liberal elite

I'm Moving

2006-09-17T13:39:00.000-04:00

I'm moving to a new blog, "Morningsideways View," for a change.

Dems lose bid for control of Congress

2006-09-16T23:39:00.000-04:00

The information on the upcoming elections is looking worse and worse for the minority party.

In a press release on Thursday, BushCo, among other frightening threats, announced its intention to nominate Caroline C. Hunter to be Commissioner of the Elections Assistance Committee. It's bad enough that she's a BushCo nominee, and has been serving in the White House until now as BushCo's Deputy Director for the Office of Public Liaison. In other words she's a PR person. Worse, among her other impressive former titles, including Deputy Counsel for the Republican National Committee, she holds no credentials or experiences qualifying her for her new appointment.

Warren Stewart at VoteTrust USA points out that

Title 2, Section 203 of HAVA clearly requires that “Each member of the Commission shall have experience with or expertise in election administration or the study of elections.”

The Senate asked to rubber stamp another BushCo illegality in violation of the Commission members' HAVA requirements? I wonder whether anybody at the nomination hearing will notice.

Some people outside of the Senate have noticed, though. This chilling letter was unearthed by Dan Tokaji. It reveals that Hunter did the dirty work for BushCo in 2003 by threatening tv stations with FCC trouble if they ran the DNC advertisement showing il Duce lying in the State of the Union Address--something about Saddam seeking uranium from Africa. Tokaji makes some other interesting observations about Hunter and her predecessor, Paul deGregorio, too.

[T]there's reason to be concerned that this is someone who's being appointed not for her qualifications, but rather to look out for the political interests of the party to which she belongs.

Contrast Hunter with the outgoing Chairman in terms of experience, qualifications and reputation. As Tokaji shows,

What's troubling about this announcement, at first blush, is that it's not clear that Ms. Hunter possesses the qualifications for the job. All of the prior EAC commissioners, Democrats and Republicans alike, have been people with substantial relevant experience.

Stewart echoes Takaji's reservations.

Given the current crisis in the administration of our nation’s elections and the complex and critical issues that the EAC will face in the coming years, it is deeply troubling that the White house has chosen a nominee with no experience with election administration or the study of elecions.

As Dan Balz and Zachary Goldfarb pointedly open in their article in today's Washington Post,

An overhaul in how states and localities record votes and administer elections since the Florida recount battle six years ago has created conditions that could trigger a repeat -- this time on a national scale -- of last week's Election Day debacle in the Maryland suburbs, election experts said.

Unfortunately, the WaPo piece doesn't zero in on magnitude or the partisan nature of the disenfranchisement problem, except in a couple of tiny paragraphs buried near the end (paragraphs 28 & 29)

Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over voter registration rolls. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal advocacy group, recently showed that properly registered voters in Florida, New Jersey and Kentucky were being removed from voter databases through electronic purges.

"Voter suppression doesn't happen with intimidation on Election Day, but rather through silent and sometimes secret government actions in the weeks leading up to an election," said Michael Waldman, the center's executive director.

We've got a problem. Above all the spin and mud-slinging of a hard fought, albeit corporate-funded election, the system has to provide for nonpartisan oversight that safeguards the whole process from contamination by the partisanship and corruption so rampant throughout corporate America, our military and Congress. The Hunter appointment, above all else, fails in this most important regard, too, a fatal flaw in a time when the fairness--or even the occurrence--of elections is so questionable. Democracy isn't safeguarded by having elections. Even Stalin and Castro had elections.

Democracy means having fair, accurate and transparent elections. Are our chances of that going up with the Hunter appointment? Her appointment, rather, is intended to counter the fulfillment of those requirements.

As Takaji says, The worry is that the EAC will become an agency in which the commissioners view their roles as protecting the interests of their parties, rather than promoting a better functioning election system as HAVA originally promised. That would likely lead to stalemates along party lines, which would effectively paralyze the EAC and destroy its ability to serve as an effective instrument for election reform.

Killed

2006-09-11T17:34:00.000-04:00

62,006: the number of people killed in the "War of Terror"

Well, it may not be global, but it is widespread, and spreading.

Vote Democratic

2006-09-11T16:18:00.000-04:00

From the Stakeholder, 9/11/06:

Bush: Privatization is on the March
Bush Pledges to Bring Back Social Security Privatization in 2007, but the Fight to Protect Social Security is Already Raging in Many Districts Across the Country

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Wall Street Journal has reported on an interview with the president in which he revealed his hopes to take up Social Security privatization immediately in the next Congress.

"The president has again made clear that his top domestic priority is to privatize Social Security. His privatization plan, which would threaten the existence of Social Security and add two trillion dollars to our nation’s debt is the wrong direction for Social Security and for America," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Instead of a Republican Congress that will rubber stamp President Bush's proposal to devastate Social Security, we need a Congress that will strengthen it. This election is very much a referendum on whether we will guarantee and strengthen Social Security or privatize it, driving our nation further into debt."

Give ABC Credit

2006-09-11T11:54:00.000-04:00

Robert A. Iger
President and CEO, The Walt Disney Company

Dear Mr. Iger:

It has come to my attention that ABC plans to air a two-part mini-series called "The Path to 9/11" on September 10 and September 11. Accounts of advance screenings indicate that this program places primary responsibility for the attacks of 9/11 on the Clinton administration while whitewashing the failures of the Bush administration. This assertion is not supported by the 9/11 Commission Report upon which the program is purportedly based. This partisan misrepresentation of history is not surprising given that the movie was written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, an avowed conservative.

It is wrong for ABC to play politics with the facts of 9/11 by providing a national platform to present his distorted view of history. I am willing to whitewash the truth. The events that led to 9/11 are important topics for discussion and debate. But it's a debate that must NOT be conducted honestly.

I am asking ABC to neither fix the many inaccuracies contained in the program - nor to not air it.

I appreciate your willingness to put your own reputation at stake in order to obfuscate the reality about the unmitigated cowardice of the Bush administration.

If the American people found out the truth, they would have to impeach Bush, Cheney, their cabinet and top administrators, and revoke your license for covering up their incompetence and malevolence.

Keep up the good work. Remember: fear and smear.

I would appreciate a prompt reply to my e-mail.

Living in a Propaganda State

2006-09-10T16:19:00.000-04:00

The Senate Intelligence Committee has released another report, according to the New York Times. Mark Mazzetti says,

The reports did not address the politically divisive question of whether the Bush administration had exaggerated or misused intelligence as part of its effort to win support for the war. But one report did contradict the administration’s assertions, made before the war and since, that ties between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Hussein’s government provided evidence of a close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

As recently as Aug. 21, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.’’ But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Mr. Hussein’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” according to the new Senate findings.

Mazzetti politely goes on to highlight:

The two reports released Friday were expected to be the least controversial aspects of what remains of the Senate committee’s investigation, which will eventually address whether the Bush administration’s assertions about Iraq accurately reflected the available intelligence.

The news media blitz is already underway, but the backwash of negative opinion is theatening to blunt the GOP's disinformation spearhead.

If anything else untoward happens before the election, it seems unlikely GOP media damage control will be able to smother the brushfires. Iraq, Afghanistan and people's frustration with phony intelligence and unconstitutional civil liberties violations are fanning the flames of discontent across party lines.

Just as the anniversary of Katrina underscored BushCo's failures, so will the 9/11 anniversary, in spite of the ABC "crockumentary."

With the defection of Republican Senators and Congressman from the party gameplan, the anticipated further reports to be released will only snowball the GOP decline into an avalanche before November.

Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo

2006-09-01T14:44:00.000-04:00

That Dick Cheney

2006-08-30T16:36:00.000-04:00

Dear Vice President Cheney:

Please speak more truthfully. As you know, there is no candidate in American politics who seeks to "give up the fight against the terrorists."

Aren't you ashamed of yourself for lying to the American people in an effort to scare them like that for partisan gain?

If you were a credible authority on fighting terrorism, you would have convened your White House antiterrorism committee long before September 11, 2001 caught you in a goof-up that even you couldn't lie and threaten your way out of.

If your leadership were safeguarding our preeminence as peaceful, even-handed, justice serving people, we would not be threatened by militant reactionaries who see us as threats to their homeland security, rights, and natural resources.

Your willingness to politicize the terrorist threat, instead of blunting it, has jeopardized the effectiveness of our covert anti-terror operations by inciting everybody with a gripe into becoming our attacker. This is because you fail to impress anyone as a leader they can trust or as a man of integrity.

Instead, you imply by attacking Howard Dean, Ned Lamont and the people of the United States who oppose widening the armed conflict, that you represent corporate and military interests only, and that you would rather spread conflict than the rule of law under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Do you really believe that terror and money are more potent than God? I suggest you recant and step down before you are impeached, because you are imperiling the rule of law with your delusional belligerence.

Everybody who sends weapons around the world to blow up cities, towns, infrastructure and civilians is a terrorist. The reason you are so unfit for fighting terrorism is summed up by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark 3:23,

"How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is finished! But no one can enter the strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house."

We seem vulnerable because instead of leading us in the fight against evil, you have secretly delivered us over to be bound by the unrighteous chords of corruption, cruelty and faithlessness.

Waste and devastation are the signifiers of your character. Your profit's qualities are poverty and misery for the world's people, and for the future.

Get out.

Sincerely, Florindo Troncelliti

Here now

2006-08-29T14:55:00.000-04:00

If I were in heaven, would I know it? How? Are we abiding in the realm our senses reveal to us?

What we perceive is only a reflection of what we behold within ourselves: our hearts, our consciences, our beliefs.

If the God of Moses has made us holy and Jesus Christ has sanctified us by his blood, what more is to be done?

My 9th grade math teacher had a sign on the wall of his room:

"Wise men still seek him."

As Whitman says, "There has never been any more life than there is now." And there is all truth now and all love and hope.

All is now.

Muffler

2006-08-18T12:22:00.000-04:00

When the announcement of Judge Taylor's ruling on the unconstitutionality of the NSA wiretapping program was issued yesterday, it had to wait behind the week's big story, Jon Benet Ramsay's "killer's" arrest.

Nevermind that

Mr Karr's ex-wife has since insisted he was with her during the period that the murder happened.

Of course, the judge's ruling, unlike the story involving Mr. Karr, is now out of the headlines.

The judge on Thursday ordered an immediate halt to the program, but the government said it would request a stay during the appeals process, arguing that the secret surveillance program is crucial to stopping terrorists.

"We have confidence in the lawfulness of this program," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in Washington. "We're going to do everything we can do in the courts to allow this program to continue."

So shut up about it. We have an election in November.

Bombing For Peace

2006-08-10T17:13:00.000-04:00

As the saying goes, We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

“It’s an adrenaline rush,” said Oropeza. “You get excited when a jet you loaded comes back empty.” -- Senior Airman Jose Oropeza, 40th EMXS weapons loader

You know, as long as we keep bombing, it's going to be hard for people who hate us to muster a big effective counterattack. Of course, the $64,000 question is, Why do they hate us?

Fortunately, most members of the rank and file in the US military don't have to ask--or answer--such open-ended questions.

They're too busy doing their job.

“We build them (the bombs) on a munitions assembly conveyor,” said Yale. “With a good crew, we can build one bomb in about six to eight minutes.” ...

Yale said when building the bombs, he works with parts like fins, fuzzies, strakes, lanyards and fuses.

“It feels pretty good,” said Yale about putting together weapons that are used in real combat situations. “There’s some extra pride involved. We put the ‘power’ in air power.”

This air warfare has really been used intensively since WWII, when we moved from a policy of bombing only military targets to targeting civilian population centers in order to "demoralize" the enemy out of their will to carry on the war.

We had to stymie the Japanese government's attempts to negotiate a surrender after the firebombing of Tokyo and Osaka incinerated hundreds of thousands of old men, women and children.

They couldn't accept "unconditional surrender" because they couldn't risk anything happening to the Emperor.

The Emperor himself and some high ranking officers were trying to extend the olive branch through the Soviet Union, but Truman cut off their overtures.

The Congress had spent over $2 billion on research and development of the A-bomb. If we didn't use it with demonstrable success, and deter the Soviet Union from military conquest, Congress would be unlikely to approve large defense appropriations in the future.

Well, we didn't deter the Soviet Union, but we did incinerate more Japanese cities, force their surrender (even though they were already willing to surrender), and ensure approval of giant defense budgets for the indefinite future.

In fact, our military now has so much money that we not only have expert bomb-makers like Mr. Yale, above, waging our war, but we have glitzy websites to glorify it.

Help!

2006-08-08T14:22:00.000-04:00

Damnit Janet has a good post on the commemoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The hollow transparency of the rhetoric gets worse and worse as the years go by.

Talk about "unsustainable" lifestyles!

The post also has some good info about going after Bechtel. It's time for all of these weapons makers/bomb makers and war profiteers to start to worry about the children of their workers and how they can convert to some useful product to make a living.

It's time for us to fund social programs and retirement with DoD budget. That's REALLY national security.

It's time we all stop what we're doing and straighten things out once and for all--beginning with our government, our media, and our Pentagon.

Let's have a government of, for, and by the people.
Let's have media that serve the public interest.
Let's have a national defense that doesn't CREATE threats to progress and peace.

At the NY War Resisters vigil last Saturday, some actors performed a skit about a dream they all shared, a dream that the plants, and all the life on earth, was urging them to ban nuclear weapons.

At first everyone was excited they all had the same dream. They were inspired. But gradually, one by one, they lost the focus, lost the faith in their peace mission, their mutual "dream."

Finally the last person gives up fighting for the dream of nuclear disarmament and just decides to settle back in and get comfortable in the old lifestyle again, like everybody else.

It was a very disturbing piece.

I fear that if I'm not actively protesting and fighting for peace, then I'm slipping back into the comfortable lifestyle of the blind and brainwashed, comfortable conformist war enabler.

Help.

The Constitution In Crisis (Part II)

2006-08-07T11:22:00.000-04:00

The Conyers Report: Read it online!

Tasini, Clinton and Time Warner cable

2006-08-03T12:39:00.000-04:00

Call or e-mail: Robert Hardt – Director of Politics, NY1, 212-379-3330 or Robert.Hardt@ny1news.com. Tell them everyone on the ballot is entitled to participate in the debate.

We busted our behinds in heat, rain, and gloom of night to get 40,000 signatures and put Jonathan Tasini on the ballot.

Now NY1 is telling him that he's not eligible to participate in their televised debate.

When did NY1 become the arbiter of whether or not voters can be informed about candidates?

Is this a move on the part of Clinton's media team to keep Tasini out of the public eye?

"What is Clinton so afraid of?" That's the question I would routinely ask her supporters who politely refused to sign the petition to get Jonathan Tasini's name on the ballot for the NY Democratic party's US Senate election this fall. Isn't debate good for democracy? Shouldn't the people have more choice? If you're sure Clinton is the best candidate, why not let her demonstrate it in an informative debate?

But with the desperate Joe Lieberman next door, Clinton apparently isn't taking any chances.

NY1 has insisted that candidates can't be in their debate unless they have spent $500,000 dollars and polled at least 5% of the electorate. Of course, NY 1 is property of Time Warner Cable. Guess who they donated $5000 to last year? You got it: Tasini's opponent.

It's great to have friends in the media business, BIG friends. Then if you run for office they can guarantee that your opponent -- even if his positions are popular and reasonable -- can get shut out of the pre primary coverage and debates.

I wonder how much Hillary Clinton is going to owe Time Warner for this favor if she gets to the Senate? Unfortunately, when I called her Washington offices today, none of her aids were able to tell me her position on the recent FCC opening for public comment of the rules of media ownership.

Maybe Senator Clinton herself would be able to help Jonathan Tasini get into the debates. She's a firm believer in fair elections.

Last spring, India had an election and 550 million or so people voted from the dot-com billionaire to the poor, illiterate peasant. They all voted. Mr. President, they voted on electronic voting machines. They voted in a way that guaranteed the safety and security and accuracy of their vote. They had uniform standards. They had a nonpartisan board that oversaw that election. The result was shocking-they threw out the existing government. Nobody predicted that. Yet they did it with integrity. Surely, we should be setting the standards. I would hope that this body, and thanks to the objection of my friend from California, this debate which has started today will continue.

In any case, maybe she could use her clout with Time Warner on our behalf--the little people--so that we could at least hear what one of the candidates we put on the ballot for the United States Senate election has to say.

On the other hand, maybe we should just cancel the election and ask Time Warner to just go ahead and appoint our Senators for us.

How to Create Lasting Peace

2006-08-01T15:10:00.000-04:00

Our Commander in Chief has clarified the situation for us now, so we don't have to weary ourselves with any strenuous cogitating.

The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East,” Mr. Bush said in a speech at the Coast Guard command center in Miami.

“For decades [sic?], the status quo in the Middle East permitted tyranny and terror to thrive,” the president said. “And as we saw on Sept. 11, the status quo in the Middle East led to death and destruction in the United States, and it had to change.”

The way he puts it for us sounds so simple. So now, we've changed the status quo, and "freedom" will solve all the problems in the Middle East (in spite of the wreckage of Lebanon's infrastructure). And, as "freedom" solves those problems, it's going to take care of us, too, just like it always has.

“When democracy spreads in the Middle East, the people of that troubled region will have a better future, the terrorists will lose their safe havens and their recruits, and the United States of America will be more secure,” Mr. Bush said. “The hard work of helping people realize the benefits of liberty is laying the foundation of peace for generations to come.”

Mr. Bush was in Florida for a political fund-raising event. He delivered his speech as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was flying home from the Middle East after declaring that there was an “emerging consensus” for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah that could be reached this week.

Our nation – this generation – will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.”

hey, we got proof!

Since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, the United States has waged two of the swiftest and most humane wars in history (in Afghanistan and Iraq). Fifty million people have been liberated from two of the world’s most brutal and aggressive regimes

First,

In Operation Enduring Freedom, the United States built a worldwide coalition of 70 countries that destroyed terrorist training camps, dismantled the brutal Taliban regime, denied al Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan, and saved a people from starvation.
Today, Afghanistan has a new president, Hamid Karzai, and a new constitution that gives unprecedented rights and freedoms to all Afghans.

More good news:

The international community has pledged at least $32 billion to rebuild and improve schools, health care, roads, water, agriculture, electricity, and other elements of Iraq’s infrastructure.
Schools and clinics have been renovated and reopened, and power plants, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, and bridges and roads are being rehabilitated. Since the liberation of Iraq, food and electricity are now distributed more equally across the country.
Iraq’s oil infrastructure is being rebuilt, with production capacity reaching between 2.3 and 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.

Last, but not least,

Iraqis now have an ever-growing free press, including newspapers, internet, radio stations, and satellite television networks.
Small businesses are opening in Iraq, creating new jobs for Iraqis.
A year and a half ago, Iraq was an enemy of America and the civilized world; today it is an ally of both.

Mr. Bush said that for any peace to be lasting, the Lebanese government must have sole control over its own territory, and that a multinational force must be sent to Lebanon at once to help deliver humanitarian aid. Hezbollah now has both a political presence in the Lebanese government and a military presence in southern Lebanon, which it uses as a base to stage raids on neighboring Israel and rain rockets on its villages.

The president said that a lasting peace also depended on Iran’s ending its financial and military support for terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, and that Syria must end its support for terrorism and “respect the sovereignty of Lebanon.” Syria has long exercised influence in Lebanese affairs and had troops in Lebanon for many years.

An honest politician?

2006-07-27T08:29:00.000-04:00

Oxymoron: A combination of contradictory or incongruous words. (Webster)

I do not believe Israel is a terrorist state. I do believe that Israel has committed acts that violate international standards and the Geneva conventions. --Jonathan Tasini

Tasini is a long overlooked, hardworking and truly progressive candidate who's been willing to duke it out in the trenches because of his principles, even in a forlorn hope like the challenge to Senate incumbent Hillary Clinton.

On Tuesday, Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, sharply criticized Jonathan Tasini's comments about Israel.

"It's outrageous, offensive and beyond the pale," Wolfson said.

That sound bite may satisfy a lot of American supporters of Israel, but as Tasini points out, progressive and anti-war groups in Israel--such as B'Tselem--are critical of any party in a conflict that violates International Humanitarian Law, even Israel:

Over the past week, Israel has killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians in its attacks against targets in Lebanon . There is a concern that at least some of them were disproportionate attacks, which constitute war crimes. In addition, Israel has launched deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructure throughout Lebanon , such as bridges, the Beirut international airport , the electricity supply and fuel reservoirs. There is a concern that such attacks are intended to put pressure on the Lebanese Government and not to obtain a specific military advantage. If this is the case, these attacks constitute collective punishment and a grave violation of IHL. Moreover, even if these targets constitute legitimate military objects, or civilian objectives that may be used for military purposes, Israel must respect the principle of proportionality and refrain from attacks that would cause excessive harm to civilians.

It's time that our so-called Democratic leadership return to reason and equanimity in exercising judgment--particularly in matters of international diplomacy.

With Hillary Clinton, we're getting more of the same blanket condemnation of non-Israelis and unconditional support for Israel that we've gotten from our own neocons whenever we try to talk about Iraq. We're seeing the same fear and smear tactic used to stifle meaningful debate in 2004 when John Kerry tried to criticize President Bush's so-called, "War On Terror". "Support the Troops" is not a foreign policy.

Similarly, Malcolm Hoenlein of the conference of presidents of Major american Jewish Organizations called Mr. Tasini's comments "stunning" and said, "His ignorance is appalling."

That sounds like the tactic of changing the subject to attacking the messenger. The point Tasini makes is that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) applies equally to all parties, and it hurts Israel's stature in the international community when supporters lack the courage to equally uphold the same standards to all parties.

Tasini went on to say,

I, too, have stated clearly, from the outset, that Hezbollah’s actions violate international law. But, to ignore Israel’s actions is abhorrent, weak and cowardly.

Aren't we emulating the terrorists we condemn when we kill innocent civilians in reprisal for terrorist attacks? It's a question that has been conspicuously absent from our foreign policy debate since 911.

Where are these blind military policies taking us--and the rest of the world? Isn't it time we had an open, reasonable debate?

Support Jonathan Tasini. He can handle the truth.

Twisting the Knife

2006-07-21T16:53:00.000-04:00

Huck Gutman has an article at Common Dreams entitled, Lying About The Real Cost of The Iraq War. He says,

While Congress was in session this week debating such momentous issues as whether to prevent the courts from interfering with the Pledge of Allegiance and whether to make it illegal to use women’s bodies to raise stem cells (in point of fact, all stem cells are taken from in vitro fertilization), a remarkable report came out in a minor government committee, a report on the cost of the US "global war on terrorism." What is particulary revealing in the report is its provision of very specific numbers for the cost, in dollars, of the Iraq War.

It's the GAO Report, Global War On Terrorism: Observations on Funding, Costs, and Future Commitments. Contrary to the Administration's initial estimates of 50 to 100 billion, the GWOT has so far cost US Taxpayers at least 430 billion 128 million dollars ... and counting.

The GAO doesn't indicate there is any sign of the spending tapering off, either. The Administration's apologists claim it was an error--an inaccurate prediction of costs. But Gutman tells it like it is:

This, then, is the truth, revealed more clearly than ever before: The Bush administration, which thought up the war and then urged it upon the American people, lied to us, lied about the cost of the war. If Americans knew what the war in Iraq would cost in dead, brave, American soldiers; if Americans knew how many other brave soldiers would return gravely wounded; if Americans knew that making war on Iraq would cut the heart out of HeadStart and Medicaid and would bankrupt state and local governments as revenue sharing declined and unfunded mandates increased -- if, in other words, Americans had known the costs of the war in Iraq, they would not have been eager to support the President.

It has all been a tissue of lies, from weapons of mass destruction to the irresponsible low-ball estimates of the war’s costs, to the unfulfilled claims that Iraqi oil would pay for our troops.

What flabbergasts Paul Krugman, on the other hand, isn't so much the lying as the stubbornness. According to Krugman,

Vice President Cheney continues to insist that his two most famous pronouncements about Iraq -- his declaration before the invasion that we would be "greeted as liberators" and his assertion a year ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes" -- were "basically accurate."

Krugman goes on to assert that William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and favored Fox News pundit, claims that the only real problem with the neocon agenda is a lack of will, and that we just need to launch airstrikes against Iran. Then everything will come out right in the end.

The only way, in truth, that things will come out right in the end, though, is if the American people impeach all of these lying, phony warriors, try and convict them of waging aggressive war and war profiteering, and force the whole BushCo corporate cabal to come up with reparations to pay back the Iraqi people and the American taxpayers the money that's been stolen from them.

After that, we can turn them over to the World Court.

Secrets of Success

2006-07-18T15:18:00.000-04:00

As Sidney Blumenthal so eloquently opines in reference to Bush's foreign policy in The Guardian:

The North Korea debacle shows that Bush's ruinous approach began before the Iraq invasion, indeed before 9/11. His latest pantomimes of policies recall Gertrude Stein's description of Oakland, California: "there is no there there".

Of course, what's puzzling is not that Bush's team has flubbed again. We've all grown to expect failures from G-man. The bigger the undertaking, the bigger the flop.

What's particularly unsettling about these affairs is the underlying void. BushCo operates in a culture of secrecy unknown in American government since the end of the Second World War.

Just today I drafted a letter to a local newspaper complaining about the phony compromise legislation on the Bush-Cheney illegal eavesdropping program.

To the Editor,

Daytime Phone: 646-508-9647
Evening Phone: 845-

Arlen Specter has been around Washington long enough to know how to spin a bad idea so that it looks good to us outsiders.

That's what he's doing with his so-called, "compromise" proposal on the illegal domestic eavesdropping program secretly authorized by President Bush to spy on listen to and track telephone calls.

Specter calls it a matter of the White House "submitting" to review, but the truth is different, and worse.

The Cheney-Specter bill grants immunity and approval to the president's (and Cheney's) illegal spying. The bill seeks to broaden the incidence of spying on Americans, eliminating the mandatory judicial check required by federal law to protect constitutional rights.

In other words, Cheney has prevailed upon Specter to join him in hoodwinking the public while secretly gutting the Fourth Amendment.

Call and complain. Senator Specter's office: 202-224-4254; vice president Cheney's office: 202-456-1111; email: vice_president@whitehouse.gov.

David C. Vladeck, in Bush Does It In the Dark, at tompaine.com, eloquently describes the hyper-secretive culture surrounding BushCo with an invisible shield.

But the interested citizen has to ask, "Why?" If it isn't helping us fight our enemies, conduct diplomacy, or even run the government, what's the value of all the secrecy?

The answer is, "Ask Enron." What Ken Lay did to benefit his friends at the expense of his stockholders was a secret until his company tanked.

"Ask Valerie Plame." The phony intelligence cooked up about Iraq was secret until after we invaded.

"Ask Tom Kean." The 9/11 Commission Report is more outspoken in what it doesn't contain that in what it actually says.

The secrecy throws us off the trail of whatever these crooks are doing, and that's why they're getting away with it. They make everything look like some national peril, global war on terror, or epic battle between good and evil. That's what we're supposed to believe.

Meanwhile, behind a wall of secrecy, our country and the world is being savaged by carpet baggers.

And that's what Bush's presidency has really been about all along, hasn't it? Everybody just hasn't found it out yet.

Dear Senator

2006-07-18T11:31:00.000-04:00

There will be no benefit to our society--your constituents--by allowing provider interference in internet access and utilization.

Net Neutrality is the only reasonable and responsible principle for organizing and operating the internet.

The power play by highly-paid corporate and telecommunications industry lobbyists to influence legislation in favor of big money special interests must be stopped.

In fact, it is unconscionable that some elected representatives of the people of this country are refraining from taking a clear public stand in favor of Net Neutrality. Such an "uncommitted" posture is a transparent gesture of favoritism towards the monopolistic and pro-deregulationist economic tyrannies that exploit public services and utilities for their own profit.

The anti-Net Neutrality interests are not putting the people--or the United States--first.

It's time for all representatives and senators to take a clear stand in favor of people and their empowerment. No more equivocating.

The internet belongs to the people. Support net neutrality with no "ifs", "ands" or "buts."

The Senate must preserve a free and open Internet. Please vote for enforceable network neutrality and keep tollbooths, gatekeepers, and discrimination off my Internet.

Culture of Violence, Exploitation

2006-07-13T13:40:00.000-04:00

With all the news of violence in Africa, the Middle East, and in the Caribbean, we don't realize how the culture of violence has permeated our consciousness here at home in the United States.

I recently wrote to Chik-Fil-A in response to a promotion they're having, that I heard about from Farm Sanctuary.

"Thank you for inviting me to comment. I wish to respond to your "Save a cow, eat more chicken" promotion.

These animals are feeling beings who suffer greatly for our pleasure and profit. Please help people increase their awareness of the sanctity and suffering of these creatures subjugated to our dominion.

Chickens raised for meat, called "broiler chickens", are abnormally bred to grow beyond their biological limits and are typically raised inside huge factory-like warehouses with minimal space to move. Millions die before reaching slaughter every year. Those who survive are then tossed into cages on transport trucks where they are exposed to severe weather conditions. Poultry processing plants demand speed over humane slaughter for higher profits, causing untold suffering as fully conscious birds are hung upside down on assembly line rails destined for the killing floor. Since poultry are specifically excluded from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, stunning prior to slaughter is not required. Many birds have their throats slashed while still conscious.

I appreciate your taking the time to review these comments. Please be assured that I am speaking in all sincerity when I ask that you discontinue or change your promotion because it is inhumane in the portrayal of the suffering and exploitation of these animals.

Thank you."

Temptation

2006-07-11T11:10:00.000-04:00

Friday, July 14, 2006
NEW* CHENEY in New Hartford, NY: Vice President Dick Cheney is heading to upstate New York next week to stump for a fellow Republican. Cheney is scheduled to attend a fundraising event for state Senator Raymond Meier in the race for the 24th Congressional District now held by Representative Sherwood Boehlert. [Associated Press, 07/09/06]

Apparently, the exact location of the fundraising event is undisclosed, but at least one source is claiming it is scheduled to be in Utica

No matter how meaningless life may seem, one can always divine a purpose from trying to protest at events featuring Dick Cheney.

History

2006-06-27T16:08:00.000-04:00

History was one of my dad's big interests, and now it's one of mine, too.

George Washington University has this great National Security Archive

Let Richard Perle Eat His Own Rhetoric

2006-06-26T11:21:00.000-04:00

Richard Perle has an opinion piece in the Washington Post. Guess what he has to say?

The failure of successive U.S. administrations, including this one, to give moral and political support to the [Iranian] regime's opponents is a tragedy.

You can email him: rperle@aei.org.

Richard Perle may still have a lot of influence with some neocons in or near the White House and the Pentagon, but American elected officials would be wise to avoid endorsing his policy statements. He continues to bellow the transparently incorrect line that intimidation by killing people and establishing a permanent war footing for the United States economy is good policy. Mr. Perle would have us believe that this is how we will be safe from our enemies and how we should promote freedom and democracy in the world.

Mr. Perle is incorrect. By associating himself with US government officials, Mr. Perle is casting the foreign policy of the United States in a dangerously bellicose tone and announcing unreasonably distorted goals.

It is the denial of his own fear--his own personal petrified terror--that belies all Mr. Perle's misstatements about imperial democracy.

Democracy means justice for all. One country hijacked by military industrialists and corporations is not justified in dictating every other country's actions.

First of all, the United States, though possessing military hardware, is rending and wearing away the social fabric woven of whatever freedom and democracy that was ever established on our shores since the founding of Jamestown. In other words, our policy is unsustainable and the rest of the world regards it as the threadbare garment of hypocrites.

Second of all, by pressuring everyone else to do what we want we are displaying an inequitable injustice that is explicitly undemocratic in character.

Thirdly, the tone of Mr. Perle's statements, and the policies he advocates, sound surprisingly like the fear-stricken utterances of one who has not honestly embraced the principles of justice and democracy, with the confident knowledge that history is moving toward the liberation of all people and the endowment of those rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States and the American Revolution.

Some would have us believe that Perle is secretly advocating for a U.S. foreign policy that primarily serves the interests of Israel. There have been persuasive and highly-regarded (though bitterly contested) academic theories of this nature advanced recently.

However, I propose Mr. Perle be granted justice, instead of the tyranny he advocates. Let him stand trial for treason for his role in leading the United States to war in Iraq (and for any other related crimes that may surface upon investigation.) Give him a fair trial.

Let him put his rhetoric of freedom and democracy to the test--if he dare walk the walk. If he is innocent, he will be acquitted of treason in a court of law--if there is justice in American courts. In any case, let us hear how his argument stands up to opponents in an open and fair debate, for once.

Thanks for the Info

2006-06-15T13:30:00.000-04:00

Max Obuszewski wrote a post to After Downing Street about a trial beginning tomorrow in Alexandria. Protesters will be tried for interrupting Agency business at the Pentagon when they breached a barricade blocking their approach to the building where they sought a meeting with the Secretary of Defense, don Rumsfeld.

It is leadership like yours that casts a light on the encouraging power of our Constitutional rights and the flawed special interest that so easily corrupts established power structures.

That imperfect exercise of power you will be attacking lawfully, in the Alexandria court, is a glaring example of the "best military in the world" malfunctioning and trampling on the very rights of the people it is ostensibly created to protect!

Clearly, the Pentagon itself is becoming the protector of forces threatening to our rights as Americans, instead of protecting our rights--its sole purpose.

Today I heard Dennis Hastert talking about how we went to war in Iraq after the September 11th attacks threatened our freedom and our way of life.

That kind of no-think, unreasonable hypocrisy is too prevalent among our government leaders and military personnel. The attacks did not threaten our freedom and our way of life. On the contrary, they provided us with a perfect opportunity to draw a clear contrast between a peaceful, strong, free society and an aggressive, destructive, wasteful band of terrorists.

The rest of the world stood with us then, believing our nature to be peace-loving and progressive in the cause of expanding individual liberty in the name of world-wide freedom and peace.

But we are failing the test. Our leaders have ducked for cover--in terror--behind their bombs, planes, tanks, guns and Congressional podiums. The barricade you breached at the Pentagon is the barricade of fear erected by our military and political leaders to protect them from the reality of responsibility for upholding liberty and the requisite courage to allow others the freedom to express it.

Peace be with you.

busy signal

2006-06-12T16:01:00.000-04:00

I spent the weekend running around Manhattan gathering signatures for a nominating petition for "dark horse" U.S. Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini. It was hard work, but fun. The frustrating part is that there are fifteen signatures on a page and you know that a couple of them are going to be challenged and probably thrown out.

Meanwhile, a Reuters article today, entitled, Global Military Spending Hits 1.12 trillion, related the key findings by The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)in their 2006 yearbook. The news was bad. There was an overall increase of about 3.5 percent in global military spending over last year.

The USA is responsible for 48 percent of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, France, Japan and China with 4 to 5 percent each," the Swedish government-funded institute added.

It said U.S. spending was behind about 80 percent of the gain in 2005.

It so happens that the AP just published an article with the benign title, Clinton, Pataki attend ceremony in N.Y. What the title doesn't say is that

Democrat Clinton and Republican Pataki, two White House hopefuls, were among the dignitaries for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Lockheed Martin's $37.4 million presidential helicopter facility in Owego, N.Y. The facility, just north of the New York-Pennsylvania border, will be the main outpost for building the new "Marine One" helicopter.

So, I've been trying all afternoon to call Senator Clinton's office to demand that she vote against the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 S.2766. She should support John Kerry's amendment for the withdrawal of all combat troops by the end of the year, but she must vote against the bill because the provision prohibiting expenditures on permanent bases has been stricken.

I can't get through. Her line is too busy.

Of Love and Fear

2006-06-07T12:15:00.000-04:00

Bill Frist, resigning from the Senate in order to run for President, ostensibly, explains how love and fear can be mixed in American marriage today:

Activist courts are usurping the power to define this social institution. And if marriage is redefined for anyone, it is redefined for everyone. The threat is real.

Just when you thought the greatest danger was terror, Bill Frist has to come along and muddy up the waters again.

The American people have a right to settle the question of what marriage will be in the United States. Marriage is an issue that rightly belongs in the hands of the people.
What really scares me, though, is, if marriage is an issue that belongs in the hands of the people, what issue does he say doesn't belong in the hands of the people? Furthermore, which people get to define marriage for everybody else? The people who get to marry whomever they want, or the people who don't get to because they are being discriminated against in marriage legal restrictions?

Violating Humane Treatment Some More

2006-06-05T12:14:00.000-04:00

Why? Anybody who's ever played the role of conman manipulator, like me, understands that you can't change people's ideas about right and wrong overnight.

First you have to get them used to the idea that there are changing standards for right and wrong, relative to "security" circumstances or other "dynamic" circumstances.

In spite of the outcry against it, like we practice now when Guantanamo and other prisons violate Geneva Conventions, the perpetrators continue--openly--in their violations. They continue to insist that circumstances require it. Some people are convinced and go along with it, others get tired of hearing, thinking and arguing about it, and still others just want to do what they think everybody else wants them to do.

In this way, the Bush Administration is going to bring the US, and possibly, the world, around to where inhumane treatment of detainees is acceptable, or at least tolerated.

But top Bush administration officials argue that after the Sept. 11 attacks, old customs do not apply, especially to a fight against terrorists or insurgents who never play by the rules.

"The overall thinking," said the participant familiar with the defense debate, "is that they need the flexibility to apply cruel techniques if military necessity requires it."

So, the Sun's article, U.S. To Drop Geneva Rule, Officials Say, is being run deliberately by Bush Administration officials. It's part of the propaganda campaign of insisting--in the public discourse media--on the necessity for human rights violations of detainees.

They're getting the idea "out there."

Eventually, whatever people say in protest, the Administration will be able to move beyond the announcement/explanation phase and enter into the established practice phase.

Julian Barnes writes that the codification of legal inhumane prisoner treatment

culminates a lengthy debate within the Defense Department but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed.

Another tactic the Administration is employing through the Sun article is to strengthen the misconception that the only real, meaningful obstacle to implementing inhumane treatment standards is in the objection by the rest of the world. So they shift it away from being a human rights issue to becoming a diplomatic issue.

... the State Department opposes the military's decision to exclude Geneva Conventions protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, the defense officials acknowledged.

... "The rest of the world is completely convinced that we are busy torturing people," said Oona A. Hathaway, an expert in international law at Yale Law School and a former law clerk to then-Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "Whether that is true or not, the fact we keep refusing to provide these protections in our formal directives puts a lot of fuel on the fire. It makes people think we are violating these provisions left and right."

This is how the Pentagon is getting us to promote their immoral policies. We unwittingly normalize their discourse and viewpoint by publicising it without equal publicity of the efforts to curb inhumane treatment.

Looking for a Meeting?

2006-05-31T17:27:00.000-04:00

The Office of the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection will hold an information meeting to discuss the process by which it is working with Intelligence Community agencies to develop an Integrated Collection Architecture and a budgetary roadmap. The meeting will consist of a briefing by the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Technical Means followed by a question and answer session. The primary purpose of the meeting is to provide transparency into the method by which the Office of the Director of National intelligence will make future investment decisions for the Intelligence Community. No procurement-related information will be discussed at this session. Attendees are asked to RSVP by passing their clearances as described below.

The meeting will be held on Monday, June 5, 2006 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

The meeting will be held at the Heritage Conference Center at TASC Northrop Grumman, 4803 Stonecroft Boulevard in Chantilly, Virginia.

Security: The meeting will be classified at the SECRET level.
Clearances: Attendees are asked to pass their clearances at the SECRET level by fax to TASC at 703-633-2222 and to mark clearly on the fax that the clearance is for the ``Collection Meeting.'' Clearances should be passed no later than 12 p.m. on Friday, June 2. Passing clearances will constitute the requested RSVP. Attendees must have valid photo identification to gain entrance.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: The Heritage Conference Center, 703-633-2200.

Dated: April 19, 2006.
Sandra L. Webster, Acting Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Technical Means. [FR Doc. 06-4182 Filed 5-3-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 3910-A7-P

sojourners: don't gut the estate tax

2006-05-31T17:06:00.000-04:00

Before we talk about cutting the estate tax, let's talk about wasting tax revenues.

Pentagon pressing for new rapid-strike weapon

Trident Fleet Ballistic Missile

General Characteristics, Trident II (D5)
Primary Function: Strategic Nuclear Deterrence.
Contractor: Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., Inc., Sunnyvale, CA.
Date Deployed: 1990.
Unit Cost: $30.9 million.

Dear Senator:

I am writing to express my strong opposition to proposals to repeal the estate tax or “reform” it in ways that would render it less effective. I understand the Senate will take up estate tax repeal and possibly vote on Senator Kyl’s proposal soon.

Repealing the estate tax would slash federal revenues that are needed to meet critical challenges. Full repeal would cost nearly $1 trillion during the first full ten years (2012 to 2021), adding to the nation’s high deficits. Essential services for vulnerable populations are already being cut, including Medicaid, child support, and student loans; the nation also faces fiscal challenges posed by an aging population, rising health care costs, unmet education needs, Social Security insolvency, and homeland security.

Meeting these and any new challenges we face collectively will be much more difficult if the estate tax is repealed or “reformed” in a way that loses nearly as much revenue as repeal.

Indeed, I am concerned that some estate tax “reform” proposals are simply a back-door means by which to repeal the tax. For example, Sen. Kyl's plan to exempt the first $10 million of a married couple’s estate from the tax ($5 million for an individual) and to tax the remainder at 15 percent, the current capital gains rate, is unacceptable. Such a proposal would cost 84 percent as much as repealing the estate tax entirely, and thus is irresponsible just like permanent repeal in both its fiscal impact and its policy direction.

At a time when our country is struggling to curb the growth of deficits and is debating deep cuts in assistance for the most vulnerable populations, we do not need an irresponsible tax cut for the very wealthiest Americans. In fact, neither do the vast majority of the American people as a recent national survey found fewer than one in four (23 percent) favored repealing the estate tax. I urge you to support fiscal discipline and fairness by voting against both permanent repeal of the estate tax and irresponsible “reform” proposals that would be nearly as costly and would weaken our nation’s charities.

Capital gains, estate, and social security are all weighted to place the greater tax burden on labor and those who have to work for a living, while the lighter burden falls on those who earn inflated saolaries, or earn funds on investments or property holdings. These taxes need to be reformed to increase the share that the wealthiest pay for social security, capital gains, and for estate taxes.

This is not the time, nor will it ever be justifiable, for those who most enjoy the benefits of our society and who utilize the greatest bulk of services and resources, to pay a discuount for their quality of life.

Sincerely,

Begging to get Whupt

2006-05-30T16:59:00.000-04:00

This is the most unbelievable story yet.

Bill Frist talks about National priorities on Fox News Sunday.

"Really? I hadn't heard."

2006-05-29T18:29:00.000-04:00

Asia Times ran an interesting article in the May 9, 2006 online edition, entitled, "The US's Geopolitical Nightmare," by William F. Engdahl. After a lot of background discussion, the author puts a lot of recent diplomacy into perspective when he says:

At the next SCO meeting on June 15, Iran will be invited to become a full SCO member.

And last month in Tehran, Chinese Ambassador Lio G Tan announced that a pending oil and gas deal between China and Iran was ready to be signed.

The deal is said to be worth at least $100 billion, and includes development of the huge Yadavaran onshore oilfield. China's Sinopec would agree to buy 250 million tons of liquefied natural gas over 25 years. No wonder China is not jumping to back Washington against Iran in the United Nations Security Council. The US had been trying to put massive pressure on Beijing to halt the deal, for obvious geopolitical reasons, to no avail. Another major defeat for Washington.

The context is very broad and reasonable.

We knew our mainstream media were censored, slanted, biased, but we didn't realize how much so. Given the extent of the omissions here, it is tempting to say the media have been nothing less than conspiratorial, if not just plain stupid.

Toilet USA

2006-05-26T16:16:00.000-04:00

Business Week has the article stating that

A trip to the statute books showed that the amended version of the 1934 act states that "with respect to matters concerning the national security of the United States," the President or the head of an Executive Branch agency may exempt companies from certain critical legal obligations. These obligations include keeping accurate "books, records, and accounts" and maintaining "a system of internal accounting controls sufficient" to ensure the propriety of financial transactions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with "generally accepted accounting principles."

.

This is in reference to a rule giving Negroponte power to to let companies waive accounting regulations.

MyDD

2006-05-25T17:13:00.000-04:00

This site is really doing it.

The ACLU to the FCC

2006-05-25T11:28:00.000-04:00

It's a letter writing campaign. Spread the word.

I am writing to tell you that I've signed the ACLU's letter demanding a full investigation and penalties for any telephone provider cooperating with the government in illegal spying on Americans.

I am troubled by your decision to abandon the FCC's important investigative role before it even begins. I urge you to reconsider and to join with Commissioner Michael J. Copps in his call for an investigation into allegations that at least three telecommunications companies, AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon, cooperated with the National Security Agency in an effort to collect calling information and call patterns on every American.

Unlike the FCC's recent letter to Congressman Edward J. Markey suggests, there are substantial investigative powers that clearly fall within the power of the FCC.

It is wrong when US government officials try to shield illegal actions committed outside the legal process with claims of "state secrets." Every country has laws protecting private property and information. Only democracies have transparent monitoring, application and enforcement of those laws.

What is the point in spying on Americans in order to "protect" us from so-called enemies?

What we lose in terms of privacy rights and personal liberty and security is infinitely more valuable than anything these "enemies" are able to take from us.

Think about it. Do you really expect the American people to accept "security" as a justification for allowing government agencies and telecom providers to collect our phone records? These records are being collected and stored for a purpose, and that purpose can have nothing to do with protecting our security.

If my freedom from illegal snooping by the government and their corporate conspirators isn't protected, then I have no security.

Security begins and ends with my rights and liberties as guaranteed under the Constitution and laws. Protect that.

The people can protect ourselves from "enemies."

When corporate officials break the law and the privacy of my personal records is at stake, I expect the FCC to use every means at its disposal to investigate wrongdoing and protect consumers.

If the FCC abandons any and all attempts to investigate what appears to be a massive and unprecedented violation of American's privacy rights, without first demanding and examining as much public and unclassified information as possible, then the FCC will join the NSA, Verizon, AT&T, and BellSouth. Please don't relegate yourselves into the category of those using fear to deprive Americans of their liberty. Isn't that what you're supposed to be protecting us from?

I look forward to hearing back from the FCC regarding this matter.

Yesterday at the DOJ. Dissing Amnesty International?

2006-05-24T15:20:00.000-04:00

Sean McCorcmack seems to have a bit more pugilism in his spleen than Scotty McClellan had. But his problem is, he doesn't have anything better to say. Based only on what I see here in the official transcript, I'd like to encourage everyone to write the State Department Press Secretary and complain.

Contact Information

Main address:
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Main Switchboard:
202-647-4000
TTY:
1-800-877-8339 (Federal Relay Service)

Hotline for American Travelers:
202-647-5225

Public Communication Division:
PA/PL, Rm. 2206
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520
202-647-6575

There really isn't any excuse for criticizing Amnesty International. Give me a break! Instead of looking to correct their own shortcomings, the State Department is just denying all wrongdoing and trying to fling dirt back at Amnesty!

Shame on them.
Here's the relevant portion of the transcript:

Daily Press Briefing
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
May 23, 2006

Yes. Sylvie.
QUESTION: Amnesty International --
QUESTION: Can we stay on this for a second?
MR. MCCORMACK: Sure.
QUESTION: Yeah. Do we have any information -- more about the mission by David and Elliot out there?
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, you know, yeah, I checked on this. I saw there was a report in an Israeli newspaper that they might be going to region. At this point neither of them has any plane tickets. On any given day, you could say that they're going to region. On this particular day, I can't say that. So we'll keep you up to date if there's any travel.
Sir, did you have one on this?
QUESTION: No. Different subject.
MR. MCCORMACK: Okay. All right. Sylvie.
QUESTION: So I was asking about the report of Amnesty International published today which is very critical of U.S. and says that, among other things, that torture is practiced in Guantanamo. Is it true?
MR. MCCORMACK: No. And certainly Amnesty International is entitled to their opinion. We see they're pretty good at press releases, I've noticed. Look, you know, we've gone over this time after time again. There's a group of European MPs that just went down to Guantanamo. There have been many, many outside organizations that have gone down to Guantanamo to look at exactly what is happening down at Guantanamo Bay and how exactly these individuals are treated. So no, nobody is being tortured at Guantanamo Bay.
But let me make one other point with respect to Amnesty International because I think it's -- I think it's relevant. In the years -- in the years of Saddam Hussein's rule, Amnesty International was at the forefront of bringing to light human rights abuses that were perpetrated by that regime -- terrible, terrible things. They do great work in that regard.
But when it came time to put Saddam Hussein on trial, which is happening right now, they're absent. They've done zero, zip, nothing to assist in those efforts. So, in terms of where they might focus some of their efforts, I would just offer the humble suggestion that they might follow through in actually assisting with or providing some support to this trial for what they acknowledge is one of the great human rights abusers of recent times.
QUESTION: Yeah, if I can follow up.
MR. MCCORMACK: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: It's the second report this week which is very critical on the U.S. handling human rights and torture. In terms of public diplomacy, do you think it's -- you are projecting the right image?
MR. MCCORMACK: What we're doing, and we talked about this a little bit last week -- look, President Bush has pointed out that the United States doesn't want to be the world's jailer, that we have no desire to be the world's jailer, and that at some point in the future would we all like to see Guantanamo Bay closed down? Absolutely. But at the moment, there's dangerous people being held at -- in Guantanamo Bay. These are people that were picked up on battlefields, planning for, engaged in various acts of terrorism around the world. These are individuals who pose a threat potentially not only to American citizens but citizens from Europe as well as around the world.
So we are working with other countries around the globe to try to return these people, repatriate these people to their home countries, but in a way so that we can assure ourselves, have a reasonable expectation that they won't being maltreated or tortured and that they won't be allowed to engage in acts of terrorism or planning for acts of terrorism. So the United States is working to try to return these people. The United States is bearing this burden in keeping these people off the street. So I think we have to reframe the debate here a little bit. Look, nobody wants Guantanamo Bay opened -- to remain open in perpetuity. Nobody is saying that. But it is serving a purpose now. It is serving the purpose of keeping these individuals who pose a threat to Americans, as well as others, off the street.
QUESTION: Amnesty International gives the example of Libya and says that you sent back detainees in Libya. Do you have the assurance that in Libya they are not tortured? How can you say they are not tortured in Libya?
MR. MCCORMACK: I don't have the particulars of that case, Sylvie. But when we do return people to their home countries, we always go through a very, very careful and detailed process. And they have to be able to assure American officials and policy makers that they believe that these individuals will not be maltreated, will not be tortured. So we go through and do that in every single case.
Oftentimes, that takes a long -- it takes a long time for them to get those assurances. The negotiations with Saudi Arabia lasted quite some time. There are some states who have refused to take back individuals. And there are states with which we had to do very in-depth negotiations to make sure that these individuals wouldn't be set free or wouldn't be allowed to engage in acts of terrorism or planning for acts of terrorism. So this is a very -- this is not a process that is done on the fly. This is a very careful process that our lawyers go through.
Elise.
QUESTION: One of the charges of Amnesty is that you have been kind of contracting out a lot of the interrogations and work dealing with detainees to contractors which don't seem to be subject to the same rules and regulations in terms of torture and cruel and inhumane punishment. Can you say that all U.S. contractors are subject to the same rules and regulations and that this is not a way of getting around some of those laws against cruel and inhumane punishment?
MR. MCCORMACK: I'll let -- I'll go find an answer from the lawyers to give you a legal answer on that. But I will point out that there had been contractors that have actually stood trial and I believe that there's an individual that's actually been jailed as a result of some of the allegations that have been -- allegations that have been proven in the eyes of the court against him, in terms of maltreating individuals.
Yes, sir.
QUESTION: Just on this?
QUESTION: Quickly on --
MR. MCCORMACK: I don't know. Do you -- on this topic or --
QUESTION: No, on a different subject.
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah.
QUESTION: Could you be a bit more specific about the support you think that the Amnesty can provide for the trial of Saddam Hussein?
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, they have a vast database -- I guess for lack of a better term -- cataloging these human rights abuses during --
QUESTION: Evidence or something that --
MR. MCCORMACK: During the -- yeah, I mean, you know, part of this process is getting the information. And, you know, I would submit to you that Iraqi authorities are taking on a pretty big task here. And they're trying to not only put on a trial for Saddam Hussein and the key members of that regime, but in a larger sense, they're trying to come to closure with their past. And we would think that an NGO like Amnesty International would have an interest in assisting the Iraqi people, the now free Iraqi people, in that regard. So it was just a suggestion. We'll see if they follow through on it.
Yeah.

How a Military Dictatorship Helps the Poor

2006-05-22T10:14:00.000-04:00

In the AP article, Up To 80 Taliban Dead in US-led Strike, author Noor Kahn mentions that

At Mirwaise Hospital in Kandahar city, a man with blood on his clothes and turban said insurgents had been hiding in an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, in the village since the recent fighting.

"Helicopters bombed the madrassa and some of the Taliban ran from there and into people's homes. Then those homes were bombed," said Haji Ikhlaf, 40. "I saw 35 to 40 dead Taliban and around 50 dead or wounded civilians."

Another villager, Zurmina Bibi, cradled her wounded 8-month-old baby. She said about 10 people were killed in her home, including three or four children.

"There were dead people everywhere," she said, crying.

Of course, if you ask Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush, this kind of thing is so unimportant as to be unworthy of mention in the western media. In fact, they insist that these problems are so emphasized to the point of exaggeration by our media that we distort the whole mission, role, and success of the American forces.

Get out of our way

2006-05-19T12:20:00.000-04:00

Freedom is priceless and cannot be compromised for what an individual or a group of wealthy and/or powerful special interests consider their, "safety."

We should be fighting against tyranny everywhere in the world, not tyrannizing our own population here in America.

The war on terror is not a military war. It is a war to establish and preserve human rights. Our enemies are the wealthy and powerful special interests--Asian, African, mid-Eastern, Western--who want to use terror for political purposes. These people use fear to rob The People of our right to govern ourselves.

We know the value of freedom for our selves, our children and all the world's posterity. That is why we cannot be defeated by terror, whether it's in the form of hijacked planes, hijacked courts, hijacked voting equipment, or hijacked Federal agencies.

Bring 'em on!

The Pentagon Plane

2006-05-17T13:05:00.000-04:00

Here's what the 911Truth people said to me about the new video.

TAKING AIM

For all in NYC, we hope you'll tune in to this radio show. For all who are elsewhere, check out the downloads at www.takingaim.info.

On Mon, May 15, 2006 at 12:12:24PM -0700, Ralph Schoenman wrote: Mya Shone and Ralph Schoenman of Taking Aim will present a Special Fund Raiser Program on Tuesday, May 16 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. New York time on WBAI.

http://www.wbai.org

The Special is entitled "From 9/11 to Creating the Next Pandemic: A System
in Terminal Decay".

The Special will offer as a Premium for a contribution of $100 a 3 1/2 hour
DVD of Ralph's standing room only talk at St. Mark's Church in New York on
April 23, 2006.

Please alert your friends and associates.

PENTAGON VIDEO RELEASE

Today the Pentagon released what was touted as new video footage of what is supposed to be Flight 77 striking the building on 9/11 to Fox News. Leading up to the release commentators were saying this would conclusively disprove "conspiracy theorists" claims that no plane hit the Pentagon and it would be over, once and for all. I'm sure you'll see this on the news tonight and in coming days, as well as on sites like 9/11blogger.com and 911truth.org. After all the buildup, it turned out to be a huge anti-climax because there is no clear indication of a Boeing 767, there is a false claim that the plane hit the lawn and kicked up dirt, and much more.

Below is a letter to the Dayside program (Dayside@foxnews.com) from Tim Paulson, and another one from myself. I urge everyone to take some of these points and blast your email lists, media, call-in shows, etc.
-----------------------------------
Dear Dayside hosts,

Having witnessed your presentation of the Department of Defense video of a "757 striking the Pentagon" I can only say I am beyond "underwhelmed," as you commentators admitted to feeling. I am outraged. There is no plane in that shot. Neither did your commentators say they saw one. Even the expert had to admit that if there was a "nosecone" visible, it wasn't apparent in the video we were all looking at. Futhermore, that expert went on to say he could see "dirt flying up" as if knocked into the air by the plane.

Why then don't we see the plane that "knocked the dirt" up? If we see the dirt, then the camera should also capture the plane that knocks the dirt up. Furthermore, the lawn in front of the Pentagon was left famously pristine--even though a 757 has its engines slung on the underside of the wing, where they would almost certainly strike the ground. More damning still, we see a contrail in the shot--the wisp of smoke that streaks along the ground at missile speed. Jet planes only leave contrails at high altitude, and even then, its the condensation of water particles that produces the contrail, not the engines, which burn clean at any altitude--kerosene fumes are invisible.

I say this as the author of How to Fly a 747 (John Muir Press, 1991) which I did in cooperation with Boeing. I witnessed a 747 close up, fully revved, no visible contrail at all. Nothing.

All of these things--the fact that we see no 70 foot high tail, no 40 foot in diameter fuselage but we do see a contrail--add up to proof that a plane DID NOT STRIKE THE PENTAGON.

The shoe is now on the other foot. Only a conspiracy theory nut job could insist that this video is evidence of a plane striking the Pentagon. I would ask such an individual--where is the plane? Why is there that white streak? And wait for the answer.

Which would not come. Because there is no reasonable explanation other than to say it was a missile--which does leave a contrail. Because like the Space Shuttle or any other rocket motor propelled device, missiles DO leave contrails.

And please. Tell me why you did not have a Pentagon spokesman to explain where the plane is in the tape. That's the reason they're showing it, putatively, to show the plane hitting the Pentagon. Where is Colin Powell with his pointer? Where's the Pentagon expert to circle the "nose cone" or whatever piece of the plane they claim to have captured on film?

Please address these questions. The public has a right to answers.

Timothy Paulson
--------------------------------
Dear Dayside hosts,

After more than 4 1/2 years of secrecy, a transparently fraudulent investigation, photos of an untouched lawn near the impact zone, testimony about Hani Janjour's terrible pilot skills by his flight instructor, a near impossible 270 degree turn while descending 7,000 feet within 2 minutes, there's no way the government can all of a sudden provide credible proof a plane hit the Pentagon. Furthermore, with no NTSB investigation, contrary to legal requirements, the whole case for a plane hitting the Pentagon is unsupportable. Let's remember, the government has lied about every reason for invading Iraq, issues of torture and rendition, Saddam's connection to 9/11, getting court orders for wiretaps, not knowing the levees in New Orleans would break, just to name a few. There is no reason to believe we've been told the truth about what really happened on 9/11. Just asked the 9/11 families who compiled 400 questions, most of which were ignored by the 9/11 Commission. Then try to explain how WTC7 collapsed at 5:20 PM in a freefall although it wasn't hit by any plane and why the media has been silent about it.

Les Jamieson
Brooklyn, NY
---------------------------------

Folks, this is a huge setback for the official deception. Let's do all we can to capitalize on it and end the tyranny of criminal, treasonous actions at the highest level of our government, military, media, and intelligence complex.

Truth will prevail,

Les

My favorite part is, "The shoe is now on the other foot. Only a conspiracy theory nut job could insist that this video is evidence of a plane striking the Pentagon."

new detention centers

2006-05-16T14:59:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot about this. Halliburton's KBR division gets a Homeland Security contract for "support."

The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.

It's in a Halliburton News, January 2006 press release. The part that intrigues me is, "or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Would that be new detention programs?

Big Money Counterattack

2006-05-15T11:35:00.000-04:00

"Hands Off The Internet" is a corporate funded anti-regulation, anti-net neurtrality astroturf group.

Hands off the Internet
Post Office Box 3840
Arlington, VA 22203-0840
(800) 619-5268
info@handsoff.org

Can you believe these people? They're posing as civil rights advocates but they're lying. They're really anti-civil rights, equal protection, equal access, and anti-net neutrality.

They want big telecoms to control everything, a la deregulation.

Boo Man & the NSA

2006-05-11T15:44:00.000-04:00

Over on Boo Man Tribune, Omir the Storyteller writes:

Once the Democrats get their hands back the reins of power they will have subpoena power and call investigations that actually investigate something. They know that as soon as that happens, the jig is up.

Let's see if the Democrats win control of a chamber. I'll bet they don't. Not either chamber. Why? Because the cons have too much to lose and will do whatever is necessary to save their collective ass.

This is the party of Negroponte. This is the party of Rumsfeld, Cheney & Rice. This is the party of Tom DeLay, Orren Hatch and that old maid, Charles Grassley.

If Pat Roberts and Alberto Gonzales are willing to publicly go to these lengths to prevent an investigation into the NSA programs, do you really think they are going to allow an investigation in 2007? No. They're going to stop at nothing, including nuclear war, if necessary, and including martial law--apparently--to maintain their grip of fear, lawlessness, threats, and secrecy over the media, the military and the American people.

Now that the fascist leaders themselves are threatened with legal reprisals, they are going be forced to up the ante with a newer bigger crisis.

But they are in a position to turn against and silence their political enemies as long as they have the threat of terrorism backing up their domestic surveillance and Patriot Act imprisonments.

When will the first journalists go to jail for reporting leaked classified information? That will go a long way toward silencing the already-muted press corps.

The NSA is way out of control--and so is every other agency in the government, now. The civil servants know that if they don't play ball with the team they are going to the showers, too. So let's see what happens. Let's see what happens in the fall, in November, with the mid-term elections.

I predict that no matter how badly the Republicans fall out of favor with the public, and no matter how certain a Democratic victory in both houses seems, it won't happen. The Republicans will retain their majority, and the curtain will finally rise on the era of American fascism.

net neutrality

2006-05-02T16:59:00.000-04:00

I'm working my way down the list of phone numbers for my Congressman and Senators. I'm pitching net neutrality. What amazes me is how little they know about it.

This is the First Amendment of the Internet, and the big telecom providers are going to take it away for good this session of Congress if we don't stop them.

The good news is that the financial services sector is going to weigh in on the side of net neutrality, sort of. According to Kristen Roberts at Reuters,

For the financial services sector, which is expected to spend $117 billion on information technology this year, tiered pricing could add billions more in expenses to maintain online banking services and other Web offerings -- costs that could hit the bottom line or be passed on to customers.

This issue has been huge in the blogosphere since last year, but it looks like the corporations are just catching on.

The question is, will the financial services companies do anything to help the cause of the average person? Let's see how this unfolds over the next year or so.

Now This Is News

2006-04-27T17:10:00.000-04:00

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this:

Lawmakers acknowledge that the bill is more limited in its scope and impact than the provisions promised by congressional leaders immediately after Abramoff's guilty plea to federal charges of bribery, conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud nearly four months ago. But they say they do not feel compelled to push more stringent measures partly because voters do not appear to be demanding them. "We're all being rushed into a bill," said Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio). "We panicked, and we let the media get us panicked."

Anthony Romero and the ACLU

2006-04-27T10:15:00.000-04:00

Last night, Wednesday, I brought my ESL students to a special program at the college. It was an assembly featuring a lecture by Anthony Romero, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Of course, it's the end of the semester and everybody's exhausted, probably even including Romero. I would have brought my students to the assembly no matter who was speaking--even if the speaker were the Manager of the local McDonald's.

Romero started off talking about his own humble beginnings as the son of a waiter. Neither of his parents spoke English nor had they even gone to high school. Anthony was the first member of his family to ever attend college. This scored highly on the bona fides register with my students.

Romero focused on the importance of citizen involvement, engagement, and activism at the local level for the preservation of our democracy. He talked a little bit about the history of the ACLU, including the Koramazu case, as well as some other civil rights cases, eventually leading up to Hamdi.

Then he launched into twenty-minutes of very measured but damning criticism of the Bush administration and the post-9/11 "War on Terror." (Interestingly, Romero did not challenge the authenticity of the War on Terror. He used the term throughout his address to refer to the Bush Administration's current anti-terrorism policy). At one point, Romero even said, "We want the Bush Administration to fight the War On Terror, we just insist that they do it within the law, respecting our democratic legal procedures."

His criticism was limited to the prisoner abuses in the Padilla and other cases, particularly in denying hearings and trials before judges for the Guantanamo detainees. He also attacked the detentions and abuse at Abu Ghraib as being further indications of the lawless arrogance of the Bush Administration's policies in fighting the War on Terror.

Then he turned to the NSA eavesdropping situation, and his criticism escalated, not only toward the Bush Administration and Alberto Gonzales, but toward Congress, too. Romero was angry that the Bush Administration felt they could conduct warrantless wiretapping on Americans without going to Congress, or even the FISA courts, for approval.

Romero said that in the sixties, the radicals and protesters wanted to put an end to one particular police authority abuse: the "say so" bust. This is when, he said, the police grabbed a protester, a hippie, an immigrant, a negro, or anyone else they didn't like and dragged them into jail. When the victim then asked why he was being detained, the police could answer, "Because I say so." This, to Romero, is the poison seed that will spread and choke off all freedom, civil liberties, and democratic respect for law if not rooted out and crushed.

His complaint is that the NSA wiretapping program is the ultimate "say so" bust. The Administration put up no credible legal defense for it, other than "inherent powers."

But Romero stopped there. As sickened as he is by Congress, he did not join the call for Bush's impeachment. He insisted that the proper course of action is to find out the facts about the domestic wiretapping program before legislating for or against it.

This reflects his implicit support for the War on Terror. He said he didn't want any domestic wiretapping, but it would be slightly palatable if Congress and the FISA court were monitoring and approving the operations.

Romero also said that the 9/11 Commission Report was credible because of the bipartisan composition of the Board. He felt that the Commission's recommendations should be implemented. He didn't say anything about Bush not testifying under oath.

All in all, it was an inspiring and provocative presentation. My students got into it and even asked a couple of questions in the Q&A at the end. We saw that the ACLU is not a reckless or incautious, radical organization. It is a well-founded, principled and democratic institution. In the end, Romero reminded the students that the ACLU can't protect our rights without real democracy, and real democracy depends on ordinary people getting involved in the political process and making their voices heard.

this saturday, get out and do something

2006-04-25T12:58:00.000-04:00

Dear International Herald Tribune,

There is no, "Iraq War."

Just like the so-called, "Global War On Terror," the United States of America's war machine, funded by an annual budget of $500 billion, has created a conflict where none existed.

The oil companies, security contractors, weapons makers and defense industry war profiteers are raking in profits while the American people go bankrupt.

We go bankrupt, not just economically--borrowing trillions to fund a war without sacrifice at home--but morally. We are no longer guardians of freedom and justice. The world now knows--and we can no longer hide from our own disinformed citizens--that we are aggressors seeking to dominate commerce and natural resources through military preeminence, out of greed and fear.

Have you seen the hospitalized, wounded, maimed and murdered women, children, and men of Iraq? Have you seen the pervasive poverty in Afghanistan?

How can a destructive juggernaut, no matter how expensive, ever bring about peace, renewal, prosperity and democracy?

It can't. And all our ignorance about our country's use of force will never change that. But our blindness will mean the electricity goes out, the torture continues, the levelling of cities and fouling of water supplies go on.

They go on and they will soon visit our shores. For we are a people who have forgotten that character is fate, and as we sow, so shall we reap.

March on April 29th, for God's sake.

Sincerely,

Liberal Elite

Republican 2008 Strategy

2006-04-24T10:18:00.001-04:00

Since they're going to lose the House and Senate this fall, the Republicans are going to pull a lollapalooza in 2008 in a desperate attempt to hold on to the White House.

They're going to run Hillary and Joe Lieberman.

Republican 2008 Strategy

2006-04-24T10:18:00.000-04:00

The groundswell begins

2006-04-13T16:47:00.000-04:00

West Point Grads Against the War

"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear."
– General Douglas MacArthur, Speech, May 15, 1951

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac....

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
– George Orwell

Religion?

2006-04-08T00:49:00.000-04:00

Somebody asked me to tell them about my religion. This is what I told them.

"What Is Your Religion?" Does everyone have their own, then? Maybe--in the sense that we all have a different idea of "blue" or "apple." My idea of God is unique from everyone else's.

However, Wikipedia has a lot of interesting things to say about what the definition of religion is, but it seems to be essentially a social thing: beliefs are personal but religion is public, social.

That being said, I'm a Christian. The simplest explanation is often the best. It makes perfect sense to me, now anyway, that our Creator became a man to speak, act and teach us to love.

Anyway, my experience is that Jesus thus conveyed to humanity an immortal, grace-ful spirit that is, in fact, essentially vital and authentic. But even though I believe in Jesus's words, that doesn't necessarily translate into one or another "religion" as its practiced by other people.

Jesus gives his spirit directly to the believer who then is nurtured by the church. But the church is the creation of Jesus Christ, not Christ the creation of the church. The church exists because Christ exists, and in the end, Christ says God above all, God Almighty, is the true goal of Christianity.

The church, where "religion" is found, is sort of an imperfect work-in-progress, like a human being.

So the challenge, I find is sharing my faith with others, and persevering in the life of faith. The world is somewhat dismissive-- and occasionally hostile-- to people who believe in God. On the other hand, believers are constantly having to ward off and shed worldly imperfections such as fear, anger, lust, envy, and all the things that steer us into a world-focused crash landing, not an uplifting movement to God above.

But that's me. There's not an imperfection I'm free of, to my knowledge. But instead of crawling off to cry myself to death in a dark lonely corner, because Christ abides with me I know God.

"Preposterous!" scoff my critics. "You can't say you know God!"

But I know Jesus, and God is in Him. He said, "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me."--John 14:11.

I'm just explaining my religion this way because that's how I can tell you what I know. My experience is that when you take him at his word, Jesus is telling the truth when he says that God is in Him, and whoever has seen him will see God. It works. I don't know about other religions, really.

But religion is useful as a way of getting to God, so Christ fills the need. It's because God's love for all of us is so great, and his grace and glory are so spectacular and abundant.

In the end, it looks like God is doing everything. What we need to do is avoid sabatoging his workings in our lives.

How to Clean Up A Big Mess

2006-04-06T16:51:00.000-04:00

The Defense Budget is consuming the economy. The corporate world is in bed with the weapons people. Money, energy, technology, force: it's all getting organized under the menacing auspices of the DOD.

They aren't going to slow down, or even run out of gas until they have consumed the lives, the minds, the energy and the wealth and resources of our society and the world.

It's the nature of power systems to exploit and consolidate resources, making them their own while expanding more and more as they gain more power.

The US is an inch away from being a military state, not a democracy. It's a mess because our resources and productivity are so intertwined with military institutions and systems.

The solution is to swamp our military's organizational power in one fell swoop-- a la Katrina. We need to pull a Hercules cleans the Augean stables. As we know, our government is great at bombing stuff, but we don't do clean-ups.

By the time the Pentagon had a chance to reorganize, the people of North America would have had ample time to restructure our society on a non military dominated basis. We could have something more like a cooperative society, or an environmentally sustainable society instead.

It's gotten to the point where the raison d'etre of the civilization here is to project military power, rather than vice verse.

Plus, there's a precedent for this model: when the Ents flooded Isengard.

massive resistance

2006-04-05T11:15:00.000-04:00

From After Downing Street

The last six and one half years--heck, twenty-six and one half years--have taught us that no matter how inert and telefixated we are on spam-speak modern mass media, we can change things if we want to.

Get off our asses, get out from in front of the screen and out into the public space.

If we can't convince Congress to stop blowing money on war and weapons, then we have to shut down the Pentagon with peaceful disobedience.

Afghanistan is a smoldering brushfire and our "leaders" want to attack Iran.

They will not stop until they have destroyed everything: our economy, our society, our environment, our world.

As hard as it is going to be for us, we are going to have to stop and drop everything, and go and save democracy. The war machine has to be unplugged first, or it will consume everything that is good in America. I believe it will require peaceful, passive resistance and civil disobedience on a massive scale.

To those who are given much, much will be required. We need to walk away from our orderly lives, our plans and our preconceptions, because this project is bigger than anything we ever imagined and we don't know what we will have to give to get peace, maybe everything.

It's time to stop waiting and start acting for peace.

From Daily Kos

Karen Kwiatkowski has been an outspoken critic of Rumsfeld and the neocons' war policies since before the invasion of Iraq.

She writes a column for the web, called, "Without Reservation" It's worth a read.

Anybody who hates war and waste and loves progress wants to see the Bush Administration, especially Rumsfeld and the neocons in the Pentagon, get thrown out on their faces in disgrace and failure.

But it's really a matter of kill or be killed, for us. As Paul Krugman explains in his book, The Great Unraveling,

I don't know where the right's agenda stops, but I have learned never to assume that it can be appeased through limited concessions.

--Krugman, Paul, The Great Unraveling,Norton, New York, 2005, p. 19

Krugman goes on to quote the step-father of neoconservatism, Henry Kissinger, who said,

It is the essence of a revolutionary power that it possesses the courage of its convictions, that it is willing, indeed eager, to push its principles to their ultimate conclusion.

Like a real soldier, Kwiatkowski hasn't run from the front lines in the war for America's soul. She speaks out.

Torture destroys the torturer. Torture weakens the societies and the governments that practice it. And for all that, torture is generally not effective for the purpose it portends.

But driving tubes into the noses of stubborn resisters of some government's will is not the only worrisome form of force feeding.

Centralized states, like the one managed from Washington, D.C., practice force feeding on a much grander scale. We the people, have been force-fed fantastic suggestions of fear and threat. We have had "preemptive strike," and the "need" for war against distant countries jammed down our throats.

But what is so righteous about Kwiatkowski's intellect is that she takes everything a step further. Her knowledge of the Bush Pentagon and the American War Machine and the Republican leadership requires her to go a step further in defense of America.

She says she went to Capitol Hill recently, where she was assured that we would be acting militarily against Iran soon.

Gary Hart told the Marjority Report on Air America tonight that he doesn't think any conflict with Iran is possible, because our military is too depleted.

Kwiatkowski concludes her piece, Force Feeding, by saying this:

Americans have for now lost our appetite for war. The predictable response of the Bush Administration is to insist that the force feedings must continue.

The U.S. government says that "force-feeding [at Guantanamo] was designed to improve the prisoner's health." Whether we are praying and waiting in an isolated steel cage in Cuba for freedom and justice or praying and waiting with loved ones in our living rooms for some sign of humility and morality from Washington, we know better.

If America isn't America anymore, I guess we have to change with the times, too.

Government contact info

2006-03-27T14:04:00.000-05:00

I saw this comprehensive list on a Kos link:

Interesting Timing

2006-03-25T08:19:00.000-05:00

The Kennedy School put out a report on Israeli influence in US foreign policy. I hear the report isn't getting much publicity, especially in the corporate media. How surprising! However, there is some mainstream reporting.

Then there's this enlightening quotation from the Introduction,

importantly, saying that Israel and the United States are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: rather, the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around.

What's really funny is that if you Google, "Israel lobby report," today you get several hundred articles bashing the report, as opposed to about a dozen reporting on the research itself.

vv

2006-03-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

here

Bullets

2006-03-09T13:42:00.000-05:00

It’s hard to believe that things are coming to this so soon, but if we don’t believe what we see, then we are truly blind.

Exhibit A: Operation “Iraqi Freedom”

SusanG at DailyKos demonstrates the contradiction between Don-speak and truth.

On Tuesday, Rumsfeld addressed the disparity head on. He was saying about 350 civilians had been killed in the last couple of weeks in Iraqi fighting, while the various media were reporting a number two or three times that. Secretary Rumsfeld said that misreporting had swayed American public opinion to where eighty percent of the public believe Iraq is headed toward civil war. As Washington Post reporter, Bill Brubaker writes,

"Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side," Rumsfeld said today, referring to recent reporting on the conflict. "It isn't as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues. On the contrary, the steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq."

SusanG then directs us to today's story by Ellen Kickmeyer, Official Says Shiite Party Suppressed Body Count. Kickmeyer says,

Shiite militias have been accused of abducting and executing large numbers of Sunni men in the days immediately following the Feb. 22 destruction of the Askariya mosque, a revered Shiite shrine in the northern city of Samarra.

Okay. We know it's bad. It's worse than we thought. We can't trust the info, either. Oh well, we're over $200 billion in the hole.

Sounds bad, right?

Rice, Rumsfeld Make Their Cases for Supplemental Request
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2006 – In a rare joint appearance before Congress, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today urged the Senate Appropriations Committee to quickly pass a $91 billion supplemental spending bill.

The bill proposes $65.3 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as about $20 billion needed for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.

Condi and Don just put in a request for $71 ba-ba-ba-billion for this escapade.

Good-bye America. It's over.

We are a military war machine, and we all know how that story ends: in flames. Our leaders are part of a money and power system that is so insulated from the fundamental experience humans have shared for the last 7,000 years, and that brought us to this pinnacle of wealth and prosperity we're about to jump off.

And here's a fact about world safety and survival we never would have known if Don didn't tell us:

Even though the extremists are under constant pressure and on the defensive, they still seek to bring terror to American shores and cities and to all who oppose their views, Rumsfeld said. "These enemies cannot win a single conventional battle, so they challenge us through nontraditional asymmetric means with terror as their weapon of choice," he said.

Lucky for us we have Condi and Don to rely on. Because of their intrepid leadership, we still have a fighing chance against our enemies.

The terrorists also are skillful at manipulating the media. "One of their principal goals is to make our cause look hopeless," he said.

But the cause is not hopeless, Rumsfeld said. Terrorists in Iraq tried to disrupt three elections in Iraq, but failed, he said. The Feb. 22 attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra was aimed at stopping the formation of a permanent Iraqi government, "and thus far (terrorists) are failing at that as well," he said.

Exhibit B: The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001

On Thursday, March 10, 2006, President Bush signed the renewal of the USA Patriot Act into law at a White House ceremony. Bush praised the effectiveness of the Patriot Act in helping the United States remain safe by tracking down and finding terrorists.

According to David Stout,

The Patriot Act expanded government surveillance powers in ways that its supporters say makes it easier to track terrorists, but which its critics say infringes on privacy by allowing investigators access to information like medical and library records.

Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin was the only Senator to vote against the original Patriot Act in 2001, and he led the fight in the Senate to try to rally resistance to the passage of this renewal of the Act. Stout reports that Mr. Feingold did not attend the signing ceremony, but issued a statement.

"Today marks, sadly, a missed opportunity to protect both the national security needs of this country and the rights and freedoms of its citizens," Mr. Feingold said, vowing to press for further improvements in the law.

The ACLU is pleased that the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General has released a semi-annual report mandated by the Patriot Act HR 3162 Section X. This report was released on time, on March 8, 2006, and outlines various allegations of abuses of civil rights and civil liberties,

including mistreatment of federal prisoners, misuse of surveillance powers, mistreatment of protesters at the 2004 political conventions, and misuse of the material witness statute.

However, according to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, in a statement released the same day as the DOJ OIG report,

An innocent American who may have had his or her home searched under a delayed notification ‘sneak and peek’ warrant, or had their medical records seized under Section 215 the Patriot Act, would never know that these awesome powers have been misused against them and therefore would not have any reason to report them to the Inspector General. ...

... The report also indicates the Inspector General believes his office does not have authority to review the warrantless surveillance of Americans by the National Security Agency as authorized by President Bush. We believe the Inspector General has an important role to play in reviewing the NSA program and in determining whether the department or any of its agencies played any role in these illegal operations.

Senator Feingold, his colleagues who voted against the renewal of the Act, and the ACLU and other civil liberty watchdog groups are not giving up the fight. Amendments and revisions have been drawn up for key provisions, particularly for reigning in the use of NSLs (National Security Letters).

$1,000,000,000,000+ ...

2006-03-06T10:28:00.000-05:00

The reason the term, "Homeland Security" is so unsettling is because it implies we have a legitimate interest in securing other places besides the United States. There is no such thing as "the homeland." There's the United States, and that's where we live.

We have no business laying claim to or taking responsibility for defending other places. After all,

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it, for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Farewell Address (1796)
George Washington

Who are we kidding? As Larry Margusak of the AP says in his article, Guards Fault Homeland Security Protection,

WASHINGTON - The agency entrusted with protecting the U.S. homeland is having difficulty safeguarding its own headquarters, say private security guards at the complex.

So now it's a matter of reading up on SIPRI and doing whatever is necessary to shut the killers down.

Credit

2006-03-02T12:36:00.000-05:00

I have to give credit where it's due: This is from "Laura" davsand at DU. Thanks, Laura!

Iran, nukes, fear and speculation

2006-03-01T16:05:00.000-05:00

OK, most people who have been to Global Research know that Michael Chussudovsky and his comrades over there are pretty overt Communists. Still, as a 1st Amendment American citizen, I'm willing to believe in my educated mind that no one has a monopoly on the truth.

So occasionally I breeze into some of the interesting and speculative writing that they post there, like this article by Michael Keefer.

One of the key thesis statements is:

The ironies are glaring. The U.S. government is contemplating an unprovoked attack upon Iran that will involve “pre-emptive” use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear-weapons-holding state. Although the pretext is that this is necessary to forestall nuclear weapons proliferation, there is evidence to suggest that planning for the attack has involved, very precisely, nuclear weapons proliferation by the United States.

It would appear that this sinister complex of criminality involves one further twist. There have been indications that the planned attack may be immediately preceded (and of course ‘legitimized’) by another 9/11-type event within the U.S.

Just as with his 911 planted explosive theory--it's riveting. Is it true? Read it yourself and decide.

If you look up, "grimmace"

2006-02-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

If you look up, "grimmace" in the dictionary, it has President Bush's picture there by the definition:

He looks like we caught him in the middle of some instant, sci-fi, Lord-of-the-Rings morph thing.

roberts email

2006-02-17T14:40:00.000-05:00

Honorable Senator Roberts:

I am very disappointed to learn that you do not support the proposal to hold hearings in the Senate Intelligence Committee about the nature, scope, and legality of the NSA domestic surveillance programs.

Since the story uncovering the existence of the "terrorist surveillance" program was published, it has become clear that other secret domestic surveillance programs are in effect. These programs are operating without public knowledge or meaningful Congressional oversight.

Without hearings the public cannot be assured that Congress is monitoring the application of the spying activities.

Based upon earlier experience, the public is very much aware--as I am sure you are--that these programs need to be monitored closely and comprehensively by Congress. How else will you be able to prevent unauthorized, inappropriate, politically motivated surveillance of Americans?

If you aren't willing to provide the public with the assurance of active, thorough, non-partisan oversight of domestic spying by the Bush Administration, how can the public conclude that the Administration is acting lawfully? We can't.

If the Bush Administration were acting lawfully and properly in this matter of surveillance, whether it's through the NSA, the Pentagon, or the FBI, they would be only too happy to use the FISA courts or other avenues provided by Congress for public oversight.

Please hold hearings on domestic surveillance.

Unions Resurgent

2006-02-16T10:48:00.000-05:00

You know that you're a threat when they organize to gang up on you. That's what the big corporations are starting to do (again) to unions in America.

It's bad enough that the Department of Labor has become part of the anti-Union lobby under BushCo, but now there is a new blunderbuss in the arsenal of capitalist megalomania: The Center for Union Facts.

Dear UnionFacts.com,

Congratulations on your opening and new publicity campaign. How did you raise all that money so fast? You must have very good connections with big business.

Good luck discrediting unions. Tycoons have been trying to do it since the 1860s, with some success at times. ("Success" here is defined as depressed wages, downgraded working conditions, and lack of benefits for hourly workers.) However, people with a just cause will always win--when we stand together--over people who cause injustice.

It's a free country and "persons" can say whatever they want, even if they are really corporations. Please reconsider your actions conscientiously, though, in light of the concommitant damage to society, in general, that accompanies de-unionization of the labor force. In the last 100 years we saw widespread poverty and disease eradicated by society working as one for the public good. Those are only two of the most obvious common problems resolved since the rise of organized labor. Other social acievements are an improved transportation system, improved environmental conditions, improved literacy rates, extended life expectancy, lower infant mortality rate, increase in home ownership, improved sanitation, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Certainly unions have problems--just like all other institutions in our society. Corruption is the inevitable result of wealth and power. So, I am glad that you are helping to monitor union activity. Your efforts will continue to insure that unions are honest and resurgent in popularity and membership in America.

If only we could say the same for our corporations!

Power to the People,

Florindo J Troncelliti

Now, onward to the Department of Labor!

Straighten Them Out

2006-02-15T16:07:00.000-05:00

Somebody needs to straighten out BushCo, and if not us, then who? We need a spontaneous, unanimous blossoming of good will, courage, and vision.

Ukraine BushCo!!

Make It Bitter For Traitors

2006-02-10T13:35:00.000-05:00

"The Patriot Act." So that's what they call it. What's the title supposed to mean?

Citizens allow government privilege and control of private information and actions?

It means the government is trying to equate "patriotism" with promoting and allowing government control on the community and personal levels.

It's another lie. That has nothing to do with "patriotism."

Patriotism is just the opposite, in fact. It's a willingness to take risks on behalf of the rights and freedoms and responsibilities and commitments that all citizens share, and to take those risks voluntarily, freely, without government coercion.

Patriotism is about people doing what's right for the country, not what the government tells us is right.

If things like the so-called "Patriot Act" were truly patriotic, then we would still be a British colony.

But the deception of the "Patriot Act"'s name is indicative of the character of the Bush administration.

As Patriots, we need to see that we are in a war--not against a small CIA-created foreign party of operatives, but against the terrorists who want to use fear to take away our liberty.

Once we give it up, we will have to fight to get it back, and there isn't any guarantee we will win--not in our lifetimes.

Fight terror by casting out fear with love of country, truth, and liberty. If our government isn't satisfied with that, then they've shown enough about THEIR CHARACTER for us to see that they need to be cast out, too.

If our leaders can't lead with anything but scare tactics and war, they are very bad leaders and need to be propelled from office immediately.

We are animated pieces of the earth, the creations of the stars, the waters, and history. We have nothing to fear. We have a job to do.

We are here to preserve and improve conditions for our children and posterity. The notion that we need to pass "patriot" acts, cut social programs, and drain the treasury to fight "al-Qaeda" is preposterous. Only brainwashed people could accept such rationale.

The traitors are those who would sell out the true riches of our country--our values, our community, our land and resources, our system of government--and pervert it into a "fear-based" war and profit-making machine.

Those leaders need to feel the bitterness of following their flawed ambition.

Let's rally to crush the Patriot Act. It's the patriotic thing to do.

War and Waste

2006-02-08T11:03:00.000-05:00

Why is preventing terrorism now called the "Global War on Terror: the Long War?"

The answer is because the Pentagon has taken over the government and they need an imaginary enemy to maintain the stranglehold of fear on the American people and Congress.

There's money in war. Lots of it. It's up to about a quarter of the US budget. Why so much? Do we need to spend that much money? No, but the Pentagon is leveraging the entire US economy, government and citizenry by claiming to be engaged in a "long war."

If there weren't a "war" then the Pentagon couldn't argue for 7% annual budget increases while every other Department in the Federal government is being cut.

If there weren't a "war" then the American people and Congress would be seeking to redirect funding for military equipment, capabilities, modernization, experimentation, and expansion to things like education, infrastructure rebuilding, health, job creation, energy research and development, transportation, and environmental protections for the benefit of the American people and the rest of the world.

The needs of the civilian population are urgent and the Pentagon knows there is only so much of a pie to slice up.

Hence the long, global war on terror, opening funding channels from Congress to the Pentagon to Defense industries and contractors. The military coup of 2000 is becoming more and more of a fait accomplit.

Unfortunately, using the military against the survival of our own domestic political health is not a syndrome of decay unique to the United States. In fact, Norman Solomon, writing about his latest insights on the matter, said

Right now, the presidents of Iran and the United States are thriving on the belligerency of the other. From all indications, a military assault on Iran would boost Ahmadinejad's power at home. And it's a good bet that the U.S. government will do him this enormous favor.

Efficiency

2006-02-06T16:26:00.000-05:00

The so-called "War on Terra" is being waged against an elusive, resourceful, handful of suspected terrorists.

Today Gonzales mentioned what a great job the NSA was doing preventing terror plots in the United States from succeeding. He just regretted he couldn't give us the details because its CLASSIFIED. Shucks.

Rumsfeld went out to promote the war last Friday.

The United States is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.

Rumsfeld, who laid out broad strategies for what the military and the Bush administration are now calling the "long war," likened al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin while urging Americans not to give in on the battle of wills that could stretch for years.

Not only is al Qaeda tough, but they're costing us 20 times as much as Hitler and there's only a handful of them. They are efficient at tying up our resources and public consciousness.

$439.3 billion for the Department of Defense’s base budget, a 7-percent increase over 2006, and a 48-percent increase over 2001.

The NSA hearings

2006-02-02T17:26:00.000-05:00

The much anticipated NSA hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee are getting underway. Today, Intelligence Director Negroponte, General Hayden, Porter Goss, and other great patriots sat in for open questioning before kicking out the press and the public.

Levin and Rockefeller went down the line and asked everybody on the panel to estimate the number of communications that the program intercepts. None of them would do it, even though they spent last week trumpeting assurances of civil liberties to the nation.

It's obvious to me, based on the character of the people involved, that the Bush Administration is using the NSA to spy on Americans who have no connection with terrorists, but are just potential political rivals of the Republican party, and, they are not divulging the information to the public because it would show they are deliberately breaking the law, lying, and violating people's rights for political reasons, not for national security.

Meanwhile, we've been crying into our cellphones and laptops, but some activists have been busy doing something to attempt to defend our civil rights.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed the latest suit in California District Court Tuesday, charging that the telecommunications giant [AT&T] violated its customers’ privacy rights by opening its records and systems to secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA). In a statement announcing the legal action, EFF accused the NSA of recklessly snooping on US residents in contravention of existing laws.

"The NSA program is apparently the biggest fishing expedition ever devised, scanning millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls and emails for ‘suspicious’ patterns, and it’s the collaboration of US telecom companies like AT&T that makes it possible," EFF staff attorney Kevin Bankston said.

So, some people organizing are going to save the rest of our arses again, we hope!

What we are likely never to hear confirmed in Washington the giant, octopus-like tentacles of the NSA, as described by the ACLU.

The idea is that the NSA system taps into the major industrial, corporate telecommunications switches and mines everything in order to allow the military to zero in on anybody in the country they damn well please. I can't wait to see Negroponte and General Hayden cough up that information on C-SPAN!

Bush Pulls Plug on American People

2006-01-31T13:02:00.000-05:00

Let's pull plug on him.

Get the hell out!

"Ukraine" BushCo

2006-01-20T14:50:00.000-05:00

What happened in the Ukraine was termed, Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" (Ukrainian: Помаранчева революція) of 2004-2005, a series of protests and political events that took place throughout the country in response to allegations of massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct electoral fraud during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.

While millions of Ukrainians demonstrated daily in Kiev (Kyiv) — the capital city of Ukraine and the center of the revolution where a large 24-hour tent city was set up by Yushchenko's supporters —the action was highlighted by a series of nationwide protests, sit-ins, and general strikes organized by the opposition, following the disputed results of the November 21 run-off election

-- Wikipedia

In our style of expanding our language faster than Presidential power, we can adopt the name of the country, "Ukraine," for our own word -- a verb, ukraine--the act of removing an administration from power by millions of citizens spontaneously demanding it.

After watching those hearings today, my response is, "Let's ukraine BushCo!"

In the concluding paragraph to his statement before the hearings, Conyers said,

Perhaps what is most troubling of all is that if we let this domestic spying program continue, if we let this president convince us that we are at war, so he can do what he wants, we will allow to stand the principle that the president alone can decide what laws apply to him. I submit that is not only inconsistent with the principles upon which our Republic was founded, it denigrates the very freedom we have been fighting for since the tragic events of September 11. That is why we are holding today’s hearing.

How sick! Bush is already fighting for his life and he isn't even being ukrained yet! He is now staking everything on this show with Gonzales, Cheney, the Judiciary Committee and Alito and the Supremes. If they can't make this argument stick, it's ukraine city. This business of him having to devote so much time and energy to this issue is pathetic! It's as if he and the Republicans are checkmating themselves.

To the police and the military

2006-01-18T12:41:00.000-05:00

I am not a veteran, but I would have served if the stigma of Vietnam had not repelled me from following a military career.

My "Career Aptitude Test" my junior year of high school, 1974, gave me a 99% fit with the general characteristics of a "Military Officer" career. I had a 95% with "Catholic Priest."

I became a teacher.

Nevertheless, the military is the key to saving our country. Fuck Iraq. What about "freedom" in the United States?

As long as the Republicans satiate the Pentagon's lust for taxpayer dollars, the Pentagon will pull all their strings--visible and invisible--to keep the elephants on top.

But, if the rank and file can join forces with the population and insist on the restoration of civil values--not merely economic ones--to our civilization, we will have another chance to have a democracy here.

I'm not advocating open rebellion, just democracy, even for the military. We political activists need to find a way to inform and encourage the armed forces personnel to do some soul searching.

What are you fighting for, what would you die for, really?

Is this the country our progenitors labored, bled and died to secure for us?

What do we have to do now as soldiers and officers to protect and defend our Constitution and our democratic way of life?

God help us, our country is in the grip of a fascist oligarchy and they control the media and the armed forces!

If democracy is to be saved in this country, it must be the will of the armed forces.

All the Heavies are Weighing In

2006-01-16T11:23:00.000-05:00

Seventeen Pakistani villagers have been sacrificed in the latest American atrocity for the so-called, "War on Terror."

The Associated Press reporter, Nedra Pickler, wrote an article entitled, Rice: al-Qaida Can't Be Treated Lightly. The article provides us with a full range of justifications and lies Americans can utilize in order to avoid any guilt or even responsibility over the murder of poor foreigners.

As Rice spoke Sunday, thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets for a second day to protest the airstrikes. They chanted "Death to America" and demanded U.S. troops leave neighboring Afghanistan.

In furtherance of her sarcasm in the wake of the tragedy,

"It's obviously difficult at this time for the Pakistani government," Rice said in the first remarks from a top Bush administration official following the airstrikes. "We'll continue to work with the Pakistanis and we'll try to address their concerns."

As for our "allies in the war on terror,"

Pakistani officials have strongly condemned the attack. It has fueled increasing anger in Pakistan, where many of the 150 million residents oppose the government's involvement in the U.S.-led war against terror.

And, in a punch line, to add insult to injury,

"The biggest threat to Pakistan of course is what al-Qaida has done in trying to radicalize the country," Rice said.

Then the Bushco noise machine cranked into high volume.

The White House declined to comment on the attacks, except to praise Musharraf as well as Pakistan as "a valued ally on the war on terror."

A U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity, said it's still unclear if al-Zawahri was killed in the attack.

Senators defended the airstrikes Sunday.

"We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again" in going after al-Zawahri, said Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz.

"We have to do what we think is necessary to take out al-Qaida, particularly the top operatives. This guy has been more visible than Osama bin Laden lately," McCain, a Senate Armed Services Committee member, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record), D-Ind., who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the CIA had been watching the area for several days and that the agency would not have conducted such an operation without extraordinarily high levels of intelligence.

"It's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?" Bayh told CNN's "Late Edition." "It's like the wild, wild west out there. The Pakistani border is a real problem."

Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record), R-Miss., another Intelligence Committee member, said such strikes are necessary to get at al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan who are directing anti-American violence in Iraq. "My information is that this strike was clearly justified by the intelligence," Lott said.

Reform Campaign Financing

2006-01-12T22:12:00.000-05:00

Campaign for America's Future has a campaign finance reform page where they ask for your ideas on campaign finance reform. I said

I am against the death penalty, but white collar crime needs to have the most severe punishments in the code. Greatly increase the severity of the punishments against white collar and political money criminals.

Strict limits need to be set on campaign spending The amount of advertising allowed in any race is to be regulated by the people's government at a very low level. All other campaign spending of any kind must desist six months before the election. The candidates cannot "advertise" as they do now, but only, with their limited funds, state their positions on issues.

Finally, all contributions by lobbyists or their friends, families, business associates or anyone connected with them are forbidden. Corporate or other non-human entities are forbidden from donating funds -- or from having funds donated on their behalf -- to politicians or people or organizations associated with them.

Game over

2006-01-12T16:54:00.000-05:00

Yes, the Alito hearings were fascinating because a sinister tale unfolded beneath the text of the question and answer sessions.

Why does Alito want to be such an important judge? Why did Bush nominate him? Why are some senators so intent on confirming him?

There will be much more to say on this and other related topics soon. Meanwhile, however, the NSA spy scandal has been somewhat lowered under the radar by the Alito hearings.

Today, the Washington Times carried this article, Ex-official warned against testifying on NSA programs. Full force intimidation. It was about Tice.

Renee Seymour, director of NSA special access programs stated in a Jan. 9 letter to Russ Tice that he should not testify about secret electronic intelligence programs because members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees do not have the proper security clearances for the secret intelligence.

So, if a spying program that Congress would declare illegal if they knew about, is too secret to tell them about because they don't have "clearance."

This is in the paper to scare people from opening their mouths or talking about this kind of issue. This is exactly the kind of horseshit they want Alito to protect on the Court.

Whether Alito gets confirmed or not we have to play as if we have lost our freedom to a dictatorship. It's past time to act.

blood money

2006-01-09T17:33:00.000-05:00

This new online news outlet, the Canadian, has a feature story entitled, How The War Machine Drives US Economy.

The Rogers and Hammerstein Research Collection of Recorded Sound

2006-01-05T22:46:00.000-05:00

I wandered into the Performing Arts Library yesterday evening. It just happened to be the one weeknight the Library is still open after 6:00 PM.

I found a number of FDR recordings on the electronic catalogue, and after asking around for about ten minutes, I found myself checking my coat on the third floor. Then I passed through the glass door into a long, brightly lighted room of computer desks and microfilm file cabinets.

The room was very very clean. I thought I was in some corporate research or creative department. To think that the City of New York had little public library annexes of this quality!

And it is free!

To make a long story short, I listened to FDR's first 2 inaugural addresses.

Ironically, what FDR said in those speeches conveys the mind and spirit that give rise to the very facilities where I was listening to his words: public facilities of the highest quality, provided by the people for the common good.

A couple of phrases really struck me. In the First Inaugural he said there was a need to keep private, autocratic powers in proper subordination to the people's government.

David Sirota couldn't have said it better himself!

Then, in the Second Inaugural, FDR mentions that three things we learned we have to do to have stability and economic justice are:

1) Strict government supervision of credit, investment and banking,

2) No speculation with Other People's Money, and

3) Adequate, sound currency.

This economic stability and justice would give rise to "new building materials of social justice."

So I sat and listened in that quiet, clean, well-lighted public facility, and wondered how it could be that I had never heard those words before. Is it possible that others have been trying to prevent me from hearing them?

leave the usa?

2006-01-05T15:05:00.000-05:00

what for?

Scilla

Tropea

Take my liberty; spare my life!

2006-01-04T12:41:00.000-05:00

As the braindead, stupefied, terrified televiewers wash into another calendar year, our frightened leader is "on the march."

He is battling to renew the "Patriot" Act, which has been extended for one month from December 31st to allow more time for debate on the controversial provisions that are set to expire.

In Bush Fights Resistance To Patriot Act, an anonymous AP journalist informs us of Bush's comments yesterday when he "press[ed] his case to a supportive audience at the Pentagon:

"The enemy has not gone away. They're still there," said Bush. "And I expect Congress to understand that we're still at war, and they got to give us the tools necessary to win this war."

Oh, my! What a fighter! Fuck you, Mr. President.

We are not at war with terrorists. That whole concept is incoherent. Besides, with a little better leadership we wouldn't need to squander so much money in an admittedly futile effort to coordinate the bloated intelligence services and law enforcement that are struggling so hard to get the job done.

In another pitiful and scandalous attempt to exploit the fear and helplessness of our behavior-conditioned citizenry,

Later, outside the West Wing, prosecutors cited several cases in which the Patriot Act had played a crucial role, from staging an undercover sting on California weapons dealers attempting to sell Stinger missiles to securing convictions of major terrorist financiers in New York.

"We use it each and every day to protect our country against terrorists and criminals," said Ken Wainstein, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Fortunately, stepping somewhat into the void left by the untimely killing of Senator Paul Wellstone,

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Bush should spend more time negotiating about the Patriot Act with Democrats and others on Capitol Hill and less on "staged meetings with hand-picked participants" at the White House.

It's clear that Bush is as terrorized as anybody--afraid of negotiating with the Democrats and others who want an open and honest debate. How could this man ever lead our country in a real war? He needs laws like the Patriot Act and secret police services like Homeland Security to hide his own quaking and trembling ass from Americans who might disagree with him a little bit. It's a foregone conclusion that he isn't up to confronting, much less hammering out a settlement with the Iraqis or the Iraqi resistance.

Get back to your fucking ranch, you coward, and take your whole fascist cabal of lying thugs with you!

In case anyone is really wondering why Bushco is so intent on getting the Patriot Act renewed, as well as carrying on with these secret detentions, the right to torture, the freedom to deny habeus corpus to captives, and the employment security of making themselves rich at the expense of the rest of the world, ecetera, notice what Amy Butler and David Fulghum have to say in an article in today's Aerospace Daily and Defense Report, entitled, Pentagon Dissent Discouraged on Spending, Force Structure

The administration's underlying budget approach now, critics contend, is to put off any growth in military spending until beyond the 2008 presidential race. "There will be no real movement [on acquisition] until after the next election," says a veteran airlift specialist. "That will mean mitigation in combat capability."

They're telling everybody to get with the program or shut up. In other words, Bushco business as usual: no debate, no reasoning, no examination of dissenting opinions or alternative priorities. If we're wrong, we're wrong. Fuck it. Let the whole world go down the tubes. We'll still get our money.

However, according to Fulghum and Butler, "Defense industry officials and uniformed officers are expressing concern about the lack of informed debate."

Is this what we're here for? To allow this mismanagement and bullying destruction of our economy and our society?

Let's oust Bushco now, slash defense, close down Homeland Security, and try to develop a little bit of sustainability in our communities, our food and energy supplies, our transportation system, and our relations with allies.

Give me liberty; or give me death. The war on terrorism IS terrorism.

Bushco going broke

2006-01-03T22:32:00.000-05:00

I've been reading through this carefully researched and documented report by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee, Constitution in Crisis.

Read it.

We need to start a movement to take George Tenet's Medal of Freedom and give it to John Conyers instead.

Last Friday of the Month

2005-12-30T11:39:00.000-05:00

It's the last Friday of the month, and that means...

There's a Real Player video of a recent Democracy Now broadcast discussing undercover NYC Police surveillance at Critical Mass and other 1st Amendment protected events. The panellists are Norman Seigal, Paul Brown of the Police Department, Jim Dwyer of the NY Times, and Molly ______________ of Eye Witness Video. The show is interesting, well produced and --at times, chilling.

Looks like we may be having more letters like this, being written by citizens deprived of their civil liberties.

Here's more on what happened on Christmas at Disneyland. What's going on? Tell Rall sees it this way. From my point of view, it's just more of the "culture of corruption." The latest on the suppression of civil liberties under the guise of the so-called "War On Terror" can be found here. It looks like Congress is ACTUALLY too deep in the pockets of Bush's corporate supporters and the Christo-fascist neocon death cult that they're afraid to defend the Constitution itself.

We can't be expected to stand for this, can we?

strike out?

2005-12-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

Jon Tasini at Working Life has a lot to say about the TWU strike.

This reflection seems particularly insightful:

But, you have to give the M.T.A. and their allies credit. They are successfully turning part of the working class against its brethern. Because most people no longer have a decent pension, they are told that those who do have a decent pension should give it up. The same is true of health care. Rather than the debate turning to a public policy strategy that would give everyone affordable health care and decent pensions, employers have masterfully made the debate about the need for workers to sacrifice and get less--a chorus that is joined by some workers who are angry that their living standards are declining but have turned their anger against the wrong people.

Bushco is going out of business

2005-12-22T12:09:00.000-05:00

Today on After Downing Street, Senator Barbara Boxer had a long post about how the Bush administration has screwed up so badly, that it is hard to have confidence in them any more.

My reply to her was

The people of the US are marginalized from the political process, much as the Latin American populations once were.

The people are ready to bring meaningful positive change to this country: our society and our policies. But we lack leaders with the vision, the will and the energy to mobilize the population.

Nobody is counting Bush's errors or misstatements anymore, except the media pundits and the Beltway powerbloc.

We have--or had--resources to make the world better for EVERYONE, cleaner, more just, and safer--even for posterity. Bush, the Pentagon, and the politicians have squandered that wealth and capital, while their media covered the true picture with a film of deception.

"Today, the word of this President and his administration has been called into question. Frankly, it is hard to believe those words any longer on Iraq."

This is the understatement of the millenium. The only people who PRETEND to believe the White House are the Congress and the media. There's no point in arguing about it anymore.

It's time to move on to making the world a better place--less like a secret prison cell, or a bombed out village, or one half million starving and forgotten refugees, or a hole in the ozone bigger than the United States, or melting permafrost and Arctic ice, and less like the overcrowded, isolated American prisons and the temporary "Bushvilles" of Gulf Coast refugees.

No one can pay attention to two things at the same time. So what's it going to be, Senator Boxer? Are you going to lead the people to better ourselves, our country and our children's world? Or do you want to try to point the finger at Bushco and wait until somebody else who really wants to lead comes along?

questioning

2005-12-16T16:37:00.000-05:00

The word is out that the much ballyhooed "Retreat on Torture" by the White House is a scam. They changed the rules.

Gearing up?

2005-12-16T12:31:00.000-05:00

Gearing Up To Join The SNEER CAMPAIGN?

Secret policework

2005-12-14T11:28:00.000-05:00

There have been a few articles since 9/11, but there seems to be an increase recently, on domestic spying by the military and the Department of Homeland Security. The latest one today is on tv.

What I want to know is: "What does Congress think their job is if not protecting the rights of the American people?"

What are we going to have to do, go to Indian reservations to get sanctuary from our own government?

Congress either needs to get mad and get busy or get out and let somebody who is serious about upholding the Constitution and protecting the citizens and posterity get in there and do battle with the Pentagon.

Dems Unify on Long-term Security Plan

2005-12-09T10:11:00.000-05:00

As usual, Bill Scher at Liberal Oasis has the skinny on how the Dems can unify their foreign--and especially Iraq--policy.

1. Clarify a general long-term security policy first, not an Iraq exit plan;

2. Acknowledge that Dems disagree on the specifics, but all Dems agree on the goal of leaving Iraq for everyone's benefit;

3. Clarify the distinction between Dems and Republicans: Republicans want a permanent US deployment in Iraq, Dems do not.

Nobody Believes You

2005-12-08T12:55:00.000-05:00

cross-posted at Daily Kos

The AFP headline was: Rice "Clears Air" over CIA row with Europe.

Usually we can count on AFP to give us a little bit of a brighter view of these things--but not here.

"It was a good discussion. I think it cleared the air," said NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, referring to a dinner Wednesday night gathering Rice with her NATO and EU colleagues.

That would be the "Torture Dinner with Rice."

Specifically Rice said that Washington's obligations under an international convention prohibiting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment "extend to US personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the US or outside the US."

She reiterated that message in Brussels. "We recognize our obligations, our policy recognizes our obligations, whether activities are undertaken inside the United States or outside the United States," told reporters.

What she failed to point out is that even though we recognize our obligations, we can't always manage to live up to them 100%--nobody's perfect. Furthermore, when our detainees are imprisoned on foreign soil, our obligations don't really extend as far as they would on "homeland" (read, "Fatherland") soil. In fact, if somebody is in jail under the jurisdiction of one of our noble coalition partners, all we can do is pray and beseech them not to torture the guys.

So you see we live up to OUR obligations, and we try to extend them to foreign soil, even though, as in countless recent cases, that has proven to be impossible.

The Washington Post, in a piece today by Kessler and White, tried to put the best face of the Secretary of State's remarks. But they went on to say,

The Bush administration has long said that the U.S. government will not engage in torture. But it has argued in the past that restrictions on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment do not apply outside U.S. territory.

Before she left for Europe on Monday, Rice issued a detailed statement on U.S. policy on treatment of prisoners, intending to dampen the furor on the continent. She said, among other things, that "the United States government does not authorize or condone torture of detainees." But she did not define torture.

Lame duckism. Nobody believes them anymore. No matter what they say, nobody will believe them.

La guerra contra il terrorismo e terrorismo

2005-12-05T15:59:00.000-05:00

The war against terrorism is terrorism.

Rice is going around saying shit like,

[The] US authorities have not transported and will not transport detainees from one country to another to be questioned using torture. This must mean that they tell themselves torture is not the primary reason they are rendering these guys. It has to do with being able to hold the prisoners long enough to get some info out of them. Torture is just a side-effect. They aren't being transported "to be tortured."

"Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured."

Rice said international law allowed for the detention of enemy combatants for "the duration of hostilities."

"The US does not seek to hold anyone for a period beyond what is necessary to evaluate intelligence or other evidence against them, prevent further acts of terrorism, or hold them for legal proceedings."

Rendon

2005-11-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

I haven't read the Rolling Stone article on The Man Who Sold the War. James Bamford apparently wrote all kinds of interesting things about Rendon colluding in the propaganda run-up to the war.

Additionally, Rendon published a response to the article. They rebut everything Bamford said. They depict him as a liar. They are convincing, but, hey, that's their job.

On the other hand, there are some really fascinating documents on Rendon's website. Among the Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communications entries is one hefty PDF doc entitled, The Defense Science Board Report on Strategic Communications. After glancing at that alone, it seems as if all our worst fears about the "strategic communications" Republican media nightmare we've been living in for the last seven or eight years are very well-founded.

Until I read the article from Rolling Stone, this looks like the best piece I know of on the Rendon Group.

Guess which country

2005-11-17T16:53:00.000-05:00

This is a quotation from an AP story today:

The impact on the civic, political and economic life of the country is evident in increased self censorship by the media, lack of public confidence in the electoral system, reluctance to express disagreement with government policies for fear of retribution and capital flight,

Shannon said. Give up? It's a quotation from Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon in charge of Latin American affairs, talking about ... drum roll ... Venezuela!

I know. It thought he was talking about the United States of America at first, too.

The Iraq Wall

2005-11-17T00:34:00.000-05:00

Henry Scheerer over at Huffington Post has a blog entry calling for the imminent withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. To read him, the withdrawal is all but underway already.

In that spirit, I go out on the following limb: the Senate's oh-so-delicate walking away from full arm-link with the President on the war is just the beginning. Here's how this story ends: for purely political reasons, the US gets out far sooner than the true believers would like, far later than the anti-war folks would have wanted, and at a time determined (as was the onset of the war) by the political calendar....You can't be sure exactly when the alarm rings that signals end-of-toleration for the adventure, but we've clearly passed that point, and now all that's left is to manage the pullout as deftly (and, if you're the President, as much as you can to show we've "won") as possible.

I differ. I don't believe the forces that we have set in motion can be recalled by anyone now. This cataclysm has taken on a life of its own.

If Bush can't conduct the war, guess what? The ONI and the other secret offices in the Pentagon that run the country will find somebody else to fight it. We're there for the duration. If the country wants out, the war propaganda machine and the Department of Homeland Security will do whatever is necessary to convince us otherwise. We're going to see absurdly destructive, wasteful, unreasonable and inhumane behavior committed in the Middle East in our name. If we don't like it, it will be committed here, too.

Carter Speaks

2005-11-15T12:32:00.000-05:00

Jimmy Carter posted an editorial to the LA Times yesterday.

There's another interesting article in the Italian Communist paper Liberazione, with this pithy quotation: La "guerra al terrorismo" è terrorismo. They are closely reporting on the protests at the American embassy in Rome. I first heard about the protest action from a British newspaper, The Independent.

Here's a journalist's account of Phosphorous Bombs

2005-11-09T23:42:00.000-05:00

It's in the North County (San Diego, CA) Times newspaper. Apparently the author, Darrin Mortenson, was embedded earlier this year.

Sneer Up

2005-11-08T15:32:00.001-05:00

	Homeland Security "We're doing your dirty work!"

RAI Weapons Exposee

2005-11-08T11:46:00.000-05:00

This is the page with the link to the English version of the RAI documentary airing tonight about the use of illegal weapons in Fallujah.

GreenSpin

2005-11-07T14:46:00.000-05:00

Alan Greenspan, the great supply side Objectivist has been Chairperson of the Federal Reserve Bank since 1987. His economic policy, as well as that of those who look to him for political support, has been summarized by politicians such as George Bush and John Snow as

The wealthy might be becoming wealthier, apologists for this growing inequality soon argued, but their growing fortunes spelled only good news. The more wealth in already wealthy pockets, the argument went, the more the wealthy would invest, the greater the prosperity for everyone.

This is the "money is good for rich people and bad for poor people" doctrine.

Sam Pizzigati has posted an article over at TomPaine.com, that discusses the phenomenon of the growth in inequality of income distribution during the Greenspan era.

According to Pizzigati,

Our pay gap between typical CEO and typical worker has stretched wider than ever at the same time the educational gap between CEO and wage-earner has become narrower than ever before.

Greenspan, like all capitalists, has tried to wax altruistic upon his pending retirement by holding up "better education" as the great need for equalizing income distribution in America, by equalizing skills. This is the same problem education has always faced: the desire of those outside the education system to cure society of its ills by "fixing" education according to some formula or trend they perceive as being more relevant or urgent at the moment.

The inevitable result of this is the perpetuation of a flawed educational system, not to mention excessive divergence in income between workers and capitalists.

Frist joins SNEER campaign

2005-11-02T14:51:00.000-05:00

"Never have I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution." Bill Frist, Senate majority leader.

rummy strikes again

2005-11-01T17:04:00.000-05:00

Another Bush Administration Official Joins the Sneer Campaign

Rumsfeld denies UN rights experts access to Guantanamo detainees

According to AFP,

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused UN experts access to detainees at a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dismissing a hunger strike there as a publicity stunt.

The Pentagon last week invited three UN human rights experts to "observe" operations at the Guantanamo detention center but the officials have said they will go only if they are allowed to interview prisoners privately.

He says the Red Cross has access to the prisoners 24/7 so, he doesn't see the need to increase the number of visitors. It just so happens that the Red Cross doesn't ever make their findings public.

Meanwhile, the hunger strike of about two dozen inmates goes on. Rumsfeld shrugs it off as a publicity stunt.

By the numbers

2005-11-01T12:01:00.000-05:00

jpol over at Booman Tribune has highlighted some statistics on the Democratic Policy Committee's October 17th Report.

He wonders why they aren't more widely reported in the mainstream media since they are sitting there on a Senate Committee website for all to see, smack dab in the middle of the public domain.

He suggests that the reason may be that the statistics are too unfavorable toward the Bush Administration and the corporate media that support them.

Here are some of my personal "highlights:"

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) found: 0

Approximate number of medical evacuations of U.S. military personnel performed since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom: 55,000

Weeks since the Pentagon developed a plan to draw down U.S. forces in Iraq to roughly 40,000 by mid-2005: 104* (now 106)

Estimated number of insurgents in Iraq (November 2003): 5,000

Estimated number of insurgents in Iraq (June 2005): 15 - 20,000

Something tells me that the publication of these stats by jpol on Booman, coupled with things like The World Can't Wait tomorrow, mean that the light is going to shine in the darkness now.

et tu ...

2005-10-31T13:12:00.000-05:00

TomPaine.com has a colorful "organization chart" of the Cheney/Rumsfeld conspiracy to launch an invasion of Iraq 2002-2003.

How ironic!

2005-10-28T15:28:00.000-04:00

I guess truth is relative after all.

Dick Cheney just said,

In our system of government an accused person is presumed innocent until a contrary finding is made by a jury after an opportunity to answer the charges and a full airing of the facts. Mr. Libby is entitled to that opportunity.

Tell that to Alberto Gonzalez, the Guantanamo hunger strikers and Human Rights Watch

I guess Atlas has finally shrugged, justice is relative and there aren't any more absolutes. Shucks.

face it

2005-10-26T11:47:00.000-04:00

Is It Time For America To Join Dick Cheney for the Sneer Campaign?

Alternet: The Top Nine Plamegate Lies

LA Times: White House Plans To Deflect