupt Bush regime is [i]impoverishing[/i] our nation and placing us in [i]dire peril[/i]:-- they have [i]unconscionably & immorally damaged our credibility [/i]in the world community and they have[i] recklessly & wantonly increased [/i]the staggering[i] 3rd-world-style [/i][i]Gap[/i] Between the Hyper-Rich-[i]Haves[/i] and the Impoverished-Slave-Workin g-Class-[i]Have-Nots [/i]unseen in over 75 years ...
[b]It is time for a [i]regime change [/i]here at home ...[/b]
Consider "[b]It's War - The Top 1% [i]vs[/i] The Rest Of Us[/b]" on http://www.theleftcoaster.com... :
One of the defining characteristics of the Bush (mis)Administration to those who choose to see is that they are absolutely relentless in their continuing grab for absolute power. Their scorched-earth policies are designed to weaken the resolve of those who would otherwise oppose them by generating fear that more will be lost.
In [i]The American Civil War and the Wars of the Industrial Revolution[/i], author Brian Holden Reid states in his afterward:
... [i]victory went to the side with the largest population, the most durable financial system and the greatest industrial capacity[/i].
If one were to take the Bush war chest, backed by millions in private soft money as the durable financial system, and the American media as the great industrial capacity, then the remaining goal is to capture the larger number of voters to create the large population. Thanks to television, too many people have lost their critical thinking abilities and blindly support the Republican Party, allowing the right wing to escape righteous retribution for their numerous evil deeds.
The Democrats are at a serious disadvantage in that they have less capital to work with and less access to the media. In fact, as is shown here http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... , and the attempts by liberal groups to place ads during the Super Bowl being rebuffed by the CBS network, the right wing holds a[i] de facto [/i]monopoly on the media http://www.pittsburghlive.com... .
The ruthlessness of the right in consolidating their political gains is reminiscent of the advice given to Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke during the Siege of Paris by American General Philip Sheridan, a man long remembered in the Shenandoah Valley for his own particular brand of total war:
...[i] leave them with nothing but their eyes to weep with ... reduction to poverty brings prayers for peace more surely and more quickly than does the destruction of human life [/i]...
Such is the motivation of the GOP in their approach toward gaining absolute power. They take away every option they can that their opponents might otherwise use, knowing that they already control enough of the masses to block an easy counter attack over fairness. In fact, once fairness was viewed by broadcasters by 1987 as an unfair and unnecessary expense, the government stopped enforcing the provisions of the Fairness Doctrine. ([i]For a good brief of the situation, see this brief doctoral dissertation abstract[/i]: http://www.acs.appstate.edu/~spicelnd/fairdoc.htm )
Luckily, there are signs that the impenetrable wall of the right wing fortress, a [i]Festung Amerika [/i]if you will, is starting to crack. John Edwards' [i]Two Americas [/i]meme seems to be resonating with the public, and John Kerry seems to have roused from his somnulence (hopefully not to slip back into it) and is on the attack. Support on his left flank is being provided by Ted Kennedy, a roaring cannon too long silent, and on his right flank there is room for many to support him - Byrd, Edwards, Graham, etc. Numerous Republican voters are willing to go against their party and will support Anybody But Bush Again.
But the one thing that has to be kept in mind is that this is total political war. As already amply demonstrated, no holds will be barred by the right, so none should be barred by the left. This is gutter political warfare of the worst kind, a remorseless war, with no quarter asked or given. Any weapon that can be brought to bear will be.
The Democrats have to be willing and able to fight such a war, for if they do not, we might find ourselves plunged into a second American Civil War, one of a [i]partizan [/i]guerilla nature, the people against their government. Should such a new civil war occur, it is a safe bet to suggest that the American Experiment will have ended, and the forces of darkness will have won. We won't have a Bilbo Baggins around to destroy the source of that power and rescue us - such things only happen in adventure fantasies. This is reality.
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| Crossing the Threshold ... |
| 03.07.04 (9:11 am) [edit] |
[b]The neo-con, neo-fascist Bush regime is undermining our rights under the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights ... [/b]The vile traitors in the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]are betraying our nation by [i]systematically[/i] tearing away at the fabric of our system of laws, and their tyrannical and treasonous hijacking of our Republic must be stopped!!!
Refer to "[i][b]Crossing the threshold[/b][/i]" by [i]Harvey A. Silverglate and Carl Takei[/i], on http://www.bostonphoenix.com/... :
[i][b]While we’re all fretting over the Patriot Act, John Ashcroft’s Justice Department is after much bigger game[/b][/i]
ONE DAY IN 1985, Dr. Wolfgang Vogel, the famed East German "spy trader," sat down to breakfast at Boston’s historic Parker House with an American lawyer he had retained to defend an East German physicist accused of spying. As they discussed the case, the lawyer noticed two men at a nearby table wearing trench coats despite the indoor warmth. He whispered to Vogel that he suspected they were FBI agents. "What makes you think they are FBI?" asked Vogel. "Their trench coats," the lawyer replied. Vogel smiled wryly: "They could just as easily be KGB. They all get their trench coats from the same manufacturer, you know."
Vogel knew this much about intelligence and law-enforcement officials on both sides of the Iron Curtain: they all shared the same "trench coat" motivations and instincts, regardless of ideology. There was just one difference, but it was all-important to the outcome of their work: those in the West, and particularly in the United States, were constrained by legal institutions that temper individual excesses and abuses of state power. In the Anglo-American West, the culture itself had been shaped by the rule of law.
But as everyone knows, "everything changed" on September 11, 2001, perhaps most worrisomely the rule of law. Indeed, among all the national-security measures taken since that fateful day — including two major foreign wars and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security — none has been more controversial than the USA Patriot Act. Personally shepherded through Congress by Attorney General John Ashcroft, it authorizes the kinds of things that send shivers down civil libertarians’ spines: invasions of personal privacy, restrictions on financial transactions, racial and ethnic profiling, blurring the line between foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement, and punitive registration requirements for immigrants and visitors. And that’s just a partial list.
Yet the hue and cry raised over the Patriot Act has distracted most of us from the Bush administration’s far more dangerous assault on another class of liberties, which might be called "threshold rights." After all, the Patriot Act can be rolled back if the people decide that the government has overreached or the emergency has receded, and some provisions of the act have automatic expiration dates. But threshold rights — fair elections, open and publicly accountable government, judicial review of executive action, the right of the accused to a public jury trial, separation of powers among the three branches of government, and the rights to free expression and free association — are [i]structural[/i], and therefore changes to them are more enduring.
Threshold rights enable civil society to know what government is doing and to rein in abuses. Think of it this way: temporary restrictions on some forms of privacy enable the government to know what [i]you[/i] are doing, which is troubling enough. Threshold rights enable you to know what the [i]government[/i] is doing, and that’s why they form the core of democratic society. The degree to which a society protects threshold rights speaks to whether it is free and open, and whether self-correction can occur without violence. If the press is free, the electorate has open elections, and the courts are performing their sworn duty, even a president who tries to assume the powers of an emperor can be dealt with.
Attacks on threshold rights supposedly justified by the "war on terrorism" are particularly menacing because this war has no foreseeable end, and the dangers are indisputably real. Nor will the war be contained geographically; as Ashcroft warned the House Judiciary Committee in June 2003, he now considers the streets of the nation to be "a war zone." On Ashcroft’s domestic battlefield, threshold liberties are indeed under grave attack, and none with more alarming success, at least thus far, than the right to judicial oversight of the executive branch, specifically the writ of habeas corpus — the oldest and most fundamental right of free citizens in the Anglo-American legal tradition.
[b]THE WRIT OF [i]habeas corpus [/i](Latin for "you have the body") [/b]compels the executive branch to produce a prisoner and disclose the legal basis for his or her detention, so the court may decide whether that detention is constitutional. This procedure, which stems from the English Magna Carta of 1215, lies at the very heart of constitutional government, consisting of separated powers guided by the rule of law. Without habeas corpus, there is nothing to prevent the executive from locking a person up without charge or lawful justification, never to be heard from again. Known appropriately in English history as the "Great Writ," [i]habeas corpus [/i]is the brilliant light that protects Americans from the gulag. In a world where many governments have the power "to lock them up and throw away the key,"[i] habeas requires [/i]the judiciary to keep a spare key. In fact, the check habeas provides on executive detention powers doesn’t stop with the courts: the US Constitution grants power to suspend the writ only to[i] Congress[/i], and even then only in the event of "rebellion or invasion."
The government’s assault on habeas corpus began six days after September 11, when Attorney General Ashcroft circulated draft legislation — what would soon become the Patriot Act — that included provisions for suspending the writ. As reported in Steven Brill’s book [i]After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era[/i], Republican Wisconsin representative James Sensenbrenner, chair of the House Judiciary +, made it clear to the attorney general that habeas suspension was a "nonstarter" and that he wanted it out of the bill. The provision quietly evaporated from subsequent drafts, but Ashcroft has since pursued alternate means of circumventing habeas protections.
Some of the most fundamental changes are gaining ground through a strategy best described this way: start with the right test cases, keep the judiciary from interceding, and keep the press from learning too much by, for example, refusing to release the names of foreign prisoners and keeping case dockets under seal. If these changes remain below the radar of Congress and the people, and if they are left unchecked by our courts, it will be exceedingly difficult for fundamental liberty to recover even when the current crisis has passed.
Once threshold rights are stripped away, the only thing that stands between any of us and arbitrary imprisonment is the good will of the president, the attorney general, and the secretary of defense. Even if one trusts the judgment of the current occupants of these offices, to leave such power in their hands (and those of their successors) would violate the clear intent of the drafters of the Constitution. As Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote: "[i][b]The historic phrase ‘a government of laws and not of men’ epitomized the distinguishing character of our political society.... [F]rom their own experience and their deep reading in history, the Founders knew that Law alone saves a society from being rent by internecine strife or ruled by mere brute power, however disguised[/b][/i]."
Fortunately, there is good reason to believe that the Supreme Court sees the need to balance liberty against security in Frankfurter’s terms. Such optimism might come as a surprise to many, since the court has turned down opportunities to consider a variety of questionable governmental practices that have burst onto the scene since 9/11. But over the past three months, the court has agreed to review three cases that, taken together, go to the heart of[i] habeas corpus[/i]. All concern the question of whether the president has unchecked authority to seize and hold a variety of prisoners as "enemy combatants," and to what extent the other branches of government — particularly the courts — should play a role in constraining such power.
The first case involves the consolidation of[i] Rasul v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States[/i], appeals by several prisoners being held at a remote US military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The question here is, can the federal courts review the legality of their detention and the government’s plans for them? Because these prisoners are foreign nationals captured outside the territorial limits of the United States, the Departments of Justice and Defense claim that the courts have no business even asking why they are detained. In effect, the government’s argument is that Guantánamo should amount to an American-controlled gulag — a no-man’s land where unrestrained presidential power prevails.
After agreeing to review the Guantánamo case in November, the court surprised the DOJ and ordered a second case placed on its docket: the habeas corpus petition of Yaser Hamdi, an American citizen captured abroad and now being held in a US Naval brig off the coast of Virginia. During the 2001 war in Afghanistan, Northern Alliance forces had captured Hamdi, whom they described as armed and loyal to the Taliban, and handed him over to the US military. Hamdi’s father filed a[i] habeas corpus [/i]petition in June of 2002, seeking judicial review of his son’s detention since the son, held incommunicado, could not file himself.
Hamdi, who lost his case in the lower courts and sought Supreme Court review, offers a variation on the question raised by the Guantánamo petition: whether an American citizen captured on foreign soil may be held in this country, designated an enemy combatant, and held in essentially the same status as the Guantánamo prisoners. In[i] Hamdi v. Rumsfeld[/i], the government’s claims are not quite as bold as in the Guantánamo case; it does not claim that the courts have no authority at all, but rather that the courts’ power extends merely to hearing why the government chose to treat a citizen in this fashion — not to question its decisions.
Once the Supreme Court agreed to hear[i] Hamdi[/i], the DOJ sought the court’s review in a third case, that of another American citizen, Jose Padilla. Unlike Hamdi, Padilla was arrested in the US, but he too was designated an enemy combatant and held incommunicado in a military brig with neither charges lodged against him nor rights granted to him. When a lower court sided with Hamdi’s claim that he was entitled to meaningful habeas corpus review, the DOJ had little choice but to seek the court’s review of [i]Padilla v. Rumsfeld[/i].
The cases of the Guantánamo prisoners, Yaser Hamdi, and Jose Padilla, will be decided by the time the court takes its summer recess. What’s at stake in all three is essentially whether we are governed by a president or a king. All other post-9/11 legal issues pale in comparison.
Some people believe themselves insulated from all this because Ashcroft’s extreme measures have been targeted more heavily at foreigners and citizens of recent foreign origin — people with names like Yaser, Iyman, and Ali, whom native-born citizens with native-born parents could easily dismiss as being "them" rather than "us." Indeed, in an August 19, 2003, speech, Ashcroft defended the Patriot Act in part by asserting that most Americans feel safe from its reach. Under our system of laws, however, such confidence is misplaced. The Bill of Rights insists that all persons be treated not only fairly, but equally. This constitutional mandate is bolstered by the common-law notion that previous court decisions serve as precedents that determine t | |
