A Controversial and/or Informative Site

[Saundra Hummer]

.....CHENEY 'CABAL' HIJACKED FOREIGN POLICY

By Edward Alden in Washington

10/20/05 "FT" -- -- Vice President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that has left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.

In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: "What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

"Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences."

Mr. Wilkerson said such secret decision-making was responsible for mistakes such as the long refusal to engage with North Korea or to back European efforts on Iran.

It also resulted in bitter battles in the administration among those excluded from the decisions. "If you're not prepared to stop the feuding elements in the bureaucracy as they carry out your decisions, you are courting disaster. And I would say that we have courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran."

The comments, made at the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank, were the harshest attack on the admininstration by a former senior official since criticisms by Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism czar, and Paul O'Neill, former Treasury secretary, early last year.

Mr Wilkerson said his decision to go public had led to a personal falling out with Mr. Powell, whom he served for 16 years at the Pentagon and the State Department.

"He's not happy with my speaking out because, and I admire this in him, he is the world's most loyal soldier."

Among his other charges

***The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was "a concrete example" of the decision-making problem, with the president and other top officials in effect giving the green light to soldiers to abuse detainees. "You don't have this kind of pervasive attitude out there unless you've condoned it." :o

***Condoleezza Rice, the former national security adviser and now secretary of state, was "part of the problem". Instead of ensuring that Mr. Bush received the best possible advice, "she would side with the president to build her intimacy with the president".

*** The Military, particularly the army and marine corps, is overstretched and demoralised. Officers, Mr. Wilkerson claimed, "start voting with thier feet, as they did in Vietnam. . . and all of a sudden your military begins to unravel.".

Mr. Wilkerson said former president George H.W. Bush "one of the finest presidents we have ever had" understood how to make foreign policy work. In contrast, he said, his son was not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them; either".

"There's a vast difference between the way George H.W. Bush dealt with major challenges, some of the greatest challenges at the end of the 20th century and effected positive results in my view, and the way we conduct dipolmacy today."

http://www.newsamerica.net

The Financial Times

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10684.htm
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While on site, check out these articles:

Secrets, Evasions and Classified Reports
....The CIA leak case isn't just about whether top officials will be indicted. A larger issue is what Judith Miller's evidence says about White House manipulation of the media.
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The Fix Is In
By Chris Floyd

If anyone in the White House is actually indicted and convicted for the high crime of exposing the identity of an undercover agent -- in wartime, noless -- they will certainly be pardoned with George W. Bush finally limps away from the steaming, stinking, blood-soaked ruin of his presidency. Nobody will do any hard time, in the end, the whole sick crew will simply pass throught the golden revolving door into the lifetime gravy train of corporate grease and right-wing lecture-circuit glory.

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ATTACK SYRIA? INVADE IRAN?: WHAT GIVES THEM THE (CONSTITUTIONAL) RIGHT?

BY JEREMY BRECHER AND BRENDAN SMITH

We've been here before. President Bush used trumped-up fears (like mushroom clouds over American cities) and frauds (like imaginary "yellowcake" uranium) to fool the American people into attacking Iraq. Now we and the Iraqi people are paying the price.

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"Mouse Journalism" is the only way we can report on Iraq: Robert Fisk has revealed that the situation in Iraq is now so dangerous that he doesn't know whether he can go on reporting from the country.

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Defense lawyer in Saddam trial kidnapped: police: A defense lawyer involved in the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven others has been kidnapped by gunmen, said police and Interiour Ministry sources.

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Killing the Witness: Spanish Judge Orders Arrest & Extradition of U.S. Soldiers in Death of Spanish Journalist Jose Couso in Iraq. :o

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Freedom's Just Another Word for Blowing up Buddhas and Killing people : AP reports that the Taliban wild man in charge of blowing up two giant, 1,500 -year-old statues of Buddha in 2001 has been duly elected to parliament, where he will add his wise voice to the guidance of policy in the regime of warlords, druglords and virulent extremeists installed by Bush.

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Cindy Sheehan Pledges Civil Disobedience Campaign: Peace mom plans more arrests in D.C. ----and Thanksgiving in Crawford.

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International Commission of Inquiry on On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration: "When the possibility of far-reaching war crimes and crimes against humanity exists, peple of conscience have a solem responsibility to inquire into the nature and scope of these acts and to determine if they do in fact rise to the level of war crimes" from the Charter.

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AFFRONT TO CIVIL LIBERTIES: The federal government has been given a green light to deprive Americans of their rights to due process. No arrest warrants. No trial. No access to the civilian court system. :gavel: You may not be able to see it on television, but this court decision is the equivalent of a legal hurricane-and it is no exaggeration to say that his is a level 5 storm with respect to its potential havoc for civil liberties. (Cato Institute article)

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CONGRESSMAN WANTS A NEW ABLE DANGER PROBE: A vocal House Republican is calling for a new probe into what he says is a "witch :o hunt" by defense officials against a Sept. 11 intelligence whistle blower.

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A BAIT-AND-SWITCH CHARITY: The Scandalous History of the Red Cross

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BUSH CALLS DOMESTIC PROBLEMS "BACKGROUND NOISE": :gavel: PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, hit by a series of domestic woes that have eroded his popularity, said on Thursday he was focusedon his job and not on what he called "SOME BACKGROUND NOISE."

There's a lot to see on this site- this is only a partial list.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

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Hurricane Wilma has come ashore as a category 4, landing at Cozumel. Hope my friend Katy Grannis is o.k. She runs the decompression chamber there for divers, usually cruise ship patrons who had too much to drink the night before and they can't handle the changing pressure.

Wonder what this one is going to do to Mexico and to Florida or whereever? The gulf is so abnormally warm, that the hurricane watchers are wondering just what this one will do and I have to wonder which path it will eventually take as concerns the US.

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...........HALIBURTON'S NEW LOW IN TREACHERY
By Dave Sweitel
The Madison Capital Times
Monday 17, October 2005

The Chicago Tribune produced an incredible story last week detailing how unsuspecting young men from poor countries are tricked into working in dangerous jobs for a Haliburton subsidiary in Iraq.

The two-part series retraced the journey of a group of Nepalese men who were lured to the Mideast with fraudulent paperwork that promised them jobs at a luxury hotel in Amman, Jordan, but instead wound up in Iraq working for the Haliburton subsidiary KBR, America's biggest private contractor there.

What was even more startling was the stories' revelation that the operation is financed with US taxpayer money.

According to the Tribune, American tax dollars and the wartime needs of the US military are fueling an illicit pipeline of cheap foreign labor into Iraq. Most of those falling for the fraudulent job offers are impoverished Asians who, the newspaper said,"often are deceived, exploited and put in harm's way with little protection."

The Tribune got on the story after 12 young civilians from Nepal were kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq and a few days later publicly slaughtered. The newspaper sent a reporter and photographer to Nepal, where they interviewed families and friends and soon discovered that thousands of men are routinely recruited for "good" Mideast jobs, but wind up in the most treacherous stretches of Iraq territory working in private jobs for the US military.

A brother to one of the kidnapped men told Cam Simpson, the Trib reporter that the last time he heard from his brother was when he called home from his supposed job in Jordam. He was being sent against his will to Iraq, the brother said, and then blurted out "I am done for." The phone then went dead. The next time the young Nepalese was seen was on a TV screen two weeks after, his hands tied behind his back and a gun pointed at his head.

Simpson reported that the trail of those dozen men from Nepal revealed a chain of brokers, middlemen and subcontractors along the way, all of whom stood to profic from the trade.

To maintain the flow of cheap labor that is key to the military support and reconstruction in Iraq, the US military has allowed KBR to partner with subcontractors that hire workers from Nepal and other countries that prohibit their citizens from being employed in Iraq, the story said. That means that the brokers operate illicity and falsify documents that describe far different jobs near Iraq, which eventually turn out to be smack dab in the middle of the country.

"Even after foreign workers discover they have been lured to the Middle East under false pretenses, many say they have little choice but to continue into Iraq, or stay longer than planned," the story continued. "They feel trapped because they must repay huge fees demanded by bnokers."


KBR, which has a multi-billion-dollar contract with the US Defense Department, pays the subcontractors for finding it employees to do the cleanup and rebuilding work in Iraq.

The tentacles of this war keep getting this country deeper and deeper into places we shouldn't be, including this atrociuos practice that the Chicago Tribune has uncovered.

[Saundra Hummer]

...........GOP EXTREMISTS MAKE THEIR MOVE:

When Tom Delay's position as undisputed Republican master was first questioned late last year, a Republican strategist told the New York Times what would ensue if he were to fall:

.....Without Tom DeLay it would be complete and total chaos,' said one Rejpublican strategist (Hutch must have read this.) whose close ties to the White House, "The House would descent into "lord of the Flies.'"

Now that Tom Delay has been indicted, and has technically been removed from his leadership post - but he continues to pull the strings, and his presence continues to hold the Republican Congress steady lke a deer in the headlights.

But this week we got the first signs that a GOP Conference filled to the brim with the power hungry may be splintering. A story on Monday explained two proposed draconian cuts from the most extreme conservative wing of the Republican Congress were stiring trouble....

.....House GOP Leaders Set To Cut Spending
............Washington Post - October 17, 2005

............"House Republican leaders have moved from balking at big cuts in Medicaid and other programs to embracing them, driven by pent-up-anger from fiscal conservatives concerned about runaway spending and the leadership's own weakening hold on power.

............"Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2005 budget for health care for the poor, foodstamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs. Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R. Tex.) and other GOP leaders quashed demands within their party for budget cuts to pay for the soaring cost of hurricane relief."

How does this relate to DeLay's shaken grip on power?

............"The abrupt shift reflects a changed political dynamic in the House in which a faction of fiscal conservatives - known as the Republican Study Committee , or RSC - has gained the upper hand because of DeLay's criminal indictment in Texas, widespread criticism of the Republicans' handling of Hurricane Katrina, and uncertainty over the future of the leadership, according to lawmakers and aides...

............."DeLay may continue to exercise power informally as he did Oct. 7 in working the floor to help narrowly pass an energy bill. But DeLay and his leadershiop allies are mindful that the rank and file could demand new elections to permananently fill the majority leader's post - temporarily being held by Rep. Roy Blunt (MO,) - if members grow impatient with GOP policies.

..............."Our real leverage has come from the fear that DeLay will not have a post to come back to, ' said Rep. Jeff Flake (Ariz), another RSC leader. "they are deathly afraid of a leadership election in January."

Oddly enough, early signs showed slightly more moderate voices quietly moving towards the potential leadershop void. After all, the only chance Republicans would have to cleanse themselves of the culture of corruption DeLay ushered in would be to find some "new blood," as one such upstart contender deemed himself. And indeed, Republicans in moderate districts knew that Democrats would not let them get away with further slashing social programs even as they lavished handouts on the oil industry and elsewhere. As a result, they appear to have made clear to Republican Leadership that the new right wing zealotry would not pass a vote on the floor. This was the headline by the end of the week...

...House GOP Leaders Postpone Vote On Reductions in Spending.
Washington Post - October 17, 2005

....Of course, in a sense, this was all a sideshow, since the debate was about whether to cut $35 billion from programs helping those who need it most vs. cutting $50 billion. The DCCC Communiciations department sent out this release (link provided) across the country, challenging Repubicans to state their priorities plainly and asking, "What Budget Cuts Do the Republican Members Support?"...

.....1. Medicare cuts? (more on site)
.....2. Energy costs? (more on site)
.....3. Veterans Benefits? (more on site)
.....4. National Security? (more on site)

This is an excerpt from a newsletter I just received, to see the entire letter which talks about other issues and is much more explicit, go to this site:

http://www.dccc.org

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...."The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is facisism - owenrship of government by an individual, by a group of any controlling private power." President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

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....."Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." (George Washington)

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....."Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object." Abraham Lincoln.

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............................OLD BUSH vs. NEW
UPI

Saturday 22, October 2005

Truthout.org has this article today about an article slated to come out in the New Yorker magazine, written by Brent Scowcroft, "the respected national security adviser to the first President George Bush."

.....Washington - The Bush administration is bracing for a powerful new attack by Brent Scowcroft, the respected national security adviser to the first President George Bush.

A Republican and a former Air Force general, Scowcroft is a leading member of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, and his critique of both of the style and the substance of the Bush White House, is slated to apper in Monday's editions of the New Yorker magazine.

The article also contains some critical comments on the handling of U.S. foreign policy by the current President Bush from his father, whose 1989 - 1993 presidency is hailed for deft management of the end of the Cold War, German unification , the first Gulf war and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The new attack comes hard on the heels of the denunciation of "the cabal around Cheney's office" by Col. Larry Wilkerson, the chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell in a widely reported speech to the New American Foundation in Washington this week. Wilkerson said the national security decision-making process was effectively "broken."

Scowcroft's criticisms will be taken seriously at the highest levels of the Bush administratio because he is seen as a mentor by some of the senior figures, notably Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose political career began when she worked under Skowcroft as an adviser on Soviet affairs.

The attack also comes as President Bush's opinion poll approval ratings have sunk to around 37 percent, partly reflecting the ill-handled federal government response to Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf coast. But majorities of Americans are also telling pollsters the country "is on the worng track" and saying the Iraq war was a mistake.

The beleaguered Bush administration is also nervously waiting to see whether indictments in the CIA leak case are to be handed down next week against two key White House aides Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby. The White House is facing heavy flak from its conservative base over the controversial nomination of the president's counsel, Harriet Miers, to the vacant seat on the Supreme Court. And traditional baslanced-budget conservatives have been dismayed by the double deficit, a combined deficit on the federal budget and on the current account that adds up to over $1 trillion this year.

A cartoon in the Washington Post Friday depicted the Bush White House being inundated by "The Perfect Storm" of Miers, Hurricane Katrina, Iraq, Rove, the budget deficit and the indictment this week of the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, on charges of money laundering campaign funds.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.org

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/1023057_shtml (http://) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/1023057_shtml (http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/newsreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=154511#)

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............KARL AND SCOOTER'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE

BY FRANK RICH
THE NEW YORK TIMES
SUNDAY 23, OCTOBER 2005

.....There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda on 9/11. There was scant Pentagon planning for securing the peace should bad stuff happen after America invaded. Why, exactly, did we go to war in Iraq?

....."It still isn't possible to be sure - and this remains the most remarkable thing about the Iraq war," writes the New Yorker journalist George Packer, a disenchanted liberal supporter of the invasion, in his essential new book, "The
Assassins' Gate America in Iraq." Even a former Bush administration State Department official who was present at the war's creation, Richard Haass, tells Mr. Packer that he expects to go to his grave "not knowing the answer."

Maybe. But the leak investigation now reaching its climax in Washington continues to offer big clues. We don't yet know whether Lewis (Scooter) Libby or Karl Rove has committed a crime, but the more we learn about their desprate efforts to take down a bit player like Joseph Wilson, the more we learn about the real secret they wanted to protect: the "why" of the war.

.....To piece that story together, you have to follow each man's history before the invasion of Iraq - before anyone had ever heard of Valerie Plame Wilson, let alone leaked her identity as a C.I.A. officer. It is not an accident that Mr. Libby's and Mr. Rove's very different trajectories - one of a Washington policy intellectual, the other of a Texas political operative - would collide before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury. Thepy are very differnt men who play very different White House roles, but they are bound together now by the sorid shared past that the Wilson affair has exposed.

In Mr. Rove's case, let's go back to January 2002. By then the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan had succeeded in its mission to overthrown the Taliban and had done so with minimal American casualties. In a triumphalist speech to the Republican National Committee, Mr. Rove for the first time openly advanced the idea that the war on terror was the path to victory for that November's midterm elections. Candidates "can go to the country on this issue," he said, because voters "trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." It was an early taste of the rhetoric that would be used habitually to smear any war critics as unpatriotic.

.....But there were unspoken impediments to Mr. Rove's plan that he certainly knew about. Afghanistan was slipping off the radar screen of American voters, and the president's most grandiose objective, to capture Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," had not been achieved. How do you run a war if the war looks as if it's shifting into neutral and the No. 1 evildoer has escaped?

.....Hardly had Mr. Rove given his speech than polls started to register that the first erosion of the initial near universal endorsement of the administration's response to 9/11. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey in March 2002 found that while 9 out of 10 Americans still backed the war on terror at the six month anniversary of the attacks, support for an expanded, long-term war had fallen to 52 percent.

.....Then came a rapid barrage of unhelpful news for a political campaign founded on supposed Republican superiority in protecting America: the first report (in the Washington Post) that the Bush administration had lost Bin Laden's trail in Tora Bora in December 2001 by not committing ground troops to hunt him down, the first indications that the intelligence about Bin Laden's desire to hijack airplanes barely clouded President Bush's August 2001 Crawford vacation, the public accusations by an F.B.I. whistle-blower, Coleen Rowley, that higher-ups had repeatedly shackled Minneapolis agents investigating the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, in the days before 9/11.


.....These revelations took their toll. By Memorial Day 2002, a USA Today poll found that just 4 out of 10 Americans believed that the United states was winning the war on terror, a steep drop from the roughly two-thirds holding that conviction in January. Mr. Rove could see that an untelevised and largely underground war against terrorists might not nail election victories without a jolt of shock and awe. It was a propitious moment to wag the dog.

.....Enter Scooter, stage right. As James Mann details in his definitive group biography of the Bush war cabinet, "Rise of the Vulcans," Mr. Libby had been joined at the hip with Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz since their service in the Defense Department of the Bush 41 administration, where they conceived the neoconservative manifesto (PNAC or the Plan For a New American Century. SRH) for the build up and exercise of unilateral American military power after the cold war. Well before Bush 43 took office, they had become fixated on Iraq, though for reasons having much to do with their ideas about realigning the states in the Middle east and little or nothing to do with the stateless terrorism of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush had specifically disdained such interventionism when running against Al Gore, but then embraced the cause once in office. (C. Rice telling us it was missle defense they were concerned about, not terrorism. SRH) While others might have had cavils - American military commanders testified before Congress about their already overtaxed troops and equipment in March 2002 - the path was clear for a war in Iraq to serve as the political Viagra Mr. Rove needed for the election year.

.....But there, too, was an impediment there had to be that "why" for the invasion, the very why that today can seem so elusive that Mr. Packer calls Iraq "the Rashomon" of wars." Abstract (and highly debatable) neocon notions of marching to Baghdad to make the Middle East safe for democracy (and more secure for Israel and uninterrupted oil production) would never fly with American voters as a trigger for war or convince them that such a war was relevant to the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11. And though Americans knew Saddam was a despot and mass murderer, that in itself was also insufficient to ignite a popular grounds swell for regime change. Polls in the summer of 2002 showed steadily declining support among Americans for going to war in Iraq, especially if we were to go it alone.


.....For Mr. Rove and Mr. bush to get what they wanted most, slam-dunk midelctcion victories, and for Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney to get what they wanted most, a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11, their really whys for going to war had to be replaced by fictional, more salable ones. We wouldn't be invading Iraq to further Rovian domestic politics or neocon ideology, we'd be doing so instead because there was a direct connection between Saddam and al Qaeda and because Saddam was on the verge of attacking Americans with nuclear weapons. The facts and intellignece had to be fixed to create these whys, any contridictory evidence had to be dismissed or suppressed.

Mr Libby and Mr. Cheney were in the boiler room of the disinformaton factory. The vice president's repetitive hyping of Saddams nuclear ambitions in the summer and fall of 2002, as well as his persistence in advertising bogus Saddam-Qaeda ties were fed by the rogue intelligence operation set up in his own office. As we know from many journalistic accounts, Mr Cheney and Mr. Libby built their "case" by often making and end run around the C.I.A., State Department intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Their ally in cherry-picking intelligence was a similar cadre of neocon zealots led by Douglas Feith at the pentagon.

This is what Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, then Secreatary of State Colin Powell's wartime chief of staff, was talking about last week when he publicly chastised the "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" for sowing potential disaster in Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. It's this cabal that in 2002 pushed for much of the bogus W.M.D. evidence that ended up in Mr. Powell's now infamous February 2003 presentation to the U.N. It's this cabal whose propaganda was sold by the war's unannounced marketing arm, the White House Iraq group, or WHIG, in which both Mr. Libby and MR. Rove served in the second half of 2002. One of 'WHIG's goals, successfully realized, was to turn up the heat on Congress so it would rush to pass a resolution authorizing war in the politically advantageous month just before the midterm election.

....Joseph Wilson wasn't a player in these exalted circles, he was a footnote who began to speak out loudly only after Saddam had been toppled and the mission in Iraq had been "accomplished." He challanged just one-element of the W.M.D. "evidence," the uranium that Saddam's governemnt had supposedly been seeking in Africa to fuel its ominous mushroom clouds.

But based on what we know about Mr. Libby's and Mr. Rove's hysterical over-response to Mr. wilsons accusation, he scared them silly. He did so because they had something to hide. Should Mr. Liby and Mr. rove have lied to the investigators or a grand jury in their panic, Mr. Fitzgerald will bring charges. But that crime would seem a misdemeanor next to the fables that they and thier bosses fed the nation and the world as they whys for invading Iraq. :tearhair:

Forgive any typo's blinding sun and crashing computer, so !!!


Here's the address to truthout.org, one more time as it is up in the previous post.

http://www.truthout.org

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...The Case against the Cheney Cabal
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102305A.shtml
...Whatever news Fitzgerald makes this week, the case has shed light on how Cheney and his clique of advisers cleared the way to war, and how they obsessed over critics who got in the way. The Cheney gang has been fighting a battle for decades with the intelligence bureaucracy, which they see as "dim and timid."
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.....Leak Case Renews Questions on War's Rationale
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/1023058B.shtml
.....The legal and political stakes are of the hghest order, but the investigation into the disclosure of a covert CIA officer's identity is also just one skirmish in the continuing battle over the Bush administration's justification for the war in Iraq.
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CIA to Avoid Charges in Most Prisoner Deaths
go to Truthout.org
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Miers Family Received 'Excessive' Sum in Land Case
Harriet Miers collected more then 10 times the market value for a small slice of land in Dallas where the state wanted to build a highway off-ramp. The windfall came after a judge who received thosands of dollars in campaign contributions from Miers' law firm appointed a close prefessional associate of Miers to the three-person panel that determined how much the state should pay. (They say if you believe that Federal Politicians are not that above board, that one should look at local and state politics and stand back aghast. Corruption is so rampant as to be unbelievable. SRH)
Again, go to Truthout.org
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Nicholas D. Kristoff ....Mr. Bush, This is Pro-Life?

Kristoff: "Village women are the least powerful people on earth. That's why more than 500,000 women die every year worldwide in pregnancy - and why we in the West should focus more aid on preventing such deaths in poor countries." But Bush and his allies have blocked funds for the UN Population Fund that would have helped these women. >>>>> Truthout.org (That old evil birth control issue once again. SRH)
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Much more on site on line.

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....."It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return." Socrates 469 - 399 BC

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.....Crime Against Peace: A basic provision of the Charter is that to plan, prepare, initiate or wage a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances, or to conspire or participate in a common plan to do so is a crime." Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson

http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/Doc.Jac14.htm

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.....There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career and to suspend the blow mediated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice and truth can regain their authority over the public mind." James Madison. Federalist No. 63

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....."I'm often amazed at the way politicians, who spend hours poring over opinion polls results in a desparate attempt to discover what the public thinks, are certain they know precisely what God's views are on everything." Simon Hoggart.


....."Going to church no more makes you a Christian than sleeping in your car makes you a car." Garrison Keiler.

............From: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

.....From their news letter.

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.....REAL DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS FOUND IN COLLEGE'S WALLS

Here's a good way to hide dinosaur tracks. Wait tens of millions of years while the footsteps fossilize under a shallow sea that will later become Texas, dig up the tracks just before World War II, put plaster around the sides, paint the whole thing a whimiscal muddy red, take it to Brooklyn and bolt it to a classroom wall.

http://www.anchorstone.com/content/view/202/33/

An interesting little story, they even found more. Click on the link to see the complete article, and then the home page to see other interesting things about ancient history and archaeology, good and bad they say.

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......."I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended on to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts." Abraham Lincoln

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......."Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." James Madison

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......."When even one American who has done nothing wrong is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth then all Americans are in peril." Harry S. Truman

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More and more I hear Pat Buchanan saying something 'almost' profound, and the water reference is just too funny, however, it seems to be oh so true. Abandoning ship, "hauling it's water" ? Exactly! But better late than never, although, one has to wonder as to the 'why's?' It seems it's an opportunistic move to me, not that so many are so upright in this action, not that they had a bout of conscience. They aren't wanting to go down with the ship more than likely, are they? SRH ;) )

Patrick J. Buchanan: The Greatest Scandal:

Today, this town is salivating over the prospect that Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby will be indicted for outing Joe Wilson's wife as a CIA operative. Thirty months ago, many of those anxious to se the White House brought down were hauling its water. Consider the role played by our newspaper of record, the New York Times.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10736.htm

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==Then these's this:

Brent Scowcroft "breaks Ranks" with George W. Bush.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001024.html

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Gassing Iraqis: Karen Hughes Tells a Big Lie :

Karen Hughes, Bush's propaganda minister on call , is apparently a habitual liar. (The thing is the Kurds were gassed. This article is saying according to the US Army War College, there is no conclusive proof as to who did it. I myself have always believed it was Chemical Ali, who is in Saddam's inside circle, a part of Saddams government, so perhaps this article is spitting in the wind? It is being said however that it was Iranian gas, the type the Iranians used, not Saddams gas. It goes on to tell more about the chemicals and biological agents we, the United States, furnished to Iraq. I have only read a bit of this, just part of it, too bright in here for my eyes tonight, but they are saying that the Kurds were gassed, but gassed in a battle between the Iranians and the Iraqis. So what is the truth of this matter? SRH)

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=77

Or see it on ICH.

This is true??? I haven't read this, but she seems pretty straight forward, although misguided in her beliefs, but if documented, well then??? SRH

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DATA ON FBI CITE ABUSES IN SECRET SURVEILLANCE:

THE FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some US residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to classified documents scheduled to be released today.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10732.htm

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FROM THE GULF TO THE GULF: NEW ORLEANS PROFESSOR JOHN CLARK TESTIFIES ON THE TRIPLE CRIME OF KATRINA*

JOHN CLARK, professor of philosophy and environmental studies, spoke at this weekend's Bush crimes commission about systematic racism and the discrimination in the response to Hurricane Katrina. He says the Bush administration is guilty of not preparing for the disaster, inadequately responding, and botching the recovery process.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/24/1414218

All of these article's are from ICH, check out their daily articles and/or their archives. ;)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Saundra Hummer]

Rosa Parks, Icon Of The Civil Rights Movement - A Favorite Of Us All - Has Died. Such Dignity, Sweetness And Grace. So Refreshing In Such Tumultuous Times.

She Will Be Missed.

Godspeed And God Bless.

[Saundra Hummer]

A NEWSLETTER FROM FAITHFUL AMERICA

OCTOBER 25, 2005

...........................2000 U.S. SOLDIERS HAVE NOW DIED IN IRAQ.

It is with deep regret that we announce that the 2000th U.S. soldier has died. This is more than a tragic milestone in our nation's history. It is an occasion of profound loss for our nation and the world. When a single life is lost - whether that of a soldier or one of the estimated 30,000 innocent children, women and men in Iraq caught in the crossfire -- we lose more than a life. We lose a part of our future - all of the people who might have been touched, helped, and enriched by those whom the world will never see again. We lose part of our promise of a better world. We lose part of ourselves, for as nearly every faith tradition teaches, we are all one.

......PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN REMEMBRANCE WEEKEND

Religious leaders of every faith across our nation are calling houses of worship to participate in Remembrance Weekend. We need YOUR help.

.....1. If you are part of a community of faith we urge you to contact your local faith leader and invite him or her to engage your house of worship in some way to honor and remember those whose lives have been lost in the Iraq war.

.....2. Use the suggestions and resources below to participate. You need not alter your planned service, but may incorporate one or more of the suggestions listed below

.....3. It is important that we count your faith community among those in this national effort. Please take a moment and register your faith community, or urge your faith leader to do so. It will take about 20 seconds using the link below.

.....4. Finally, we hope you will take time to remember in your own private way. Your heart is the wellspring from which you take action. Know how deeply we appreciate your commitment in all you do. Remember that as persons of faith and conscience we have a voice and our faith DOES have the power to move mountains.

Blessings to you

Vince Isner
and your FaithfulAmerica Team

FAITHFUL -. WAYS TO PARTICIPATE IN "REMEMBRANCE WEEKEND"
AMERICA--.

.....* Ring your bells or organ chimes in remembrance
.....* Observe a moment of silence in your service
.....* Use any of the downloadable resources below, which include:
..............o A reading and a poem from the mother of a lost soldier
..............o Prayers and litanies from a variety of faith traditions

Go to their site by clicking on the following link.

http://faithfulamerica.org/

[Saundra Hummer]

....."Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage." Ambrose Bierce

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....."When bad men combine, the good must associate, else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." Edmond Burke

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....."The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith." John Foster Dulles.

....."Truth is not determined by majority vote." Doug Gwyn

[Saundra Hummer]

Scowcroft, Wilkerson and Raphel's statements about what is going on with the administration.

"The case that I saw for four-plus years was a case I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision making process," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Powell's former chief of staff and longtime confidant, said in a speech last week. "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."......"it was presented in such a disjointed, incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn't know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out."

Scowcroft in his interview discussed an argument over Iraq he had two years ago with Condoleezza Rice, then-national security adviser and current secretary of state. "She says 'We're going to democratize Iraq,' and I said, 'Condi, you're not going to democratize Iraq,' and she said, "You know, you're just stuck in the old days,' and she comes back to this thing that we've tolerated an autocratic Middle East for fifty years and so on and so forth," he said. The article stated that with a 'barely perceptible note of satisfaction," Scowcroft added: "But we've had fifty years of peace."

Scowcroft also dismissed former deputy secretary of defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, the intellectual godfather of the Iraq invasion. "He's got a utopia out there. We're going to transform the Middle East, and then there won't be war anymore. He can make them democratic," Scowcroft said. "Paul's idealism sweeps away doubts, " he added.

Raphel's interview, concluded in July 2004, has been posted on the institute Web site, along with more than 30 other interviews - some blunt in their dissatisfaction and disappointment - with a range of officials involved in the U.S. occupatiion of Iraq. Little notice has been paid to the interviews until this week.

Raphel, who still works at State, said that controversial decisions to fire any officials associated with the Baath Party and to demobilize the Iraqi army were made largely because of "neoconservative" ideology. "What one needs to understand is that these decisions were ideolgically based," she said. "They were not based on an analytical, historical understanding. They were based on idiology. You don't counter ideology with logic or experience or analysis very effectively."

Raphel added: "There was very much the sense that we were getting in way over our heads within weeks."

Excerpts from 'CIA LEAK LINKED TO DISPUTE OVER IRAQ POLICY
BY GLENN KESSLER
THE WASHINGTON POST
TUESDAY 25 OCTOBER 2005

AS GRAND JURY TERM NEARS END, OFFICIALS CRITIQUE OF ADMINISTRATION GAINS ATTENTION.

http://www.informatinclearinghouse.info

This is the thing, these men and women with their over the top tremendous ego's believe that they are right and any means are righteous as far as to how they advance their goals. The pity is they are so blinded by their own sense of worth their own sense of destiny, believing with all that is in them that they are so right that they can't see how they can possibly have made a mistake in judgment. In fact I don't believe such thoughts even enter their heads. They cannot or will not admit that these dreams of their's are dangerous and wrong, and that they are destroying our country while causing death and mayhem. Torture - because they are the ones ordering it is righteous? So I wonder if it happens in other countries it is criminal in their minds? Our belief in ourselves has been shattered by them because of their backstabbing, (Wilson & Plame, etc.) criminal, cruel, and dishonest acts. Now here's the kicker, here's the scary part, they honestly can't see it. They have no clue they are guilty of wrong doing, and therefore they are much more dangerous to our welfare than we ever imagined. They are blind. Cheney, I have to believe is a bit different, he after all is advancing Halliburton with each and ever breath he takes. To me it seems his reasons are greed and power oriented. He is probably the first Vice President in our history who had never registered to vote. :soapbox SRH

[Saundra Hummer]

............KATRINA BAIT AND SWITCH

.....CONGRESSIONAL HURRICANE RELIEF COMES AT THE EXPENSE OF THE POOR

CYNTHIA TUCKER
UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
10. 17. 05

Suddenly, congressional leaders have rediscovered fiscal restraint. After squandering a $2 trillion surplus and creating a tsunami of red ink, Republicans have come to see the benefits of simple arithmetic.

Oddly, their budget epiphany occured only after they were asked to help the desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina. With Gulf Coast residents who have lost houses, jobs, and even loved ones requesting assistance the GOP wants to halt federal spending. They are threatening a bait and switch: They will provide assistance to Katrina's victims (much of it through handouts to business), but they will make up for it by cutting Medicare, food stamps and other programs designed to boost the most vulnerable Americans.

Congress didn't get fiscal religion when it passed a Medicare drug benefit that will cost $720 billion in its first 10 years, a massive boondoggle that will do more for the pharmaceutical industry than it will for elderly patients. They have barely batted an eye at the bill for the war in Iraq, running about $5 billion a month.

They didn't' care about spending when they passed a pork-laden energy bill, which, among other things, gives the oil industry billions in tax breaks and subsidies -- classic corporate welfare. They didn't mind deficits when they passed an obnoxious transportation bill that includes $230 million for a bridge to connect a remote Alaskan airport to a town of 13,000 and another $300 million for an Alaskan highway that goes nowhere.

But poor Americans are fair game. If you thought that the devastation wrought by the fierce winds of this hurricane season might produce an outpouring of help for those who are barely getting by, think again. The "compassionate conservatism" on which President Bush campaigned is a sound bite, not a policy or a plan or even an inclination to help the have-nots.

It's funny how quickly the mood changed, with little in the way of complaint or protest. Just a little over a month ago, millions of Americans watched the footage of plaintive and terrified hurricane victims and responded with sympathy and generosity. But, we've turned the page, switched the channel, moved on.

It's funny how we've reverted to a knee jerk antipathy to the impoverished, even though much of our easy conventional wisdom simply isn't true. Decades of right wing claptrap have persuaded many Americans that the poor are lazy or stupid or undeserving and that government programs designed to help them only hurt. That just isn't so.

While the percentage of all Americans who live in poverty has hovered at around 12 percent since 1970, the rate of black Americans in poverty has fallen sharply since then. According to the Census Bureau, 33 percent of black Americans lived in poverty in 1970. Now, only 24 percent do. To create the conditions that allowed impoverished children to become working adults, the nation provided basic health care, housing subsidies, job traning or Pell Grants for college tuition. Those programs worked.

Note, too, that the sharpest drop in back poverty came about during the broad economic expansion of President Clintons tenure, which was sparked after he raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans. The rate of black poverty fell from 31 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2000.

While conservatives swear by lower taxes, which they claim produce widespread prosperity, the Bush cuts have contradicted that notion. While 11 percent of Americans lived in poverty about 12.7 pecent did in 2004. Similarily, black poverty has risen two percentage points.

Yet conservatives haven't declared their tax cuts a failure. I haven't hard a single one of them denounce help for the affluent because helping them just makes the rest of us worse off. I've yet to hear GOP leaders say the oil companies -- which are swimming in cash -- don't deserve handouts.

If we're not going to tackle poverty, again -- if we're not going to see whether we can beat it back to, say, only 9 or 10 percent of Americans -- so be it. But we ought to sop saying it's because trying to help the poor would only make them worse off. We ought to just come right out an tell the truth. We either lack the will to try or we simply don't care.
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http://www.workingforchange.com

[Saundra Hummer]

..............ONLY US SEEKS TO JUSTIFY ABUSE: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

AGENCY FRANCE-PRESSE
WEDNESDAY 26 OCTOBER 2005


.....The US Congress should reject a Senate bill if it includes a White House proposed amendment that would allow the CIA to abuse prisoners during interrogations, a human rights group said.

Human Rights Watch said that under President George W. Bush, the United States has become "the only government in the world to claim a legal justification for mistreating prisoners during interrogation."

"The administration is setting a dangerous example for the world when it claims that spy agencies are above the law." said Tom Mallinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch.

"Congress should reject this proposal outright. Otherwise, the United States will have no standing to demand humane treatment if an American falls into the hands of foreign intelligence services." he said in a statement.

The US Senate recently approved 99 -9 a bill sponsored by Republican Senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham banning military and Cerntral Intelligence Agency use of any "cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment."

However, the Bush administration has approached members of Congress to place a waiver in the bill that would allow the CIA to use cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment on foreign detainees in US custody outside the United States, Human Rights Watch said.

The proposed waiver says the measure, "shall not apply with respect to clandestine couterterrorism operations conducted abroad with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States, that are carried out by and element of the United States government other than the Department of Defense." according to a copy of the proposal on the group's website.

"While many other governments practice torture and other forms of mistreatment and have records of abuse far worse thn the United States, no other government currently claims that such abuse is legally permissible." Human Rights Watch said.

"This exception contains code language that coud give the CIA a green light to treat prisoners inhumanely," said Malinowski. "If allowed to stand it will render President Bush's past pledges about humane treatment meaningless."
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http://www.truthout.org

[Saundra Hummer]

.................DICK AT THE HEART OF DARKENSS

BY MAUREEN DOWD
THE NEW YORK TIMES

WEDNESDAY 26 OCTOBER 2005


.....After W. was elected, he sometimes gave visitors a tour of the love alcove off the oval office where bill trysted with Monica - the notorious spot where his predecessor had dishonored the White House. .......(How tacky is that, what were they doing living vicariously? SRH)

At least it was only a little pantry - and a little panting.

If W. wants to show now where the White house has been dishonored in far more astounding and deadly ways, he'll have to haul them around every nook and cranny of his vice president's office, then go across the river for a walk of shame through the Rummy empire at the Pentagon.

The shocking thing about the trellis of revelations showing Dick Cheney, the self styled Mr. Strong America, as the central figure in dark conspiracies to juice up a case for war and demonize those who tried to tell the public the truth is how un-shocking it all is.

It's exactly what we thought was going on, but we never thought we'd actually hear the lurid details: Cheney and Rummy, the two old compadres from the Nixon and Ford days, in a cabal running the country and the world into the ground, driven by their poisonous obsession with Iraq, while Junior is out of the loop, playing in the gym or on his mountain bike.

Mr. Cheney has been so well protected by his Praetorian guard all these years that it's been hard for the public to see his dastardly deeds and petty schemes. But now because of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation and candid talk from Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson, he's been flushed out as the heart of darkness: all sulfurous strands lead back to the man W. aptly nicknamed Vice.

According to a Times story yesterday, Scooter Libby first learned about Joseph Wilson's C.I.A. wife from his boss, Mr. Cheney, not from reporters, as he'd originally suggested. And Mr. Cheney learned it from George Tenet, according to Mr. Libby's notes.

The Bush hawks presented themselves as protectors and exporters of American values. But they were so feverish about projecting the alternate reality they had constructed to link Saddam and Al Qaeda - and fulfilling their id'ee fixe about invading Iraq - they perverted American values. .....(Well, not all of use were on board were we? Many may have lost theirs, but our values are still intact. SRH)

Whether or not it turns out to be illegal, outing a C.I.A. agent - undercover or not - simply to undermine her husband's story is Rove-ishly sleazy. This no-leak administrtion was perfectly willing to leak to hurt anyone who got in its way.

Vice also pressed for a loophole so the C.I.A. could do torture-light on prisoners in U.S. custody, but John McCain rebuffed His Tortureness. Senator McCain has sponsored a measure to bar the cruel treatment of prisoners because he knows that this is not who we are. (Remember the days when the only torture was listening to politicians reciting thier best TV lines at dinner parties?)

Colonel Wilkerson, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, broke the code and denounced Vice's vortex, calling his own involvement in Mr. Powell's U.N. speech, infected with bogus Cheney and Scooter malarkey, "the lowest point" in his life.

He followed that with a blast of blunt talk in a speech and an op-ed piece in The Los Angeles Times, saying that foreign policy had been hijacked by "a secretive, little-known cabal" that hated dissent. He said the cabal was headed by Mr. Cheney, "a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces," and Donald Rumsfeld, "a secretary of defense presiding over the death by a thousand cuts of our overstretched aremed forces."

"I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less," Colonel Wilkerson wrote. "More often than not, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal."

Brent Scowcroft, Bush Senior's close friend, let out a shriek this week to Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker, revealing his estrangement from W. and his old protege Condi. He disdained Paul Wolfowitz as a naive utopian and said he didn't "know" his old friend Dick Cheney anymore. Vice's alliance with the neocons, who were determined to finish in Iraq what Mr. Scowcroft and Poppy had declared finished, led him to lead the nation into a morass. Troop deaths are now around 2,000, a gruesome milestone.

"The reason I part with the Neocons is that I don't think in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful," Mr. Scowcroft said. "If you can do it, fine, but I don't think you can, and in the process of trying to do it you can make the Middle East a lot worse."

W. should take the Medal of Freedom away from Mr. Tenet and give medals to Colonel Wilkerson and Mr. Scowcroft.

http://www.truthout.org

[Saundra Hummer]

Tom Delay:......NOTHING WILL CHANGE UNTIL WE DEFEAT TOM DELAY AT THE BALLOT BOX.

TOM DELAY is still attending leadership meetings, using stall tactics to delay his trial and still running the Repubican show in the House behind the scenes. To truly defeat Tom DeLay and his cronies, we have to beat them on Election Day Novermber 7, 2006 with strong candidates, and innovative national programs and committed Democrats like you. (This is taken from a newsletter I just recieved from the DCCC. and it continues....SRH)

Nick Lampson, a former Democratic Representative from Texas who has spent more than 20 years fighting for children, working families and the people of Texas, stepped up to start an unprecedented national program to take down the most powerful and entrenched Republican in the history of Congress. The DCCC joined with Nick Lampson to form Lampson Victory 2006, to defeat DeLay and his cronies once and for all. Nick Lampson has the momentum and support to defeat Delay next year -- he just needs you.

It goes on to ask for contributions to help defeat DeLay and his GOP cronies, saying it won't be easy as DeLay has raised $2.2 million for his campaign committee since the beginning of 2005 -- more than most members of Congress raise in an election cycle. Lampson Victory 2006 needs every Democrat in ever corner of the country to be part of our cause. There is a bit more about fundraising and then in the same vein, it says this: Make no mistake -- building a national campaign to defeat DeLay will be a monumental
task. Unlike most years, he will not funnel his money to vulnerable Republicans -- He is the vulnerable Republican, in fact, recent polling shows that a majority of voters in DeLay's district disapprove of his job performance. But where the Republicans rely on special interest pals, we depend on communities of working families across America who care about the fate of their country -- and want to see change in 2006. We depend on you, and most importantly, your investment in the DCCC will help Democratic congressional candidates compete with the GOP money machine.

Of course this is a fund raising letter ..... but it's oh so true that Tom Delay having made the public show of stepping down, the powers that be having made the show of having Tom DeLay relinquish his leadership as Majority Whip, is still the one calling the shots, he still holds his hammer above everyones knee caps, and they know it and are still cowering and shaking in their boots.

Enough is enough with this man, he does need to be sent packing, if not to jail.

[Saundra Hummer]

.....WHAT DO YOU THINK? THE TRUTHOUT TOWN MEETING IS IS PROGRESS,: jOIN THE DEBATE.

............EDITORS NOTE: WE HAVE INVITED sEANATOR kERRY TO HOLD QUESTIONS ON HIS STATEMENT BELOW. WE HOPE HE IS ABLE TO FIND TIME.
.....MARK ASH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - TO.

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............THE PATH FORWARD

BY SENATOR JOHN KERRY

SPEECH AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

WEDNESDAY 26 OCTOBER 2005

.....A few weeks ago I departed Iraq from Mosul. Three Senators and staff were gathered in the forward part of a C-130. In the middle of the cavernous cargo hold was a simple, aluminum coffin with a small American flag draped over it. We were bringing another American soldier, just killed, home to his family and final resting place.

The starkness of his coffin in the center of the hold, the silence except for the din of the engines, was a real time cold reminder of the consequences of decisions for which we Senators share responsibility.

As we arrived in Kuwait, a larger flag was transferred to fully cover his coffin and we joined graves registration presonnel in giving him an honor guard as he was ceremoniously carried from the plane to a waiting truck. When the doors clunked shut, I wondered why all of American would not be allowed to see him arrive at Dover Air Force base instead of hiding him from a nation that deserves to mourn together in truth and in the light of day. His lonely journey compels all of us to come to grips with our choices in Iraq.

Now more than 2,00o brave Americans have given thier lives, and several hundred thousand more have done everything in their power to wade through the ongoing internal civil strife in Iraq. An Iraq which increasingly is what it was not before the war - a breeding ground for homegrown terrorists and a magnet for foreign terrorists. We are entering a make or break six month period, and I want to talk about the steps we must take if we hope to bring our troops home within a reasonable timeframe from an Iraq that's not permanently torn by irrepressible conflict.

It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. I know this dilemma first hand. After serving in war, I returned home to offer my own personal voice of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives to speak truth to power. We still do.

In fact, while some say we can't ask tough questions because we are at war, I say no - in a time of war we must ask the hardest questions of all. It's essential if we want to correct our course and do what's right for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again. (I think if he had repeated the errors of banging the drums of war, he would now be our president, as J.Q. Public likes the warrior regardless of lives saved by the 'dissidents', or of right. SRH) No matter what the PResident says, asking tough questions isn't pessimism, its patriotism.

Our trrops have served with stunning bravery and resolve. The nobility of their service to country can never be diminished by the mistakes of politicians. American families who have lost, of who fear the loss, or their loved ones deserve to know the truth about what we have asked them to do, what we are doing to complete the mission, and what we are doing to prevent our forces from being trapped in an endless quagmire. ....(An endless agony for those there and for those here at home, and for those disabled and for those burying their loved ones. SRH)

Some people would reather not have that discussion. They'd rather revise and rewrite the story of our involvement in Iraq for the history books. Tragically, that's become standard fare from an administration that doesn't acknowledge facts generally whether they are provided by scientists, whistle-blowers, journalists, military leaders, or the common sense of every citizen. At a time when many worry that we have become a society of moral relativists, too few worry that we have a government of factual relativists.

Let's be straight about Iraq. Saddam Hussein was brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell, but that was not the reason America went to war.

==

Read the rest of this article on Truthout, just click on the following link to see the whole story and to gain access to discussions.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102705Y.shtml

=
Or just go to their home page:

http://www.truthout.org

[Saundra Hummer]

.....OUR POLITICIANS HERE AND ABROAD ARE WACKED IT SEEMS.

Now it seems that Irans newest radical leader is advocating, (per usual, for the Middle East), wiping Israel off the map.

These men of vision, (Ha!) will lead us all into oblivion yet.

A world gone mad!

[Saundra Hummer]

A News Letter from Jim Hightower. Part of it deals with film, movies which "Hollywood distributors consider to be 'too progressive' to touch." Much like music?

Then there are his little print and/or audio articles, laced with his humor, but here's the letter:

Dear Agitator,

.....As one whose life's work is "running my mouth" for the populist cause I'm always looking for ways to spread the message.

.....I've recently come across one that has the double advantage of being both effective and fun. Adam Werbach and a group of other good progressive activists have launched a new, independent film club called IRONWEED. You can get them to explain the name to you, but the important thing for me is that they are finding great, award-winning "underdog" films that Hollywood distributors consider to be "too progressive" to touch. (This isn't a free club. SRH)

.....Like music and other art, movies have a way of delivering a message more powerfully than podium-thumpers like me can hammer home, while also reaching an audience not likely to come to a speech. It's a very powerful medium. . . but the distribution of films has been largely locked down by a corporate club that has no interest in folks seeing films that skewer the corporate club.

.....So, the people of IRONWEED have started their own club, and you're invited to join! I have no involvement in IRONWEED, financial or otherwise, so I'll leave it to them to tell you the details of joining, but it seems like such a good way to get around moviedom's corporate middleman, and help spread the progressive message that I wanted to call them to your attention.

.....They're offering you a special deal - get your first month free. (This may or may not be spam, but it does sound interesting especially with the number of memebers here on this board who are into movies, regardless of message.

http://updates.jimhightower.com/ctt.asp?u=361or86&1=109280

.................................................K eep agitating!
.................................................H ightower

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Audio or print:

A JUDICIAL SOB STORY: A lot of Americans are hard hit these days. There's the devastation suffered by hurricane victims, of course, and the Census Bureau reports that America's poverty rate has risen for the fourth consecutive year, adding nearly 6 million more people to the poverty rolls since 2000, despite a growning economy. (See the previous post about Cynthia Tucker. SRH)

http://updates.jimhightower.com/ctt.asp?u=3610486&1=109281

Once on site check the archives and latest postings by J.H.

SAMSUNG, THE IMPERIOUS MOOCH: All hail the Emperor! Render unto Caeser what is his! Pay tribute to the Empire
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A BETTER BUSINESS MODEL: What if business people started saying "no?" No to mega-growth, no to the franetic pace of trying to get superrich, not to dog-eat-dog economics. . . no to the prevailing corporate ethic that your business must always be getting bigger to be a "winner."

CALLING ALL CHILDREN: Here's what I say: There just aren't enough cell phones out there! Yes, they're on the golf corse, in church, on airplanes and trains, in elevators, in museums, on the beach. . . and in every other conceivable space on earth - escept one: The tiny hands of children.
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BEWARE OF GETTING RICH! : Time for another peek [Lifestyle theme] into the "Lifestyles of the Rich. . . and Cranky. "

HIGHTOWER'S UPCOMING TRAVELS: San Francisco, CA Friday, Novermber 04, 2005. Come see Jim speak at a fundraiser for the Green Festival on Friday, Novermber 4th at the Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco. For more information, go to WWW.greenfestivals.com.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 05, 2005
Come see Jim speak at the Green Festival on Saturday, Novermber 5th at 11:00am at the San Francisco Concourse. Children under 12 are free. For more information, visit: www.greenfestivals.com

Saturday November 12, 2005 - Saturday, November 19, 2005 Jim will be on the Nation Cruise sponsored by the Nation magazine. For more information, go to www.nationcruise.com.

[Saundra Hummer]

.............BLAME "GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP"

THE FORMER HEAD OF ABU GHRAIB, ADMITS SHE BROKE THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS:

.............Says the Blame "Goes All the Way to The Top"

....."We all knew it was contrary to the Geneva Conventions. And we were told that this - these instructions were being given by Secretary Rumsfeld"

Broadcast 10/27/05

A click and listen program or a Download Show mp3
Watch 128k stream or Watch 256k stream

Karpinski, the highest-ranking officer demoted in connection with the torture scandal, speaks out about what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison. She discusses:

* How the military hid "ghost detainees' from the International Red Cross in violation of international law;

* Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller calling for the Gitmoization of Abu Ghraib and for prisoners to be "treated like dogs";

* Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's secret memos on interrogation policies that hung on the prison's walls;

* The military's use of private (and possibly Israeli) interrogators;

* Her dealings with the International Red Cross;

* Why she feels, as a female general, she had been scapegoated for a scandal that has left the military and political leadership unscathed; and

* Calls for Donald Rumsfeld, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, Alberto Gonzalez and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller to be held accountable for what happened [includes rush trnascript'

*The White House and CIA are urging Senators to exempt CIA officers from a proposed ban on torture. According to the New York Times, Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss met with Senator John McCain to urge him to rewrite the Senate's proposed ban on torture. Three weeks ago the Senate voted 90 to 9 to ban the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of any detainee held by the government. Cheney reportedly said the CIA needed to be exempt because the president needs maximum flexibility in fighting the so-called war on terrorism.

*

Meanwhile the American Civil Liberties Union has released new documents this week that indicate at least 21 detainees have been murdered at U.S. facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ACLU came to the conclusion after obtaining reams of released Pentagon documents. According to the group, the documents show that detainees were hooded, gaged, strangled, beaten with blunt objects, subjected to sleep deprivation and to hot and cold environmental conditions.

Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU said, "There is no question that U.S. interrogations have resulted in deaths. High-ranking officials who knew about the torture and sat on their hands and those who created and endorsed these policies must be held accountable.

We look at the Iraqi prison at the center of the U.S. detainee abuse scandal - Abu Ghraib. It was here where the infamous photos of detainee abuse were taken: A hooded Iraqi man was forced to stand on a box with electrical wires connected to varous parts of his body. Naked Iraqis were stacked on top of each other. U.S. military personnel posed with Iraqi corpses. And Iraqi detainees were held on leashes.

In April 2004, a secret Pentagon report concluded that U.S. soldiers had committed "egregious acts and grave breaches of international law" at Abu Ghraib. Seven soldiers have been convicted for their role in the detainee abuse. Last month Lynndie England was sentenced to three years in prison. In January, Specialist Charles Graner was sentenced to 10 years. The highest ranking militray officer reprimanded was Brigadier General Janis Karpinski who was commanding officer at the prison. She was demoted to colonel in May. She oversaw all military police in Iraq and was the first female ever to comand soldiers in a combat zone


********** COL. JANIS KARPINSKI, FORMER BRIGADIER GENERAL AND AUTHOR OF "ONE WOMANS'S ARMY ; THE COMMANDING GENERAL OF ABU GHRAIB TELLS HER STORY"

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: AVAILABLE ON SITE ALONG WITH THE AUDIO DOWNLOAD. "COLONEL JANIS KARPENSKI, WELCOME TO DEMOCRACY NOW!"
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**********

.....[There is one thing that I would like to know and it is this: How were the people who are in the military - chosen to be the ones to draw Abu Ghraib duty? Really, this is another thing which should be looked into and exposed. It seems that the ones we have learned of are either habitual abusers or not the brightest of individuals. Ones who it seems are found to be lacking a total concept of judgement and moral center - if not just downright mean and stupid.

Like they are telling us, this was a first for a woman, a first to become a commander in a war zone, a first to be in such a place of authority, and I believe in all probability General Karpenski was probably so wanting to make points and stay in the position she found herself in, that, she just turned her head and let the torture, murder and sickening acts go on without a word, without a wimper of protest. ......So what do you think led to her and the others getting themselves into such a fix? ...... How sickening to have been a part of such terrible acts. I would have thought if they had any smarts or sense of right and wrong, any number of them would have stood up and said to themselves enough is enough! But it took smuggled photo's and whispers to have finally let the ugly news see daylight. .....SRH]

Just click on this link to find the story:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

......Or go directly to it

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10786.html

[Saundra Hummer]

I feel that the worst among us is entitled to representation, but can see her ire!

.....TREASONOUS LIARS AND WARMONGERING MURDERS

BY SHEILA SAMPLES

WHAT ATTORNEY IN HIS OR HER RIGHT MIND WOULD TAKE ON THE MISSION OF DEFENDING A GAGGLE OF TREASONOUS LIARS AND WARMONGERING MURDERS AGAINST THE CLEARLY STATED, TIME-TESTED LEGAL BOUNDARIES OF THE uNITED STATES CONSTITUTION? Is there an attorney so ignorant of Constitutional law or so loyal to George W. Bush that covering his sorry ass trumps all reason, dignity, democratic principles or truth?

....10/28/05 "ICXH" -- -- Remember the "Hey, Mikey" TV commercial with two brothers refusing to eat Quaker Oats' new life cereal until thier little brother, Mikey, who supposedly "hates everything" tried it first? Well, I'm not saying I get up every morning and yell, "Hey Harkavy" to see what's really happening in the news without all the commercial spin -- but I'm not saying I don't either...

Either way, there's not better place to start your morning than with the peerless Ward Harkavy (link on site) and his Village Voice blog, the "Bush Beat." (link on site). In his "Morning Report" on Tuesday, Harkavy said, "It's kind of a horse race: Will Harriet Miers withdraw before Patrick Fitzgerald draws on her bosses? The White House needs to clear the decks for possible Plamegate (Link provided) indictments, and Miers will be needed to shuffle papers for George W. Bush's handlers. My money is on the nag to pull out before Fitzgerald, pulls up in front of the White House, becasuse everyone knows she can't make the weight." (A done deal as you read this, she is long gone.)

And this morning (link) Harkavy wrote..." George W. Bush's handlers have finally put Harriet Miers out of our misery. She just now withdrew her name as a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court."

Harkavy's right . Not necessarily about Miers being a "nag" but, with the Fitzgerald storm clouds gathering on the dashboard of Bush's White House, the "cabal" -- as this bunch laughingly dubbed themselves early in this misadministration -- will need every lawyer it can hog-tie and drag into service.

What attorney in his or her right mind would take on the mission of defending a gaggle of treasonous liars and warmongering murderers against the clearly stated time-tested legal boundaries of the United States Constitution? Is there an atorney so ignorant of Constitutional law or so loyal to George W. Bush that covering his sorry ass trumps all reason, dignity, & democratic principles of truth? Does that attorney still have the capacity to walk upright?

Oh, yeah. I forgot. That attorney is Harriet Miers who in my humble opinion, disquaified herself the instant she said George Bush is "the most brilliant man I have ever known..."

The Miers nomination lasted 24 agonizing days. It was a stroke of genius on the part of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to convince Bush that Miers was the perfect Supreme Court Candidate. In one fell swoop, Reid knocked the White House off its axis, threw radical right-wing Republicans into total disarray; forcing them to come screeching out of the shadows, and insured at least a delay in packing the high court with Scalias and Thomases...

A brilliant move. Bush, confident that his rabid "base" could be pacified with code phrases like, "I know her heart...I chose her because she is a Christian and a strict constructionist," and flush with success at getting John Roberts' confirmed as Chief Justice while refusing to answer a single ideological question, immediately painted himself into a corner with Harriet Miers. And it was there he ran out of political capital.

I doubt that Bush will ever know what hit him as he was unceremoniously jerked back into line. Having a crony in place to bail him out of possible impeachment action, or of legal problems arising from his bloody illegal war had to have been one reason -- perhaps the reason -- Bush selected Miers, his personal attorney, for the Supreme Court. Unfortunately for Bush, the ultraconservatives who control his party -- who control the government -- are interested in just one thing, and that is to move the Supreme Court so far to the right they can reshape the Constitution to their ideology. Once Bush achieves that goal, he will be of no further use to them.

Like Senator Sam Brownback (Neocon-Kan), who was all over the media today, said, "This is not a one-person party." Brownback said the president needs to realize that he "made a mistake," and move on to do something about it. If Brownback and his Christo-fascist co-horts in this country have their way, we will soon be under the rule of the "higher source of all law -- God -- and will have no need for any court, let alone a Supreme one.

.....Believe it. Brownback is a co-sponsor of Senate Bill S520 (link on site), which proposes an addition to Sec.1260 of Title 28, Chapter 81 of the U.S. Code. It is called the "Constitution Resotration Act of 2005." Read it and weep.

.........."Not withstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an element of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not action in official personal capacity), by reason of that element's or officer's acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government."

Brown Back is just one of many who are poised to take over this country. They won this battle. They must not be allowed to win the war.

So, with a grin and a wave, Harriet Miers returned to her office in the White House at the same time Harry Reid stood on the Senate floor and solemnly chided conservatives for publicly stoning her.

"The radical rightwing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination. Apparently, Ms. Miers did not satisfy those how want to pack the Supreme court with rigid ideologues, " Reid said, before making another helpful suggestion to Bush..."In choosing a replaceent for Ms. Miers, Presidnet Bush should not reward the bad behaviour of his right wing base. He should reject the demands of a few extremists and choose a justice who will protect the constitutional rights of all Americans."

But like Harkavy says that ain't gonna happen. Reid fooled him once and, although Bush is dumb as dirt, his handlers will not let him "get fooled again." Harkavy reminds us that the Bush Law, as enunciated (link) by Bush himself, is alive and well...

......"our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They will never stop thinking about new ways to harm out country and our people, and neither do we."

Harkavy says we can count on the next Supreme Court nominee being "much more scary than Miers."

Hey Harkavy! Do the Name Alberto Gonzales ring a bell?

==

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Pubic Information Officer. She is a regualr contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at : rsamples@sirinet.net
=

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Saundra Hummer]

..........SPECIAL PROSECUTOR PATRICK FITZGERALD, A REPUBLICAN APPOINTEE, ANNOUNCED THAT LEWIS "SCOOTER" LIBBY LIED TO A GRAND JURY, LIED TO FBI AGENTS AND OBSTRUCTED AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE WHITE HOUSE COVER-UP OF THE LIES THAT LED OUR NATION TO WAR IN IRAQ. LIBBY HAS NOW RESIGNED. TOP WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR KARL ROVE REMAINS UNDER INVESTIGATION.

THIS IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST SCANDALS TO ROCK THE WHITE HOUSE IN AMERICA'S 229-YEAR HISTORY.

BUT THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTED: that the Bush spin machine will resort to "attacking any criminal charges as a disagreement over Legal technicalities." (LINK #1) The battle over public opinion begins today. We must remind the country that his scandal isn't about a "technicality" --- it's about a White House scheme to cover up the lies that led our nation into one of the most deadly foreign policy blunders in our nations history.
=
To write a letter to the editor to remind folks that there's no graver crime that misleading a country into war, and then covering it up? Our tool makes it easy to write to your local paper: (a moveon.org excerpt from a news letter) I would give you the whole address, however you have to add your own zip code, so just visit their web site and you can do all of this there

http://political.moveon.org

Much more to the newsletter and here are a few of the things, and I am sure it will be on their web site as well.


.....Today's indictment says Libby illegally obstructed the investigation into the White House outing of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson. The ongoing investigation of Karl Rove revolves around the same charge.

So why did the White House leak a CIA agent's name? To punish her husband, a former ambassador who had gone pubic with evidence that the Bush Administration lied about WMD and nuclear threats in the run-up to war in Iraq.

Here is a primer on what happened:

THE 2003 BUSH STATE OF THE UNION: PRESIDENT LIES ABOUT IRAQ NUCLEAR CAPABILITY

***** IN HIS JANUARY 2003 STATE OF THE UNION, PRESIDENT BUSH made his case for war in Iraq. He included this now-infamous 16-word deception about iraq's nuclear capability: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." (Link#2)

***** But the White House had known for nearly a year that this claim was false. In February 2002, the CIA sent former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate the unsubstantiated claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger for use in nuclear weapons. (Link #3)

***** Wilson had discovered that the claims were bogus and documents used to support the claims had been forgeries. He reported this to the CIA, and the CIA told the White House (Link #3)

WHY DID THE PRESIDENT IGNORE WILSON'S FINDINGS AND LIE? IT'S ABOUT IRAQ. (visit Moveon.org to see the complete story and more.)

===

VISIT THEIR SITE FOR THE REST OF THIS INFORMATION:

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO FIND ALL OF THE INFORMATION IN THIS LONG NEWS LETTER, IT HAS LINK AFTER LINK ABOUT THIS STORY WITH (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12) LINKS

http://www.moveon.org

[Saundra Hummer]

....."Whenever a people... entrust the defence of thier country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens." A Framer

==

....."Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they meant to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." Noah Webster

==

....."The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." Thomas Paine

==

....."Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" Mark Twain

==

............I may have this one a bit off, and I believe it's been attributed to Mark Twain and it's this:

............"Money is their God, and how to get it is their religion." (SRH a quote from Twain?)

[Saundra Hummer]

...Read the indictment in full: October 28, 2005 Libby Indictment

PDF FORMAT

http://www.usdoc.gov/usao/iln/osc/document/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf

[Saundra Hummer]

" I can die in peace."
PAT ROSENBERG on the World Series victory by the Chicago White Sox

[Saundra Hummer]

THERE IS A CERTAIN CHARM TO SIMPLY TELLING THE TRUTH AND EVEN TO TELLING THE TRUTH SIMPLY


MOLLY IVINS
CREATORS SYNDICATE
10/20/05
FROM: workingforchange.com


LET'S FIX THIS MESS
SURE, WE NEED TO WIN. FIRST, LET'S MAKE SOME PROGRESS

AUSTIN, Texas -- I have been collecting material for a series of columns on the peppy topic, "How Do We Fix This Mess?" The news is dandy in that there are a lot of a (?SRH) sound ideas being passed around. Really serious messes, like the one this country is in, do not, in my experience, have any simple, definitive solutions. And if they do, such solutions are politically impossible. We are looking for progress, not perfection, so anyone who tells you the entire tax code should fit on a postcard is a bona fide, certified chicken-fried moron.

But listening to the Democratic debate on what to do now, it seems to me some of the brethren and sistren are asking the wrong questions. The question is not, "How Do We Win?" That's a technical question that comes after, "What the Hell Can We Do About This Disaster?"

I personally think some good ideas and a plan should come first -- and to this end, let me chime in on a note of agreement with some Actual Moderates, William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck, a couple of Clintonites still carrying on in that old Third Way that was good enough for Bill C.

They are opposed to putting too much stock in the political strategy of "reframing" issues as advised by the linguist George Lakoff. This seems to me merest common sense, and I'm not sure Lakoff himself wouldn't agree.

Frank Luntz, the focus group king and message-meister who keeps the Republicans all chorusing the same carefully worded talking points, is indeed a large part of the R's win strategy. But I think the reason R's have been successful in selling rotten policies that really hurt people is not so much because of clever wording as because Democrats haven't stood up and pointed out what was happening

Believe it or not, there is a certain charm to simply telling the truth and even to teling the truth simply. This emperor isn't wearing any clothes, and the people who are pointing that out now that Bush's approval ratings are at 37 percent, but who were nowhere to be heard when he was at 60 and better, are maybe not the people we should be looking to now.

Which brings us to the Democratic Leadership Council and the Al From Bruce Reed take on what we should do now. The DLC is regularly condemned as being Republican Lite, but it seems to me its problem is being Light Lite. The From Reed proposal is security, values, opportunity and reform -- a perfect symphony of the obvious. I do like their Opportunity ideas.

.....* Create high-wage jobs by making the United States the top exporter of energy efficient products.

.....* Cut $300 billion in subsidies, and invest it in innovation, eductaion and growth

.....* Pass tax reform to replace 60 tax breaks with four: college, homes, kids, universal pensions.

The problem comes when you look at their reform initiatives -- lobbying reform to close the revolving door and ban partisan gerrymandering. Uh, how about we address the problem that our entire political system is corrupt, that it has been corrupted by corporate money, and that we have government of corporate intersts, by corporate interests and for corporate interests -- and that we really need to change that, instead of trying to raise more corporate money than Republicans.

David Sirota, a stout liberal attacking from the other side, decries Partisan War Syndrome, which he defines as beginning with the assumption that substance is irrelevant when it comes to winning elections and "far more damaging to actually building a serious, long lasting political movement." I like people who think like that.

Bob Borosage, director of the Campaign for America's Future, offers a "Real Contract With America" in the current issue of The Nation. He has some excellent ideas, and I'll discuss them more later. LIke the others, Borsage emphasizes Making America Safe and REal Security for America. What you find across the Democratic spectrum is agreement that the Bushies are hopelessly inept at homeland security. Essentially nothing has been done to protect the ports, and almost no progress has been made on helping first responders and improving public health capacity, despite all that money spent on small towns in Wyoming. The chemical plants are obvious targets -- but heaven forfend that the Bushies should force their dear freinds in the chemical industry to spend money on public safety.

For me, the most annoying suggestion being made is that Democrats somehow need to claim or reclaim patriotism or to do something to let folks know that we, too, love our country. I find that hideously offensive. .....(I'm with you on this Molly! Absolutely! If we even questioned the criminal acts being commited by this administration, we were deemed traitors! Ridicilous, look at what has been harmful to our country -- it certainly hasn't been those of us who have spoken out against the acts commited under the guise of fighting terrorism. SRH)..... I have always thought the only way to respond to Republican statements and implications questioning the patriotism of non Republicans is with a good swift blast of venomous anger.

How dare they imply that opposing the war in Iraq calls one's patriotism into question? Take the offensive. :soapbox Anyone who would use that kind of slimy attack sullies America, where dissent is honored, respected and, Lord knows, needed.

The contemptible, petty, little would-be Joe McCarthys need to understand what love of country really means -- love of the highest and best in America. Never to be confused with "pre-emptive war" over nonexistent weapons and certainly not with using "democracy" to sell a rotten, failed war.


Access the web site by clicking on the following address:

http://www.workingforchange.com

Once on-site, go to Columnists. Look up which ever Reporter it is you are interested in and click on the large black circle and it takes you to that columnists list of articles. Molly is a favorite so I do tend to read her the most. :cheers

[Saundra Hummer]

THE IDEOLOGUES IN CHENEY'S INNER CIRCLE DRUMMED UP A WAR. NOW THEIR ZEALOTRY IS BLOWING UP IN THEIR FACES


..........ALL THE VICE PRESIDENT'S MEN

BY JUAN COLE
SALON.COM

FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2005

.....As Washington waits on pins and needles to see if special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald hands down indictments, the focus falls on Dick Cheney's inner circle. This group, along with that surrounding Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made up what Colin Powell's top aide, Lawrence Wilkerson, called "a Cabal" that "on critical issues... made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made." Cheney is the first vice-president to have had, in effect, his own personal National Security Concil. This formidable and unprecedented rump foreign policy team, composed of radical hawks, played a key role in every aspect of the war on Iraq: planning for it, gathering "evidence" to justify it and punishing those who spoke out against it. It is not surprising that members of that team, and Cheney himself, have now also emerged as targets in Fitzgerald's investigation of the outing of Valierie Plame Wilson to the press, along with Bush advisor Karl Rove.

Although the investigation has focused on Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a number of other Cheney staffers have been interviewed. Who are these shadowy policymakers who played such a major role in shaping the Bush administration's foreign policy?

Most of the memebers of Cheney's inner circle were neoconservative ideologues, who combined hawkish American triumphalism with an obsession with Israel. This does not mean that the war was fought for Israel, although it is undeniable that Israeli concerns played an important role. The actual motivation behind the war was complex and Cheney's team was not the only one in the game. The Bush administration is a coalitiion of disparate forces - country club Republicans, realists, representatives of oil and other corporate interests, evangelicals, hardball political stratigists, right-wing Catholics, and neoconservative Jews allied with Israel's right-wing Likud party. Each group had it's own rationale for going to war with Iraq.

Bush himeself appears to have had an obsession with restoring family honor by avenging the slight to his father produced by Saddam's remaining in office after the Gulf War. Cheney was interested in the benefits of a war to the oil industry, and to the military-indistrial complex in general. It seems likely that the Iraq war, which produced billions in no-bid contracts fo the company he headed in the late 1900's saved Halliburton from bankruptcy. .....(I hadn't known this about their finances.President Ford had said, however, Cheney ruined everything he touched. So it seems he was more right than he ever knew, look at what Cheney has done to us, to our country, although now I do have to say that Halliburton seems to be the only one left in the catbird seat, while what our country stands for, and our financial well being went down the toilet in Abu Graib and in the whole of Iraq. SRH) ..... The Evangelicals wanted to missionize Iraqis. Karl Rove wanted to turn Bush into a war president to ensure his reelection. The neoconservatives viewed Saddam's Iraq as a short-term danger to Israel, and in the ling term, they hoped that overthrowing the Iraqi Baath would transform the entire Middle East, rather as Kamal Ataturk, who abolished the offices of Ottoman emperor and Sunni caliph in the 1920s, had brought into being a relatively democratic Turkey that was allied with Israel. (This fantastic analogy was suggested by Princeton emeritus professor and leading news conservative ideologue Bernard Lewis.) This transformation would be beneficial to the long-term security of both the United States and Israel.

None of these rationales would have been acceptable across the board, or persuasive with Congress or the American public, so the various factions focused on the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately for them, this raionale was discovered to be a mirage. And in the course of trying to punish those who were pointing out that the emperor had no clothes - or, in teis case, that the dictator had no weapons of mass destruction - Cheney and Bush's underlings went too far. Ironically, their attempt to silence critics succeeded only in turning a harsh light on their own actions and motivations.


"Cheney Assembleds Formidable Team" marveled a Page One article in the Feb 3, 2001 edition of the New York Times. It turns out that Cheney had 15 military and political advisors on foreign affairs, at a time when the president's own National Security Council was being downsized. the number of aides who counseled Cheney on domestic issues was much smaller. In contract, Al Gore had been advised by a single staffer on security affairs.

The leader of the team was Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. Libby had studied at Yale with Paul Wolfowitz, who brought him to Washington. He co-authored a hawkish policy document with Wolfowitz in the Department of Defense for it's head, Dick Cheney, after the Gulf War in 1992. When it was leaked, it embarrassed the first President Bush. Libby was a founding menber of the Project for a New American Century in 1997 during the Clinton years, when many neoconservatives were out of office. The PNAC attempted to use the Republican-dominated Congress to pressure Clinton to take a more belligerent stance toward Iraq, and it advocated significantly expanding military spending and using US troops as "gendarmes" in the aftermath of wars to "shape" the international security environment.

Eheney was also a PNAC member, and his association with this group from 1997 signaled a shift from his earlier hard-nosed realism, as he allied him;self with the neoconservatives, who dereamed of transforming other societies. The James Baker branch of the Republican Party had long been critical of Israel for causing trouble for the United States in the Middle East with its expansionist policies and unwillingmess to stop the settlement of the West Bank, and Baker was well aware that the vast majority of American Jews do not vote Republican.

Although a staunch defender of Israel, Cheney at one time was at least on speaking terms with this wing of the Republican Party. (The sense of betrayal felt by his old colleagues was summed up by Bush l's national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, who told the New Yorker he considered Cheney a friend, "But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." As time went on, however, he increasingly chose to ally with neoconservatives and the Jewish right in the US and Israel, accepting them as powerful allies and constituents for his vision of a post-Cold War world dominated by an unchallenged American hegemony that would be backed by a vst military-industrial establishment fed by US tax dollars. He continually promised skeptical Jewish audiences that a democratic Iraq would benefit Israel. His choice of advisors when he became vice presidnet demonstrated a pronounced preference fo the neoconservatives.
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There are several more paragraphs to this article and they are enlightening and interesting. and they end up saying where their ambitions are at this time in history.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102905X.shtml

[Saundra Hummer]

There have been a few of you who have seen the statue of Tim Kelly, Hermosa Beach Los Angeles County Lifeguard, surfer and my good friend, in Hermosa Beach, it was placed down the street from the Lighthouse around the corner on the Strand, near the Lifeguard Station and for years the city council has been wanting to move or remove it from it's location and at one time had even talked of scrapping it.

For those of us who knew Tim, this is such a sad situation. This is another one of the Good Guys, he really was, and such a handsome kid, inside and out. To know him was to love him.

His life was cut short by a drunk driver. He was so highly thought of for his community and lifeguard efforts that a statue was made of him as a tribute to his good works and popularity. When, during the first time of saying they were going to scrap it, his mother Audrey planned to rescue it and was actually going to put it in our back yard.

It belongs on the beach, It should stay near the Lifeguard station, or at 2nd Street down the street from where he once lived, or at the beach we all frequented, where all of us like spirits spent our time together almost every day of the summer, and that was 22nd. Street in Hermosa Beach, our favorite spot.

I know there are those who have seen Tim's statue and who perhaps even knew him who come on line here at AAJ, and perhaps you could join in and help keep his memorial statue near the Lifeguard station. I believe his statue should be kept and improved on. He is so deserving.

Please contact the Hermosa Beach City Council and let them know your feelings about this situation. We who knew him will always be thnkful.

Here is the link, go to articl 6. MUNICIPAL MATTERS WHERE IT STARTS WITH JOHN MCFARLAND. A Hermosa Beach resident for 63 years and County lifeguard for 32 years, said he had been close to Tim Kelly and watched him grow up. He said " Tim had a wonderful personality and leadership qualites and the community was devastated when he passed away at the age of 24: said professional lifeguarding, which originated in Hermosa Beach in 1951, and surfing were both very important to the City and it was appropriate that the Tim Kelly statue be placed near the Surfers' Walk of Fame and the lifeguard headquarters.

It goes on with friends of Tims talking about how they would like all of this to turn out.

Here's the link, please lend your name to Tims cause.

http://www.hermosabch.org/departments/cityclerk/agenmin/cca05-27-03/minutes.html

[LAL]

As one of the few globally well-known "celebrities" from outside of the movie, music and sporting world(s) gets ready to step down after 18 years at the helm, here's a take on his successor and the task that awaits him...


The Bernanke Challenge

Stephen Roach (New York)


It's easy to celebrate the man and his pedigree. We all know that Ben Bernanke is a solid economist, with impeccable credentials from many of America’s greatest universities. Leading academic journals are filled with his contributions. But that background begs the most important question of all: What we don't know is Bernanke’s ability to provide institutional leadership for a central bank that is facing a unique confluence of domestic and international imbalances — the asset-bubble/current-account nexus.

Every Fed chairman that I ever worked with or observed over the past 33 years has had to face circumstances that he was unprepared for. Arthur Burns was a business cycle expert ill-equipped to cope with inflation. G. William Miller was a businessman untrained for the vicissitudes of financial markets. Paul Volcker was a financial expert who struggled with a wrenching recession. Alan Greenspan was a business consultant who was quickly thrust into the thicket of financial crisis management. Ultimately, Volcker and Greenspan learned to adapt and cope — but not without initially going through wrenching financial market corrections. Volcker quickly faced a massive sell-off in the bond market and Greenspan had to cope with the stock market crash of 1987.

Investors are thrilled that Bernanke is precisely the right man for the right moment. After all, he is America’s most renowned expert on “inflation targeting” — the need for the Fed to be explicit in linking its policy instrument (the federal funds rate) to some stylized goal of price stability. And, of course, everybody’s worried about inflation again. The energy shock of 2005, which has taken retail energy prices up some 35% over the 12 months ending this past September, has financial markets in a tizzy. Inflation-phobic central bankers at the Fed are now chomping at the bit to rush back into battle against inflation. It’s the same movie we went to in the stagflationary 1970s.

But Hollywood has come out with a new version of this old movie. The script now incorporates a striking dichotomy that has opened up between energy prices and well-behaved “core” inflation rates in the non-energy segments of the economy. It also reflects the powerful forces of globalization that seem to explain this dichotomy quite nicely — especially the breakdown of the once critical linkage between input costs (like labor, energy, and other raw materials) and underlying prices.

Yet the warrior central banker wants to ride into battle again. And the financial markets are asking, who would be better suited to lead the charge than the world’s most prominent inflation targeter — Ben Bernanke?

Like all vintage movies, nostalgic depictions of the past are so “yesterday.” Why should we presume that Bernanke would be spared the same test that his predecessors faced? Financial markets have had an uncanny knack of finding the weak link in the new guy's chain. The history of modern day macro, to say nothing of the experience of the Fed and its various chairmen over the last several decades, warns of extrapolation. Why should we also presume that Bernanke would be the one Fed chairman who will challenged by the problem that falls neatly in his comfort zone — namely, inflation? The past is a poor guide for what to expect in the future. Talented and well-trained central bankers are invariably tested by something new and different. Wouldn’t it be neat if all we faced were an inflation scare?

Don’t count on it. America has far more serious problems on its plate that a new Fed chairman will quickly have to confront. Two of them are especially worrisome — a monstrous current account gap and the mother of all asset bubbles. And it turns out that the external deficit and the housing bubble are joined at the hip — thanks to the policy strategies of the man who is about to pass the baton to Bernanke — Alan Greenspan.

That’s right, by condoning one asset bubble after another — first equities, then property — the Greenspan Fed has encouraged American consumers to take their income-based personal saving rates into negative territory for the first time since 1933. Moreover, with the Federal government’s budget deficit pushing national saving down all the more, the US has had to draw freely on surplus saving elsewhere in the world to fund economic growth. And we have had to run record current-account and trade deficits to attract the foreign capital.

The escape act from this conundrum — the modern-day Fed’s favorite word — has yet to be written. Bernanke has opined on the circumstances in a rather disingenuous way — suggestion that a profligate America is actually doing the world a favor by consuming a global “saving glut.” If that’s his starting point on the bubble/current-account conundrum, watch out below. A saving-short US economy is hooked on asset bubbles and debt as the sustenance for economic growth. Weaning America from this dangerous recipe could be the defining challenge for the Fed and its new chairman.

A likely US current account adjustment is especially worrisome in that regard. Running at an annual rate of close to $800 billion in the first half of 2005, it currently requires foreign funding to the tune of $3 billion per business day. To accomplish that funding without a sharp drop in the dollar and/or a related back-up in interest rates requires extraordinary confidence on the part of foreign investors in U.S. assets.

The foreign confidence factor could well be Ben Bernanke’s biggest headache when he assumes the reins of power at the Fed. America’s current account deficit averaged just -1.5% of GDP at the three most recent Fed transition points — the ascendancies of Miller, Volcker, and Greenspan. By contrast, today’s deficit is more than four times larger at -6.4%. Moreover, in the face of an energy shock and a post-Katrina fiscal spending binge, there is good reason to look for a further reduction in US saving and a related widening of the current account deficit over the next year.

During the Greenspan era, the U.S. economy pushed the envelope in sustaining an increasingly dangerous strain of unbalanced growth. In doing so, it experienced an equity bubble, a housing bubble, a record current account deficit, and a monstrous overhang of household debt. America has gotten away with these imbalances because of the “kindness of strangers” — the willingness and confidence of foreigners to keep piling into dollar-based assets.

But now, America is going to be asking a lot more of the foreign investor at precisely the moment when the Fed is transitioning from Greenspan to Bernanke. As the Maestro leaves the building, the hard-won aura of foreign confidence that surrounds him could be quick to follow. Like the chairmen who preceded him, Bernanke could soon find himself dealing with a confidence crisis in the financial markets. And suddenly, the inflation targeter will be staring at a far more intractable set of problems than his research and training prepared him for. Bernanke could be faced with a dollar crisis and the related need on the part of foreign investors to seek compensation for taking currency risk. That compensation invariably spells higher interest rates — the last thing America’s housing bubble and overly-indebted consumer needs.

History warns us to expect the unexpected when America’s second toughest job changes hands. Like his predecessors, Ben Bernanke's skillset has not prepared him for the challenges he faces. Credentials alone don't make for a good Fed Chairman. History tells us that it's all about learning on the job and coping with indoctrination under fire. The great irony for the Fed is that Alan’s Greenspan's legacy may well be Ben Bernanke's albatross.

[Saundra Hummer]

Pollyanna opened the box it seems.

Interesting article Lal.

One can only hope for the best.

[Saundra Hummer]

RICH SENATORS DEFEAT MINIMUM-WAGES HIKE
BY HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS
WEDNESDAY 26 OCTOBER 2005


CONGRESSIONAL PAY RISES WHILE MINIMUM STAYS THE SAME

US senators - who draw salaries of $162,100 a year and enjoy a raft of perks - have rejected a minimum wage hike from $5.15 and hour to $6.25 for blue-collar workers.

Can you believe it?

The proposed increase was sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, and turned down in the Senate by a vote of 51 against the boost and 49 in favor. Under a Senate agreement, it needed 60 votes to pass.

All the Democrats voted for the wage boost. All the negative votes were cast by Republicans.

Four Republicans voted for it. Three of the four are running for reelection and were probably worried aobut how voters would react if they know that their well-heeled senators had turned down a pittance of an increase in the salaries of the lowest paid workers in the country.

The minimum wage was last increased in 1997.

Kennedy called the vote "absolutely unconscionable."

The lawmakers are hardly hurting. They get health insurance, life insurance, pensions, office expenses, ranging from $2 million on up, depending on the population of a state. The taxpayer also pays for their travel, telecommunications, stationery and mass mailings.

AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said the rejection was "outrageous and shocking"

Sweeney said minimum wage workers "deserve a pay raise - plain and simple - no strings attached."

He said it is "appaling that the same right-wing leaders in Congress - who have given themselves seven pay raises since the last minimum wage increase - voted down the modest wage increase proposed by the Kennedy amendment."

During the same period since 1997, raises thet he Senate has given itself bolstered senatorial pay by $28,000 a year, Kennedy said.

"If we are serious about helping hard-working families, we will give a fair raise to American's low-income workers without taking away essential protections," he added.

The Senate also killed an amendment proposed by Sen. Michael Enzi, R-WY, which also would have increased the minimum wage by $1.10 but included drastic measures such as wiping out the 40-hour work week, cutting overtime pay and weakening job safety and health protection.

At the same time, Enzi wanted to sweeten the pot for small business by providing tax and regulatory relief and to exempt small business from the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Kennedy likened the Enzi bill to an "anti-worker poison pill" and said it would "severely hurt millions and millions of workers."

According to the Census Bureau, there are 37 milion Americans living in poverty, up 1 million in just a year.

Statements by George W,. Bush since the Gulf Coast hurricane disasters indicate he has a new awareness of the plight of the poor in this country. Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans have made the more affluent realize the hardships suffered by poor families.

When asked about the Kennedy measure, White House press secreatry Scott McClellan said Bush "believes that we should look at having a reasonable increase in the minimum wage....But we need to make sure that, as we do that, that it is not a step that hurts small business or prices people out of the job market."

Bush has not weighed in with his own proposal for a pay hike.

The Senate's action comes at a worrisome time when motorists are paying much more for gasoline and heating bills are expected to rise by 56 percent this winter, according to Kennedy.

As a result, families will have to tighten thier belts to pay for the basic necessities.

"It is shameful that in America today, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, nearly a fifth of all children go to bed hungry at night because their parent, many of whom are working full time at the minimum wage, still can't make ends meet," Kennedy said.

Kennedy has been in the forefront of the fight for increases in the minimum wage for years, and I dont' expectr thim tothrow in the townl now.

Congress still may have a chance to redeem itself in the eyes of the less fortunate, - before the 2006 elections.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/103105i.A.shtml

http://wwwltruthout.org

[Saundra Hummer]

....."Maybe the greatest sin is neither of these two ancient ones [the lust for power and hubris], the greatest sin may be the new twentieth-century sin of indifference." Peter Drucker [from Adventures of a a Bystander, John Wiley and Sons 1994.]

==

....."The text of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." Franklin Delano Roosevelt

=

....."During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism." Howard Thurman

==

....."Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd." Bertrand Russell

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

Or;

http://snipurl.com/ayzc

[Saundra Hummer]

My old jettisoned buddy Ruddy (aka EminemsrRevenge) just sent me an e-mail letting me know his book "Jew Girl" has "broken thru the Top 100,000 barrier on Amazon.com", so that 's good for him. Not bad for an unknown first time author. Wish he could have stuck around, his mind works in such interesting ways, shocking to many I suppose, but all in all this is a nice guy. Glad to see his is moving along at a rapid pace and is still shaking up peoples thoughts. Braver than me, that's for sure, although even if I were like a lion, there are things I was brought up to never say, so don't, ha! Well almost never.

[Saundra Hummer]

....."If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient, minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them." George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-1950) British author

==

....."The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing..." Albert Einstein

==

....."Not the faults of others, nor what others have done or left undone, but one's own deeds, done and left undone, should one consider." 50th Stanza from the Dhammapada (The Path of Wisdom)

[Saundra Hummer]

.....................PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

BY CHRIS FLOYD

While Potomac courtiers were reading the entrails of the cooked goose of Scooter Libby - the first Bushiest honcho caught in the slow-grinding gears of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation - in Wiltshire, Flight Lieutenant Malcom Kendall-Smith face a court martial after declaring that the Iraq war was illegal and refusing to return for his third tour of duty there.

Click on the following links to access articles:]

httpj://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10866.htm

==

UN DOUBLE STANDARDS AGAIN ON DISPLAY WITH SYRIA RESOLUTION

BY SALIM LONE

The beginning of the drive to justify the use of force or other serious actions against Syria for its possible involvement in Fafiq Hariri's killing is reminiscent of the run-up to the 2003 US-led war against Iraq. As then, it is the United Nations Security Council which is the instrument for escalating the tensions

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10861.htm


There's link after link to stories that are so very controversial and insiteful, here are just the links, surprise yourself. Forwared, these are anti-neo-con, anti establishment, anti Rove, Libby, Bolton, and anti Administration: anit anti, anti.

htjp://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L)381569.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10873.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10862.htm

http://tinyurl.com/doc3n

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051103/why_would_libby_lie.php

httjp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aTWU4S960Cno

In case you missed it:

http://www.informationclearing house.info/article108971,htm

In case you missed it:

DICK CHENEY'S SONG OF AMERICA:

THE PLAN IS FOR THE UNTIED STATES to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ulti;mately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming militry superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1544.htm

==

SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL: INSIDE THE BUNKER:

HIS ADMINISTRATION HAS BECOME ITS OWN REPUBLIC OF FEAR, AND BUSH IS A PRISONER TO THE RIGHT.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10870.htm

==

BUSH WAR POLICY IS NOW IN PLAY

DEMOCRATS RENEW THEIR CRITICISM AS PUBLIC OPPOSITION SOLIDIFIES, TEH BODY COUNT GROWS AND PREWAR INTELLIGENCE IS UNDER A NEW ASSAULT.

http://tinyurl.com/axdce

==

AMBUSHED: WHY AMERICA TURNED ON DUBBYA:

this isn't just another Washington crisis it is the worst calamity to befall a president since Watergate. An administration built on lies stands exposed as never before, writes Andrew Stephen.

http://www.newstatesman.com/20051107006

==

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/86734122-4be9-11da-997b-0000779e2340.html

(hope I got that one right1)

Scads more, but just follow links and go to Home and you can see all of the articles in full once on site.

[Saundra Hummer]

.....WHAT A STAND UP GUY --- DON'T YOU THINK?

..........CHENEY TOLD AIDE OF C.I.A. OFFICER, LAWYERS REPORT

BY DAVID JOHNSTON, RICHARD W. STEVENSON AND DOUGLAS JETTE.
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2005

CORRECTION APPENDED

.....WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, - L. Lewis LIbby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's (link provided on site) chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jusry that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson from journalists, the lawyers said.


The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to The New York Times, said they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. more than a month before her identity was made public and her underceover status was disclosed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003.

Mr. Libby's notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from Geroge J. Tenet (link on site), the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson's undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a covert agent's identy can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent's undercover status.

It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumablpy cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel inh the case to be an illegal effort to imped the inquiry.


White House officials did not respoind to requests for comment, and Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, would not comment on Mr. Libby's legal status. Randal Samborn, a spokesman for Mr. Fjitzgerald, declined to comment on the case.

Mr. Fitzgerald is expected to decide whether to bring charges in the case by Friday, when the term of the grand jury expires. Mr. Libby and Karl Rove (link on site), President Bush's senior adviser, both face the possibility of indictment, lawyers involved in the case have said. It is not publicly known whether other officials also face indictment.

The notes help explain the legal difficulties facing Mr. Libby. Lawyers in the case said Mr. Libby testified to the grand jury that he had first heard from journalists thatt Ms. Wilson may have had a role in dispatching her husband on a C.I.A.-sponsored mission to Africa in 2002 in search of evidence that Iraq had acquired nuclear material there for its weapons program.

But the notes, now in Mr. Fitzgerald's possession , also indicate that Mr. Libby first heard about Ms. Wilson - who is also known by her maiden name, Valierie Plame - from Mr. Cheney. That apparent discrepancy in his testimony suggests why prosecutors are weighing false statement charges against him in what they interpret as an effort by Mr. Libby to protect Mr. Cheney from scrutiny, the lawyers said.


It is not clear why Mr. Libby would have suggested to the grand jury that he might have learned about Ms. Wilson from journalists if he was aware that Mr. Fitzgerald had obtained the notes of the conversation with Mr. Cheney or might do so. At the beginning of the investigation, Mr. Bush pledged the White House's full cooperation and instructed aides to provide Mr. Fitzgerald with any information he sought.

The notes do not show that Mr. Cheney knwe the name of Mr. Wilson's wife. But they do show that Mr. Cheney did know and told Mr. Libby that Ms. Wilson was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency and that she may have helped arrange her husbands trip.

Some lawyers in the case have said Mr. Fitzgerald may face obstacles in bringing a false-statement charge against Mr. Libby. They said it could be difficult to prove that he intentionally sought to mislead the grand jury.



Lawyers involved in the case said they had no indication that Mr. Fitzgerald was considering charging Mr. Cheney with wrongdoing. Mr Cheney was interviewed by Mr. Fitzgerald last year. It is not known what the vice president told Mr. Fitzgerald about the conversation with Mr. Libby or when Mr. Fitzgerald first learned of it.

[...CORRECTION: OCT. 26, 2005, WEDNESDAY:

A FRONT PAGE ARTICLE YESTERDAY ABOUT THE C.I.A. LEAK INVSTIGATION , MISTATED THE TERMS UNDER WHICH VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENYE WAS INTERVIEWED LAST YEAR BY THE SPECIAL COUNSEL IN THE CASE. HE WAS NOT UNDER OATH.]

(.....I have to wonder why he would have to be sworn in, after all does the Oath of office run out, expire, once they step down from the pidium? Once they take their hand off their bible? I would think that once sworn in, that should be enough. Silly me! Will Cheney step up to the plate and disclose his involvement, if there is any, to prevent his trusted aide from suffering the humiliation and trauma of this ordeal, or will he let Scotter Libby shoulder the load all on his own? If the V.P is involved, will he even consider doing the right thing, and will Scooter Libby even think he should or is he just blind to the fact that he could perhaps salvage his own reputation, and in doing so save himself from possible prison time by telling the complete story? Blind loyalty? Will this be the way it goes down? If so why on earth would he take a fall for someone else if, for such a treasonous act? That is if this is how it was. And how could someone esle even expect this of someone? Always thinking of themselves and their own self importance it seem, these strutters and gloaters. Falling on swords seems to be expectied on Capitol Hill, but why it's done for such unworthy men is not understandable. Pity the poor misguided souls who have this expected of them, and who, they say, often times do just that. ....SRH.. . . )




..........PAGE TWO.....PAGE TWO, TO SEE, FOLLOW THE LINK:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/politics/25leak.html


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/politics/25leak.html?

ex1146546000&en=de610a226ccc.3427&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep

Hope this link gets you on line with them, one or the other. If not, I'll post the rest if you'd like.

[Saundra Hummer]

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

==

....."Throughout the history of the United States, war has been the primary impetus behind the growth and development of the central state. It has been the lover by which presidents and other national officials have bolstered the power of the state in the face of tenacious popular resistance." Bruce D. Porter

[Saundra Hummer]

..........FORMER POWELL AIDE LINKS CHENEY'S OFFICE TO ABISE DIRECTIVES

BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

11/03/05 "HIT" -- -- WASHINGTON Vice President Dick Cheney's office was responsible for directives that led to U.S. soldiers' abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former top State Depertment official said Thursday.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secreatery of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney''s staff.

"The secretary of defense under cover of the vice presidents office," Wilkerson said, "regardless of the president having put out this memo" - "they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen." (The Shadow Government we have all heard of once Oliver North blabbed it out so proudly? SRH)

He said the directives contradicted a 2002 order by President George W. Bush for the U.S. military to abide by the Geneva conventions against torture.

"There was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led to the abuse of detaineees, Wilerson said.

The directives were "in carefully couched terms," Wilerson conceded, but said they had the effect of loosening the reins on U.S. troops, leading to many cases of prisoner abuse, including , at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, that were contrary to the Geneva Conventions.

"If you are a military man, you know that you don't do these sort of things," Wilkerson said, because troops will take advantage, or feel so pressured to obtain information that "they have to do what they have to do to get it."

He said that Powell had assigned him to investigate the matter after reports emerged in the media about U.S. troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both men had formerly served in the U.S. military.

Wilkerson also called David Addington, the vice presidents lawyer," a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions."

On Monday, Cheney promoted Addington to his chief of staff to replace I. Lewis Libby, who has been indicted over the unmasking of a CIA agent.

Wilkerson also told National Public Radio that Cheney's office ran an "alternate national security staff" that spied on and undermined the president's formal National Security Council.

He said National Security Council staff stopped sending e-mails when they found out Cheney's staff members were reading their messages.

He said he believed that Cheney's staff prevented Bush from seeing a National Security Council memo arguing strongly that the United States needed many more troops for the March 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Wilkerson also said that the former CIA chief George Tenet did not inform Cheney's office of key weaknesses in the governments argument that Saddam Hussein had or was seeking weapons of mass destruction.

That argument was central to the Bush administration's justifications for the Iraq war.

Wilkerson has also said recently that Cheney and Rumsfeld operated a "cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign and military policy.

WASHINGTON Vice President Dick Cheney's office was responsible for directives that led to U.S. soldiers' abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former top State Department official said Thursday.

Colonel Lawrence Wjilerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff.

"The secretary of defense under cover of the vice president's office," Wilkerson said, "regardless of the president having put out this memo" - "they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen."

He said the directives contradicted a 2002 order by President George W. Bush for the U.S. military to abide by the Geneva conventions against torture.

"There was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led to the abuse of detainees, Wilkerson said.

The directives were "in carefully couched terms," Wilkerson conceded, but said that they had the effect of looseining the reins on U.S. troops, leading to many cases of prisoner abuse, including at Abu Ghraib prison, that were contrary to the Geneva Conventions.

"If you are a military amn, you know that you just don't do these sorts of things," Wilkerson said, because troops will take advantage, or feel so pressured to obtain information that "they have to do what they have to do to get it."

He said that Powell had assigned him to investigate the matter after reports emerged in the media about U.S. troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both men had formerly served in the U.S. military.

Wilkerson also called David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, "a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions.

On Monday, Cheney promoted Addington to his chief of staff to replace I. Lewis Libby, who has been indicted over the unmasking of a CIA agent.

Wilkerson also told the National Public Radio that Cheney's office ran an "alternate national security staff" that spied on and undermined the president's formal National Security Council.

He said National Security Council staff stopped sending e-mails when they found out Cheney's staff members were reading their messages.

He said he believed that Cheney's staff prevented Bush from seeing a National Security Council memo arguing tstorngly that he United States needed many more troops for the March 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Wilkerson also said that the former CIA chief George Tenet did not inform Cheney's office of key weaknesses in the government's argument that Saddam Hussein; had or was seeking weapons of mass destruction.

That arguement was central to the Bush administration's justifictions for the Iraq war.

Wilkerson has also said recently that Cheney and Rumsfeld operated a "cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign and military policy.

WASHINGTON Vice President Dick Cheney's office was responsible for directives that led to U.S Soldiers' abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former top State Department official said Thursday.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell , then the secretary of state, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable dentention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff.

"The secretary of defense under cover of the vice president's office," Wilkerson said, "regardless of the president having put out this memo" - "they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen."

He said the directives contradicted a 2002 order by President George W. Bush for the U.S. military to abide by the Geneva conventions against torture.

"There was a visible audit trail from the vice presidents office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led to the abuse of detaines, Wilerson said

for the text go to this link by clicking on it:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10879.htm

I may have been a bit redundant with this article as they are with it themselves. Then maybe I haven't been, ha!

[Saundra Hummer]

Another jazz site is taking my postings about the Lighthouse and Don Joham and is posting them, usually after editing and changing the text, removing words, etc. If they would like to edit typo's, and other errors, that is different, but to change the text, I'm asking them to not do this, and to contact me before posting my thoughts.

Going by the name DizzE, he/she is posting on other sites, FM.1 for one.

If they are going to be using my posts, I would only hope they wouldn't change the text around to where it is so fractured, and, to the point where it doesn't make sense.

I know there are times when my posts could be more lucid and better structured, but I really don't like to have them changed.

[Saundra Hummer]

From a President who asks that torture be allowed, we are now having him say, publicizing his orders, that his staff take an ethic course. It is mandatory. Will he, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney be learning these lessons as well. Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Pretty slow on the draw if you ask me. Why weren't ethical people put in place much earlier, rather than try to teach, to these less than honorable people, that which we all should know before we even reach our 20's?

From an Associated Press article:

.....CHENEY ASKS THAT THE CIA BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE TORTURE

..........(CONTINUE TORTURE? HEAVEN FORBID! SRH)

Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to Republican senators this week to allow CIA exemptions to a proposed ban on the torture of terror suspects in U.S. custody, according to particpants in a closed-door session. CONTINUED: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

.....THEN THERE IS THIS; AND TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HORRORS HE IS ADVOCTING CONTINUE, NOT START, BUT CONTINUE, JUST READ THIS ARTICLE FOR A BRIEF DECRIPTION OF THE HORROR OF TORTURE. THIS IS AN UNHOLY ACT WHICH HE IS WANTING PERPETUATED IN OUR NAME, IN THE NAME OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND WE ARE NOT YELLING TO THE HEAVENS TO HAVE THIS IDEA SQUASHED IN ITS INFANCY, WE WANT MORE OF THIS TYPE OF INHUMANITY TO MAN TO "CONTINUE"? HOW CAN WE BE SO FEARFUL AND UNCARING ABOUT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING REGARDLESS IF THEY ARE THOSE WHO WOULD SEE US ALL DEAD. WE ARE GOING DOWN TO THAT LEVEL? WE ARE MEETING THEM IN THEIR DEPRAVITY? HOW CAN WE, AND HAVE ANY PRIDE IN COUNTRY, ANY PRIDE IN OURSELVES FOR THAT MATTER!

.....HERE IS THE ARTICLE, WHICH IS ABOUT BRITAIN, YET IT TELLS OF OUR CIA'S INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE. IT ISN'T A PRETTY PICTURE, IT IS SHAMEFUL AND ANIMALISTIC, NOT SOMETHING ANY SELF-RESPECTING PERSON WILL BE ABLE TO ABIDE. FEAR CANNOT TAKE OVER OUR BEINGS AND LET US ALLOW THESE THINGS TO GO ON IN OUR NAME BECAUSE OF IT. SRH:

.....THE REALITY OF BRITAIN'S RELIANCE ON TORTURE

..........I WILL TELL YOU WHAT TORTURE MEANS:
BY CRAIG MURRARY: GO TO: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

Read this story to know why it is we just can't allow our government to sanction such acts as an endorsed policy, we just can't. How is it that these men in power have such dastardly thoughts? How is it that they believe this is an only option? We have laws and courts which have the capability of doing the right thing, whereas torture is a blight, one we just can't live with the knowledge of, of it being carried out as an approved action by our government and by our people. I just can't join up with that group mentality, I just can't. SRH.

[LAL]

I used to eat lots of foods containing this stuff up till 10 years ago, until I developed a skin allergy which still plagues me today, and it seems it may be the cause of obesity too...

If fried snack chips had a warning printed right on the bag that said, "Warning: these chips will make you obese," would you still buy them? Would you still eat them? Well, in a sense, you do see that warning on chips; just read the ingredient list. Research suggests that monosodium glutamate causes obesity, making unhealthy snacks even unhealthier than you may have suspected.
I'm sure you already know that tortilla and potato chips aren't health foods, right? They're made with fried fats, they almost always harbor hidden toxic chemicals (acrylamides), and if they're flavored, they usually contain monosodium glutamate (MSG). This is basically a recipe for obesity.

But how does MSG cause obesity? Like aspartame, MSG is an excitotoxin, a substance that overexcites neurons to the point of cell damage and, eventually, cell death. Humans lack a blood-brain barrier in the hypothalamus, which allows excitotoxins to enter the brain and cause damage, according to Dr. Russell L. Blaylock in his book Excitotoxins. According to animal studies, MSG creates a lesion in the hypothalamus that correlates with abnormal development, including obesity, short stature and sexual reproduction problems.

Based on this evidence, Dr. Blaylock makes an interesting point about the American obesity epidemic, especially among young people: "One can only wonder if the large number of people having difficulty with obesity in the United States is related to early exposure to food additive excitotoxins, since this obesity is one of the most consistent features of the syndrome. One characteristic of the obesity induced by excitotoxins is that it doesn't appear to depend on food intake. This could explain why some people cannot diet away their obesity." As an increasing number of elementary school students bring snack-size bags of chips to school in their lunch boxes, the MSG-obesity link demands parental caution.

Instead of passively watching modern society become obese and then commenting on it, we need to change it at the start. That begins with you, the consumer. By avoiding foods with MSG, you are not only protecting your health and your family's health, you are also protecting society's health by not supporting companies that use MSG. Use your buying power to show that you don't accept manufactured foods that use MSG or any of the other hidden forms of MSG such as yeast extract, hydrolyzed vegetable proteins and autolyzed proteins.

More here. (http://www.newstarget.com/009379.html)
(ps - it's also sometimes listed as flavouring 631)

[Saundra Hummer]

......THE SKY HASN'T FALLEN, INSTEAD WHAT WE STAND FOR IS BEING DESTROYED FROM WITHIN. ISNT' THAT OFTEN THE CASE? WE ARE BEING EATEN AWAY AT. OUR FREEDOMS ARE BEING ERODED BY OUR OWN, AND IT HAS ALL COME ABOUT FROM US LETTING FEAR OVERCOME GOOD SENSE.

CHECK OUT THIS STORY AND THEN SAY IT CAN'T HAPPEN TO YOU, PERHAPS NOT, BUT DO YOU WANT TO CHANCE IT? .....SRH

.....THE FBI's SECRET SCRUTINY
BY BARTON GELLMAN
THE WASHINGTON POST

..........IN HUNT FOR TERRORISTS, BUREAU EXAMINES RECORDS OF ORDINARY AMERICANS.

.....The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer witg a document marked for delivery by hand. ON Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no olne, ever, what it said.

Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all-subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the softweare he operates said thier databases can reveal the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow.

Christain refused to hand over those records, and his employer, Library Connection Inc., filed suit for the right to protest the FBI demand in public. The Washington Post established their identies - still under seal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit - by comparing unsealed portions to the file with public records and information gleaned from people who had no knowledge of the FBI demand.

The Connecticut case affords a rare glimpse of an exponentially growing practice of domestic surveillance under the USA Patriot Act, which marked its fourth anniversary on Oct. 26. "National security letters," created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed these letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.

The FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot

.....TO SEE THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE GO TO THIS ADDRESS BY JUST CLICKING ON IT:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005_110605A.shtml

The article goes on to say: A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it gathers describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what hie pawns, and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.

As it wrote the Patriot Act four years ago, Congress bought time and leverage for oversight by placing an espiration date on 16 provisions. The changes involving national security letters were not among them. In fact, as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches and Congress prepares to renew or make permanent the expiring provisions, House and Senate conferees are poised again to amplify the FBI's power to compel the secret production of private records.

The House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance with a national security letter a criminal offense. The House would also impose a prison term for breach of secrecy.
=

Remember there is much more to this article, just click on the link above.

[Saundra Hummer]

I used to eat lots of foods containing this stuff up till 10 years ago, until I developed a skin allergy which still plagues me today, and it seems it may be the cause of obesity too...



More here. (http://www.newstarget.com/009379.html)
(ps - it's also sometimes listed as flavouring 631)


Can't read much of this as my video card seems to be on the blink or I just can't get my adjustments right after fouling them up so terribly, but I can see some things and know it is about MSG, which I used to use in several things I cooked, especially chili beans as they made them taste better than any I had ever had, but when I learned it kills brain cells, and we had a small child, I quit using it and have never used it again, but I cook chili beans so seldomly that surely I could use it again, Accent is what I used and it just made things taste unbelievably good. Gives some people bad headaches though, that's the ingredient in Chinese food that gets to people. When I was cooking with it, I was as skinny as can be, never did gain weight on it, thinner than usual as a matter of fact, but then I was so very physically active that was part of it.

New video card coming tomorrow if we can make it into Bend, weather allowing, if not, this foggy dark pink screen will just have to do for a couple of more days.Anyway, we're hoping that this is all that's wrong. It's killing our eyes, this along with a room that is way too bright.

[Saundra Hummer]

.....JIM HIGHTOWER

11/10/2005

....[Amazing stuff by Jim this time. ..........Here we go into the lack of ethics by our techies, Google and Yahoo are to be condemned harshly and heavily for their actions I believe. I use both of these giants everyday, but what are they thinking? Only in dollar terms? It is, after all, human beings here on the other end of the line and they are selling us out, China now, us later?

Ethics being ordered for the White House staff? Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted? If we don't overcome these lack of ethics in every walk of our society, (yes Pat Roberts, you are an offender as well), then where are we headed? Straight to hell in a hand basket? You see this behavior is only being questioned, not stated as fact, It isn't being judged (well perhaps this isn't so truthful, ha!), rather I questioned. I suspect the worst in some people as it has been shown to exist, but I have hopes that good will win out over evil, not as Mr Roberts has espoused, his telling us that his belief in the written word, all of which is written, is literal, and is paramount - or so he would have us believe. That this IS his faith based belief. so not to pray to God for help, as they had voted God out all over Intelligent Design. He advises them to pray to "Darwin" instead. He's forgotten that he lives in a glass house and he need not cast the first stone or judge others, as our bible tells us. For a man of God, his vindictive murderous talk is likened to the radical thought and behavior in terrorist cells, the only difference being, is he incites hatreds, he isn't out doing the destruction himself. SRH]

Go to these sites, one is an anti P. R. site which tells of his accepting money from dictators and such. So this self righteousness he exhibits is so selfserving as to be astonishing.

Then there is the Jim Hightower site where you can either listen to or read his articles. I enjoy the audio. A Great site.


.....The Anti-Pat Robertson/Christian Coalition Site
...........Features quotes from leaders of the Radical Religious Right, his support of oppressive dictators around the world, using donations for his own profit making.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7027/patrobertson.html
=
http://www.ihatepatrobertson.com

Much more to look into on this man, haven't read the last one, but the title is catchy, ha! :dill:

LATER:
I Read the opening page and went on to the column with other articles, by category, and this is an interesting site. The bigotry of this man, Pat Robertson (and others) in all matters and in matters concerning women. His stance against women is astounding. I mean it's astounding. This is just one thing I don't like about this man, and then there's the quotes of the Washingtron Times managing editor Francis Coombs wife, Marian Kester Coombs. What a racist! To me this is just so surprising to hear in this day and age. Having grown up around so many different ethnic groups and having had close friends in all of them, to hear these statements, is to be set back on my heels. One expects this from ill educated, less than stellar individuals, but when it come from those educated in our best schools; from those educated by exposure and travel all over our country and around the world, it is so disgusting that it angers. I don't like to be exposed to those who think like she does, it gives me a queasy feeling, a terrible physical feeling, almost that of guilt by association.

How is it that there seems to be more thoughts like these and beliefs like these taking over our society? Gaining numbers, gaining strength? Shades of Nazism, this is what it all reminds me of.

==
==

BOO YAHOO
MINIMUM WAGE
THE GREAT MONEY-GOBBLING WAR MACHINE
A COMMUNITY AND ITS BOOKSTORE
MARTIAL LAW FOR BIRD FLU?
BUSH RECONSTRUCTION COMPANY
STOP HALLIBURTON'S THIEVERY
ANOTHER CORPORATIST FOR THE COURT

http://www.jimhightower.com/air/archive.asp

[Saundra Hummer]

....."O liberty! O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" Madame Jeanne-Marie Roland

-

....."Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please before whatever fraud or combination of frauds they choose to venerate...Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and.. the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer." -- H. L. Menchen -- 1956. -

=

....."The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right, the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women"..... Learned Hand

=

....."He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression, for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." Thomas Paine

=

....."Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down." Frederick Douglass

=

....."He who dares not offend cannot be honest." :shrug: Thomas Paine

[Saundra Hummer]

....It is being said that: PRESIDENT RELIES ON FORGED LETTER IN TODAY'S SPEECH

BY BooMan
Friday Nov. 11th, 2005 at 02:26:03 PM EDT

.....Are you craving more proclamations from the administration based on forged documents (quite possibly) of their own making? Are you having withdrawals from the Niger document fiasco? Never fear. Today the president cited another forged document, a document probably thought up by some half-ass Arabist in some latter day Office of Special Plans. We already know that the myth of Zarqawi is being used to personalize every attack of every civilian target on more han one continent. The myth of Zawahiri's letter to Zarqawi is now being cited as the main justificatin for staying the course in Iraq. From the President's Veteran's (link provided on site)Day speech today.

.........In his recent letter, Zawahiri writes that al Qaeda views Iraq as, quote, "the place of the greatest battle." The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. We must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war against the terrorists.

..........Third, these militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Musim masses, enabling them to overthrow all modern governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. Zawahiri writes that the terrorists, quote, "must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq." He goes on to say the jihad requires several incremental goals - - expel the Americans from Iraq, establish and Islamic authority over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. End quote.

See the evidence that this letter is a rank forgery below the fold. Also, I'll provide some links for how the right-wing wurlitzer is trying to utilize this blatant fraud to buck up support for an endless war on terror:
==
......Much more to read and links to follow on this site, believe him or not, this is an intersating take.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.com

Check out his story by scrolling down the articles or go here:

http://www2.boomtribune.com/story/2005/11/11/14263/574

===
===
...........This man Zaqawri who seems to take great pleasure in others deaths, these men who follow him, all of these men with terrorist bents are getting what they seem to desire, a steady stream of victims and a steady stream of us killing anyone in our path to their doorstep, thus making recruitment so much easier, as when all hope is lost, when anger and a perceived need for vengance rules the day, when one can't bear to see the victims or can't bear to be one themselves, it must become easier for them to drive a cement truck into a hotel, to jump on a bus and blow up school children, to kill anyone who would try to subsist by working with us or even for us. When their lives become meaningless, it seems rational to them to do such as this. We would be doing much the same if all hope were lost as it is for so many in Iraq, all due to location, all due to the fact that where they live is considered a hot bed of resistance, so what have we wrought?

So many here in the states, believe in bibical phrophesy, in the written word, well doesn't it also stress "You reap what you sow?" Good grief, we live in a much more modern world than we are allowing. We haven't tried our hand at a better way. What is this regression we've fallen into? What primative brains we still have!

[Saundra Hummer]

MOLLY IVINS
CREATORS SYNDICATE
11.10.05


..........SOME KIND OF MANLY

BUSH ADMINISTRATION, DEAD TO MORALITY, SAYS TORTURE IS THE AMERICAN WAY.

AUSTIN, Texas - - I can't get over this feeling of unreality, that I am actually sitting here writing about our country having a gulag of secret prisons in which it tortures people. I have loved America all my life, even though I have often disagreed with the government. But this seems to me so preposterous, so monstrous. My mind is a little bent and my heart is a little broken this morning.

Maybe I should try to get a grip - - after all, it's just this one administration that I had more cause than most to realize was full of of inadequate people going in. And even at that, it seems to be mostly Vice President Cheney. And after all, we were badly frightened by 9-11, which was a horrible event. "Only" nine senators voted against the prohibition of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of persons under custody or control the United States." Nine out of 100. Should we be proud? Should we cry?

"We do not torture," said our pitifully inarticulate president, straining through emphasis and repetition to erase the obvious.

A string of prisons in Eastern Europe in which suspects are held and tortured indefinitely, without trial, without the right to confront their accusers, without knowing the evidence or the charges against them, if any. Forever. It's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." Another secret prison in the midst of a military camp on an island run by and infamous dictator. Prisoner without a name, cell without a number.

Who are we? What have we become? The shining city on a hill, the beacon and bastion of refuge and freedom, a country born amidst the most magnificent ideals of freedom and justice, the greatest political heritage ever given to any people anywhere.

I am baffled by these "arguments": But we're talking about really awful people, cries the harassed press secretary. People like C and Y and Z (after a time, one forgets all the names of the No. 2's after bin Laden we have captured). The SS and the Gestapo and the KDV were't all than nice, either.

Then I hear the familiar tinniness of the fake machismo. I know so well from George W. Bush and all the other frat boys who never went to Vietnam and never got over the guilt.

"Sometimes you gotta play rough," said Dick Cheney. No shit, Dick? Now why don't you tell that to John McCain?

I have known George W. Bush since we were both in high school - - we have dozens of mutual friends. I have written two books about him and so have interviewed many dozens more who know him well in one way or another. Spare me the tough talk. He didn't play football -- he was a cheerleader. "He is really competitive," said one friend. "You wouldn't believe how tough he is on a tennis court!" Just cut out the macho crap -- I don't want to hear it.

If you are dead to all sense of morality (please let me not go off on the stinking sanctimony of this crowd), let us still reason together on the famous American common ground of practicality. Torture. Does. Not. Work.

Torture does not work. Ask the United States military. Ask the Israelis.

There seems to be some fantastic scenario floating around - - if Osama bin Laden had an atomic bomb hidden in a locker at Grand Central Station, and it was due to go off in 12 hours, and we had him in prison ... I seem to have missed some important televison program on this theme. I am told it was fiction, but it must have been really scary -- it certainly seems to have unbalanced the minds of some of our fellow citizens.

Torture does not work. It is not productive. It does not yield important, timely information. That is in the movies. This is reality.

I grew up with all this pathetic Texas tough: Everybody here knows you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs; and this aint beanbag; and I'll knock your jaw so far back, you'll scratch your throat with your front teeth; and I'm going cloud op and rain all over you; and I'm going open me a can of whup-ass ...

And that'll show 'em, won't it? Take some miserable human being alone and helpless in a cell, completely under your control and torture him. Boy, that is some kind of manly, ain't it?

"The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violaton of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have disappeared," like the victims of some dictorships." -- The Washington Post.

Why did we bother to beat the Soviet Union if we were just going to become it? Shame. Shame. Shame.

==

Just click on the following link:

http://www.workingforchange.com

=

Read more of the Molly Ivins archive on site and hit the link to the Texas Observer.

On the issue of torture, we, Molly and me, think so much alike. Journalists like her, and several contributors to AAJ help me not feel so alone about all of the things this administration is pulling on us, and the poor bombed civilians of Iraq.

When did we begin accepting perversion in our leaders? A lot of us haven't and never will, and a lot of us, in fact, most of us, didn't choose these men and women doing these terrible things in our name, and I need to believe we never would have.

The tainted Supreme Court has done a number on us all.

[Saundra Hummer]

...........ALFRED HITCHCOCK BORN AGAIN

BY SEAN GONSALVES
CAPE COD TIMES
11.09.05

.....BUSH'S AVIAN FLU RAP IS ATTEMPT TO BLIND AMERICA WITH FEAR

The major news outlets have been giving lots of coverage to yet another dreadful warning coming from the Bush administration -- the looming "bird flu pandemic." (Cue the sound track of Hitchcocks's classic "The Birds").

Best case scenario, reports the Associated Press, a minimum of 200,000 people will die from an avian flu pandemic, but it coud be as many as 2 million deaths in America alone. Yikes.

Ah, the power of fear. Edmund Burke, the intellectual father of conservatism, would be impressed. In Burke's "On the Sublime and Beautiful" (1757), he wrote: "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."

President Bush didn't let Burke down. At an Oct. 4 press conference, he talked about the possibility of having a military-enforced quarantine.

"And who best to be able to effect, a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move..... I think it's an important debate for Congress to have." Lord knows, the president loves a good "debate."

Not that he's predicting an outbreak, he said, "but we better be thinking about it. And we are. And we're more than thinking about it; we're trying to put plans in place."

Included in those plans are billions of dollars to buy Tamiflu, the most sought-after flu remedy in the world.

If you dig a little deeper you'll find that a California biotech company called Gilead owns the rights to Tamiflu. And guess who was Gilead's former chairman:? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Gilead chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001.

Fortune magazine's senior writer Nelson Schwartz reports that Rumsfeld still owns between $5 million and $25 million in Gilead stock.

The Bush administration is one of the biggest Tamiflu buyers. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of Tamiflu and Congress is being urged by the president to approve another multi-billion dollar purchase.

Rumsfeld recused himself from being involved in Gilead decisions. An unamed Pentagon official told Fortune that Rummy considered selling his stock but a private securities lawyer "advised him that it was safer to hold on to the stock and be quite public about his recusal rather than sell and run the risk of being accused of trading on insider information."

Every time you turn around, up pops another "coincidence." Bush has deep ties to the oil industry and oil companines are making record profits. A "war on terror" is being waged and who gets the multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts? Companies with ties to the Bush administration.

The rebuilding of the Gulf Coast? More money for Bush cronies. And now, the president just happens to be reading a book about the 1918 indluenza out break and decides to start preparing the public for another possible major threat from which Rumsfeld stands to handsomely profit.

By the way, the British Medical Journal noted last week that "the extensive media coverage of avian influenza... has caused confusion and increasing concern that bird flu will imminently cause a human pandemic."

However, "the lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic."

I wonder if all those folks who feel so strongly about NBA players wearing suits are just as concerned about the ethics of the Hitchcock ganstas wearing suits in the White House.


See more in the Sean Gonsalves archives (link on site)

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19857

.....[Fear? Well sure, we are afraid of this one. I have never had a flu shot and have never had a real serious bout with any of the flus that struck everyone in our family, I've been sick but did manage to bounce back and not have any serious complications nothing really too severe, but this one has me a bit concerned, perhaps because of all the "fear" mongering, and it's being compared to the killer influenza in the early 1900's. We had an elderly neighbor who had a severe time with the one they say was bird flu back in the early part of the 1900's. She became so ill all of her hair fell out, every bit of it she told us of other terrible things which were happening as well. She had told my mother about most of the things that went on, so I don't recall what all, but it was a total nightmare for them, especially in those days as the medications which we have available to us today, weren't even a thought.

I would hope he isn't using the fear factor like we think he might be, and if so, we know how terrible that would be.

I know Donald Rumsfeld didn't plan this problem it's something that just comes about, but if there is a shortage of shots like now, all from the Pentagon stockpiling medications from a company which Rumsfeld is part of, then that is a crime. We have elderly people we are in contact with and they are having a terrible time getting their shots. This scares them as they realize they're at risk. SRH]

[Saundra Hummer]

MEDITATE ON THIS: BUDDIST TRADITION THICKENS PARTS OF THE BRAIN

LiveScience Staff

LiveScience.com

Fri. Nov. 11, 12:00. PM ET

Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent, scientists have known. But a new study shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice.

Brain imaging of regualr working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception -- the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing for example.

The study also indicates that regular meditaion may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.

"What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's gray matter," said study team member Jeremy Gray, an assistant professor of phsychology at Yale. "The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk."

The research was led by Sara Lazar, assistant in phsychology at Massachusetts General Hospital. It is detailed in the November issure of the journal NeuroReport.

The study involved a small number of people, just 20. All had extensive training in Buddhist Insight meditation. But the researchers say the results are significant.

Most of the brain regions identified to be changed through meditation were found in the right hemisphere, which is essential for sustaining attention. And attention is the focus of the meditation.

Other forms of yoga and meditation likely have a similar impact on brain structure, the researchers speculate, but each tradition probably has a slightly different pattern of cortical thickening based on the specific mental exercises involved.

.....*Chronic Pain Shrinks People's Brains
.....*Bigger Brains Make Smarter People
.....*Making Bigger Brains

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Amazing Images, Image Galleries, Interactive Features, Trivia and more. Sign up for our free daily email newsletter today

From Yahoo News

http://news.yahoo.com

[Saundra Hummer]

HOW TO FIX THIS MESS
READER SUGGESTIONS FOR REVERSING BUSH'S WORST IDEAS [CENTER]

MOLLY IVINS
CREATERS SYNCICATE
11.03.05

AUSTIN Texas - - While it's still an open contest for Worst Legacy of the Bush Years, the destruction of goodwill for America around the world is definitely a contender.

In the days and weeks following Sept. 11, the United States enjoyed global sympathy and goodwill. All our old enemies sent regrets and offers of help. The most important newspaper in france headlined,"We Are All Americans Now." The most touching gestures and offers rolled in, wave and after wave - - nations offered their teams of rescue dogs to search for bodies; special collections were taken up by D-Day survivors in Normandy; all over the world, American embassies were surrounded by long lines of people coming to offer sympathy, write notes, leave flowers.

You could make a pretty good case that one root of the Bush administration's abysmal diplomatic record is simply bad manners. "We dont' need any help" was certainly a true response. But, "Thank you" would have been better.'

You recall that George W. went on to make a series of unpleasant statements, "You're either with us or with the terrorists" may have sounded like a great macho moment, but no one likes to be verbally shoved against a wall and given no choice. There was the whole world asking, "What can we do to help?" and our response was, "Our side or else." Why? Why coercion, rather than invitation?

Bush's State of the Union speech in January 2002 remains a monument to gracelessness. None of the language is worth remembering, but it contained a great deal of crowing about our defeat of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. As Barry Bearak of The New York Times observed before that war, if you wnated to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, you didn't have far to go.

The trouble with Bush's graceless provincialism on that occasion is that the invasion of Afghanistan was an international effort -- NATO, for the first time in its history, responded under its "an attack on one is an attack on all" clause. French, Germans and canadians not only served in Afghanistan, but continue to do so. And, as we noticed increasingly is important, they shared the cost, as well.

You see, one beauty of building an international coalition is that you don't have to pay for the whole thing by yourself. Bush the Elder built a coalition for the Gulf War in 1990 that covered about 90 percent of the cost. By contrast, the financial burden of the Iraq War continues to be almost entirely ours -- with special thanks again to the British.

The colossal ineptitude of Bush's diplomacy, if it can be called that, leading up to the Iraq war was somewhere between ludicrous and nuts. Bullying bribing, threatening - - and these were our allies. The insanity of our approach to Turkey, one of America's oldest democratic allies in the Middle East, is textbook -- to be studied in international relations schools for years. In the name of bringing democracy to Iraq (actually, at the time we never mentioned that as a reason), we threatened to end it in Turkey. Good grief.

The administration's open contempt for the United Nations did us incalculable damage. It wasn't just the ugly, clumsy pre-war "diplomacy," but the petty, vindictive attempts at revenge afterward against those who were right all along. Trying to get Mohammad ElBaradel fired as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- how small and wrong. Making John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations -- oh, please.

So, a lot of cleanup is needed. Cards and letters (well, OK, e-mails) have rolled in from the Beloved Readers. We are getting gems daily. People are full of dandy ideas about how to fix this mess - - any and all parts of this mess - - but the foreign policy suggestions are especially interesting.


What the people seem to grasp that the Bush administration doesn't is the link between the Middle East, energy policy, defense policy, the environment and the economy. Again and again, readers point out that oil is at the root of the known of problems and we can give ourselves much more flexibility to deal with the Middle East if we are not so dependent on it for oil. Ergo, we need an energy policy that emphasizes conservation and alternative energy sources.

The geopolitical problems that stem from our dependence on fossil fuels are the most difficult part of our relations with the rest of the world right now, and they look ever more ominous in the future. Reader Jim Schmitz observes that oil is a limited resource -- if you accept that idea that we've already hit peak production and have nowhere to go but down -- and we're addicted to it. If we kick the oil habit, we not only solve huge chinks of our biggest national security problem, we are also positioned to take part in the incredible boom in the alternate energy industry.

The beauty of thinking long-term is that when you look at a problem like illegal immigration, your first thought is not building a fence on the border, it's helping economic development in Central and South America. This not only makes us more friends, it's a much better solution to the problem. Lots of folks have dandy ideas on how to have more friends and fewer enemies -- for example, convert the money we spend in this hemisphere on the drug war to economic development. We should set up clean drinking water systems in all Third World countries -- that suggestion comes from a reader who thinks the total cost would be less than we spend in Iraq in a month.

More ideas on How to Fix This Mess coming soon.

Http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19829

.....[We destroyed Mexico's hope of economic growth and they then nationalized their oil and we did all we could to hold them down afterwards, letting the ruling party of Mexico exploit and abuse it's own citizens, and now we don't want them crossing the border into land they, for the most part, called their own. We, in California, even deported citizens of this country, "Mexicans" who had been born and raised in California, descendants of "Native Americans" Europeans, & the ones we know more about, the Spanish, who were in what is now California before the US was even born.

There are better ways to help the problems of illegal immigration and as far as the Mexicans go, if we can hate them for wanting to not starve, for wanting to assist their families so they don't suffer, not only from hunger, but lack of medical attention, and the only way they can prevent this is here in this country which we all know most of which used to be theirs, I just feel something is wrong.

It seemed to me, that after WWII most of the world was on a clear and moral path. Not Utopian, but it seemed a better world. Somewhere along the line, we have lost our way. We sure have. This proves it: when we have leaders advocating torture, our own way has been lost. When our leaders in the Senate, and in Congress, are giving to the rich and large corporations while voting down minimum wage increases for the poorest among us, allowing the elderly to suffer because of health measures, don't you think we've lost our way? George W. Bush and Dick Cheney pushed and then signed off on these measures. Knowing this, don't you think that something has been lost? Our moral center? Our belief in all that's good about our country? How about our ideals and our forward looking policies, abroad, and here at home? We are turned around and rushing the wrong way it seems. .....We will suffer for it for a long long time. SRH...]

[Saundra Hummer]

I used to eat lots of foods containing this stuff up till 10 years ago, until I developed a skin allergy which still plagues me today, and it seems it may be the cause of obesity too...



More here. (http://www.newstarget.com/009379.html)
(ps - it's also sometimes listed as flavouring 631)

Finally able to see your post and it really is interesting, and I thought that it had been removed from most food items because of it causing headaches and because of it killing braincells. They took that Phisohex (sp?) off the market because it does much the same thing.

Luckily we were never into the potato chip or tortilla chips in a bag phase. If we want tortilla chips I make them, they just taste so much better, a whole lot better in fact, and as far as potato chips and other similar snacks, we eat them so seldomly that I don't even worry about it. I think it's been over 4 years since we had a bag of potato chips around here. I like them when we eat hamburgers, prefering them to french fries, but unless we have the butcher grind up beef, or if we have some in the locker, we don't eat many of those either. The additives in beef are just terrible tasting. I'll tell you what's good though, and that is to slice, as thinly as possible, some yams and deep fry them, & salt lightly after taking from the oil and put a bit of cayenne on them if you care to; delicious chips, but talk about gaining weight, I quit making those as well or we would be tubbs. The "can't eat just one" holds true with all of these things so we just don't do them very often.

I have forwarded this article to family and friends.

[Saundra Hummer]

BLACKS NEED A VISION FOR THE CITIES
THE THREATENED CATACLYSMIC GENTRIFICATION OF NEW ORLEANS IS BUT A HIGHSPEED VERSION OF WHAT IS OCCCURING, NATIONWIDE

Every resident must have a voice in the rebuilding process. This will take a coordination of community town halls and meetings to an unprecedented level given the geographic dispersion of residents. Community involvement will be a challenge, but one that cannot be ignored. To truly rebuild communities of lasting value, residents, business interests and elected officials must make decisions about their community together." - Paul Farmer, AICP, Executive Director, American Planning Association.

All displaced persons should have the right to participate in the rebuilding of the city as owners, producers, providers, planners, developers, workers, and direct beneficiaries. Participation must especially include African-Americans and the poor, and those previously excluded from the development process." -Point Four of the New Orleans Citizens Bill of rights.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, you can see commercial transactions, people doing business, and cleanup. But in New Orleans you don't see people." - Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)

New Orleans has emerged as a 21st Century political cauldron for Black America, a gaping wound that exposes African American vulnerabilities and instutional weaknesses in the face of both super-predatory capital and Old South social oppression. A shocked and outraged community - and by this, we mean the national Black polity as well as the hundreds of thousands directly affected by the Katrina phenomenon - is now challenged to fight on many fronts simultaneously.

Two events this week in the Crescent City serve to illuminate the emerging order-of-battle in what will surely be a multi-year struggle - one that must ultimately engage every sector of Black America.

===
===

There is a lot more to this article, a lot more and then there is the New Orleans bill of rights, I'll just give you the preface to them, go on site with a following link to see the rest. An interesting article.

.....NEW ORLEANS CITIZEN BILL OF RIGHTS'
..... 1, ALL DISPLACED PERSONS SHOULD MAINTAIN THE "RIGHT OF RETURN: THE CITY SHOULD NOT BE DEPOPULATED OF ITS MAJORITY AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND LOWER INCOME CITIZENS
..... 2 ALL DISPLACED PERSONS MUST RETAIN THEIR RIGHT OF CITIZENSHIP IN THE CITY
..... 3. ALL DISPLACED PERSONS MUST RETAIN THEIR RIGHT TO SHAPE AND ENVISION THE FUTURE OF THE CITY.
..... 4. ALL DISPLACED PERSONS SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN REBUILDING OF THE CITY
..... 5. IN REBUILDING THE CITY, ALL DISPLACED PERSONS SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO QUALITY GOODS AND SERVICES BASED ON EQUITY AND EQUALITY.
..... 6. IN REBUILDING THE CITY, ALL DISPLACED PERSONS WOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO AFFORDABLE NEIGHBORHOODS. QUALITY AFFORDABLE HOUSING.
..... 7. IN REBUILDING THE CITY, WORKERS, ESPECIALLY HOSPITALITY WORKERS SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE PAID A LIVABLE WAGE WITH GOOD BENEFITS.
..... 8. IN REBUILDING THE CITY, AFRICAN-AMERICANS SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO INCREASED ECONOMIC BENEFITS AND OWERSHIP....
..... 9. IN REBUILDING THE CITY, AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND ANY DISPLACED LOW INCOME POPULATIONS SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT IN CLEANUP JOBS, CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATIONAL WORK ASSOCIATED WITH REBUILDING THE CITY.
..... 10. IN REBUILDING THE CITY, THE RIGHT TO CONTRACTING PREFERENCE SHOULD ALSO BE GIVEN TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COLLABORATIVES, COMMUNITY AND FAITH-BASED CORPORATIONS/ORGANIZATIONS, AND NEW ORLEANS BUSINESSES THAT PARTNER WITH NONPROFIT SERVICE PROVIDERS AND PEOPLE OF COLOR.
..... 11. IN REBUILDING THE CITY, PRIORITY MUST BE GIVEN TO THE RIGHT TO PRESERVE AND CONTINUE THE RICH AND DIVERSE CULTURAL TRADITIONS OF THE CITY, AND THE SOCIAL EXPERIENCES OF BLACK PEOPLE THAT PRODUCED THE CULTURE. THE SECOND LINE, MARDI GRAS INDIANS, BRASS BANDS, CREATIVE MUSIC, DANCE, FOODS, LANGUAGE AND OTHER EXPRESSIONS ARE THE ":SOUL OF THE CITY." THE REBUILDING PROCESS MUST PRESERVE THESE TRADITIONS. THE CITY MUST NOT BE CULTURALLY , ECONOMICALLY OR SOCIALLY GENTRIFIED INTO A "SOULLESS" COLLECTION OF CONDOS AND TRACT HOME NEIGHBORHOODS FOR THE RICH. . WE ALSO RESPECTFULLY REQUEST THAT THE CBC INITIATE ITS OWN COMMISSION TO THOROUGLY INVESTIGATE ALL ASPECTS OF THE PHYSICAL AND HUMAN DIMENSIONS OF THE KATRINA DISASTER.

SPOKESPERSON MTANGULIZI SANYIKA, AALP PROJECT MANAGER CAN BE REACHED VIA EMAIL.
WAZURI@AOL.COM

http://www,blackcommentator.com/158/158_cover_no_vision.html

This is an involved article full of different viewpoints and would of, could of, should ofs, and the luck of the draw. Pity! Good luck to them, however, it seems they've run out of this commodity a long time ago. Before Katrina had even hit, we hear that options for a rebuilt city were already in developers heads and in those of the contractors who go in after these hurricanes, all with visions of sugar plums and it wasn't even Christmas.

[Saundra Hummer]

..........LYING WITH INTELLIGENCE

.....BUSH'S BEST DEFENSE IS NOW INCOMPETENCE; WITHOUT THAT, HE'S JUST A LIAR

ROBERT SCHEER
CREATORS SYNDICATE
11.09.05

Who in the White House knew about DITSUM No. 044-02, and when did they know it?

That's the newly declassified smoking-gun document, originally prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2002, but ignored by President Bush. Its declassification this weekend blows another huge hole in Bush's claim that he was acting on the best intelligence available when he pitched the invasion of Iraq as a way to prevent an Al Qaida terror attack using weapons of mass destruction.

The report demolished the credibility of the key Al Qaida informant the administration relied on to make its claim that a working alliance existed between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. It was circulated widely within the U.S. government a full eight months before Bush used the prisoner's lies to argue for an invasion of Iraq because "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."

Al Qaida senior military trainer Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi -- a Libyan captured in Pakistan in 2001 -- was probably "intentionally misleading the debriefers," the DIA report concluded in one of two paragraphs finally declassified at the request of Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and released by his office over the weekend. The report also said: "Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest."

He got that right. Folks in the highest places were very interested in claims along the lines Libi was peddling, even thought they went against both logic and the preponderance of intelligence gathered to that point about possible collaboration between the two enemies of the United States that were fundamentally at odds with each other. Al Qaida was able to create a base in Iraq only after the U.S. overthrow of Hussein, not before. "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements," accurately noted the DIA.

Yet Bush used the informant's already discredited tall tale in his key Oct. 7, 2002, speech just before the Senate voted on whether to authorize the use of force in Iraq and again in two speeches in February, just ahead of the invasion.

Leading up to the war, Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to sell it to the United Nations, while Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith repeated it breathlessly for homeland audiences. The con worked and Americans came to believe the lie that Hussein was associated with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Even CIA Director George Tenet publicly fell into line, ignoring his own agency's dissent that Libi would not have been in a position to know what he said he knew. In fact, Libi, according to the DIA, could not name any Iraqis involved, any chemical or biological material used or where the training allegedly occurred. In Janyary 2004, the prisoner recanted his story, and the next month the CIA withdrew all intelligence reports based on his false information.

One by one, the exotic intelligence factoids Bush's researchers culled from raw intelligence data files to publicly bolster their claim of imminent threat -- the yellow cake uranium from Niger, the aluminum tubes for processing uranium, the Prague meeting with Mohamed Atta, the discredited Iraqi informants "Curveball" and Ahmad Chalabi -- have been exposed as previously known frauds.

When it came to selling an invasion of Iraq it had wanted to launch before 9-11, the Bush White House systematically ignored the best available intelligence from U.S. agencies or any other reliable source.

It should be remembered that while Bush and his gang were successfully scaring the wits out of us about the alleged Iraq-Al Qaida alliance, U.N. weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq. Weapons inspectors Hans Blix and 2005 Nobel Peace Price winner Mohamed ElBaradei promised they could finish scouring the country if given a few more months. But instead, they were abruptly chased out by an invasion necessitated by what the president told us was a "unique and urgent threat."

Bush exploited the worldwide horror felt over the 9-11 attacks to justify the Iraq invasion. His outrageous claim, repeated over and over before and after he dragged the nation into an unnecessary war, was never supported by a single piece of credible evidence.

The Bush defense of what is arguably the biggest lie ever put over on the American people is that everyone had gotten the intelligence wrong. Not so at the highest level of U.S. intelligence, as DITSUM No. 044-02 so clearly shows. How could the president not have known?

__
For more, please see the Robert Scheer archive. Link on site
==
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19860

[Saundra Hummer]

Is this roll the administration's on ever going to end? Here we go again, and this time it is all too obvious that there is something fishy in the works. Itst time all of these crooked goings on end! $90,000 for prefab class rooms, I could buy a prefab home which would be pretty nice for less that that.

Take a look at this:

NO-BID CONTRACT TO REPLACE SCHOOLS AFTER KATRINA IS FAULTED
BY ERIC LIPTON
THE NEW YORK TIMES

FRIDAY 11, NOVEMBER 2005

Bay ST. Louis, Miss. - From their new metal encased classroom, the third graders who returned to school this week can look straight into the carcass of the old North Bay Elementry.

To the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the modular classrooms lined up next to the soon-to-be demolished former school show, as th billboard out front boasts, "Katrina Recovery in Progress."

But to critics, the 450 portable classrooms being installed across Mississippi are prime examples in their case against FEMA and its federal partner, the Army Corp of Engineers, for wasteful spending and favoritism in the $62 billion hurricane relief effort.

Provided by a politically connected Alaskan-owned business under a $40 million no-bid contract, the classrooms cost Fema nearly $90,000 each, including transportation, according to contracting documents. That is double the wholesale price and nearly 60 percent higher than the price offered by two small Mississippi businesses dropped from the deal.

In addition, the portable buildings were not secured in a concrete foundation, as usually required by state regulations because of safety concerns in a region prone to hurricanes and tornados.

The classroom contract has already prompted a lawsuit from one of the Mississippi companies and a government investigation.

"The fact that natural disasters are not precisely predictable must not be an excuse for careless contracting practices," David E. Cooper from the Government Accountability Office, told Congress recently. In testimony submitted this week, Mr. Cooper said, "We found information in the corps' contract files and from other sources that suggest the negotiated prices were inflated."

Officials at Akima Management Services, the contractor that got the job, say that while the cost was higt, this wsas not a case of price gouging. The speed demanded in installing the classrooms required charging a premium, said John D. Wood, the company's president.

"What we provided to the government was a fair and reasonable cost given the emergency conditions and the risks," Mr. Wood said. "If it had been done the other way, the kids would not have been in school yet."

Akima's majority owner is the NANA Regional Corporation. It is represented in Washington by Blank Rome Government Relations, a lobbying firm with close ties to the Bush administration and particularly Tom Rjidge, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA's parent agency. Nana's federal contracts have grown rapidly in recent years, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

The transaction, Mr. Thompson wrote to the department's inspector general, could "result not only in the Amercian taxpayer being exorbitantly overcharged, but will hamper real rebuilding and economic recovery efforts in Mississippi."

The school construction job is just one of several Hurricane Katrina deals under scrutiny by auditors and Congressional investigators. In awarding those contracts - for roof tarps, debris removal and mobile homes - the federal government said it had to move quickly and often turned to proven contractors accustomed to large scale work.

The classrooms would have been by far the largest project ever undertaken by Mississippi company seeking the contract, its owners acknowledge. The business, Adams Hardware and Home Center, has been selling modular classrooms statewide for decades and operates a local mobile home park.

Adams is based in Yazoo City, M:iss., about 200 miles north of Bay St. Louis, in a hardware store with a hornets nest hanging, an eight -point buck with a cigarette stuffed in its mouth and a life-size doll whose head is buried in a toilet out side.

After Hurricane Katrina passed, the father and two sons who run the business recognized that the cala;mity could turn in to a windfall for them and a frequent partner, Magnolia State School Products of Columbus, Miss. Hundreds of schools across the state were damaged or destroyed.

We set out to do this project not only, of course, to make profit, but to create jobs within our community, said Kent Adams, the son of the owner, Paul Adams Jr., and manager of the business.

Calling their usual suppliers, they identified a Florida dealer and a Georgia manufactureer that could soon deliver more then 400 classrooms, Mr. Adams said. They proposed a deal for about $24 million, including transportation. That included a proffit of about $4 million above the $19.7 million it would cost to acquire and transport the units, the contract documents show.

But when Adams and Magnolia approached the state eduction department with the offer, they were referred to the Corp of Engineers, which then referred them to Akima.

Akima (pronounced AH-kahmah) is a 10-year-old enterprise jointly owned by 14,000 Inupiat and Unangan Native Alaskans. Thanks to a law passed in 1971, it is one of serveral native-owned businesses eligible for no-bid federal contracts. Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, has long pushed for changes in contracting rules that have helped enrich Alaskan companies.


Akima, now based in Charlotte, N.C. has 1,300 full- or part-time employees who work on 22 federal contracts, mostly with the military. It also has an agreement with the Army to supply modular buildings.

Mr. Wood said that neither Akima nor NANA used any ties to elected officials to pursue contracts, despite assertions in a Mississippi newspaper that the classroom deal may have been the result of political connections.

"We have never used or attempted to use political influence for any contract involving Akima," he said. "That is fact."

After Hurricane Katrina, FEMA asked the corp to help Mississippi reopen schools. The corp passed the assignment on to Akima.
==
==
==
[This is a mess and the Adams themselves don't seem to have always acted within the law. ??? Having lived near areas where the Army Corp of Engineers have moved in to work on their projects, I can tell you that there were horror stories as to their less than honest ways themselves. I couldn't even comprehend the actual hatreds they were evoking. I mean it was pretty bad. Even down to arson and the taking of antiques from the home of the first woman attorney in California, her family had kept her house as a shrine to her, and it is a pile of ash now, the contents having been removed. before the fire. Sounds pretty plausable when you hear the whole story. It is said they are in the habit of taking kickbacks, but that is only rumor as far as I know. SRH...}

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111105A.shtml

[Saundra Hummer]

.....HAS AMERICAN DEMOCRACY DIED AN ELECTRONIC DEATH IN OHIO 2005'S REFERENDA DEFEATS?

BY BOB FITRAKIS AND HARVEY WASSERMAN
THE FREE PRESS

SATURDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2005

.....While debate still rages over Ohio's stolen presidentail election of 2004, the impossible outcome of key 2005 referendum issues may have put an electronic nail through American democracy.

Once again, the Buckeye state has hosted an astonishing display of electronic manipulation that calls into question the sanctity of America's right to vote, and to have those votes counted in this crucial swing state.

The controversy has been vastly enhanced due ot the simultaneous installation of new electronic voting machines in nearly half the state's 88 counties, machines the General Accounting Office has now confirmed could be easily hacked by a very small number of people.

Last year, the Us Presidency was decided here. This year, a bond issue and four hard-fought election reform propositions are in question.

Issue One on Ohio's 2005 ballot was a controversial $2 billion "Third Frontier" proposition for state programs ostensibly meant to create jobs and promote high tech industry. Because some of the money may seem destined for stem cell research, Issue One was bitterly opposed by the Christian Right, which distributed leaflets against it.

The issue was pushed by a Taft Administration wallowing in corruption. Governor Bob Taft recently pleaded guilty to misdemeanors stemming from golf outings he took with Tom Noe, the infamous Toledo coin dealer who has taken $4 million or more from the state. Taft entrusted Noe with some $50 million in investments for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, from which some $12 million is now missing. Noe has been charged with federal money laundering violations on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Taft's public approval ratings in Ohio are currently around 15%.

Despite public fears the bond issue could become a glorified GOP slush fund, Issue One was supported by organized labor. A poll run on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch on Sunday, November 6, showed Issue One passing with 53% of the vote. Official tallies showed Issue One passing with 54% of the vote.

The polling used by the Dispatch had wrapped up the Thursday before the Tuesday election. Its precision on Issue One was consistent with the Dispatch's historic polling abilities, which have been uncannily accurate for decades. This poll was based on 1872 registered Ohio voters, with a margin of error at plus/minus 2.5 percentage points and a 95% confidence interval. The Issue One outcome would appear to confirm the Dispatch polling operation as the state's gold standard.

But Issues 2-5 are another story.

The Dispatch's Sunday headline showed "3 issues on way to passage." The headline referred to issues One, Two, and Three. As mentioned, the poll was dead-on accurate for Issue One.

Issues Two-Five were meant to reform Ohio's electoral process, which has been under intense fire since 2004. The issues were very heavily contested. They were backed by Reform Ohio Now, a well funded bi-partisan statewide effort meant to bring some semblance of reliability back to the state's vote count. Many of the state's best-known moderatge public figures from both sides of the aisle were prominent in the effort. Their effort came largely in response to the stolen 2004 presidential vote count that gave George W. Bush a second term and led to the U.S. history's first Congressional challenge to the seating of a state's delegation to the Electoral College.

Issue Two was designed to make it easier for Ohioans to vote early, by mail or in person. By election day, much of what it proposed was already put into law by the state legislature. Like Issue One, it was opposed by the Christian Right. But it had broad support from a wide reange of Ohio citizen groups. In a conversation the day before the vote, Bill Todd, a primary official spokesperson for the opposition to Issues Two through Five, told attorney Cliff Amebeck that he believed Issues Two and Three would pass.

===
To see the rest of this article click on the following link:

http://www.truthoutl.org/docs_2005/111405O.shtml

.....Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election and is Rigging 2008, available at: http://www.freepress.org/

: and: http://www.harverywasserman.com/
: and: with Steve Rosenfeld of What Happened in Ohio, available from The New Press in spring, 2006.

The final three paragraphs say this:

And thus the possible explanations for the staggering defeats of Issues Two through Five boil down to two: either the Dispatch polling - dead accurate for Issue One - was wildly wrong beyond all possible statistical margin of error for Issues 2-5, or the electronic machines on which Ohio and much of the nation conduct their elections were hacked by someone wanting to change the vote count.

If the latter is true, it can and willl be done again, and we can forget forever about the state that has been essential to the election of every Republican presidential candidate since Lincoln.

And we can also, for all intents and purposes, forget about the future of American democracy.

[Saundra Hummer]

. ... ... OUT OF THE SUNLIGHT?

Those orange jumpsuits are like kryptonite for our moral values.

Here's a very intersating OpEd by a lawmaker who is doing pro bono work on behalf of a (innocent, as it turns out) Gitmo detainee.

Detainees Deserve Court Trials ...: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/13/AR2005111301061.html

In a wiser past, we tried Nazi war criminals in the sunlight. Summing up for the prosecution at Nuremberg, Robert Jackson said that "the future will never have to ask, with misgiving: 'What could the Nazis have said in their favor?' History will know that whatever could be said, they were allowed to say. . . . The extraordianry fairness of these hearings is an attribute of our strength."

The world has never doubted the judgment at Nuremberg.

But no one will trust the work of these secret tribunals.

And then there's this article in the Denver Post from two other lawyers:

. ... ... The logic of placing these prisoners on the edge of the American consciousness, just south of Florida, is to reassure us by their presence that somewhere, there are shackled men in small cells wearing orange and fitting our stereotypes. Their function is to be far enough away so that no one regularily thninks of the abuses that are suffering but close enough to make us feel safe - like the president and the government are doing something about terrorism. So we leave them there, suffering at the hands of frustrated interrogators and guards, and incomprehensible policy and an administration that seems to ignore the core values of constitutional peoples.
=
We've been trained not to think about these details, but this sounds ugly. And where is the moving statement from the opposing perspective?

Think about the play we give the so-called morals debate in this country as compared to the silence with which we greet these stories.

http://davenetics.com/2005/11/out-of-the-sunlight/

Find the link to his story on Daves blog, an interesting site. My oldest newsletter, an enjoyable one which is still evolving and changing all the time.

[Saundra Hummer]

. ... ... "We're apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth... For my part, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it." Patrick Henry

=

. ... ... "Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny." Barry Goldwater

=

. ... ... "He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man... The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven , let us become a virtuous people." Samuel Adams.

[LAL]

Read somewhere, the Saudi's are gonna receive an EXTRA US$160 billion in oil revenues this year...


Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald calls for an end to the foreign aid through which Western governments have ended up funding the global jihad:

Zarqawi has three brothers, seven sisters. A family of eleven children. No industry (in the older sense of that word -- work), no entrepreneurial activity, few resources. But as with the "Palestinians," as with the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, as with the Muslim migrants within Europe, families of 11, 12, 13 children are not rare. In Europe they are on the dole. In those places where Arabs and Muslims have happened not to strike it rich through oil, they do not limit their family sizes. They do not ask for, nor receive, money from all the rich Arabs and Muslims. They ask for, and receive, and then receive more -- no matter how the money is squandered or vanishes (as in the case of the billions that somehow evanesced when Arafat died, and not a single contributor to the "Palestinians" among those Europeans and the Americans has made a fuss, raised an eyebrow, asked for Abbas to find that money, or for Arafat's widow to please hand back some of those billions or perhaps in her case merely hundreds of millions, or even tens of millions. Who knows how much the boys in the "Palestinian" Authority back room were skimming off the top? Instead, these contributors promised another $9 billion over the next 3 years.
And the same is true with Egypt, with Jordan, with Pakistan -- countries that Saudi Arabia itself could fund entirely merely on the interest of the interest of the amount it takes in this year. Is the American government, the last guarantee of the personal safety of the princes and princelings of the House of Al-Saud, incapable of extracting $10-$20 billion -- a pitiful sum -- from the rich Arabs, and to have them give whatever is to be given to the Arabs and Muslims whom, the Americans continue blandly to believe, only need to be helped out of "poverty" to lessen or dampen their enthusiasm for "extremist" Islam? (Again, “extremist” Islam is not a complete fiction, but the word “extremism” itself implies that the problem only comes from an identifiable handful of "extremists." Yet if one believes a resident of Zarqawi's town, a mere "29 percent" of Jordanians would be practitioners of the good, true Islam, the kind Westerners like to call "extremist.")

And if the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the people in the U.A.E., Bahrain, and elsewhere among the rich, extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily corrupt, extraordinarily decadent, extraordinarily mendacious and meretricious to the Infidels, extraordinarily vicious and indifferent to the mistreatment of non-Muslims and non-Arab Muslims as well, within their own domains -- if these people can be forced to share a tiny bit of their unearned and unmerited wealth with the poor Arabs and Muslims, that will have many good effects.

[Saundra Hummer]

Read somewhere, the Saudi's are gonna receive an EXTRA US$160 billion in oil revenues this year...

Take one to ten feet off of each one of their yachts, one to ten feet off of their collective swimming pools, how about a bit less in the height of their marble walls in their palace like dwellings? Are solid gold fixtures really needed? Then there's the slip charges in the most expensive ports around the world. How many yachts are docked, say, in Monaco? Nice? How many are owned and what is the price tag on those? How many luxury cars do these fortunate oil rich men have? How many jets, & helicopters? Then there are the women. I had friends who had fishing boats near where the Los Angeles Harbor authorities had Somosa's son dock, right next to the ferry so they could keep an eye on him and seeing the sexy starlets coming and going was comical, they had turned themselves into hookers for bits of jewelry, diamond and ruby necklaces, which the press promptly reported on, and I think a few careers were ruined over it. It seems this is going on much more with the Arabs, much more selling of souls, more than that tin horn dictactors son ever thought of. Self gratification all the way around with too many of them, and the ones who want their gifts. They haven't progressed to a place where they realize it would benefit them all to have a healthy all inclusive work force and economy. So they flaunt their expensive jewel bedecked hookers, live so extravently, it is hard to even wrap our thoughts around their lifestyle, even the the richest among us don't even understand their wanting to live like they do.

Oil? The price of it?

How about our hearings into it? A sham we hear, all for show, and nothing will come of them, the public will have been placated and it will just be business as usual.

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . STUPID OR LYING?
. . . . . . . REPUBLICAN TAX CUTS CONTINUE TO BE PAD FOR THE ECONOMY

Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate]
11.15.05

AUSTIN, Texas -- One of our better political commentators, Tom Tomorrow, (link on site), has boiled down our entire current political debate to one question: "Are they stupid, or are they lying?" (Link on site) This seems to me pretty much how it goes, each side reduced to accusing the other of living in an alternate reality.

Let's see if we can't find a way to frame the question that would allow an answer from empirical evidence both sides can agree on. When it comes to many actions of the Republican Congress, there is now a substantial track record of results. The evidence is in.

For five years now the Republicans have promised us that business tax cuts would strengthen the economy, create new jobs, spur growth, foster investment and bring beer and skittles for everyone. Over five fiscal years, the tax cuts have had a direct cost to the treasury of $860 billion -- with interest, $929 billion.

Lee Price of the Economic Policy Institute points out: "The fact that all major economic indicators are higher today than in early 2001 does not mean that the tax cuts have been beneficial. Since the Great Depression, the resillient U.S. economy has always had gains over such four-year periods. The appropriate question to ask is: How well has the economy performed compared to similar periods in the past? If the last four years of tax cuts had worked as promised, the economy should have done better than in previous cycles, when taxes were either not cut or cut much less." We all down for that?

Unfortunately, the EPI concludes, "By virtually every measure, the economy has performed worse in this business cycle than was typical of past ones, including that of the 1990's which saw major tax increases."

In 2001, the economy entered a recession not long before the first Bush tax cuts -- what the economists call a "shallow recession" (why don't they ever talk to the people whose unemployment insurance ran out?). The economy has been in an expansionist phase since November 2001. EPI found an annual growth rate of wage and salary income of 1.3 percent, below all six previous cycles and nearly 2 percentage points below their average 3.2 percent growth.

As for the cuts supposed to spur investment: "Business investment in stuctures, equipment and software (so-called 'non-residential investment') was only 3.6 percent higher in the second quarter of 2005 than it had been in the first quarter of 2001. That is less than half of the 8.2 percent growth found in the worst of the six prior cycles, and but one-eighth of the 27.5 percent growth rate in the strongest prior cycle."

The EPI study goes on to provide charts, bells and whistles measuring all this six ways from Sunday. The series of major tax cuts enacted in the past four years has not strenghened the economy. Every broad measure -- GDP, jobs, personal income and business investment -- has fared worse over the period than in previous cycles, contrary to Republican predictions. It turns out that the one tax cut that really did help snap the recession early was that middle -class tax rebate the Democrats stuck into the Bush bill.

OK, bad news. So, what did happen to all that money from tax cuts that was supposed to go into investment? It didn't go into higher wages -- that's the factor that accounts for the generally dismal public perception of this economy. People don't see their income going up. Well, shareholders got more. Executives continued to get staggering pay packages. The increases range from obscene to excessive. I'll say this for America's corporate executives, they certainly weren't cowed by the Enron, Tycoi, etc., scandals. There were a lot of stock buy-backs and acquisitions, but not much investment that creates jobs.

Well, I'm sorry it didn't work out the way the Republicans thought it would - that's why many argued against such cuts in the first place. The question now is, so why do it again? Why give the oil industry more tax breaks? Why do they keep doing it? Is it ideology, or is it stupidity?

Corporate tax revenue, going back to the 1930's. That means individuals have a much larger share of the total tax burden.


One of my favorite happy horsepoop tax cuts was the six-month, one-time special "ally-ally-in-free" on foreign profits. Passed in 2004, this monumentally stupid piece of corporate pork (laughingly named the Incentive to Reinvest Foreign Earnings in the United States and part of the also laughingly named American Jobs Creation Act of 2004) was a special favor to drug and high-tech companies (read, big campaign contributions) who had been storing their profits offshore. Then-Sen. John Breaux said at the time, "The company that left Lousiana is going to pay a 5 percent tax on the widgets they make overseas, and the company that stayed in Louisiana is goingto pay a 35 percent tax. If that isn't incentive to leave, I don't know what is."

The Republicsns specifically rejected an amendment to that break that would have required that companies to invest the money. So did all those foreign profits flow home and get invested in new plants and create lots of jobs? No. But sales of corporate jets are up.

http://www.workingforchange.com

[Saundra Hummer]

While on: http://www.workingforchange.com I found this site which is pretty intersting. WFC had featured one of their articles about impeaching GW Bush, so naturally that caught my eye, and in looking it up, I've found there is much more of interest on this site, here's a break down:

Save America From the next Michael Brown. Part of this small article asks us to "Just think of how many deaths could have been prevented if we'd been able to save FEMA and the Gulf States from Michael Brown." By Shaula Evans, and there will be other blogs posted about this post.

WHY ISN'T BILL O'RIELLY BEING ARRESTED FOR TERRORISM
:
DRUNK BLOGGING
:
DANIEL GROSS GETS BURNED
:
PUSHERS
:
TARGET: RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY ISN'T COMPANY POLICY, BUT WE WILL LOOK THE OTHER WAY
:
THE STUPIDITY OF EVIL (This article needs more than just a title, I'll go into the first blog on the issue: Morality is one of those places where you can find a lot of gray if you go looking, especially when moral duties conflict. But color me simple, in most of the great debates of the current time, I don't think there is a lot of shades of grey.

Torturing people is evil I don't even want to get into the question of whether it works or not - it could be the best way of ascertaining truth since Soloman threatened to slice babies in half, and it wouldn't make the least bit of difference. You know it's evil, I know it's evil and anyone who pretends otherwise is welcome to spend some time having thier fingernails torn out and them come back and tell me how much he still supports torture.
More.....Ian Welsh - Comments (11) Nov. 15, 2005
:
THEY WON'T STOP LYING UNTIL YOU START IMPEACHING
BY STIRLING NEWBERRY
NOV. 14, 2005
. . . . . . . Blasted by Milband and Pincus the White House argues that congress had all the intelligence and that the cover up report, written at a time when war hysteria made telling the truth to the public impossible, proves that the cover up should continue:

The Robb-Silberman Commission Finds "No Evidence of Political Pressure."

"These are errors.* serious errors. But these errors stem from poor tradecraft and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Communities prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of thier analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate prewar intelligence assessments." (Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 50-51)

There is a simple reality here: the executive and the Republican party will not stop lying, and the press will continue to act as stenographers for those lies until there is a political conterforce. Under our constitution there is one, and only one, political counterforce to an executive abusing power and disseminating false statements to the public - impeachement
:
THE PAKISTANI OPPORTUNITY (AN INTERESTING TAKE. SRH)
:
SETTING UP FOR 2006 BY MATT STOLLER
Take 19 is an emerging class of blogs that focus on a specific district, DumpMike.com is another. It's an intersting model for two reasons. One, blogs are neat, and these may serve as a resouce for newspaper journalists. Two, these blogs can be done by random people, not just campaign professionals. I'm always on the lookout for high value activities that are volunteer-based, and this seems to be one of them.
:
SCHWARZENHAGGER REVERERSES COURSE, BY STERLING NEWBERRY
:
THE FOOTBALL GODS ASK
:
REALIGNMENT NOT IMPEACHMENT, BY HALE STEWART
. ... ... I want to disclose up front that I am not a political stategist by trade - either professionally or non-professionally. I am a lawyer who writes about economics. The reason for this admission is it has a direct bearing on my reasons for arguing for realignment rather than impeachment.
...MORE>>>>
:
THE FUTURE OF BLOGS AND CAMPAIGNS, BY MATT STOLLER
:
SENATE iNTELLIGENCE REPORT: WHAT THE DEMS DIDN'T SEE BY HALE STEWART
:
IMPEACHEMENT IN SEVEN REASONS BY STIRLING NEWBERRY (THIS IS THE ARTICLE PICKED UP BY WORKING FOR CHANGE.COM
Kos has said that impeachment talk is silly. With all due respect, it is deadly serious and completely necessary. MORE>>>>
:
Treason, by Stirling Newberry (Worth a read!)
;
THERE WAS NO THEORY, BY STIRLING NEWBERRY ....
....The reality that the right wing is facing is that it is stuck with Bush, and the only pressure he responds to is pressure to move farther to the right, not towards a more "moderate" stance. Hence Miers went down, not because sensible people told Bush that he couldn't ot nominate a crony, but because not very sensible people demanded a hard core reactionary to move the court to the right. Bush will only be pressured into doing what he wants to do. MORE>>>>on site.
:
CONSTITUTIONAL MUTINY, BY STERLING NEWBERRY
Fox News/Opinion dynamics confirms it - Bush is below 40% approval, solidly so. The generally favorable poll has Bush at 36%.

Why this is so can be told from the tea leaves, Bush was supported to keep cheap gas, cheap government and cheap money. What is happening now is that we find instead that life - our lives - are cheap.
:
THE LATEST SMARM OFFENSIVE, BY STIRLING NEWBERRY
:
THE STUPID YEARS, BY STIRLING NEWBERRY

Just click the following link:

http://www.bopnews.com/

[Saundra Hummer]

From the Washington Monthly

Political Animal
by Kevin Drum

Novemeber 14, 2005

MANIPULATING INTELLIGENCE.......Did the Bush administration mislead the country during the runup to the Iraq war? It's true that they turned out to be wrong, about a great many things, but that doesn't answer the question. It merely begs it. Were they sincerely wrong, or did they intentionally manipulate the intelligence they presented to the public in order to mask known weaknesses in their case?

The care for manipulation is pretty strong. It relies on several things, but I think the most important of them has been the discovery that the administration deliberately suppressed dissenting views on some of the most important pieces of evidence that they used to bolster their case for war. For future reference, there's a list of five key dissents about administration claims, all of which were circulated before the war but kept under wraps until after the war:

.....1. THE CLAIM: Ibn al Shaykh al-Libi, and al-Qaeda prisoner captured in 2001, was the source of intelligence that Saddam Hussein had trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons. This information was used expensively by Colin Powell in his February 2003 speech to the UN.

........ WHAT WE KNOW NOW: As early as February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency circulated a report, labeled DITSUM No. 044-02, saying that it was "likely this individul is intentionally misleading the debriefers." Link. This assessment was hidden from the public until after the war.

.....2. THE CLAIM: An Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball" was the source of reporting that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of mobile biowarfare labs. Curveball's claims of mobile bio labs were repeated by many administration figures during the runup to war.

....... WHAT WE KNOW NOW: The only American agent to actually meet with Curveball before the war warned that he appeared to be an alcoholic and was unreliable. However, his superior in the CIA told him it was best to keep quiet about this: "Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about." Link. This dissent was not made public until 2004, in a response to the SSCI report that was written by Senator Dianne Feinstein. Link.

..... 3. THE CLAIM: Iraq had purhcased thousands of aluminum tubes to act as centriguges for the creation of bomb grade uranium. Dick Cheney said they were "irrefutable evidence" of an Iraqi nuclear program and George Bush cited them in his 2003 State of the Union address.

....... Centrifuge experts at the Oak Ridge Office of the Department of Energy had concluded long before the war that the tubes were unsuitable for centrifuge work and were probably meant for use in artillery rockets. The State Department concurred. Link. Both of these dissents were omitted from the CIA's declassified National Intelligence Estimate, released on October 4, 2002. Link. They were subsequently made public after the war, on Jly 18, 2003. Link

Much more to his story, however the links aren't activated

Go to this site to see this story, just click on the following link:

http://www.workingforchange.com/index.cfm

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . . . . . PRESIDENT BUSH: NO PARDONS FOR TREASON

. . . . . . . LET THE INVESTIGATIONS UNCOVER THE TRUTH

THERE IS NO GRAVER CRIME THAN TO MISLEAD A COUNTRY INTO WAR, AND THEN LIE TO COVER IT UP.

GO TO THIS ADDRESS BY CLICKING ON IT AND THEN READ THE ARTICLE WHICH ACCOMPANIES A PETITION TO SIGN CONCERNING THIS ISSUE.

http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/petition.cfm?itemid=19799&ms=wfct51

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . . "Ah yes, truth. Funny how everyone is always asking for it but when they get it they dont' believe it because it's not the truth they want to hear." Helena Cassadine

=

. . . . "Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truths as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth." Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi

=

. . . . "Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by itself out of it such, with help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own." John 'Ruskin

[J_Deighton]

Still relatively new around here, so I haven't read through the whole thread. There is some interesting stuff. I was just wondering, Saundra, is this your blog?

[Saundra Hummer]

Still relatively new around here, so I haven't read through the whole thread. There is some interesting stuff. I was just wondering, Saundra, is this your blog?

. . . .I just got carried away pre election days and just never quit, hoping against hope that someone might start to see things as I tend to believe they really are and would vote against the Bush/Cheney ticket, or that the people reading these articles would complain to high heaven about voting irregularaties. Then I hoped that people would realize the prevarications that we were being bombarded with, while all along the administration was trying to scare the hell out of us, and that there is nothing that they wouldn't do to advance the "PNAC"; that "The Plan" was in its first stages, and that day, by day they were, and are, with their dreams of empire making this a very dangerous world for all of us, that they are breaking us financially and morally and since I feel so at home here on AAJ, this is where I post what I believe is often times hard to find without subscribing to reams of magazines and newspapers. No, not my blog. Join in with any and all thoughts, don't worry about being off subject, that isn't imporatant, this thread is for everyone. for any thought or recipe, ha! I just have more time on my hands than anyone should, so this is my out.

Welcome to the site. I've been reading your posts and I've been enjoying them. SRH

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . . . . . . . . KENT STATE: "HANDS OFF DAVE!"

ACTIVISTS, WRITERS, PROFESSORS AND VETERANS COME TO THE DEFENSE OF KENT STATE STUDENTS

TRANSCRIPT - DAVID AIRHART ON THE KILLING OF CIVILIANS IN IRAQ, THE ABUSE OF DETAINEES, HIS TRANSFORMATION TO AN ANTIWAR ACTIVIST, AND HIS NONVIOLENT PROTEST AT KENT STATE

NOVEMBER 9TH, 2005

David Airhart speaking at the 2005 Midwest Socialism Conference
November 5, 2005 - University of Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL.

First of all I want to thank everyone for their support; that means a lot to me. The more support the better. What I'd like to talk about are things that are occurring in the military that are sort of unknown by the majority of the American public, mostly because the media deprives them of this information.

I spent 4 months in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and 6 months in Iraq and 7 months in Afghanistan, so I have a pretty well rounded perspective of everything that's going on in this war on terror.

When I was in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, my unit's job was to transport the detainee's coming from Afghanistan to Cuba. We'd transport them on a school bus where we removed all of the seats and all the prisoners would be shoved in there like sardines. We were encouraged to kick them in different sensitive areas like their ribs, and parts of their legs if they made the lightest movement like maybe a movement of their finger or they took too deep of a breath. We were encouraged to use severe physical punishment to prevent them from moving. But after a while it became sort of a form of entertainment for a lot of marines to sporadically kick some of these detainees for entertainment purposes. And I started to realize I think then that there are things go on in the military aren't quite as noble as our government tries to portray. We did that for 4 months. There wasn't a day I was there there wasn't some sort of prisoner beating festivity going on.

From there I went to Iraq. I guess I really wasn't ready for what was in store for me and my unit in Iraq. My unit - I was in the First Battalion, Second Marine Regiment, Charley Company. We were the unit that went in during the whole Jessica Lynch thing in An Nasinyah.


While we were there, we were supposedly fighting Iraqi rebels and Iraqi military personnel, but I can't really remember ever seeing any actual Iraqi soldier that we were fighting during the supposed firefight. What I do remember, we were mostly being shot at by our own close air support and helicopters. 95% [of the soldiers who were dilled in my unit were] killed by friendly fire and I'd say 98% of the casualties I saw weren't fighters of any kind - they were civilian, women, children and people who had nothing to do with the fighting. They were just innocent bystanders.

When I realized how over the top it was, was after An Nasinyah. We were supposed to set up a perimeter around the city. We were out of sand bags. We didn't have enough sand bags to protect our holes from small arms fire and things like that. Conveniently, there was a flour truck driver riding a truck down the highway that was full of canvas flour bags. And sand bags are made out of canvas, so this was perfect for sand bags. We were ordered to open fire on this man - just say, a working family man, and to use his flour bags as sand bags. A lot of guys in my platoon opened fire and the man was killed. And the individuals who didn't open fire on this man were ordered to remove his body from the truck and throw it off in a ditch on the side of the road and throw some dirt on top of it. And after that, I was an extreme, I guess, sort of anti-war marine (applause).

After An Nasinyah, we spent most of our time doing vehicle check points where you just stop random civilian drivers and search their vehicles for weapons and things like that. Oftentimes if it was a very confusing situation and the drivers of the vehicles would not understand what we were saying when we told them to stop. And when they wouldn't stop, we were ordered to open fire on these individuals. That happened on a daily basis. And never once out of all these occasions were there any weapons in these individual's cars. Usually it was full of family, a husband and a wife and children and they would all be killed. This happened on a daily basis. This was pretty hard to deal with after a while. And people just started to shut down. Maybe part of them wanted to pretend that they killed some innocent little girl for some sort of good cause. But we all know that's not true.

After Iraq I thought "well great, now I'm done and I can just be a jackass in the Marine Corp until I get out. But unfortunately for me I was sent to another unity that was deploying to Afghanistan. My last 7 months in the Marine Corp was spent in Afghanistan. Mostly what we did there was just guard prisoners and operatea on individuals who stepped on landmines that are all over Afghanistan. It's one of the most heavily landmines countries in the world. And then after that I got out of the military after 4 long miserable years.

I came to Kent State. One of the most significant reasons I decided to go to Kent State was because it hs such a rich history of being a strong antiwar school. And I thought "well, I need to go somewhere that's an extreme opposite of the military. I ran into Pat Gallagher of the ISO and I told him I had been to Iraq. He told me to "come to one of our meetings and there's people who would like to hear what you have to say."

So after that I got comforted, I would guess would be a good thing to say, by the ISO because until then I didn't really feel anyone supported the antiwar movement. It seemed like most people I ran into were for the war and thanked me for serving, and yada yada yada.

Recently, I think it was a week and a half ago, the military were on Kent State trying to pervert my happy place (audience laughter), and take away happy people at Kent State and send them to Iraq to die and kill for reasons that don't make any sense. Out of maybe anger and sort of disgust with the military, that the administration allows the military on our campus, and allows Kent State to be used as a supplier for fresh bodies to be sent over to Iraq - I climbed up the wall and I posted an antiwar slogan on the wall. And I was then chased down by several of the recruiters and one of them grabbed my shirt. That's the "Hands Off Dave." [campaign] (audience laughter). And now I'm in a lot of trouble with the university. I might be expelled from school for good. I guess I just don't understand the logic behind this fiasco it's created with the administration. I don't think maybe they realize what's really going on in Iraq. I don't know if they think it's just something on TV. But you know, it's not. I hope that the administration will see that it's them that are endangering the students, and I was simply trying to do all I can do to get them removed from campus and keep our campus safe and un-perverted by the military. So, again, thanks again for all your support. I need it.

Transcript prepared by Charles Jenks. Please compare the transcript to the audio before quoting.

http://www.traprockpeace.org/audio/david_airhart_O5novO5_64k.mp3
or if that didn't work hit this link"
http://www.traprockpeace.org/audio/david_airhart_05nov05_64k.mp3
===
===

M.JUNAID ALAM

November 8th, 2005

"The authorites at Kent State did not shed too many tears when Dave Airhart was dispatched to fight wars of agression, in which thousands have been tortured, killed and maimed, in the lands of Iraq, Afghanistan, and on Guantanamo Bay. When Airhart found the courage tp speak up and protest against these abominations on an American college campus, however, these same authorities decided to try and punish him for what else? - being a threat to himself and a threat to others. Where was their most pious concern during the four years for which Mr. Airhart was placed in danger and was tasked with bnnging danger and destruction to others? This is a question the shameless administration at Kent State has yet to answer, even as they continue to allow military recruiters - those salesmen of death - to invite harm and violence upon Bush's next unwarranted targets.

http://www.lefthook.org

While onsite for the Hands Off Dave Article, read this:

KENT STATE THREATENS IRAQ VETERAN WITH EXPULSION - ACTIVISTS SPRING TO DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH
OCTOBER 29, 2005
By Nikki Robinson

UPDATE: Activists, writers and professors come to the defense of Kent State Students (see statements of support and letters to Kent State administration)

It is being asked in this article that you "Call/email the Kent State University administration to tell them how you feel:

Carol Cartwright - University President: 330.672.2210

Carol.cartwright@kent.edu
==
==
Greg Jarvie- Dean of Undergraduate Students: 330.672.0404

Gjarvie@kent.edu
==
==
William Ross - Ecucutive Director of the Undergraduate Student Senate
330.672.3207
wross@kent.edu
==
==
Read this article onsite in it's complete form, and see if you would like to join Dave Airhart in his campaign to not have military recruiters on campus at Kent State.
==
==
KSAWC is a member of the national student grassroots
organization, Campus Antiwar Network (CAN)

http://www.campusantiwar.net

This is an interesting site with several articles about their efforts nation wide

[Saundra Hummer]

The timing couldn't be more perfect for those who are staying in hotel rooms paid for by the government to be receiving notification that they will be required to move from them by December 1st of this year. Happy Holidays!

It seems that laws should be in place to protect and enable these most unfortunate individuals, Katrina's and other disasters' victims.

Haliburton and its subsideries are hiring undocumented aliens to do the work that many of the victims of Katrina could, and should be doing themselves if they are able, thus enabling them to earn a bit of money to help put them back on their feet, however, it's this administration that's holding down wages in this effort as well, so the money they would be making is below existing standardsl. It is even being said that Halliburton is stiffing the illegals for all their hard work, keeping wages earned. This is just sickening. Here's Halliburton - in no bid contracts - making bigger than called for profits in the first place, and they are adding on the bucks padding their bank accounts by not paying other desperate men - ones who are trying to feed and support their families back in Mexico, Central America, & Asia. This is unforgivable and laws need to be passed to prevent this from ever happening again. How obscene is this?

Happy Hollidays One and ALL! -- Just be glad you don't depend on the Feds or Halliburton to spread Christmas cheer, and a Prosperous and Happy New Year.

[Saundra Hummer]

Here's an interesting site:

A LEFTIST YOUTH JOURNAL BASED IN THE U.S.

IT HAS: POLITICS-THEORY. ... INTERVIEWS-REPORTS. ... HISTORY-CULTURE. ... REVIEWS-PARTICIPATE

ON THE HOME PAGE TODAY: INTERVIEWS: Interview with Hard-Hitting Sports Commentator Dave Zirin
===
The Activists' MC: an Interview with Rapper Son of Nun
==
Interview with Political Cartoonist Mikhaela B. Reid
==
Interview: Political independent Kevin Zeese Considers Running for Senate in DC
==
Electoral Politics and the War: Lessons from 2004 and What the Anti-War Movement Should Do In 2006
==
Interview with Iraq Veterans Against the WAr Patrick Resta: 'sent into combat unequipped and unprepared.
==
A Discussion on Witch-Hunts and Right-Wing Politics.
==
What is Happening in Venezuela? : An Interview with Johah Gindin

http://www.lefthook.org/interviews.html:dill:

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . . . . . . . . RESCUING THE BAYOU BANDS

KELPIE WILSON INTERVIEWS DR. ROBIN ROSE
TRUTHOUT...INTERVIEW

WEDNESDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2005

IN THE AFTERMATH OF KATRINA AND RITA, DR. ROBIN ROSE traveled to Raceland, Louisiana, to assist a forgotten people, the THE UNITED HOUMA NATION - a band of Native American people from the bayous. Dr Rose has a small family practice in Ashland, Oregon, where she practices her integrative and personal approach to medicine. She traveled to the Gulf Coast under the auspices of Plenty International, a relief agency started by the Farm, an intentional (did they mean intentional or international?? SRH) community situated on 1,500 acres in rural Tenessee.

To see the story, click on the following link, it has a lot to say about future plans, lack of planning, and of their being forgotten in the scheme of things.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111605A.shtml

[universible]

You know...in a not so former life I worked at a prominent internet company's legal department (among other places)...I came upon a LONG fax one time, only later to find out that this was about the 20th incarnation of said fax, that went into long handwritten (sometimes in what looked like Sharpie marker) rants from a pretty pissed off French guy...who's hotel URL had been taken over by another Frenchman...with the help of the company I worked for. It included what seemed to me to be random news stories and reviews about the hotel in question, as well non sequitur scribbled notes in corners of the pages....

For some reason I was thinking of that large fax, which I keep in my filing cabinet in case I need a giggle...not sure why....

Oh, and I was also thinking of this!

To the FBI photographer: You raided my house and I never got your name - m4w
Reply to: anon-22895295@craigslist.org
Date: Thu Jan 22 00:12:48 2004


You spent maybe 4 hours in my house on January 14th, early morning. It was a mess. Your coworkers didn't help with that, either.

I know your work probably has rules against dating someone under investigation, and I must admit I'm not really in the right place to be starting a relationship, what with the threat of jail time and all.. But at some point in the future when I'm found to be innocent, when your agency's microscope has sought out other targets and left me behind, maybe we could get together for a cup of coffee or a drink.

You know where to find me.


it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

I have that one pinned to the wall in my office...hilarious! :D

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . ."War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press... have turned war into a vast video arcade game. Its very essence - death is hidden from public view." Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize -winning reporter for The New York Times.
=

. . . . "War ... should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits." James Madison (1751-1836).
=

. . . . "War, first, one hopes to win, then one expects the enemy to lose, then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering, in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost." Karl Kraus (1874-1936)

. . . . "Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph." Haile Selassie ... ... ...

(Died in prison, said to have been the descendent of the Queen of Sheba and King Soloman, dethroned by a Communist coup, after generations and generations of rule. No one that I know of serioiusly went to his aid. If I'm wrong on any of this please correct me. SRH)
==
==
. . . . "Televison is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation... Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing." Neil Postman.
==

. . . . "The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No first World country has ever managed to eliminate so entiresly from its media all objectivity - much less dissent." Gore Vidal

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . . . . If this hadn't come from a CIA analyst, I would have to ask, 'At this late date where did they learn of this? In All About Jazz's archives? We have been telling everyone this for ages!

. . . . . . EVIDENCE MOUNTS THAT BUSH WANTS NEW WARS

BY BILL CHRISTISON
FORMER CIA ANALYST

11/16/05 "COUNTER PUNCH" (LINK) -- -- IN THIS TIME OF TROUBLES, BUSH seems to be moving deliberately and rapidly toward new wars of aggression in an unforgivable gamble to overcome his troubles. His speech on Veterans' Day, November 11, 2005 at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania leads to this conclusion more clearly than any of his previous speeches and activities. The new wars would be the start of a world war initiated by Bush and radical Christianity against what he calls radical Islam, but in truth the wars would be waged against all Islam.

To repeat, despite Bush's arguments to the contrary, the "clash of civilizations" would consist of wars started by us. The killing of innocent people in these wars is likely to be massive, and the wars could at any time turn nuclear. If the people and the politicians of Amercia allow these wars to take place, the stain on the morality of Americans will last for generations.

LETS NOTE SOME OF THE STATEMENTS Bush made in this speech of November 11. Many are not new, and some were foreshadowed in a speech by Bush a month ago, but their volume and intensity in the Veterans' Day speech are noteworthy.

. . . . . . . . . . "Some call this evil Islamic radicalism, others, militant Jihadism; and still others, Islamo-fascism. . . These extremeists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Hindus and Jews -- and against Muslims, themselves, who do not share their radical vision."

..... ..... ....."....these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace , and stand in the way of their ambitions.

..... ..... ..... "....these militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia."

..... ..... ....". . . the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction; to destroy Israel; to intimidate Europe; to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation."

..... .... ....."The influence of Islamic radicalism is also magnified by helpers and enablers. They've been sheltered by authoritarian regimes -- allies of convenience like Iran and Syria -- that share the goal of hurting America and modern Muslim governments, and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West, on America, and on the Jews."

.... ..... ....."The government of Syria must do what the international community has demanded. . . The government of Syria must stop exporting violence and start importing democracy."

.... ..... ....."The murderous idiology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the Ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led bya self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses."

..... ..... ....."Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains thier cold-blooded contempt for human life."

..... ..... ....."These militants are not just the enemies of America or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and they are the enemies of humanity. And we have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before -- in the heartless zealotry that led to this gulags, the Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields."

..... ..... ....."Like the idealogy of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples -- claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent."

..... ..... ....."And Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure. By fearing freedom . . . this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible . . . And whatever lies ahead in the war against this ideology, the outcome is not in doubt . . . Because free peoples believe in the future, free peoples will own the future."

..... ..... .....". . . we're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. State sponsors like syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror. The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally guilty of murder."

..... ..... ....."We don't know . . . the sacrifices that might lie ahead. We do know, however, that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice, we do know the love of freedom is the mightiest force of history, and we do know the cause of freedom will once again prevail."

.-
We cannot be sure how much of this is bluff by Bush -- to what extent he hopes or believes that Muslim nations will surrender to him without a fight. The purdent assumption is that not much of it is bluff, and that Bush, the radical Christians, the Christian Zionists, the nation's military-industrial conglomerates, and their Israeli allies -- all of whom today call the tune in U.S. foreign policy -- are willing and in some cases actually wish to involve the United States in further wars.

The people and the politicians of this country should rise from their apathy and shout, "No." The time is past for useless analysis and discussion. We Americans, accounting for no more than five percent of the human inhabitants of this globe, should decide here and now whether we are going to be moral or immoral in our future relations with the rest of the world.

BILL CHRISTISON was a senior official of the CIA. He served as National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis. He can be reached at" christison@counterpunch.org
==

. . . ... ...[So you see it isn't just us here on AAJ who (speaking for myself here) have a slight education on these matters, who think this way. Glad to see Bill Christison does, and is letting the press know about his insite. He is undoubtedly someone in the know, someone with highly honed analytical skills worrying about our future as well as the worlds. He's thinking like several of us here on this site. We aren't just nay-sayers as some here believe. We are after all concerned individuals who can see this administration for what it is: Dangerous. powerful, and throw in Arrogant to the point of being stupid. It seems to be everyone in this administration, down to the press secretary are trying to do their song and dance, their number. They are saying and doing dumber and dumber and more dangerous things each and every day while giving away the company store to Halliburton and their ilk. Really -- Each and Every Day! Think about it. Look where everything is headed, look at where we are. Even the economy due to their giveaways in tax dollars is killing us, and they, from all we're seeing, have learned nothing from past events.

Remember part of The Plan in the PNAC is for nuclear to be used to ensure their progress and the winning of The Plan For A New American Century. We all know we're over extended - so how do they plan to subdue Iran, Syria and anyone who might come to their defense? Like they've said they would all along, it's all down in black and white for all of us to see.

I just keep thinking of the ending of Planet of the Apes. Not so far fetched with these wacko's calling the shots. SRH...]

FORGOT TO PUT IN THE LINK TO THIS STORY, SO HERE IT IS::shrug: :guitar: :shrug:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11029.htm

[universible]

Sandi, just curious...are you just cutting and pasting these articles in? or are you retyping them?

Ted

[Saundra Hummer]

Sandi, just curious...are you just cutting and pasting these articles in? or are you retyping them?

Ted

You didn't know? After all - I'm the typo queen around here - it's obvious that a paper such as The New York Times and others wouldn't send anything to press as terrible as my posts are with error after error. :shrug: I haven't even attempted to learn how to do this the cutting and pasting, well I used to know that function and then came the the hackers after that my computer crashed and by the time I got it back after they's lost it, for over 2 1/2 months at the factory, I had let that newly learned function slip my mind, and I never relearned the routine to get an article up and on the board. I have the instructions for doing all of this, but burried them in my files somewhere.

If I make a mistake, I have the link so you can read it for yourself and go to the other articles, but. figure on a lot of it that people just might not bother - so I put the whole article up and if really long, only half or so of the article up. Lack of something better to do. Like to make a difference besides.

[universible]

Its easy to cut and paste...

With the mouse, left click and hold the button down, dragging it over the text you want to copy.

Release the button once all that you want to copy is highlighted.

Press the Control (Ctrl) key and the "C" key at the same time (you can press the Ctrl first, then pres "C" with the Ctrl down)

Go to the message edit window for the forum (or where ever you want to paste the text) and press "Ctrl" and "V" together...that'll paste it where you've selected.

Easy. Hope that explains it. :D

Ted

[Saundra Hummer]

[QUOTE=universible]Its easy to cut and paste...

With the mouse, left click and hold the button down, dragging it over the text you want to copy.

Release the button once all that you want to copy is highlighted.

Press the Control (Ctrl) key and the "C" key at the same time (you can press the Ctrl first, then pres "C" with the Ctrl down)

Go to the message edit window for the forum (or where ever you want to paste the text) and press "Ctrl" and "V" together...that'll paste it where you've selected.

Easy. Hope that explains it. :D

Sounds simple, and I don't know why I forgot it but just haven't tried to use it or look it up on google, it is the thing with getting it on AAJ that is different isn't it? I have to send it to a server first and then send it to AAJ from there or can I do it directly now, I know since the hackers shut everything down, things have to come from a server, not a home or office computer. Have you tried to do this, post an article?
Thanks Ted

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . . . . . . .RED STATE ROAD TRIP: A 60-MINUTE DOCUMENTARY

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INTO IPODS? IF SO - CHECK THIS OUT:

WELCOME TO TRUTHOUT VIDEO PODCASTING: RED STATE ROAD TRIP. A 60- MINUTE DOCUMENTARY

. ... How could America have given George W. Bush a second term? Filmaker Chris Hume decided to find out by embarking on a 6,000-mile, cross-country journey in search of America's soul. The result: a fascinating, hilarious, and often disturbing road-trip adventure.

. . . . . . ALSO AVAILABLE ON REGULAR VIDEO ON YOUR PC OR MAC

WHAT IS VIDEO PODCASTING?

. . . . . BY USING iTunes YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCASTS, AND WHEN WE POST A NEW VIDEO YOUR iTunes WILL AUTOMATICALLY DOWNLOAD IT AND HAVE IT READY TO PLAY THE NEXT TIME YOU LAUNCH YOUR iTunes STUDIO. For those with the latest iPods that support video you can load our video content onto your iPod as well and view it anytime. Video podcasting is the latest advancement from Apple Computers, but you can enjoy it from a 'Windows PC as well. Just go to:
http://www.apple.com/iTunes/download/
..... and down load iTunes 6. You don't need an iPod to view our podcasts - your iTunes will play the video right on your computer.

Once you have iTunes set up and ready to go, subscribe to our podcasts at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TRUTHOUTVideoPodcasts
and we will provide you with our latest video content.

http://www.truthout.org

Click on any of the links to access this site.:cool:

[Saundra Hummer]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Cohen, a syndicated columnist for the Washinton Post, is a graduate of Far Rockaway High School and attended Hunter, NYU and Columbia. He was a four-time honorable-mention winner in Pulitzer Prize competitions (he doesn't know if that's a record, but says it's his personal best). Cohen splits his time between Washington D.C. and New York City.
Email: cohenr@ washpost.com


Bush can't handle the truth

In one of the most intellectually incoherent major speeches ever delivered by a minor President, George W. Bush last week blamed "some Democrats and anti-war critics" for changing their minds about the war in Iraq and now saying they were deceived. "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," the President said. Yes, sir, but it is even more deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how history was rewritten in the first place.
It is the failure to acknowledge this that is so troubling about Bush and others in his administration. Yes, the President is right: Foreign intelligence services also thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; Saddam Hussein simply ignored more than a dozen UN resolutions demanding that he reopen his country to arms inspectors.

We can endlessly debate the facts. More important, though, is the mind-set of those in the administration, from the President on down, who had those facts - or, as we shall see, none at all - and mangled them in the cause of the war.

For example, the insistence that Saddam was somehow linked to 9/11 tells you that to Bush and his people, the facts did not matter. It did not matter that Mohamed Atta never met with Iraqis in Prague. It did not matter that Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was finding no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. None of that mattered to Vice President Cheney, a fibber without peer in the realm, who warned of a "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program, promoted the nonexistent Prague meeting and went after legitimate critics. "We will not hesitate to discredit you," Cheney told ElBaradei and Hans Blix, the other important UN inspector. ElBaradei recently won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The President's recent speech conflates all sorts of terrorist incidents - neglecting that they are specific to their regions and have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. Every bombing somehow becomes an attack on Western values.

Oh stop it! It would be nice, fitting and pretty close to sexually exciting if Bush somehow acknowledged his mistakes and said he had learned from them. But far more important is what this would mean in foreign policy from here on out. Repeatedly in his speech, Bush mentioned Syria, Iran and North Korea - Syria above all. If push comes to shove there, it would be nice to have confidence in American intelligence and the case for possibly widening the war. If we are to go to the mat with North Korea or the increasingly alarming Iran, then, once again, it would be wonderful to have the confidence we once had in the intelligence community. Is there or is there not a threatening nuclear weapons program on the horizon?

At the moment, no one can have confidence in the Bush administration. Almost three years into the war, the world is not safer, the Middle East is less stable and Americans and others die for a mission that is not what it once was called: a fight for democracy. It would be nice, as well as important, to know how we got into this mess - nice for us, important for the President. It wasn't that he had the wrong facts. It was that the right ones didn't matter.

Originally published on November 17, 2005

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

Just click on it to see this and other issues concering the Iraq war and how people are thinking about it.

[Saundra Hummer]

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

by Robert Scheer

The Big Lie Technique
[posted online on November 16, 2005]

At a time when approximately 57 percent of Americans polled believe that President Bush deceived them on the reasons for the war in Iraq, it does seem a bit redundant to deconstruct the President's recent speeches on that subject. Yet, to fail to do so would be to passively accept the Big Lie technique--which is how we as a nation got into this horrible mess in the first place.

The basic claim of the President's desperate and strident attack on the war's critics this past week is that he was acting as a consensus President when intelligence information left him no choice but to invade Iraq as a preventive action to deter a terrorist attack on America. This is flatly wrong.

His rationalization for attacking Iraq, once accepted uncritically by most in Congress and the media easily intimidated by jingoism, now is known to be false. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission selected by Bush concluded unanimously that there was no link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's secular dictatorship, Al Qaeda's sworn enemy. And a recently declassified 2002 document proves that Bush's "evidence" for this, available to top Administration officials, was based on a single discredited witness.

Clearly on the defensive, Bush now sounds increasingly Nixonian as he basically calls the majority of the country traitors for noticing he tricked us.

"Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war, but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people," the President said at an Air Force base in Alaska. "Leaders in my Administration and members of the United States Congress from both political parties looked at the same intelligence on Iraq, and reached the same conclusion: Saddam Hussein was a threat."

This is a manipulative distortion; saying Hussein was a threat--to somebody, somewhere, in some context--is not the same as endorsing a pre-emptive occupation of his country in a fantastically expensive and blatantly risky nation-building exercise. And the idea that individual senators and members of Congress had the same access to even a fraction of the raw intelligence as the President of the United States is just a lie on its face--it is a simple matter of security clearances, which are not distributed equally.

It was enormously telling, in fact, that the only part of the Senate which did see the un-sanitized National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq--the Republican-led Senate Select Intelligence Committee--shockingly voted in the fall of 2002 against the simple authorization of force demanded by a Republican President. Panicked, the warmongers in the White House and Pentagon pressured CIA Director George Tenet to rush release to the entire Hill a very short "summary" of the careful NIE, which made Hussein seem incalculably more dangerous than the whole report indicated.

The Defense Intelligence Agency finally declassified its investigative report, DITSUM No. 044-02, within recent days. This smoking-gun document proves the Bush Administration's key evidence for the apocryphal Osama bin Laden-Saddam Hussein alliance--said by Bush to involve training in the use of weapons of mass destruction--was built upon the testimony of a prisoner who, according to the DIA, was probably "intentionally misleading the debriefers."

Yet, despite the government having been informed of this by the Pentagon's intelligence agency in February 2002, Bush told the nation eight months later, on the eve of the Senate's vote to authorize the war, that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and gases."

The false Al Qaeda-Hussein link was the linchpin to Bush's argument that he could not delay the invasion until after the United Nations weapons inspectors completed their investigation in a matter of months. Perhaps, he feared not that those weapons would fall into the wrong hands but that they would not be found at all.

Boxed in by international sanctions, weapons inspectors, US fighter jets patrolling two huge no-fly zones and powerful rivals on all his borders, Hussein in 2003 was decidedly not a threat to America. But the Bush White House wanted a war with Iraq, and it pulled out all the stops--references to "a mushroom cloud" and calling Hussein an "ally" of Al Qaeda--to convince the rest of us it was necessary.

The White House believed the ends (occupying Iraq) justified the means (exaggerating the threat). We know now those ends have proved disastrous.

Oblivious to the grim irony, Bush proclaims his war without end in Iraq the central front in a new cold war, never acknowledging that he has handed Al Qaeda terrorists a new home base. Iran, his "Axis of Evil" member, now has its disciples in power in Iraq. Last week, top Bush Administration officials welcomed to Washington Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi, who previously was denounced for having allegedly passed US secrets to his old supporters in Tehran and was elected to a top post in Iraq by campaigning on anti-US slogans.

Under Bush's watch, we not only suffered the September 11 terrorist attacks while he snoozed, but he has failed to capture the perpetrator of those attacks and has given Al Qaeda a powerful base in Iraq from which to terrorize. And this is the guy who dares tell his critics they are weakening our country. :angry3:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Saundra Hummer]

Its easy to cut and paste...

With the mouse, left click and hold the button down, dragging it over the text you want to copy.

Release the button once all that you want to copy is highlighted.

Press the Control (Ctrl) key and the "C" key at the same time (you can press the Ctrl first, then pres "C" with the Ctrl down)

Go to the message edit window for the forum (or where ever you want to paste the text) and press "Ctrl" and "V" together...that'll paste it where you've selected.

Easy. Hope that explains it. :D

Ted

Well I did two articles and one came up so crazy I had to do delete and delete, and for some reason my select all delete wasn't working at first so did it differently, stuck key I think. Anyway got it straightened around and it was fixed in a second. Why in the world would the story come up about 4 times with all sorts of links to sports, etc.? Perhaps that stuck key?
Anyway thanks Ted,

[Saundra Hummer]

House Democrats Defeat Spending Bill
By Jim Abrams
The Associated Press

Thursday 17 November 2005

Washington - Legislation to fund many of the nation's health, education and social programs went down to a startling defeat in the House Thursday, led by Democrats who said cuts in the bill hurt some of America's neediest people.

The 224-209 vote against the $142.5 billion spending bill disrupted plans by Republican leaders to finish up work on this year's spending bills and cast doubt on whether they would have the votes to pass a major budget-cutting bill also on the day's agenda.

Democrats, unanimous in opposing the legislation, said it included the first cut in education funding in a decade and slashed spending for several health care programs. "It betrays our nation's values and its future," said House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland. "It is neither compassionate, conservative nor wise."

Republicans said they may have lost votes because this year's bill, down $1.5 billion from last year, included no special projects or earmarks for lawmakers. "You take those out and you lose the incentive," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA, who voted for the bill.

Twenty-two Republicans voted against the measure, many of them moderates who also are swing votes on the budget-cutting legislation.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-MS, said one factor in the bill's defeat was the drop in the president's popularity and his inability to maintain unity among the GOP ranks. He also noted that the Republican Party misses the vote-gathering powers of Texas Rep. Tom DeLay - nicknamed "The Hammer" - who has stepped aside as majority leader because of legal problems, replaced by Rep. Roy Blunt, R-MO. "Not every blunt instrument is a hammer," Frank said.

The defeat upset Republican plans to finish up nearly all the spending bills before leaving for the Thanksgiving recess. Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, manager of the bill, said it may now get thrown into a year-end "omnibus" over which members have little control.

The bill, a compromise with the Senate covering labor, health and education programs, is one of the biggest of the 11 spending measures Congress must pass every year and generally one of the more difficult.

It includes $63.4 billion for Health and Human Services programs, down almost $1 billion from fiscal 2005; $56.5 billion for the Department of Education, down slightly from a year before; and $11.6 billion for the Labor Department, down $430 million.

Republicans argued that it was the best they could do in a year of tight budgets. Rep. Jim Walsh, R-NY, said the bill represented more spending than the entire budgets of Russia or China. "It's a pretty remarkable commitment to our nation and to our citizens," he said.

Rep. Jack Kingston, R-GA, said the budget for the National Institutes of Health, up $250 million from last year to $28.6 billion, has doubled since Republicans took over control of Congress.

But Democrats provided a long list of programs that will be cut or face little or no increase, including President Bush's landmark No Child Left Behind education program, rural health care, Pell grants for higher education and heating assistance for low-income families. They insisted the attempted budget cuts were the result of GOP-driven tax cuts.

The vote was "a tremendous defeat" for the Republicans, said HOuse Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA. "It had the wrong priorities."
===
===
===
.....[Perhaps the Democrats have finally stepped out of GW Bush and Dick Cheney's shadow into the sunlight and are waking up to what it is this country needs and what it is all about. Lets hope they all have it in them to reclaim what this party is always telling us it stands for, because if they don't I hate to think what's in store for us. Hey Republicans! Up on that hill of light you're always talking about, you need to wake up as well as what's happening with this administration is wrong, flat out wrong and you all know it.

We're in a headlong dash to oblivion, and things are beginning to happen which we need to combat, not with wars, but with common sense, good deeds and hard work. Inventiveness is needed, and not this old war dog mentality, not this carpet bag rush of greed. We can turn this around, although some hates we will never over come due to theft, avarice, greed, and the thousands of dead, maimed and tortured. No we will never overcome all of this, it is too wide a divide to conquer, but we can sure stop a lot of it in its tracks, and set up rules and laws here in our own country to make sure none of these things will ever happen again, These things which have happened will be next to impossible to ever do again. To overcome the harm the things done by us have caused, here and abroad will be so hard to do, so hard to even attempt but if we go about it in the right way things have the possibility of looking up pretty quickly.

Off subject here, but this crooked man needs attention: Lets turn Blooms (and all of those who were in on his illegal acts) homes into shelters for those who are without in Mississippi and Lousiania. How about that? Let's just confiscate his properties for him having stolen ours. Rough justice? Sure why not, to quote or come close to quoting Cheney, you have to be rough sometimes. :laugh: SRH...]

[Saundra Hummer]

Statement of Congressman John Murtha •


Influential Democratic Hawk Calls for Immediate Iraq Exit
The Associated Press

Thursday 17 November 2005

Vietnam vet says the Iraq war is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.
Washington - An influential House Democrat who voted for the Iraq war called Thursday for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, another sign of growing unease in Congress about the conflict.

"This is the immediate redeployment of American forces because they have become the target," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats. At times during his remarks to reporters, the decorated Vietnam War veteran and former Marine was choking back tears.

"It is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region," Murtha said.

Murtha, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, has earned bipartisan respect for his grasp of military issues over three decades in Congress.

He said announcing a US withdrawal would provide the Iraqi government with an added incentive to have their own security forces take control of the conflict.

Murtha is a close adviser to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California. For months, Pelosi has pushed for the Bush administration to outline an exit strategy, although she has stopped short of calling for an immediate troop pullout.

Some Senate Democrats have called for immediate or phased withdrawal.

Murtha's comments came just two days after the Senate voted to approve a statement that 2006 "should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" to create the conditions for the phased withdrawal of US forces.

Murtha voted to give the president authority to use force against Saddam Hussein in 2002. In recent months, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee defense panel has grown increasingly troubled with the direction of the war and with the Bush administration's handling of it, particularly following reports of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," Murtha said.

ALSO:

War in Iraq
By Congressman John Murtha
t r u t h o u t | Statement

Thursday 17 November 2005

The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region.

General Casey said in a September 2005 Hearing, "the perception of occupation in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency." General Abizaid said on the same date, "Reducing the size and visibility of the coalition forces in Iraq is a part of our counterinsurgency strategy."

For 2 1/2 years I have been concerned about the US policy and the plan in Iraq. I have addressed my concerns with the Administration and the Pentagon and have spoken out in public about my concerns. The main reason for going to war has been discredited. A few days before the start of the war I was in Kuwait - the military drew a red line around Baghdad and said when US forces cross that line they will be attacked by the Iraqis with Weapons of Mass Destruction - but the US forces said they were prepared. They had well trained forces with the appropriate protective gear.

We spend more money on Intelligence than all the countries in the world together, and more on Intelligence than most countries GDP. But the intelligence concerning Iraq was wrong. It is not a world intelligence failure. It is a US intelligence failure and the way that intelligence was misused.

I have been visiting our wounded troops at Bethesda and Walter Reed hospitals almost every week since the beginning of the War. And what demoralizes them is going to war with not enough troops and equipment to make the transition to peace; the devastation caused by IEDs; being deployed to Iraq when their homes have been ravaged by hurricanes; being on their second or third deployment and leaving their families behind without a network of support.

The threat posed by terrorism is real, but we have other threats that cannot be ignored. We must be prepared to face all threats. The future of our military is at risk. Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards. Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We can not allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care, to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We must be prepared. The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls at our bases in the US

Much of our ground equipment is worn out and in need of either serious overhaul or replacement. George Washington said, "To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace." We must rebuild our Army. Our deficit is growing out of control. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office recently admitted to being "terrified" about the budget deficit in the coming decades. This is the first prolonged war we have fought with three years of tax cuts, without full mobilization of American industry and without a draft. The burden of this war has not been shared equally; the military and their families are shouldering this burden.

Our military has been fighting a war in Iraq for over two and a half years. Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty. Our military captured Saddam Hussein, and captured or killed his closest associates. But the war continues to intensify. Deaths and injuries are growing, with over 2,079 confirmed American deaths. Over 15,500 have been seriously injured and it is estimated that over 50,000 will suffer from battle fatigue. There have been reports of at least 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths.

I just recently visited Anbar Province Iraq in order to assess the conditions on the ground. Last May 2005, as part of the Emergency Supplemental Spending Bill, the House included the Moran Amendment, which was accepted in Conference, and which required the Secretary of Defense to submit quarterly reports to Congress in order to more accurately measure stability and security in Iraq. We have now received two reports. I am disturbed by the findings in key indicator areas. Oil production and energy production are below pre-war levels. Our reconstruction efforts have been crippled by the security situation. Only $9 billion of the $18 billion appropriated for reconstruction has been spent. Unemployment remains at about 60 percent. Clean water is scarce. Only $500 million of the $2.2 billion appropriated for water projects has been spent. And most importantly, insurgent incidents have increased from about 150 per week to over 700 in the last year. Instead of attacks going down over time and with the addition of more troops, attacks have grown dramatically. Since the revelations at Abu Ghraib, American casualties have doubled. An annual State Department report in 2004 indicated a sharp increase in global terrorism.

I said over a year ago, and now the military and the Administration agrees, Iraq can not be won "militarily." I said two years ago, the key to progress in Iraq is to Iraqitize, Internationalize and Energize. I believe the same today. But I have concluded that the presence of US troops in Iraq is impeding this progress.

Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against US forces and we have become a catalyst for violence. US troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, Saddamists and foreign jihadists. I believe with a US troop redeployment, the Iraqi security forces will be incentivized to take control. A poll recently conducted shows that over 80% of Iraqis are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops, and about 45% of the Iraqi population believe attacks against American troops are justified. I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis.

I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy. All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free. Free from United States occupation. I believe this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process for the good of a "free" Iraq.

My plan calls:

To immediately redeploy US troops consistent with the safety of US forces.
To create a quick reaction force in the region.
To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines.
To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq.
This war needs to be personalized. As I said before I have visited with the severely wounded of this war. They are suffering.

Because we in Congress are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, it is our responsibility, our OBLIGATION to speak out for them. That's why I am speaking out.

Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the US can not accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME.

http://www.truthout.org

[Saundra Hummer]

....."In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell." Justice Black. NYT v. US. 403 US 713

==

"Some explanations of a crime are not explanations: they’re part of the crime." Olavo de Cavarlho

=

....."In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal." John James Ingalls


....."It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." Thomas Jefferson

[Saundra Hummer]

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2005 Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference
The 2005 Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference website is now stocked with transcripts, presentations, blogs by proliferation experts, video, audio, photo galleries, and more from this remarkable two-day event.

The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei sat down with Carnegie Nonproliferation Director Joseph Cirincione to discuss his priorities for today's proliferation threats.
Video, Part I, of ElBaradei's interview
Video, Part 2 of ElBaradei's interview
Text of ElBaradei's prepared remarks

Blogs
The conference hosted real-time commentary by proliferation experts:.

"Conversations with Historians of the Nuclear Age" is one of the best panels I've seen in a long, long time at a conference in Washington. Each historian was asked by the moderator, Carla Anne Robbins, to identify his "favorite" moment of the Cold War...
more>>

Hans Kristensen
Monday, November 7 6:00 pm

“The Taboos, Secrets, and Hidden History of Nuclear Weapons” panel organized by William Burr could have consisted of dusty documents being held up by dull historians. Instead it turned into dynamic discussion of many of the central aspects of nuclear weapons, including social science, nuclear planning, and democracy...
more..

Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman
The Secretary discussed the role of global terrorism and the growth of the global economy on current issues of atomic energy. He addressed the importance of expanding the uses of peaceful nuclear energy while maintaining the nonproliferation regime.
Video of Bodman's presentation Audio of Bodman's presentation
Text of Bodman's presentation

A Brief History of the Atomic Age
Carnegie Director for Nonproliferation narrated a film and photo history of the atomic age, now available for video download.
Video of Cirincione's presentation
Audio of Cirincione's presentation
Text of Cirincione's presentation
Carnegie President Jessica T. Mathews
Dr. Mathews presented an overview of current proliferation problems, highlighting the need to secure nuclear material worldwide and the need to reduce the political and military currency of nuclear weapons.
Video of Mathew's presentation Audio of Mathew's presentation

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.....[Go on line to sign up or just to see all of this information. Often times there are some terrific newsletters which they send out. Might interest you. Had to drag about and not good at this yet so just log on to the site and see what might interest you. SRH...:eek2: ]

[Saundra Hummer]

The Surprising Origin of Venom Revealed Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Thu Nov 17, 8:00 AM ET

Scientists have known of just two living venomous lizards: the Gila monster and the Mexican beaded lizard. Turns out there may be more than 1,500 of them.

The discovery, reported this week by the journal Nature, alters thinking on the origins of venom.

Scientists used to believe that snakes evolved venom between 60 million and 80 million years ago. Lizards were said to have developed it around 100 million years ago, independent of their legless cousins.

But after comparing the genetic code for snake and lizard venom, Bryan Fry at the University of Melbourne, Australia discovered that the two reptiles shared nine toxins. This supports the idea that snakes and venomous lizards evolved from a common venomous ancestor, and after connecting the DNA dots, Fry and his colleagues traced venom to a single origin 200 million years ago.

"That's also when the small, bite-sized animals were starting to exist. Any time there's a new food source you see the emergence of a new predatory trick," Fry told LiveScience. "In this case, venom was the new trick."

The common ancestor had venom glands on both its upper and lower jaws. Since then, snakes have evolved to having glands on just their upper jaw – glands on the lower would make it difficult to swallow prey.

Iguanas stuck with the primitive configuration – glands on the top and bottom – but other lizards, like the Gila monster and the Komodo dragon, developed glands only on their lower jaw.

"They're like two pieces of macaroni on either side of the jaw with hoses leading to the teeth," Fry said.

Bacteria has long been blamed as the aggravating agent in a Komodo dragon's nasty bite. Fry now suspects otherwise.

"Bacteria couldn't work this quickly," he said. "The effects are totally inconsistent with bacteria."

The effects – a drop in blood pressure, loss of clotting ability, amplified pain, and loss of consciousness – are more biologically consistent with venom.

Although lizard venom is just as strong as that of many snakes, it's not as much of a concern to humans. Snake bites send a much more concentrated dose of venom directly into a victim's bloodstream.

A lizard's venom delivery system is less effective. They swish the venom around in their mouths with saliva and mucus, diluting it and making it less acute.

"Lizard venom is for capturing small prey," Fry said. "From a human aspect, danger is low. But if you're a 20-gram mouse, you're in trouble."

Top 10 Deadliest Animals Deadly Aim: Cobras Really Do Shoot for the Eyes. Flying Snakes: New Videos Reveal How They Do It. Super Geckos Excel Without Sex.

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Amazing Images, Image Galleries, Interactive Features, Trivia and more. Sign up for our free daily email newsletter today!

http://news.yahoo.com

[Saundra Hummer]

US House Passes $49.9 Billion in Spending Cuts

By Richard Cowan
Reuters

Friday 18 November 2005

Washington - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday narrowly voted to trim social programs for the poor along with farm subsidies, student loans and other federal benefits as part of a $49.9-billion package of spending cuts.

The "deficit-reduction" plan passed the House by a cliff-hanger vote of 217-215, with all Democrats and 14 Republicans voting against the Republican-authored bill.

The vote came after House leaders worked for weeks to convince rank-and-file Republican members to support the measure. Many had balked at cutting social programs while their leaders also pursued tax cuts that would benefit the rich. As a result, Republicans shaved about $4 billion from their spending-cut goal.

About 12 hours earlier, however, 22 Republicans joined with Democrats to defeat a spending bill that would have cut $1.4 billion in health, education and labor programs this year.

The budget plan will "reform and find savings in the largest portion of our federal spending," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, an Iowa Republican.

Democrats argued that by the time Congress wraps up its work for the year, Republicans will actually add to the U.S. deficit if they push through about $60 billion in tax cuts.

Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said: "After the tax cuts are passed, there won't be a dime to pay for (hurricanes) Katrina or Rita." He noted that the Republican budget calls for a $781 billion increase in U.S. borrowing authority.

The House will now have to work out a compromise budget bill with the Senate, which has approved fewer spending cuts.

Scrapped from the House bill were plans to allow oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and some offshore areas such as in the Gulf of Mexico.

House leaders also ditched a move to deny free school lunches to about 40,000 children from low-income families and approved a last-minute change to proposed cuts in food stamps so that people would not be discouraged from moving off welfare and into jobs.

On Nov. 3, the Senate approved a more modest, $35-billion version of legislation to slow the growth of rapidly-expanding programs such as Medicare and Medicaid health care for the elderly and poor.

http://www.truthout.org

Check out their other current stories as well as their archives.

[Saundra Hummer]

War Critics Spineless, Says Cheney •

Go to Original

Hawkish Cheney Renews Attack But Attracts Only Flak
By David Charter
The Times of London

Friday 18 November 2005

Vice President's popularity and influence have waned in line with public support for the Iraq conflict.
Dick Cheny's steely presence used to be seen as one of the great strengths of the Bush Administration. Not any more.

The 64-year-old Vice-President has re-emerged on to the public stage after weeks in the White House freezer with an attack on critics of the Iraq policy he did so much to promote.

But far from bolstering his President, Mr Cheney's assault appeared to have merely encouraged growing criticism of his uncompromising style.

"The President and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to let them rewrite history," Mr Cheney said in a Wednesday night speech aimed at Democrats who accuse the White House of misleading America over Iraq.

He went on: "The suggestion that's been made by some US senators that the President or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.

"The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out."

The speech, delivered to a conservative policy group, drew a furious response. Harry Reid, leader of the Senate's Democrat minority, said that it showed the Administration planned to continue putting its political fortunes ahead of America's needs.

John Kerry, the Democrats' presidential candidate last year, said that it was "hard to name a government official with less credibilty on Iraq" than Mr Cheney. But the criticism came not just from Democrats. Chuck Hagel, a senior senator and Vietnam veteran, betrayed growing Republican unease by declaring: "The Bush Administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonised for disagreeing with them.

"Suggesting that to challenge or criticise policy is undermining our troops is not democracy, nor what this country has stood for over 200 years."

Throughout Mr Bush's first term, Mr Cheney's closeness to the President, especially after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, earned him the reputation as one of the most powerful vice-presidents in history, and he was a leading advocate of the invasion of Iraq. But his popularity and influence have waned in line with public support for the Iraq conflict, and he is increasingly seen as a liability. His approval ratings have sunk to a five-year low. He was invisible after the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

One prominent Republican critic, Senator John McCain, a former prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, wants a ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees" in Iraq. It was another sign of Mr Cheney's fading powers that Mr McCain's amendment passed the Senate by 90-9, despite his opposition. His image took a further dent with reports that he is trying to negotiate an opt-out from the proposed legislation for the CIA.

Mr Cheney's record in allegedly ramping up the case for war is under intense scrutiny in Washington, which has not forgotten statements such as his assertion in August 2002 that "on the nuclear question, many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire such weapons fairly soon". In June last year he talked of Saddam Hussein's "long-established ties with al-Qaeda", proof of which remains elusive.

An ally of the Vice-President told Time magazine this week that "Cheney's war is swallowing Bush's presidency".

The article, headlined "The long, hard autumn of Dick Cheney", also pointed out that Mr Cheney's lack of desire to seek the Oval Office for himself in 2008 freed him to risk his own standing on behalf of the President — but left him looking vulnerable when he started to lose his touch.

Mr Bush backed his deputy yesterday. Speaking in South Korea, he accused the Democrats of irresponsibly playing politics over Iraq. Dan Bartlett, a presidential adviser, said that Democrat attacks had crossed the line and required a "sustained response".

But Mr Bush seems to be distancing himself from his Vice-President, who reportedly learnt secondhand of the President's ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, and spent the difficult election week last week pheasant-hunting in South Dakota.

The President's political imperative to put clear space between himself and Mr Cheney only increased when the Vice-President's top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted on charges relating to the CIA-leak scandal. The case could see Mr Cheney called to testify

===
===

War Critics Spineless, Says Cheney
By Julian Borger
The Guardian UK

Friday 18 November 2005

The Bush administration's counter-attack against critics of the Iraq war reached a ferocious new pitch yesterday after Dick Cheney accused Democrats of dishonesty and lacking "backbone". Democrats reacted furiously but George Bush stood by his vice-president, reflecting the White House view that to salvage his embattled presidency he had to defend his decision to go to war more aggressively.

Senior Democratic politicians, many of whom were ambivalent or supportive at the start of the invasion, are becoming increasingly outspoken as the death toll rises, more scandals surface about pre-war intelligence, and the public turns against the Iraq occupation.

The former US president Bill Clinton said the war was a mistake, and the Democratic congressman John Murtha yesterday called for withdrawal. "It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. It is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk."

The administration has stepped up its own rhetoric. In Washington this week Mr Cheney said the suggestion that Americans were misled on pre-war intelligence was "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city". He added: "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory or their backbone. But we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history."

Harry Reid, the Democrats' leader in the senate, said the vice-president was "playing politics like he's in the middle of a presidential campaign".

Moderate Republicans are also uneasy. Senator Chuck Hagel said: "Suggesting that to challenge or criticise policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democracy, nor what this country has stood for, for over 20 years."

On a tour of South Korea, Mr Bush defended his vice-president. "It's patriotic as heck to disagree with the president, it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when people are irresponsibly using their positions and playing politics."

Recent polls show the Democratic assault on Mr Bush's handling of pre-war intelligence is fuelling a decline in public support. A majority in the country now believe the war is not worth its cost in lives or dollars. The administration has been "setting the record straight" and taking issue with press stories on the weapons of mass destruction data.

Mr Bush has insisted that two inquiries found no evidence of "politicisation" of pre-war intelligence - but neither examined the political use the administration made of intelligence reports on WMD.

Meanwhile, a survey by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press found that 42% of Americans think the US should "mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own". The figure is on a par with the national mood after the Vietnam war.

http://www.truthout.org

Check out their editorials, other stories out just today and their archives by clicking on the link.

[Saundra Hummer]

Tootling merrily along
Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate

11.17.05 - AUSTIN, Texas -- Today's fun challenge is "Spot the Next Brownie." In this fab game for the whole family, review a list of Bush administration cronies in office and see if you can pick the next Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown, another disaster waiting for a hurricane to happen.

Scope out the Bird Flu Czar from Amtrak. Stewart Simonson is now in charge of "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies," according to his government biography. He is also in charge of ensuring the country has adequate vaccines and antiviral meds to combat an avian flu epidemic. This would be peachy-keen if Simonson had any experience in public health, bioterrorism, epidemics or even management. Unfortunately, he's a political lawyer. As he recently told a congressional subcommittee, "We're learning as we go."

Simonson's rabbi is former Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, who hired him out of law school, took him to Washington as deputy general counsel at Health and Human Services and then got him the job as general counsel of Amtrak. Ed Garvey, a well-known lawyer in Wisconsin political circles, told The Nation magazine: "He's a political hack, a sycophant. People just laughed when he was appointed to Amtrak, but when word came out that he was in charge of bioterrorism, it turned to alarm. When you realize that people's lives are at stake, it's frightening. It's just one of those moments when you say, 'Oh, my God.'"

Rep. Henry Waxman, R-Calif., who may be the last grown-up left in Washington, has also pointed out Simonson's professional inadequacies. See the article by Jeremy Scahill in the current issue of The Nation for disturbing details.

While we're still slugging it out over who's responsible for the gross failures and/or distortions of American intelligence before the war, our president tootles merrily along, fixing things in his own inimitable way. Late last month, he appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. According to Newsweek, this is a 16-member panel of folks from the private sector who "advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of U.S. intelligence efforts."

One of the appointees, William DeWitt, a top Bush fund-raiser, was also a partner of the president's in the Texas Rangers, so his knowledge of sign-stealing may be useful. Two Texas oilmen, Ray Hunt and Don Evans, also joined the panel, along with Netscape's founder, so we can all relax about the effectiveness of intelligence.

Fortunately, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting does not normally affect national security. Nevertheless, this is another agency overrun with political hacks. According to the inspector general's scathing report on Kenneth Tomlinson, the now-resigned CPB chairman:


Tomlinson "violated statutory provisions and the director's code of ethics ...";

"'political tests' were a major criteria used ... in recruiting a (CEO) for CPB, which violated statutory prohibitions against such practices...";

"established procurements practices were not followed."
Of course, you don't have to be part of the Bush administration to benefit from being a crony. Cronies in the private sector making money from this administration probably outnumber the cronies Bush has put on the public payroll.

For example, America's top oil industry executives were openly kowtowed to in embarrassing fashion by Republicans at last week's congressional hearing. Among other special favors, the executives were not required to testify under oath, which turns out to be a blessing for them, since they lied.

The Washington Post found a Secret Service document showing that executives from ExxonMobil, Conoco, Shell and BP America all met with Dick Cheney's energy task force. Last week, the CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the task force. "Not to my knowledge," said the president of Shell. The guy from BP said he didn't know.

In yet another brilliant essay, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham runs down some of the post-Katrina crony-corruption taking place before our very eyes. Among the items:


"... the cost of ships and ferries deployed for temporary housing -- in some circumstances, $13 million for six months; in other circumstances, $70 million. Carnival Cruise Lines was hired to house evacuees and government relief workers on three ships docked in New Orleans at the weekly rate of $1,400 per guest -- as opposed to the $499 charged to passengers at sea for a week's tour of the Caribbean."

"Debris-removal contracts for approximately $1 billion awarded to AshBritt, Inc., a Florida corporation happily associated with Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi and former chairman of the Republican National Committee ... "

"On the night of Aug. 30, and again on the morning of Aug. 31, the Southern Pines Electric Power Association in Taylorsville, Miss., received phone messages from Vice President Dick Cheney's office in Washington that dictated the order of priority for the restoration of the region's electricity -- first to a privately owned pipeline, then to public hospitals ..."
Cronies, we get lots and lots of cronies...

(c) 2005 Creators Syndicate


URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19893

[Saundra Hummer]

David Sirota

Bio

When I worked on the House Appropriations Committee, I worked around Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) a lot. He's a really intimidating, no-nonsense kind of guy (he was the guy that I always worried would scream at me a la Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann in Full Metal Jacket if I made a mistake).

And when it comes to defense-related issues, there literally is no member of Congress more informed and more pro-military than Murtha. That's why his announcement yesterday demanding an immediate withdrawal from Iraq was so important: because if someone like Murtha says its time for a withdrawal, then any Democrat in America should be able to say it's time for a Yet, in response to Murtha's announcement, some Democrats seemed to leap at the chance to embarrass themselves, and publicly flaunt just how nauseatingly spineless they are. And there is no better example of this than Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) in today's Washington Post. Here is the excerpt -- try not to projectile vomit all over your computer screen when you read it:

"Murtha's Democratic colleagues reacted warily to his remarks, while Republicans pounced. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), head of the House Democrats' campaign effort, said, 'Jack Murtha went out and spoke for Jack Murtha.' As for Iraq policy, Emanuel added: 'At the right time, we will have a position.'"
Remember, this is the same Rahm Emanuel who likes to talk about how tough he is, and who likes to have his friends go out and talk about the hardness of his testicles. His comment is not tough -- it is classic try-to-have-it-both-ways prevarication that reinforces the image of Democrats as governed only by crass political tactics and not conviction. And worse, it is a total insult to America's troops.

When, Rahm, is the "right time?" Is it closer to the election when you think it suits your own personal political ambition better, even though hundreds -- if not thousands -- of more American troops will have been killed? How many more people have to die or be maimed, Rahm, before it is "the right time?" And, Rahm, are you really so arrogant and out-of-touch to believe voters will swallow this kind of cynical politics as genuine on election day?

Make no mistake about it -- Emanuel's comment perfectly captures exactly the problem for Democrats both in 2006 and beyond, even though he probably is so self-absorbed, he has no idea how destructive his behavior is. He shows how some Democrats (but, as I wrote earlier this week, certainly not all) really are willing to put their own crass political ambitions over absolutely everything else.

That trait, beyond any single issue, has been the downfall of the Democratic Party in recent years. People go to the polls to vote for political leaders with guts like Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) -- not connivers, prevaricators, or cowering, weak-kneed wimps who are willing to make public political calculations while Americans die overseas. Until the party shuts up those in its midst who have no moral compass and who are willing to use their prominence to reinforce a soulless image, Democrats will always face a nagging credibility gap with the American people.

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Democratic Leader Reid:

READ MORE: Harry Reid, Washington Post, 2006 Iraq. (link on site)

http://www.workingforchange.com

[Saundra Hummer]

BRAVE NEW BOBCAT WORLD


By Sheila Samples
Intervention Magazine

Thursday 17 November 2005

The New World Order has run into some nasty bobcats who prefer their own world.
"Preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader - a dictator - willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing to employ." - Michael Ledeen

Goodness gracious! Henny Penny! Since defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vice president Dick Cheney teamed up to lead the charge to create a New World Order, the whole universe has become untidy. Very untidy. My friend Bernie says Dick and Rummy's big plan to take over the world by waging continuous war is kinda like baptizing a bobcat - ain't gonna happen.

You can't hold him," Bernie said. "You can't turn him loose. All you can do is jump up and down and run around in circles with your hands around his neck and hope you can choke him to death before he tears you to pieces."

And that's just in Iraq. We've got miles to go before we sleep in a brand New World. There we are, sandwiched between a gigantic Iran and a tiny Syria, both of whom have been warned that they're next on George Bush's list of countries to receive his gift of freedom and democracy. Will Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yell, "Hold the Mayo!" and take a bite out of Bush's ass, or will he back off in an effort to salvage his standing with the European Union that was badly damaged as a result of his "Wipe Israel off the map" comment?

I suspect the answer to that will be up to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who appears to be Ahmadinejad's "Cheney," or controller, and who said shortly after the Israel remarks, "We will not commit aggression towards any nations..." Khamenei then added a veiled warning to the New Worlders - "But if the power-seekers of the world - out of habit - want to infringe our nation's rights, it will not tolerate oppression by anyone or any powers."

Unfortunately, Bush doesn't respond well to warnings, threats, challenges, suggestions, or even questions. So, with more bobcats circling and all that blood splattering around, it's hard not to look back at the Old World Order with more than a bit of longing. But Bernie says it's too late for that. "The Old World is gone, and good riddance," he said. "It's a sore that began festering on Reagan's watch with behind-the-scenes atrocities, undercover drug trafficking, assassinations, death squads and the chipping away of the ethical foundation of our democracy. It's come to a head now, spewing out the same old Reagan-era mass murderers, and they don't intend to leave.

"This time around," Bernie said, "they're not working undercover. They've abandoned all pretense of morality. They're in our faces - in every critical position in this government - put in place to create the madness, cruelty, torture, and massive genocide that will form the foundation of their World. And destroy ours."

The New World Order looks good on paper, but it is based on the theory that leaders of nations throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East will recognize the futility of challenging the massive power of the US military and will passively hand over their resources, their treasures, their governments, their cultures and their gods, and will eagerly accept the gift of freedom and democracy that comes with US control.

The New Worlders - Cheney, Michael Ledeen who, ironically, sits in the "Freedom" chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI); William Kristol, idiot "intellectual" editor of the rabid right-wing Weekly Standard; Paul Wolfowitz, author of the Iraq war who now heads the World Bank; and Lewis Libby, recently indicted in the Valerie Plame CIA Leak investigation, among others, built their "grand vision" on a revolutionary 24-page document, "Defense Strategy for the 1990s: The Regional Defense Strategy," penned by Cheney in January 1993, which outlined a new foreign policy of pre-emption in order to gain - and maintain - US global dominance.

Most Americans are familiar with the phrase, "New World Order." It's been out there for so long it's almost passe. Besides, what's wrong with being Number One? What's a few regime changes between friends? Few realize that the "noble" cause for which 2,080 Americans have lost their lives is nothing but maximation of profits - a war for global financial and military industrial domination. As the incomparable Mary McGrory said, the United States "is the SUV of nations. It hogs the road and guzzles the gas and periodically has to run over something - like another country - to get to its Middle Eastern filling station."

Does no one ever wonder what life will be like in the New World Order? As far back as 1987, Republican Senator Jesse Helms was raising the alarm on the floor of the Senate - "This campaign against the American people - against traditional American culture and values - is systematic psychologcal warfare," Helms said. He warned about insiders such as Wolfowitz and Richard Perle directing foreign policy..."The influence of establishment insiders over our foreign policy has become a fact of life in our time," Helms said. "...It is an influence which, if unchecked, could ultimately subvert our constitutional order." (Emphasis added)

There's nothing wrong with psychological operations (PSYOP). It's a weapon as old as war itself; a critical force multiplier that has been used throughout history to intimidate an enemy so that he will either surrender prior to conflict or throw in the towel before he is wiped out. But in the grotesque new world of Cheney and Rumsfeld, PSYOP is a savage, insensate world of chaos, anger and hate. It's a world of abuse, murder, degradation, assassination, secret hidden torture camps where PSYOP has mutated into full-blown "Psycho" operations. From Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib to the remote mountains of Afghanistan, Rumsfeld's Psycho Raiders are on the move - abusing, torturing, and murdering all those who dare resist occupation. Men, women, children - it doesn't matter. If it pleads, it bleeds.

At the same time, the Bush administration and its complicit corporate media are using PSYCHO-OP with spectacular success against the American people by relying on fear to impel them to accept an increasingly fascist regime rather than physically beating them into submission.

We are entering a new world; one of informants and secret police and torture. It's a Machiavellian world where the end justifes the means. As Ledeen wrote in his 1999 book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago, "There are several circumstances in which good leaders are likely to have to enter into evil: whenever the very existence of the nation is threatened; when the state is first created or revolutionary change is to be accomplished; when removing an evil tyrant; and when the society becomes corrupt and must be restored to virtue..."

In Katherine Yurica's April 7, 2005 report, "Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen," Yurica quotes Ledeen as he clearly lays out a roadmap denizens of the world will be compelled to follow in the new order. Ledeen, Karl Rove's full-time adviser and Pat Robertson's best friend, says the religion within that order will be that of evangelical Christianity.

"Good religion teaches men that politics is the most important enterprise in the eyes of God. Like Moses, Machiavelli wants the law of his state to be seen, and therefore obeyed, as divinely ordered," Ledeen wrote. "The combination of fear of God and fear of punishment - duly carried out with good arms - provides the necessary discipline for good government."

Bernie says Americans have been "psycho-opped" upside the head by guys like Ledeen, Cheney and Rumsfeld until we are senseless. "Somebody oughta tell that creepy Ledeen guy that this isn't Machiaveili's 'state,' and that love and compassion will trump politics in the eyes of God - every time! Where are the freaking Christians?" Bernie bellowed as he headed for the door. Somebody oughta tell that bunch of jackals over at the Pentagon's Murder, Inc. that our founding fathers gave us the necessary discipline for good government - the US Constitution..."

Bernie's right. We are the bobcats now. Cheney and Rumsfeld may ultimately force us into the madness of their world, but it will be after the race - and then after the damndest fight they ever saw. Because in a sane world, only a crazy person would try to baptize a bobcat...

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer.

http://www.truthout.org

[Saundra Hummer]

....."In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realize the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close.": Sun Tzu - (c.500-320 B.C.) name used by the unknown Chinese authors of the sophisticated treatise on philosophy, logistics, espionage, strategy and tactics known as 'The Art of War' - Source: The Art of War

=
....."Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists." Ben Shahn - (1898-1969) - Source: Atlantic Monthly, September 1957

=

......"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." Mark Twain - [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910)

=
To read this newsletter online http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ or http://snipurl.com/ayzc

[Saundra Hummer]

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN OR FOX NEWS

Body Politics

By Chris Floyd

11/18/05 "Moscow Times" -- -- Four years ago, President George W. Bush quietly assumed dictatorial powers with a secret executive order granting himself the right to imprison anyone on earth indefinitely, without charges or trial or indictment or evidence, simply by declaring them an "enemy combatant," on his say-so alone. This week, the assemblage of bootlickers and bagmen that befoul the U.S. Senate voted to codify the core of this global autocracy under the pretense of curtailing it.

With great self-fluffing fanfare, the Senate passed two measures ostensibly designed to stem the flood of torture and tyranny issuing from the White House. But the twinned amendments to a military spending bill have the curious effect of canceling each other out: The anti-torture measure leaves Bush's tyranny intact, while the anti-tyranny measure will allow torture to continue unabated. This switcheroo, we are told by one of the scam's sponsors, "will re-establish moral high ground for the United States," The Washington Post reports.

But what can we actually see from this lofty moral promontory? We see that all foreign captives in Bush's worldwide gulag have now been stripped of the ancient human right of habeas corpus. They will not be allowed to challenge "any aspect of their detention" in court -- until they have already been tried and convicted by a "military tribunal" constituted under rules concocted arbitrarily by Bush and his minions. Only then, after years of incarceration without rights or legal protection, will they be given access to a single federal appeals court that can review their conviction -- subject to the usual "national security" restrictions on challenging evidence gathered by secret means from secret sources in secret places. Remarkably, the Supreme Court is expressly prohibited from any jurisdiction whatsoever over any aspect of gulag captivity, The Washington Post reports. And of course, Bush can simply skip the tribunal and keep anyone he pleases chained in legal limbo until they rot. Neither of the ballyhooed amendments affects this raw despotism.

Meanwhile, U.S. citizens can also be arbitrarily imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial. But for now, any Homelanders caught in Bush's net can at least appear briefly in court prior to their conviction, where they will enjoy a "judicial process" that Stalin or Saddam would have loved: Bush officials present the judge with a piece of paper declaring that the prisoner is one bad hombre, but all the evidence against him is classified and nobody can see it -- especially the prisoner, The Washington Post reports. And that's it. The captive is then plunged back into the gulag, to be disposed of according to Bush's whim. Again, this medieval mechanism of tyranny was left untouched by the Senate's actions.

The Senate originally voted to cast Bush's captives into outer darkness forever, without a single legal recourse. But then a few prissy hens and bleeding hearts made the usual squawk about rights and law and all that pinko jazz. So the compromise of allowing a post-conviction appeal -- for people who have been arbitrarily seized and held in isolation for years without charges, who have often been tortured, humiliated and driven to madness or attempted suicide before facing a kangaroo court -- was hastily cobbled together and presented to the world as a triumph of the human spirit and the American way.

Ah, but what about the anti-torture amendment, sponsored by the Republican "maverick," Senator John McCain, and hailed by editorialists across the land as a great leap forward in the evolution of political morality? The effusions that have greeted this measure are puzzling. It does nothing more than restate what is already the law of the land. American forces were already forbidden from subjecting any captive "to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" as prohibited by the Constitution and the UN Convention Against Torture. This regurgitation of existing law is the extent of the McCain amendment, along with an adjuration to interrogators to follow written guidelines for rough stuff set down by the Pentagon.

But the partisans of atrocity in the Bush White House knew these laws when they set up the gulag's torture regimen in 2001. They simply redefined "torture" to accommodate any brutal technique they cared to implement, then declared that the commander in chief is beyond the reach of law in wartime -- and that any underlings who commit crimes at his order are likewise absolved of legal liability. This sinister sophistry is still very much in operation and remains unchallenged by the toothless amendment of the "maverick."

The dual amendments are a cynical PR ploy: Torture will be condemned in public but quietly continued in the former KGB camps and other secret hellholes that Bush has strung across the world like a barbed-wire necklace. The Pentagon's own lawyers certainly understand the true nature of the game. As one told The Guardian: "If detainees can't talk to lawyers or file cases, how will anyone ever find out if they have been abused?" No one ever will, of course; that's the point. With habeas corpus denied up front, the worst cases of torture and false imprisonment can now be buried forever in "indefinite detention"; the tribunals, with their access to appeals, will be reserved for open-and-shut showpieces.

These draconian measures reach far beyond a handful of hard-core terrorists. According to the Pentagon's own figures, more than 21,000 innocent people have been caged without due process in Iraq alone, The Guardian reports. Hundreds more have been unjustly imprisoned around the world. A regime that thrives on fear requires a steady stream of "enemy combatants" to justify its unlimited "war powers." The belly of this beast will never be full.

Annotations

Senators Agree on Detainee Rights
Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2005

Senate Rebukes Bush on Iraq Policy
Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2005

McCain Amendment to 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill
United States Senate, Nov. 11, 2005

Detainees Deserve Court Trials
Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2005

Democrats Provided Edge on Detainee Vote
New York Times, Nov. 12, 2005

Rumsfeld can authorize exceptions to new "humane" interrogation directive
Agence France Presse, Nov. 9, 2005

Guantanamo Inmates to Lose All Rights
The Observer, Nov. 13. 2005

Who They Are: The Double Standard that Underlies our Torture Policies
Slate.com, Nov. 11, 2005

Jose Padilla and The Death of Liberty
Information Clearinghouse, Sept. 10, 2005

White House declines to totally rule out torture
Agence France Press, Nov. 13, 2005

We Do Not Torture' and Other Funny Stories
New York Times, Nov. 13, 2005

Habeas Corpus
Wikepedia

Court Rules Military Panels to Try Detainees
Washington Post, July 16, 2005

Domination by Detention
Deep Blade Journaly, July 16, 2005

Ruling Lets U.S. Restart Trials at Guantanamo
Miami Herald, July 16, 2005

Alberto Gonzales' Tortured Arguments for Reigning Above the Law
LA Weekly, Jan. 14-20, 2005

Torture Treaty Doesn't Bar `Cruel, Inhuman' Tactics, Gonzales Says
Knight-Ridder, Jan. 26, 2005

Bush Has Widened Authority of CIA to Kill Terrorists
New York Times, Dec. 15, 2002

Special Ops Get OK to Initiate Its Own Missions
Washington Times, Jan. 8, 2003

Coward's War in Yemen
Spiked, Nov. 11, 2002

Drones of Death
The Guardian, Nov. 6, 2002

Gonzales Excludes CIA from Rules on Prisoners
New York Times, Jan. 20, 2005

The Secret World of US Jails
The Observer, June 13, 2004

The Torture Memos: A Legal Narrative
CounterPunch, Feb. 2, 2005

CIA Takes on Major Military Role: 'We're Killing People!
Boston Globe, Jan. 20, 2002

Our Designated Killers
Village Voice, Feb. 14, 2003

A U.S. License to Kill
Village Voice, Feb. 21, 2003

CIA Weighs 'Targeted Killing' Missions
Washington Post, Oct. 27, 2001

US Again Uses Enemy Combatant Label to Deny Basic Rights
Human Rights Watch, June 23, 2003

[Bush Order] Lets CIA Freely Send Suspects to Foreign Jails
New York Times, March 6, 2005

Review: Torture and Truth and The Torture Papers
The New Statesman, March 7, 2005

The Torture Papers: Full Faith and Credit of the U.S. Government
San Diego Union-Tribune, Feb. 27, 2005

Go on site to ICH to use the links to the other reports following the article. This link below will put you on sight to use the links provided.

The Moscow Times

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Saundra Hummer]

DeLay Ex-Aide to Plead Guilty in Lobby Case

By Anne E. Kornblut
The New York Times

Saturday 19 November 2005

Washington - Michael Scanlon, a former top official for Representative Tom DeLay and one time partner of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has agreed to plead guilty in a deal with federal prosecutors, according to his lawyer. The deal reveals a broadening corruption investigation involving top members of Congress.

Criminal papers filed in federal court outlined a conspiracy that not only named Mr. Scanlon but also mentioned a congressman, identified only as Representative No. 1, as part of the exchange of favors from clients funneled to lobbyists and officials.

This was the first time that a member of Congress, identified by lawyers in the case as Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio, has been implicated in criminal papers as part of the inquiry, which has sprawled from Indian casinos to the lucrative lobbying firms of Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon and then reached to the Republican leadership.

Federal prosecutors announced a single conspiracy charge against Mr. Scanlon on Friday, in advance of a Monday court hearing at which he is expected to plead guilty in exchange for his cooperation. Investigators accused Mr. Scanlon of conspiring to defraud Indian tribes of millions of dollars as part of a lobbying and corruption scheme.

Mr. Scanlon, 35, is a former spokesman for Mr. DeLay. News of his cooperation with law enforcement officials sent a jolt through the Republican majority in Congress.

Mr. DeLay has been indicted in Texas on unrelated charges involving fund-raising practices for state Republicans. His ties to Mr. Abramoff, along with costly overseas trips, have been under investigation for more than a year. The indictment forced Mr. DeLay to step aside as House majority leader this fall.

Court papers filed Friday alleged that Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff, who has not been charged in the Indian lobbying case, had sought to "corruptly offer and provide things of value, including money, meals, trips and entertainment to federal public officials in return for agreements to perform official acts." The wording suggested that more than one lawmaker was under investigation.

But the document singled out Representative No. 1 as the main recipient of gifts, tickets and meals - including a now infamous golfing trip to Scotland - in exchange for helping Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff with their clients.

Mr. Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee, has offered his cooperation to prosecutors, said Brian Walsh, his spokesman, who added that Mr. Ney had contended that he was tricked by Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff into assisting their clients.

Federal prosecutors and Congressional officials have been conducting extensive investigations into the lobbying practices of Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon, who earned about $82 million representing a handful of wealthy Indian tribes on gambling issues over four years. Investigators believe the two men funneled millions through charities and front organizations to skim profits, avoid taxes and mask incomplete work.

Beyond accusations of fraud, investigators have delved into the politically delicate territory of the relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers. Until last year, Mr. Abramoff ruled an industry governed by networking because of his close ties to Mr. DeLay, trading on his access to the rising Republican leader to build a lucrative lobbying practice. He and Mr. Scanlon are at the center of a Senate inquiry that held its final hearing this week.

In the eight-page criminal filing, prosecutors accused Mr. Scanlon of taking part in a "corruption scheme" between January 2000 and April 2004, working alongside a "Lobbyist A" who was identified by lawyers involved in the case as Mr. Abramoff.

The pair "provided a stream of things of value" to Representative No. 1 and members of his staff, the charge read. In return, both Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff received agreements from Mr. Ney "to perform a series of official acts," including "agreements to support and pass legislation, agreements to place statements into the Congressional Record," and meetings with their clients.

The court filing also states that the congressman helped one of the businessmen's clients apply for a license to install wireless telephone infrastructure in the House of Representatives. Mr. Ney's committee manages such issues.

Mr. Ney has been the focus of scrutiny for months after revelations that he took a 2002 golfing trip to Scotland that was sponsored by Mr. Abramoff. Mr. Ney has started a legal defense fund. His legal troubles have added to the growing ethics accusations against Congressional Republicans.

Other lawmakers including Mr. DeLay received campaign donations from Mr. Abramoff's and Mr. Scanlon's Indian clients. But Mr. Ney performed what prosecutors portrayed as blatant favors for Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon, inserting remarks helpful to their business into the Congressional Record and sponsoring bills at their behest.

Mark H. Tuohey, the lawyer representing Mr. Ney, said that the congressman had never offered any legislative help to the lobbyists in exchange for travel, like the 2002 golfing trip to Scotland, or gifts.

Mr. Ney has said that Mr. Abramoff deceived him over how the Scotland trip was paid for in his travel disclosure forms, saying it was paid for by a conservative educational group, not by Mr. Abramoff or his lobbying firm - and about the details of Mr. Abramoff's purchase of a casino boat fleet in Florida in 2001.

"I think the people who are named in this among others, Scanlon and Abramoff, didn't tell him the truth," Mr. Tuohey said of Mr. Ney.

Mr. Abramoff was indicted in Florida this year on fraud and conspiracy charges relating to a separate effort to buy Sun Cruz, a fleet of casino boats, in 2000. Although Mr. Scanlon did public affairs work for Sun Cruz, he was not charged in that case. It now appears that Mr. Scanlon has been cooperating with the authorities to reach a plea deal in the Indian gambling inquiry. Mr. Abramoff is not cooperating with law enforcement officials, people involved with the case said.

The lawyer for Mr. Abramoff, Abbe Lowell, declined to comment. The lawyer for Mr. Scanlon, Stephen Braga, confirmed that his client would enter a plea on Monday. "Mr. Scanlon and the Department of Justice will present a proposed plea agreement to the court to resolve the charge," Mr. Braga said.

How much Mr. Scanlon knows and has told prosecutors about the business practices of Mr. Abramoff and members of Congress remains unclear. "This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on Abramoff because Scanlon was reportedly his closest associate," said Lawrence Barcella, a former federal prosecutor who is now a prominent defense lawyer in Washington. As for politicians like Mr. DeLay and Mr. Ney, Mr. Barcella said, "I wouldn't be sitting as comfortably today as I was yesterday if I were them."

In addition to the corruption scheme, prosecutors say Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff carried out a secret kickback deal in which Mr. Abramoff encouraged his Indian clients to hire Mr. Scanlon for public affairs work. Mr. Scanlon then funneled half his profits to Mr. Abramoff. Their aim was "to enrich themselves by obtaining substantial funds from their clients through fraud and concealment and through obtaining benefits for their clients through corrupt means," the charge said.

Tribes in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Michigan fell prey to the conspiracy, the Scanlon papers said.

-------

To access this story and it's, (if any) links, click on the link below:

http://www.truthout.org

[Saundra Hummer]

DeLay Ex-Aide to Plead Guilty in Lobby Case

By Anne E. Kornblut
The New York Times

Saturday 19 November 2005

Washington - Michael Scanlon, a former top official for Representative Tom DeLay and one time partner of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has agreed to plead guilty in a deal with federal prosecutors, according to his lawyer. The deal reveals a broadening corruption investigation involving top members of Congress.

Criminal papers filed in federal court outlined a conspiracy that not only named Mr. Scanlon but also mentioned a congressman, identified only as Representative No. 1, as part of the exchange of favors from clients funneled to lobbyists and officials.

This was the first time that a member of Congress, identified by lawyers in the case as Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio, has been implicated in criminal papers as part of the inquiry, which has sprawled from Indian casinos to the lucrative lobbying firms of Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon and then reached to the Republican leadership.

Federal prosecutors announced a single conspiracy charge against Mr. Scanlon on Friday, in advance of a Monday court hearing at which he is expected to plead guilty in exchange for his cooperation. Investigators accused Mr. Scanlon of conspiring to defraud Indian tribes of millions of dollars as part of a lobbying and corruption scheme.

Mr. Scanlon, 35, is a former spokesman for Mr. DeLay. News of his cooperation with law enforcement officials sent a jolt through the Republican majority in Congress.

Mr. DeLay has been indicted in Texas on unrelated charges involving fund-raising practices for state Republicans. His ties to Mr. Abramoff, along with costly overseas trips, have been under investigation for more than a year. The indictment forced Mr. DeLay to step aside as House majority leader this fall.

Court papers filed Friday alleged that Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff, who has not been charged in the Indian lobbying case, had sought to "corruptly offer and provide things of value, including money, meals, trips and entertainment to federal public officials in return for agreements to perform official acts." The wording suggested that more than one lawmaker was under investigation.

But the document singled out Representative No. 1 as the main recipient of gifts, tickets and meals - including a now infamous golfing trip to Scotland - in exchange for helping Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff with their clients.

Mr. Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee, has offered his cooperation to prosecutors, said Brian Walsh, his spokesman, who added that Mr. Ney had contended that he was tricked by Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff into assisting their clients.

Federal prosecutors and Congressional officials have been conducting extensive investigations into the lobbying practices of Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon, who earned about $82 million representing a handful of wealthy Indian tribes on gambling issues over four years. Investigators believe the two men funneled millions through charities and front organizations to skim profits, avoid taxes and mask incomplete work.

Beyond accusations of fraud, investigators have delved into the politically delicate territory of the relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers. Until last year, Mr. Abramoff ruled an industry governed by networking because of his close ties to Mr. DeLay, trading on his access to the rising Republican leader to build a lucrative lobbying practice. He and Mr. Scanlon are at the center of a Senate inquiry that held its final hearing this week.

In the eight-page criminal filing, prosecutors accused Mr. Scanlon of taking part in a "corruption scheme" between January 2000 and April 2004, working alongside a "Lobbyist A" who was identified by lawyers involved in the case as Mr. Abramoff.

The pair "provided a stream of things of value" to Representative No. 1 and members of his staff, the charge read. In return, both Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff received agreements from Mr. Ney "to perform a series of official acts," including "agreements to support and pass legislation, agreements to place statements into the Congressional Record," and meetings with their clients.

The court filing also states that the congressman helped one of the businessmen's clients apply for a license to install wireless telephone infrastructure in the House of Representatives. Mr. Ney's committee manages such issues.

Mr. Ney has been the focus of scrutiny for months after revelations that he took a 2002 golfing trip to Scotland that was sponsored by Mr. Abramoff. Mr. Ney has started a legal defense fund. His legal troubles have added to the growing ethics accusations against Congressional Republicans.

Other lawmakers including Mr. DeLay received campaign donations from Mr. Abramoff's and Mr. Scanlon's Indian clients. But Mr. Ney performed what prosecutors portrayed as blatant favors for Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon, inserting remarks helpful to their business into the Congressional Record and sponsoring bills at their behest.

Mark H. Tuohey, the lawyer representing Mr. Ney, said that the congressman had never offered any legislative help to the lobbyists in exchange for travel, like the 2002 golfing trip to Scotland, or gifts.

Mr. Ney has said that Mr. Abramoff deceived him over how the Scotland trip was paid for in his travel disclosure forms, saying it was paid for by a conservative educational group, not by Mr. Abramoff or his lobbying firm - and about the details of Mr. Abramoff's purchase of a casino boat fleet in Florida in 2001.

"I think the people who are named in this among others, Scanlon and Abramoff, didn't tell him the truth," Mr. Tuohey said of Mr. Ney.

Mr. Abramoff was indicted in Florida this year on fraud and conspiracy charges relating to a separate effort to buy Sun Cruz, a fleet of casino boats, in 2000. Although Mr. Scanlon did public affairs work for Sun Cruz, he was not charged in that case. It now appears that Mr. Scanlon has been cooperating with the authorities to reach a plea deal in the Indian gambling inquiry. Mr. Abramoff is not cooperating with law enforcement officials, people involved with the case said.

The lawyer for Mr. Abramoff, Abbe Lowell, declined to comment. The lawyer for Mr. Scanlon, Stephen Braga, confirmed that his client would enter a plea on Monday. "Mr. Scanlon and the Department of Justice will present a proposed plea agreement to the court to resolve the charge," Mr. Braga said.

How much Mr. Scanlon knows and has told prosecutors about the business practices of Mr. Abramoff and members of Congress remains unclear. "This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on Abramoff because Scanlon was reportedly his closest associate," said Lawrence Barcella, a former federal prosecutor who is now a prominent defense lawyer in Washington. As for politicians like Mr. DeLay and Mr. Ney, Mr. Barcella said, "I wouldn't be sitting as comfortably today as I was yesterday if I were them."

In addition to the corruption scheme, prosecutors say Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff carried out a secret kickback deal in which Mr. Abramoff encouraged his Indian clients to hire Mr. Scanlon for public affairs work. Mr. Scanlon then funneled half his profits to Mr. Abramoff. Their aim was "to enrich themselves by obtaining substantial funds from their clients through fraud and concealment and through obtaining benefits for their clients through corrupt means," the charge said.

Tribes in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Michigan fell prey to the conspiracy, the Scanlon papers said.

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To access this story and it's, (if any) links, click on the link below:

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[Saundra Hummer]

The "Some Other Dude Did It" Defense of I. Lewis Libby
By Elizabeth de la Vega
TomDispatch.com
Is Woodward's revelation a bombshell or a smokescreen?
Shortly after Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, was indicted for obstructing justice and making false statements to a government agent and a grand jury, Libby's attorneys suggested that they would use the standard he's-a-busy-man-who-can't-remember-everything defense. But now, with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's revelation that a senior administration official other than Libby told him, in mid-June 2003, that Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger had been arranged by Wilson's CIA operative wife Valerie Wilson, it appears the Libby team has added another favorite, the SODDI Defense - as in, "Some Other Dude Did It." Unfortunately for Libby, that turkey won't fly. Here's why.

According to Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells, Woodward's disclosure is a "bombshell" that "undermines the prosecution" because it disproves Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's alleged contention that Libby was the first senior administration official to reveal to a reporter that Valerie Wilson worked as a CIA analyst. Not true. For starters, a prosecutor's press conference statements are irrelevant to, and not admissible in, the trial of the case. And Fitzgerald never said Libby was the first official to have disclosed information about Valerie Wilson; he said Libby was the first official known to have disclosed such information.

More important though, it is of no help to Libby that another administration official, "some other dude," disclosed classified information about Valerie Wilson's employment in order to discredit her husband before Libby himself did so. (By the way, Woodward's impression that the disclosure by his source was "casual" proves nothing about whether the smearing official knew that the information being leaked was classified.) Despite the impression newspaper readers may carry away from the flap over Woodward, Libby is not charged with being the first to disclose Valerie Wilson's employment; he's not charged with disclosing anything at all. And in a criminal trial, it is the charges that define the issues. What, exactly, are those charges?

Read the full article
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----Dubya-Cheney Ties Frayed by Scandal
By Thomas M. DeFrank
The New York Daily News

Tuesday 08 November 2005

'There has been some distance for some time.'
Washington - The CIA leak scandal has peeled back the veil on the most closely held White House secret of all: the subtle but unmistakable erosion in the bond between President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Multiple sources close to Bush told the Daily News that while the vice president remains his boss' valued political partner and counselor, his clout has lessened - primarily as a result of issues arising from the Iraq war.

"The relationship is not what it was," a presidential counselor said. "There has been some distance for some time."

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vice President Lied as White House Sought to Defuse Leak Inquiry
By Jason Leopold
ZNet.com

Monday 07 November 2005

Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover-up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity?

That's one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out. It's unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned - not under oath - about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it.

The five-count criminal indictment handed up by a grand jury last month against Cheney's former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the press. Months after Plame's identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists.

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rove's Security Clearance Widely Questioned
By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger
The Los Angeles Times

Sunday 06 November 2005

Federal workers under suspicion of smaller lapses have had access to classified data yanked.
Washington - An intelligence analyst temporarily lost his top-secret security clearance because he faxed his resume using a commercial machine.

An employee of the Defense Department had her clearance suspended for months because a jilted boyfriend called to say she might not be reliable.

An Army officer who spoke publicly about intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks had his clearance revoked over questions about $67 in personal charges to a military cellphone.

But in the White House, where Karl Rove is under federal investigation for his role in the exposure of a covert CIA officer, the longtime advisor to President Bush continues to enjoy full access to government secrets.

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Democratic Congressmen Ask Cheney to Talk
The Associated Press

Friday 04 November 2005

Washington - Three Democratic congressmen Thursday asked Vice President Dick Cheney to testify on Capitol Hill about the disclosure of a covert CIA officer's identity, saying "there are many wide-ranging questions about your involvement."

The congressmen asked why Cheney's office was gathering information about Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson in 2003; whether the vice president directed his top aide, the now-indicted I. Lewis Libby, to speak to the news media about Plame; and whether Cheney was aware Libby was doing so.

The indictment against Libby says he was told by Cheney on June 12, 2003, that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA's counterproliferation division. That was a month before Plame's identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak.

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prosecutor Narrows Focus on Rove Role in CIA Leak
By David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson
The New York Times

Friday 04 November 2005

Washington - The prosecutor in the CIA leak case has narrowed his investigation of Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to whether he tried to conceal from the grand jury a conversation with a Time magazine reporter in the week before an intelligence officer's identity was made public more than two years ago, lawyers in the case said Thursday.

The special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has centered on what are believed to be his final inquiries in the matter as to whether Mr. Rove was fully forthcoming about the belated discovery of an internal e-mail message that confirmed his conversation with the Time reporter, Matthew Cooper, to whom Mr. Rove had mentioned the CIA officer.

Mr. Fitzgerald no longer seems to be actively examining some of the more incendiary questions involving Mr. Rove. At one point, he explored whether Mr. Rove misrepresented his role in the leak case to President Bush - an issue that led to discussions between Mr. Fitzgerald and James E. Sharp, a lawyer for Mr. Bush, an associate of Mr. Rove said.

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Libby Pleads Not Guilty in CIA Leak Case
By Pete Yost
The Associated Press

Thursday 03 November 2005

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff pleaded not guilty Thursday in the CIA leak scandal, marking the start of what could be a long road to a trial in which Cheney and other top Bush administration officials could be summoned to testify.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby entered the plea in front of US District Judge Reggie Walton, a former prosecutor who has spent two decades as a judge in the nation's capital.

"With respect, your honor, I plead not guilty," Libby told the judge.

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the Company of Friends
By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek

Wednesday 02 November 2005

Bush may be besieged by charges of cronyism, but they don't seem to have affected his picks for a panel assessing intelligence matters. Plus, Alito, the talkie.
Controversy continues to rage over spying failures and the mishandling of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Last week it was the indictments in the CIA leak case. This week, it was the extraordinary secret session of the Senate, when Democrats pushed for a new round of inquiries into the misuse of intelligence on Saddam's regime. So it's all the more remarkable to see how the White House has just filled a committee overseeing intelligence issues.

President Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a 16-member panel of individuals from the private sector who advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of US intelligence efforts. After watching the fate of Michael Brown as head of FEMA and Harriet Miers as Supreme Court nominee, you might think the president would be wary about the appearance of cronyism - especially with a critical national-security issue such as intelligence. Instead, Bush reappointed William DeWitt, an Ohio businessman who has raised more than $300,000 for the president's campaigns, for a third two-year term on the panel. Originally appointed in 2001, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, DeWitt, who was also a top fund-raiser for Bush's 2004 Inaugural committee, was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team.

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
White House Ducks Prewar Intel Questions
The Associated Press

Wednesday 02 November 2005

Washington - The White House sought to deflect politically charged questions Wednesday about President Bush's use of prewar intelligence in Iraq, saying Democrats, too, had concluded Saddam Hussein was a threat.

"If Democrats want to talk about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed and the intelligence, they might want to start with looking at the previous administration and their own statements that they've made," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He said the Clinton administration and fellow Democrats "used the intelligence to come to the same conclusion that Saddam Hussein and his regime were a threat."

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rove's Future Role Is Debated
By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig
The Washington Post

Thursday 03 November 2005

White House may seek fresh start in wake of leak.
Top White House aides are privately discussing the future of Karl Rove, with some expressing doubt that President Bush can move beyond the damaging CIA leak case as long as his closest political strategist remains in the administration.

If Rove stays, which colleagues say remains his intention, he may at a minimum have to issue a formal apology for misleading colleagues and the public about his role in conversations that led to the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to senior Republican sources familiar with White House deliberations.

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inside the Bunker
By Sidney Blumenthal
The Guardian UK

Thursday 03 November 2005

His administration has become its own republic of fear, and Bush is a prisoner to the right.
One year after his re-election President Bush governs from a bunker. "We go forward with complete confidence," he proclaimed in his second inaugural address. He urged "our youngest citizens" to see the future "in the determined faces of our soldiers", to choose between "evil" and "courage". But as he listened that day, Vice-President Dick Cheney knew the election had been secured by a cover-up.

"I would have wished nothing better," declared Patrick Fitzgerald in his press conference of October 28 announcing the indictment of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice-president's chief of staff, "that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005. No one would have went to jail."

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is Rove a Security Risk?
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek

Wednesday 02 November 2005

Because he disclosed Plame's CIA identity to reporters, the Bush aide could lose his clearance.
The conventional wisdom in Washington this week is that Karl Rove is out of the woods. But while an indictment against him in the Valerie Plame leak case is now unlikely, he may be in danger of losing his security clearance.

According to last week's indictment of Scooter Libby, a person identified as "Official A" held conversations with reporters about Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative, information that was classified. News accounts subsequently confirmed that that official was Rove. Under Executive Order 12958, signed by President Clinton in 1995, such a disclosure is grounds for, at a minimum, losing access to classified information.

Read the full article --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Click on the following link to access this series of articles of which there are several more on issues corresponding to these articles.

[Wonder what will happen with all of this and I have to wonder about the Bush Cheney rift? A smoke screen? I believe this is what it is, and it will take a lot to convince me otherwise. SRH...]

http://www.truthout.org

[Saundra Hummer]

DEMOCRATS GET MUGGED ON THE FLOOR OF THE HOUSE
By Mike Whitney

11/19/05 "ICH " -- -- It will be a while before they clear away the carnage from the floor of the House of Representatives, but the mighty birds are already circling overhead eyeballing the carrion below.

Last night, the Democratic Party, that rudderless, ideologically-challenged coterie of losers and sycophants, killed whatever chance they may have had of leading country out of the Iraqi nightmare. In a grossly lopsided vote of 403 to 3 the Democrats helped to defeat a bill that demanded the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Their vote ignores the 63% of Americans who want to see a speedy exit from Iraq and it strengthens the Republican agenda of open-ended support for the President. In the process, they further disgraced the one man who towered above the wretched chatter of beltway politics and defended the soldiers dying in the field, John Murtha.

Murtha has been the most hawkish of the Democrats, staunchly supportive of the president and his war. Last week, however, he surprised everyone by publicly denouncing Iraq as “a flawed policy wrapped in an illusion” and calling for an immediate withdrawal. Since then, Murtha, a decorated combat veteran, has been viciously trashed by the Bush-Rove smear machine; another victim of the ruinous “swift-boat” strategy.

Yesterday, on the floor of the House Rep. Jean Schmidt suggested that Murtha, the recipient of two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, was a coward.

She reiterated the message she had received earlier in the day from a Marine Colonel who told her to “send Congress a message; Cowards cut and run. Marines never do”. Schmidt’s remarks caused pandemonium in the chamber.

The battle lines are drawn between Democrats and Republicans and the acrimony has never been greater. So, why did the Democrats retreat from the bill and leave the impression that Murtha was left hanging out to dry?

In fact, the Republicans cleverly changed the wording of the Murtha bill by saying that all troop deployments should be “terminated immediately”; substantially different from Murtha’s call for a coordinated withdrawal leaving a rapid “reaction force” in the region. As it turned out, even Murtha voted with the majority.

But, the wording was immaterial. The vote was mainly symbolic anyway; we’re not leaving Iraq anytime soon. The Democrats had the opportunity to be a credible opposition party and give Bush a bloody nose in the process. Instead, they blew it. They slinked away from the brawl and headed for the exits. They continue to ignore the mood of the country and fail to capitalize on the vulnerabilities of their rivals.

The American people aren’t in the mood for compromise and they don’t give a hoot about perfectly written legislation. They are looking for someone to stop Bush any way possible.

That’s it; just say No.

The nation is pouring blood and treasure into a bottomless sand-pit with no prospect for success. In less than two years American citizens will have to have “papers” (standardized Federal ID) just to travel around the country. National Security Letters and “lone wolf” provisions in the Patriot Act allow the FBI to search through all of one’s personal belongings or records without judicial approval. The administration has set up a National Security Service (NSS) that provides Bush with his own KGB style secret police force, independent of congressional oversight. And, the court has decided that the president can indefinitely imprison American citizens without charging them with a crime.

This is no time for the blundering Democrats to seek out a “nuanced political position”. We’re looking for roadblocks, not policy.

The reality is there is no leadership in the Democratic Party. The people at the top, Clinton, Biden, Dodd, Edwards and Kerry, are all “go-along, get along” toadies who’ve caved in on every issue of consequence. All of them have been staunch supporters of the war and refuse to even whisper the word “withdrawal” fearing their powerful constituents will throw them overboard.

There’s no chance the Democrats will lead us out of this quagmire; they’re in it up to their axels. They may moan about “being misled” by the president, but don’t take that as a condemnation of the war. They’re already preening their rhetoric about a “victory strategy” followed by the steady increase of American servicemen deployed to the desert meat-grinder.

So, who cares if they take a drubbing on the House floor?

They are a party adrift; steadily sinking from the arrogance and ideological vacuity of their leaders. It would be better for everyone if they just packed their bags and went home.

Good riddance.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

Jeeze, sorry about!!! Sent you to a place for liberal singles it seems. I had one part in the link wrong, and the swinger thing showed up. I suppose that is where eveyone has been!

[Saundra Hummer]

VEGETARIANS BETWEEN MEALS

This War Cannot Be Stopped By a Loyal Opposition

By Jeremy Scahill

11/18/05 "Common Dreams" -- -- The refrain of the Democrats about being misled into supporting the invasion of Iraq has become really tired. And someone other than the White House smearmongers needs to say it: The Democrats cannot be allowed to use faulty intelligence as a crutch to hold up their unforgivable support for the Iraq invasion. What is DNC Chair Howard Dean's excuse? He wasn't in Congress and didn't have any access to Senate intelligence. Still, on March 9, 2003, just days before the invasion began, Dean told Tim Russert, on NBC's Meet The Press, "I don't want Saddam staying in power with control over those weapons of mass destruction. I want him to be disarmed."

During the New Hampshire primary in January 2004, which I covered for Democracy Now!, I confronted Dean about that statement. I asked him on what intelligence he based that allegation. "Talks with people who were knowledgeable," Dean told me. "Including a series of folks that work in the Clinton administration."

A series of folks that work in the Clinton administration.

How does that jibe with the official Democratic line that they were misled by the Bush administration? Sounds like Howard Dean, head of the Democratic Party, was misled by....the Democrats. Dean's candor offers us a rare glimpse into the painful truth of the matter. As unpopular as this is to say, when President Bush accuses the Democrats of "rewriting history" on Iraq, he is right.

None of the horrors playing out in Iraq today would be possible without the Democratic Party. And no matter how hard some party leaders try to deny it, this is their war too and will remain so until every troop is withdrawn. There is no question that the Bush administration is one of the most corrupt, violent and brutal in the history of this country but that doesn't erase the serious responsibility the Democrats bears for the bloodletting in Iraq. As disingenuous as the Administration's claims that Iraq had WMDs is the flimsy claim by Democratic lawmakers that they were somehow duped into voting for the war. The fact is that Iraq posed no threat to the United States in 2003 any more than it did in 1998 when President Clinton bombed Baghdad. John Kerry and his colleagues knew that. The Democrats didn't need false intelligence to push them into overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. It was their policy; a policy made the law of the land not under George W. Bush, but under President Bill Clinton when he signed the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, formally initiating the process of regime change in Iraq.

Manipulated intelligence is but a small part of a bigger, bipartisan 15-year assault on Iraq's people. If the Democrats really want to look at how America was led into this war, they need to go back further than the current president's inauguration.

As bloody and deadly as the occupation has been, it was Bill Clinton who refined the art of killing innocent Iraqis following the Gulf War. One of his first acts as president was to bomb Iraq, following the alleged assassination plot against George HW Bush. Clinton's missiles killed the famed Iraqi painter Leila al Attar as they smashed into her home. Clinton presided enthusiastically over the most deadly and repressive regime of economic sanctions in history--his UN ambassador Madeline Albright calling the reported deaths of half a million children "worth the price." Clinton initiated the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam with his illegal no-fly zone bombings, attacking Iraq once every three days for the final years of his presidency. It was under Clinton that Ahmed Chalabi was given tens of millions of dollars and made a key player in shaping Washington's Iraq policy. It was Clinton that mercilessly attacked Iraq in December of 1998, destroying dozens of Baghdad buildings and killing scores of civilians. It was Clinton that codified regime change in Iraq as US policy. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq but he could not have done it without the years of groundwork laid by Clinton and the Democrats. How ironic it was recently to hear Clinton call the war "a big mistake."

It's easy to resist war with a president like Bush in the White House. Where were these Democrats when it was Clinton's bombs raining down on Iraq, when it was Clinton's economic sanctions targeting the most vulnerable? Many of them were right behind him and his deadly policies the same way they were behind Bush when he asked their consent to use force against Iraq. As the veteran Iraq activist and Nobel Prize nominee Kathy Kelly said often during the Clinton years, "It's easy to be a vegetarian between meals." The fact is that one of the great crimes of our times was committed by the Clinton administration with the support of many of the politicians now attacking Bush.

Herein lies the real political crisis in this country: the Democrats are not an opposition party, nor are they an antiwar party-never were. At best, they are a loyal opposition. The Democrats ran a pro-war campaign in 2004 with Kerry struggling to convince people that Dems do occupation and war better. The current head of the DNC, Howard Dean, never met a war he didn't adore until he realized he could exploit the energy and sincere hopes of millions of peace-loving Americans. Dean wasn't ever antiwar. In fact, during the 2004 campaign he attacked Kerry for opposing the Gulf War while laying out his own pro-war record.

"In 1991, I supported Gulf War. I supported the first President Bush," declared Dean. "Senator Kerry who criticizes my foreign policy, he voted against that war. I supported the Afghanistan war, because I felt it was about our national defense-- 3,000 of our people were killed. I supported President Clinton going into Bosnia and Kosovo."

How can Howard Dean look people in the eye today and pretend to speak with any credibility as an antiwar voice?

When the hawkish Democrat Rep. John Murtha bravely stepped forward to call for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq this week, he was quickly blasted by the White House and simultaneously disowned by powerful Democrats like John Kerry. Occupation lovers together again. The bloody scandal of the Iraq occupation has opened a rare and clear window into the truth about this country: there is one party represented in Washington--one that supports preemptive war and regime change. The reality is that the Democrats could stop this war if the will was there. They could shut down the Senate every day, not just for a few hours one afternoon. They could disrupt business as usual and act as though the truth were true: this war should never have happened and it must end now. The country would be behind them if they did it. But they won't. They will hem and haw and call for more troops and throw out epic lies about the US becoming a stabilizing force in Iraq and blame the Republicans for their own complicity and enthusiasm in the 15 years of bipartisan crimes against Iraq.

All of this begs for a multiparty system in this country and the emergence of a true opposition. The epic scale of the disaster in Iraq calls for epic lessons to be learned at home. Like the Bush White House, the Democrats have lost their credibility. They are undeserving of the blank check of "Anybody But Bush" and should never be allowed to cash it again. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who heads up the House Democrat's election campaign, criticized Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal, saying, "At the right time, we will have a position." It is statements like that that should result in Emanuel and his colleagues losing theirs.

Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. He can be reached at jeremy@democracynow.org.

Translate this page: There's a link on site to translate ICH articles.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Saundra Hummer]

RADIOACTIVE TANK NO. 9 COMES LIMPING HOME

by BOB NICHOLS

Across the plains of Kansas, destroyed, radioactive Abrams tanks, perched on railroad flatcars, rolled towards an uncertain future. Only one thing was certain. They would be radioactive forever. This would be their everlasting death mask. The Pentagon deceptively calls it "depleted uranium."

The Abrams tanks are constructed with a layer of radioactive uranium metal plates. The big tanks fire a giant uranium dart at 2,100 mph, much faster than an F-16 fighter aircraft, mach III to airplane pilots and very, very fast to the rest of us.

American taxpayers paid to ship the tanks to Iraq and to return them for disposal or re-building in the United States. The tanks are 12 feet wide and weigh a stout 70 tons, or 140,000 pounds.

The enduring vigorous stupidity of the U.S. military pretends that radiation is one of those things that if you can't see it, it can't hurt you. They are thoroughly delusional, of course. A National Academy of Sciences report released June 30, 2005, finds that there is no safe level of radiation. Any radiation is bad.

This radioactive tank sitting exposed on a flatbed railroad car in Topeka, Kansas, should have been "encapsulated," according to U.S. Army Regulation 700-48, which has the force of law.

From America to Iraq and back, these giant radioactive hulks can only sicken and kill Americans. On top of the sheer, unrelenting stupidity of playing with radiation with unsuspecting soldiers, now the neo-con government is involving everyday Americans in their radiation madness.

The Pentagon can't even follow simple radiation hazard mitigation instructions. Their own rules and regulations have the force of law throughout the world. Yet they are ignored in the United States.

Dr. Doug Rokke

Dr. Doug Rokke is the Pentagon's former director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project. When contacted on Oct. 22, he viewed Chris Bayruh's photographs and made this statement about the radioactive tanks in Kansas: "The radioactive damaged Abrams tanks that were left unsecured on a Kansas railroad track are a perfect example of exactly how not to ship damaged radioactive equipment and how not to protect our Army's Abrams tanks from possible sabotage and compromise of classified battle systems."

On Oct. 10, prior to the discovery of the radioactive tanks, Dr. Rokke made the following statement. It is eerily predictive of what would happen in Kansas three days later. "U.S. Department of Defense officials continue to deny that there are any adverse health and environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing and/or use of uranium munitions to avoid liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive toxic material - depleted uranium."


This is another of the destroyed radioactive tanks in Topeka, Kansas. Children were playing around the tanks.
Photo: Chris Bayruh (on site)
Dr. Rokke continued, "They [the U.S. military] arrogantly refuse to comply with their own regulations, orders and directives that require United States Department of Defense officials to provide prompt and effective medical care to all exposed individuals." (See Note 1 below.)

"They also refuse to clean up dispersed radioactive contamination of equipment as required by Army regulations." (See Note 2.)

"Specifically, they are required (see Note 3) to accomplish four things:

1) Military personnel must 'identify, segregate, isolate, secure and label all RCE' (radiologically contaminated equipment).

2) 'Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible.'

3) 'Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment' and

4) 'All equipment, to include captured or combat RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded, decontaminated and released.'

"The past and current use of uranium weapons, the release of radioactive components in destroyed U.S. and foreign military equipment, and releases of industrial, medical and research facility radioactive materials have resulted in unacceptable exposures."

Dr. Rokke added, "Therefore, decontamination must be completed as required by U.S. Army Regulation 700-48 and should include releases of all radioactive materials resulting from military operations.

"The extent of adverse health and environmental effects of uranium weapons contamination is not limited to combat zones but includes facilities and sites where uranium weapons were manufactured or tested, including Vieques, Puerto Rico, Colonie, New York, and Jefferson Proving Grounds, Indiana.

"Therefore, medical care must be provided by the United States Department of Defense officials to all individuals affected by the manufacturing, testing and/or use of uranium munitions. Thorough environmental remediation also must be completed without further delay.

"I am amazed," exclaimed Dr. Rokke, "that 14 years after I was asked to clean up the initial DU mess from Gulf War I and almost 10 years since I finished the depleted uranium project, United States Department of Defense officials and many others still attempt to justify uranium munitions use while ignoring mandatory requirements.

"But beyond the ignored mandatory actions, the willful dispersal of tons of solid radioactive and chemically toxic waste in the form of uranium munitions just does not even pass the common sense test.

"Finally, continued compliance with the infamous March 1991 Los Alamos Memorandum (see Note 5) that was issued to ensure continued use of uranium munitions cannot be justified.

"In conclusion," Dr. Rokke urged, "the president of the United States, George W. Bush, and the prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, must acknowledge and accept responsibility for willful use of illegal uranium munitions - their own "dirty bombs" - resulting in adverse health and environmental effects."

"President Bush and Prime Minister Blair also should order:

1) medical care for all casualties,

2) thorough environmental remediation,

3) immediate cessation of retaliation against all of us who demand compliance with medical care and environmental remediation requirements,

4) and ban the future use of depleted uranium munitions," Dr. Rokke concluded.

A little old lady in tennis shoes

Leuren Moret is a world famous scientist and radiation specialist who formerly worked at the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, where she became a whistleblower in 1991. She has spoken out about the danger of uranium munitions to humanity in more than 42 countries.

Moret has appeared in four documentaries about uranium munitions (depleted uranium). "Beyond Treason" debuted in August 2005 and won the Grand Festival Award at the Berkeley Film Festival. The newest film, "Blowin' in the Wind," was nominated during its debut the first week of November in Australia for an Academy Award.

Moret was an expert witness at the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan and serves as an adviser and expert witness in court cases regarding radiation exposure. Her statement, made Oct. 24, about the dead tanks in Kansas follows:

"Sally Devlin, a little old lady in tennis shoes, went to a public meeting several years ago, held by the Air Force in Pahrump, Nevada. Two officers told the citizens of the town that the Air Force would be moving 80 old target practice tanks and tons of old depleted uranium munitions through their town.

"The radioactive bullets had been picked up off the Nellis gunnery ranges by order of the state of Nevada and were being transported to the Nevada Test Site [a nuclear weapons test site] to be buried as radioactive waste.

"When Mrs. Devlin politely asked them how they would prevent the residents of the town from being contaminated by the radioactive dust on the tanks and bullets, the officers said, 'We're wrapping them in Saran Wrap.' She told them that would be unacceptable and stopped the Air Force dead in their tracks," Moret concluded.

Whether it is Saran Wrap in Nevada or nothing at all in Kansas, the Pentagon just doesn't get it when it comes to uranium radiation dispersing weapons. It is way past time to take all their nuclear weapons and uranium munitions away from them and send them home to get real jobs. They are clearly incapable of protecting this country from all dangers, including those created by our own U.S. military.

The U.S. military shows so little regard for Americans in Kansas, one wonders what on earth they have done to Iraq. The U.S. military has distributed an estimated 8 million pounds of weaponized ceramic uranium oxide gas, aerosols and dust on a practically defenseless little country of 26 million people (see Note 6), according to an estimate by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

What is this lethal radioactive weapon supposed to do? Why was it used? Ceramic uranium oxide gas is a genocidal weapon, for God's sake. It persists in the environment forever. In Leuren Moret's pithy words, "The Iraqis are uranium meat."

The politicians, Pentagon staff, generals, commanding officers and others responsible for this war crime must be arrested, tried, convicted and appropriately punished for their crimes against humanity.

There is another explanation

Another explanation is that the U.S. Army and other branches of the military are far from stupid. They are, in fact, the most lethal and carefully planned military in the history of the world. The extensive use of weaponized uranium oxide gas, aerosols and dust is not an accident or an oversight. They did it on purpose.

If this is true, they purposely used a genocidal weapon over at least a 15-year period. No, this is not a callous mistake of empire; it is a calculated act of genocide to weaken the oil- and gas-rich countries of Central Asia, including Iraq. Take your choice: they are either stupid or genocidal monsters.

A British group has estimated the weaponized ceramic uranium oxide will account for an additional 25 million cancers in Iraq in the next several years. There are only 26 million Iraqis to start with, minus the nearly 1.7 million killed by war or sanctions since 1991, plus some live births.

A National Academy of Sciences report released June 30, 2005, finds that there is no safe level of radiation. The committee dismissed the idea that any radiation could be harmless or beneficial.

The radioactive tanks in Kansas and Iraq are the same. They are placed there at great expense by the senior American political and military leadership, with premeditated malice. The bottom line purpose of a 140,000-pound radioactive tank is to kill people.

Uranium munitions a war crime

Dennis Kyne, noted speaker and writer, is a former drill instructor (DI) and a 15-year veteran of the Army as well as a Gulf War vet (see www.denniskyne.com). Kyne makes a point of how "hot" or radioactive the tanks in Kansas would be if they were hit by "friendly fire" to get beat up so much. They could be contaminated with as much as 30,000 times background radiation. That is what uranium munitions do to a tank, bunker or building.

Karen Parker, a prominent U.S. international human rights lawyer, says there are four rules derived from humanitarian laws and conventions regarding weapons:

1. Weapons may only be used against legal enemy military targets and must not have an adverse effect elsewhere (the territorial rule).

2. Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict and must not be used or continue to act afterwards (the temporal rule).

3. Weapons may not be unduly inhumane (the "humaneness" rule). The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 speak of "unnecessary suffering" and "superfluous injury" in this regard

4. Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment (the "environmental" rule).

"DU weaponry fails all four tests," Parker states. "First, DU cannot be limited to legal military targets. Second, it cannot be 'turned off' when the war is over but keeps killing.

"Third, DU can kill through painful conditions such as cancers and organ damage and can also cause birth defects, such as facial deformities and missing limbs. Lastly, DU cannot be used without unduly damaging the natural environment.

"In my view, use of DU weaponry violates the grave breach provisions of the Geneva Conventions," Parker concluded, "and so its use constitutes a war crime, or crime against humanity."

Notes

1. "Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Casualties," DOD, Pentagon, 10/14/93, "Medical Management of Army Personnel Exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU)," Headquarters, U.S. Army Medical Command, 4/29/04, and section 2-5 of AR 700-48 .

2. AR 700- 48: "Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities," Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., September 2002, and U.S. Army Technical Bulletin TB 9-1300-278: "Guidelines For Safe Response To Handling, Storage, and Transportation Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions or Armor Which Contain Depleted Uranium," Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., July 1996, http://traprockpeace.org/du_pam_700-48.pdf.

3. Section 2-4 of United States Army Regulation 700-48 dated Sept. 16, 2002, specifies these requirements.

4. IAW Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, DA PAM 700-48. Maximum exposure limits are specified in Appendix F.

5. http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/du/doc1.html

6. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark's estimate, http://www.covertactionquarterly.org/demonize.html

© Copyright Bob Nichols. Copying permitted

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Saundra Hummer]

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN OR FOX

The Unauthorized Biography of Dick Cheney
Broadcast C-B-C- TV - 10/06/04

"In Dick Cheney's World, what he says is frequently more fiction than fact"

This is the story of Dick Cheney's vision of America.


Follow Cheney's Career

ASCENT TO POWER -THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE - HALLIBURTON YEARS - MR. VICE-PRESIDENT

This is an online video and audio story, outlining Dick Cheney's life and his political beginings, etc.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1018.htm

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==

....."The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other." (Bertrand Russell: Freedom, Harcourt Brace, 1940)

=

....."In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful." Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy : Russian author, 1828-1910

=

....."Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it." Hebbel : German poet and dramatist, 1813-1863

=

....."The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements. I had no idea until then that you could not rely on
[them]" James W. Fulbright - US senator who initiated the international exchange program for scholars, 1905-1995

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PROTESTERS CALL AGAIN FOR CLOSING OF SCHOOL OF AMERICAS
By Elliott Minor
The Associated Press

Friday 18 November 2005

Columbus, Ga. - Carlos Mauricio, a torture survivor from El Salvador, will be among the thousands who gather at Fort Benning's main gate this weekend to call for the closing of a military school they blame for human rights abuses in Latin America.

"I was blindfolded. I was badly, badly beaten," he said. "I was tortured for nine days. I was forced to listen to the screaming of all the people being given electroshock and women being raped."

Mauricio, a high school science teacher, traveled by minivan from his home in San Francisco to join the annual protest organized by School of the Americas Watch, a group that has waged a 15-year campaign to close Fort Benning's School of the Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

The demonstrations are held each November to mark the Nov. 16, 1989, slayings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter in El Salvador. A congressional task force found that some of the soldiers responsible for the massacre had been trained at the School of Americas, which moved to Fort Benning from Panama in 1984.

Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest, founded the group in 1990 in an attempt to come to grips with the violence he had witnessed as a Naval officer in Vietnam and especially as a priest working with the poor in Bolivia in the 1980s.

"What I and others hope to accomplish is that our efforts will somehow help relieve the suffering of other people," Bourgeois said. "We're here trying to love and support people of other countries who are victims of the training at this school we're trying to shut down and our country's foreign policy."

With polls showing waning support for the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and reports of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bourgeois said the growing anti-war sentiment and outrage over the abuses may boost the crowd beyond the 16,000 who attended last year.

"Torture is a hot issue now," he said. "It has been a common part of our foreign policy. When I was in Vietnam, it was common knowledge that torture was used. When I was in Bolivia ... a lot of political prisoners that I and others visited in these prisons were being tortured. This was coming from ... the Bolivian military that we supported and that dictatorship."

Citing the so-called torture manuals discovered in the 1990s, Bourgeois said torture was part of the School of Americas' curriculum. US military officials, however, deny that the books were ever an official part of the training or that the school ever advocated human rights abuses.

"There is not one example of any person taking a course at the school ... who later used that information to commit crimes," said Lee Rials, a spokesman for the institute.

The activities begin on Friday, with classes and discussions, and they continue Saturday and Sunday with speeches at Fort Benning's main gate. On Sunday, members of SOA Watch smear themselves with fake blood and carry coffins and crosses as they march in a solemn funeral procession to honor alleged victims of SOA graduates.

Despite two tall fences, one topped with coils of razor wire, 15 protesters were arrested last year for trespassing on government property. Eleven were sentenced to 3 or 4 month prison terms, three received lesser sentences and one had the charges dropped.

A third fence was being erected Thursday, according to SOA Watch.

Residents of Columbus, a west Georgia city of about 186,000, are strong supporters of the military. Many are military retirees or civilian workers at Fort Benning.

They'll show their support for the Army on Saturday at a God Bless Fort Benning celebration that attracted 13,000 to 14,000 last year. It'll feature entertainers, helicopter rides and many other attractions.

"It's a thank you for the soldiers and their families," said Eve Tidwell, who kicked off the event four years ago with her husband, Jack, a retired Army doctor. "We're not against anybody saying what they say, but we are for our side."

SOA Watch has carried its campaign to close the school to Latin America and to the halls of Congress.

A bill introduced this year by US Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., calls for the closing of the school, an evaluation of the training and an investigation to determine who created the torture manuals, how the manuals were used and how they might have influenced students.

Bolstered by Venezula's decision this year to withdraw its soldiers from the school, following a meeting between representatives of SOA Watch and the Venezulan government, the group plans to appeal to other South American leaders next year, Bourgeois said.

Mauricio, the El Salvadorian torture survivor, said he still suffers from bouts of depression and has flashbacks when he sees someone wearing a blindfold. He was kept blindfolded for nine days after being kidnapped from his university classroom.

"My message is going to be that people must realize clearly that torture is forbidden," he said. "The Salvadorian soldiers trained at the School of the Americas are still responsible for many abuses in Latin America. Therefore, I believe the school should be closed."

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Saundra Hummer]

In looking at the USGS Earthquake List, I noticed that South Carolina had one today, the magnitude of which hasn't been reported yet, and while on that page I looked up S.C.'s history of earthquakes and came across this article written in 1886 by a fellow in San Francisco about the South Carolina Earthquake and how the city of Charleston recovered gloriouisly, stating how they in San Francisco, had just lived through one as well, he saying the main damage there was from fires, (which a general had started with dynamite, blowing up standing buildings as he believed they were too damaged to be left standing, etc. Heard and have read this tid bit earlier) Anyway, thought this might interest you. The cost estimates are amazing. They did increase from first reports, but still....

http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906.2/charleston.html

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. . . .
. . . . "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters" Noah Webster

=

. .. .. "The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution." Justice Louis D. Brandeis

=
. .. .. "A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security." John Adams

=

. .. .. "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -* kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour -* with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it." General Douglas MacArthur

=
. .. .. "Whenever a people... entrust the defence of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens." A Framer

=
To read this newsletter online http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ or http://snipurl.com/ayzc

[Saundra Hummer]

AL-ZARQAWI MAY BE AMONG DEAD IN IRAQ FIGHT
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
13 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight — some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

Insurgents, meanwhile, killed an American soldier and a Marine in separate attacks over the weekend, while a British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the south.

In Washington, a U.S. official said the identities of the terror suspects killed in the Saturday raid was unknown. Asked if they could include al-Zarqawi, the official replied: "There are efforts under way to determine if he was killed."

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

On Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaida operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house in the northeastern part of the city.

During the intense gunbattle that followed, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were wounded, the U.S. military said. Such intense resistance often suggests an attempt to defend a high-value target.

American soldiers controlled the site Sunday, and residents said helicopters flew over the area throughout the day. Some residents said the tight security was reminiscent of the July 2003 operation in which Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, were killed in Mosul.

The elusive al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer.

In May, the group said he was wounded in fighting and was taken out of the country for treatment. Within days, it reported he had returned — though there was never any independent confirmation that he was wounded.

The U.S. soldier killed Sunday near the capital was assigned to the Army's Task Force Baghdad and was hit by small arms fire, the military said. The Marine, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, died of wounds suffered the day before in Karmah, a village outside Fallujah to the west of the capital.

In the southern city of Basra, a roadside bomb killed a British soldier and wounded four others, the British Ministry of Defense said. The ministry said 98 British soldiers have died in the Iraq conflict.

The U.S. military also said Sunday that 24 people — including another Marine and 15 civilians — were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint U.S. Iraqi patrol in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.

According to the U.S. statement, the attack began Saturday with a roadside bomb detonating next to the Marine's vehicle, followed by a heavy volley of fire from insurgents.

"Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another," the statement said.

The three American deaths brought to at least 2,093 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Meanwhile, four women were killed Sunday night when gunmen stormed their home in a Christian district of eastern Baghdad, police said, adding that valuables were stolen and the motive for the attack appeared to have been robbery.

The latest deaths occurred at the end of a violent three-day period in which at least 140 Iraqi civilians died in a series of bombings and suicide attacks — most targeting Shiite Muslims.

The victims included 76 people who died Friday in near-simultaneous suicide bombings at two Shiite mosques in Khanaqin and 36 more killed the next day by a suicide car bomber who detonated his vehicle amid mourners at a Shiite funeral north of the capital.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that commanders' assessments will determine the pace of any military drawdown. About 160,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq as the country approaches parliamentary elections Dec. 15.

The Pentagon has said it plans to scale back troop strength to its pre-election baseline of 138,000, depending on conditions. Rumsfeld said the U.S.-led coalition continues to make progress in training Iraqi security forces, which he placed at 212,000.

Rumsfeld also said talk in the United States of a quick withdrawal from Iraq plays into the hands of the insurgents.

"The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder maybe all we have to do is wait and we'll win. We can't win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States," he told "Fox News Sunday."

In Cairo, Egypt, Iraq's president said Sunday he was ready for talks with anti-government opposition figures and members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party, and he called on the Sunni-led insurgency to lay down its arms and join the political process.

But President Jalal Talabani, attending an Arab League-sponsored reconciliation conference, insisted that the Iraqi government would not meet with Baath Party members who are participating in the Sunni-led insurgency and attacking Iraqi and U.S.-led forces in the country.

"I am the president of Iraq and I am responsible for all Iraqis. If those who describe themselves as Iraqi resistance want to contact me, they are welcome," Talabani told reporters. "I want to listen to all Iraqis. I am committed to listen to them, even those who are criminals and are on trial."

Talabani made clear in his remarks, however, that he would talk with insurgents and "criminals" only if they put down their weapons.

In Baghdad, hundreds of Sunnis demanded an end to the torture of detainees and called for the international community to pressure Iraqi and U.S. authorities to ensure that such abuse does not occur.

Anger over detainee abuse has increased sharply since U.S. troops found 173 detainees at an Interior Ministry prison in Baghdad's Jadriyah neighborhood. The detainees, mainly Sunnis, were found malnourished and some had torture marks on their bodies. Sunni Arabs dominate the insurgent ranks.

The 400 protesters carried posters of tortured detainees, disfigured dead bodies and U.S. troops detaining Iraqis as they marched for a few hundred meters (yards) through western Baghdad.

Iraq's Shiite-led government has promised an investigation and punishment for anyone guilty of torture. Attacks against Shiite civilians by Sunni religious extremists have occurred throughout the Iraq conflict but spiked since the detainees were found last weekend.

___

Associated Press reporters Katherine Shrader in Washington, Sinbad Ahmed in Mosul and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

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EX-CELLMATE SAYS al ZARQAWI WAS TORTURED

By TANALEE SMITH, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 23 minutes ago

AMMAN, Jordan - A man once imprisoned with Iraq's most feared terror leader said Sunday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was tortured regularly by Jordanian prison officials in the late 1990s and was held six months in solitary confinement.

Offering possible partial clues as to why the Jordanian-born al-Qaida leader chose Amman for triple hotel bombings earlier this month, the former cellmate, Yousef Rababaa, said: "He hated the intelligence services intensely, and the authorities didn't know how to deal with his new ideology."

Al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, has claimed responsibility for the Nov. 9 suicide attacks in the Jordanian capital that killed 60 people, mostly Muslims.

Reacting with outrage to al-Zarqawi's latest threat — to kill Jordan's king — members of his own family, including a brother and cousin, disavowed him publicly on Sunday.

A U.S. official, meanwhile, said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if al-Zarqawi was among eight suspected al-Qaida members killed the day before in a gunfight in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Three of the insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said.

Rababaa, who spent three years in jail with al-Zarqawi until both were freed under a royal amnesty in 1999, recalled his cellmate's inflexible, radical Islamic ideology.

"He divided the world between Muslim and infidels," Rababaa said, adding that al-Zarqawi was quiet at the time and did not show a violent nature.

"I didn't see that side of him, although he had very strong opinions. I am very surprised at where he is today," said Rababaa, suggesting that maybe someone helps al-Zarqawi plan his terror operations.

"He had very little education, only medium intelligence. But he was very brave," Rababaa said.

He did not specify how he knew al-Zarqawi had been tortured or offer any specific evidence to back the claim.

Jordanian officials were not immediately available for comment but have strongly refuted several other recent claims of torture by other Islamic militants on trial in Jordan's military courts. In its latest worldwide human rights report, the U.S. government also cited what it called "allegations of torture" in Jordan's prisons.

Jordanians, including some who had supported the insurgency against American "occupiers" in Iraq, turned fiercely against the 39-year-old terror leader after the Amman suicide attacks.

Even al-Zarqawi's tribe rejected him, announcing in a statement published in major newspapers on Sunday that they would "sever links with him until doomsday."

"A Jordanian doesn't stab himself with his own spear," the 57 family members wrote.

The statement was a blow to al-Zarqawi, who will no longer enjoy the protection of his tribe and whose family members may seek to kill him.

Al-Khalayleh is a branch of the Bani Hassan, one of the area's largest and most prominent Bedouin tribes, which along with several other tribes form the bedrock of support for the royal family's Hashemite dynasty. Relatives hold senior posts in the army and other government departments.

Al-Zarqawi, who took his name from the city of Zarqa, 17 miles northeast of Amman, often boasted of his family's influence was he was jailed in his native Jordan, Rababaa said.

Rababaa said he debated regularly with al-Zarqawi in prison. Rababaa led a group that advocated purging Muslim lands of foreign occupiers and setting up Islamic states. Al-Zarqawi's group was more fanatical, believing that Islam was worth killing for.

"His way of thinking, in general, is restricted, and he understands Islam with restrictions," Rababaa said. "We had vastly different ideologies."

Rababaa, 36, was serving a life sentence for plotting terrorism against Israeli targets in Jordan when he met al-Zarqawi, who was doing jail time for militant activities aimed at toppling the monarchy.

Rababaa, who has renounced violence, but still advocates an Islamic state, is now a professor of Arabic language at the University of Jordan.

Rababaa said he believes al-Zarqawi will follow through on his threats — made in an audiotape released Friday — to continue attacks on Jordan.

"The problem with this group is that it wants to target any location. It's very hard to control him when he's declared all of Jordan a battlefield."

But he dismissed al-Zarqawi's threat to kill Jordan's King Abdullah II.

"It's words without deeds," he said. "He doesn't seek to topple regimes altogether, but to basically create trouble for the existing regime."

Jordan sentenced al-Zarqawi to death in absentia for planning a terror plot that led to the 2002 killing of U.S. aid worker Laurence Foley. He has claimed responsibility for several other plots in Jordan, including a foiled April 2004 chemical attack.

He also leads a campaign of bombings and kidnappings in Iraq, and the United States has offered $25 million for information leading to his capture.

http://news.yahoo.com

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STRAW MAN RESOLUTION IN CONGRESS: JOKING AROUND WITH THE LIVES OF THE TROOPS

By Juan Cole
Saturday 19 November 2005

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That:

Section 1. The deployment of United States Forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region.

Section 3. The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.
By the way, Murtha's plan resembles in some ways the one I myself had put forward last last August. I am pleased to see that someone with substantial military experience is thinking along similar lines. Murtha called for an end to US military "action" in Iraq, as in, presumably, the counter-productive destruction of cities such as Fallujah, Tal Afar and Husaybah.

Note that Murtha calls for a withdrawal ("redeployment") of US ground troops from Iraq at the earliest date that would be practical. That is, he is not saying that you could get them out tomorrow. "Practicality" would involve considerations such as not having Iraq collapse altogether.

This is what I had said:

1) US ground troops should be withdrawn ASAP from urban areas as a first step. Iraqi police will just have to do the policing . . .


2) In the second phase of withdrawal, most US ground troops would steadily be brought out of Iraq.'
Note further that Murtha foresees a US quick-reaction force being left in theater. You could imagine it being based in two places: Kurdistan in the north and Kuwait in the south. I have argued for a similar force, which could intervene if set-piece battles broke out and Iraq looked as though it was falling into large-scale civil war. (Indeed, this is just the sort of light, mobile special ops force that SecDef Donald Rumsfeld says is the future of the US military).

I had suggested,

3) For as long as the elected Iraqi government wanted it, the US would offer the new Iraqi military and security forces close air support in any firefight they have with guerrilla or other rebellious forces . . .
4) With the agreement of the elected Iraqi government, the US would prevent any guerrilla force from fielding any large number of fighters for set piece battles.'
Murtha is not giving up on Iraq, just urging diplomacy rather than white phosphorus and prison torture as the way forward.

I had written,

The US should demand as a quid pro quo for further help that the Iraqi government announce an amnesty for all former Baath Party members who cannot be proven to have committed serious crimes, including crimes against humanity . . . The US should join the regular meetings of the foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors, with Condi Rice in attendance, along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, employing a 6 + 2 diplomatic track to help put Iraq back on its feet through diplomacy and multilateral aid.
Murtha was viciously attacked for his judicious resolution, and this courageous and honorable man was smeared as some sort of coward by persons who wouldn't know an M-16 from a 5 iron.

Ironically enough, General Casey was at the same time giving Rumsfeld a plan for US troop withdrawal! Its terms?

The plan, which would withdraw a limited amount of troops during 2006, requires that a host of milestones be reached before troops are withdrawn. Top Pentagon officials have repeatedly discussed some of those milestones: Iraqi troops must demonstrate that they can handle security without U.S. help; the country's political process must be strong; and reconstruction and economic conditions must show signs of stability.
In other words, the troops would be withdrawn as soon as practicable, and practicality is spelled out in these ways.

All Murtha is saying is that Casey's plan should be speeded up, and that dependence on a big infantry force on the ground should be replaced by quick reaction forces based nearby. The argument, in short, is not about the preconditions for withdrawal but about its exact shape and rate.

Republicans in Congress responded to Murtha's considered plan by introducing a phony resolution the bore little resemblance to Murtha's, and then helping defeat it overwhelmingly. The intent was apparently to force the Democrats either to look as though they were in favor of "cutting and running" or to vote against immediately withdrawing US troops and so associating themselves with Bush's 'stay the course' policy. The Republican straw man resolution was:

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.
Resolved, that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

Well, this stupid resolution is not what Murtha was saying, and the vote on it is meaningless. It is worse than meaningless. It is political clowning.

Indeed, given the GIs being blown up on a daily basis, the Republican phony resolution was the equivalent of trying to do a stand-up comedy routine at the funeral of someone's beloved son who had died at age 20.

I don't think the American people will find it amusing. We'll see in 2006 whether they did.

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http://www.truthout.org

Check out this site for more interesting articles, photo's and cartoons. This site is always on top of things, and if you would like to reference an event, check Truthout's archives, and editorials, op eds, etc.

[Saundra Hummer]

. . . Tom MacLean: Fighting For Justice For 50 Years

Thursday, December 9th 2004

Clayton Salem, West County News (MA)

On meeting Tom MacLean at the Ashfield house he shares with Mary Link and William Spademan, one is struck by the physical contradictions – on the one hand he shows his formidable 79 years through a craggy face and wild white hair, and on the other his carriage suggests the liveliness of a much younger man. Though hale and hearty, his age and health contributed to his recent release on his own recognizance from Muscogee County Jail in Georgia.

The story of how he came to be incarcerated, and why he refused to post bail, is both long and short. It is the story of a boy from a small town in Kentucky, it is the story of a deliberate life change, and it is the story of outrage at the School of the Americas (in his view a terrorist training camp) at the Fort Benning Army base in Georgia, and all that represents. It is a story that he may find himself telling in his quiet voice over the next few weeks as he awaits his trial in late January where he will be charged with trespassing on the base during a November protest.

The School of the Americas was founded in 1946 in Panama to teach Latin American soldiers US military tactics. In 1984 it was moved from Panama to the army base at Fort Benning. Its critics have christened it the School of Assassins for what they call the assassins, dictators, drug dealers and henchmen that the facility has produced. They charge that it produces soldiers who protect the interests of the American corporate elite through violent coups and repressive tactics. Some of its most infamous graduates are Panamanian strong-man Manuel Noriega and Roberto D’Aubisson, architect of the El Salvadorian death camps. Under pressure from human rights groups including Amnesty International, who cited references in the school’s manuals to executions, tortures, and other abuses, the US House passed a bill to change the school. It is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHISEC, though the critics still refer to it as the School of the Americas or SOA/WHISEC. Most agree that the change in name was merely cosmetic, and the basic pedagogy of the school remains the same: violence equals power.

For 14 years protesters have converged on Fort Benning, and in what has become a yearly ritual, a small group of them scales the fence to stage non-violent civil disobedience. Late last month the main protest group was 16,00 strong, and among the 15 protesters who decided to cross the fence was Mr. MacLean.

For Mr. MacLean this was the culmination of a lifetime of work towards a more equitable society and against an economic system used to justify violent intervention. The seeds for this dissent were planted when he was a child growing up in a small town with his grandparents in Kentucky. It was an idyllic community where a sense of safety and solidarity was fostered. It wasn’t until he left that community that he realized he had grown up in a somewhat naïve environment – there wasn’t the same kind of support and sharing in the rest of America.

Ironically, Mt. MacLean was briefly stationed at Fort Benning when he served in the Army in WWII. However, during the protest he didn’t recognize the base. “It wasn’t a homecoming for me”, he said. After the war he went into chemical engineering and eventually worked for Boeing on the west coast. In the late 50”s and into the 60’s he became involved in social action movements and political organizations, including school integration in Virginia, the World Without War Council and Mother Earth Magazine. While most of the dissent in the late 1960’s was focused on the war in Vietnam, Mr. MacLean had a broader focus, with more specific means.

“I was aware of the Vietnam War, but not deeply immersed in it”, he said. Instead, he came to “intentional community”.

“I had a vision of what was not working for myself as well as other people – what was in the way of transformation. (Intentional community) is one answer to a society rapidly becoming fragmented and stressed, due in part to the scale and pace”, he explained.

Intentional Community

In the early 70’s Mr. MacLean stopped paying taxes to the government, or what he calls “war taxes”. Instead he filed “frivolous returns”, on which he would explain his reasons for refusing to pay. There is a $500 fine for each frivolous tax return. It was around this time that he also began changing his means of living from engineer to householder. He learned skills such as carpentry, electrical work, and plumbing. He regrets not learning gardening earlier, but has been learning recently.

In 1976, Mr. MacLean participated in the War Resisters League’s Continental Walk, which started on the west coast and wound its way across the country. This is what brought him to the east coast and constituted a major break with his wife and children. It is hard to overemphasize the sea-change that occurred for him at this time; he went from the head of a family working in industry to an individual within an anti-war community fighting for economic justice, without a house or any major possessions. In this change is implicit his idea of personal responsibility.

In his essay, “Some Thoughts on Economic Disarmament and Personal Disarmament” Mr. MacLean writes, “the reality is that (the collusion between government policy and the corporate world) acts through us individuals, be we corporate executive, government official, of the ‘complicit’ middle class or of the poor and destitute. It is an arena that enfolds us all.” It is this complicity of anyone that pursues economic advantage over the common good that has guided Mr. MacLean’s separation from his previous life, and what leads him to protest institution such as the SOA/WHISEC that serve the needs of a society that is what he calls an “economic predator”.

Perhaps similar motivation inspires the thousands to bus down to Georgia for the annual protest. This fall the events began early on Sunday with speeches from some celebrities and musical performances. This was then followed by a funeral march that circled Fort Benning and continued into the street. Protesters carried coffins and crosses with the names of individuals killed in South America in some of the conflicts and coups staged by graduates of the school. There were thousands of names.

Mr. MacLean had decided that morning that he would cross the fence in order to be arrested. He moved to the front of the parade among the coffins and when the time came he squeezed through the fence where he was promptly arrested by the military police.

This year, there were about 15 protesters arrested and charged for trespassing. Although Mr. MacLean was the oldest arrestee, he was not the only septuagenerian. The people who crossed ranged from ages 16 to 79, though the teenagers were not charged with any crime. The arrestees will face trial at the end of January.

There is another contradiction that becomes apparent after speaking to Mr. MacLean. His world view might be alarming to the average Joe: “Do we suffer a virus of the spirit?”, he asks. “We’re engaged in economic terrorism”, he says, and “[our economic culture’s] corruptness is unmistakable, its vulgarization of society unquestionable.” And yet there is something inspiring and comforting about this man who has been fighting for so long and so hard.

Mr. MacLean is a part of an unwritten history; he is a grandfather of justice and mercy.

http://soaw.org/new/newswire_detail.php?id=637

[A covertly run operation, but it is well known, and so it seems that we have known all along what we are doing to those we believe are against us. No wonder Bush was protested against in South America, they have felt what it is we've taught, and now GW and Cheney are advocating torture as public policy. It would run rampant if we allow his and Cheney's torture policies to be adopted. Stop the Patriot Act as well as this so called "School of the Americas", so things like this aren't given the go ahead as something we all expect and condone. Just because we are dealing with degenerates and despots, doesn't mean we have to be like them. SRH...]

[Saundra Hummer]

[B][/BISLANDERS PRAY TO JESUS :angel IMAGE ON PLANT POT

Mon Nov 21,10:36 AM ET

COZUMEL, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexicans have set up a shrine at a plant pot on the grounds of a beach resort on the Caribbean island of Cozumel after an image said to depict Jesus appeared on it following Hurricane Wilma a month ago,

A receptionist at the Occidental Grand resort noticed the image likened to Jesus' face as shaken guests emerged from a storm shelter after huddling for three days while the hurricane hurled rain and debris.

Local media are calling it a miracle and draw a link between the apparition and the fact that none of the 200 guests had suffered so much as a bruise during the storm, which tore up other beach resorts on Cozumel, bit holes in concrete buildings, ripped up sections of highway and flattened trees.

The image stands out clearly as a Jesus-like face on the side of the enameled terra cotta planter -- whose plants also survived the storm despite being outside for its duration.

"The first person who saw it was a receptionist. Then the guests started coming to see it and before long people were praying and lighting candles," said a security guard near the pot, which is roped off with a crimson cord strung between brass poles and has a simple candle burning in front of it,

"A lot of people wept when they saw it. There was a lot of emotion because it appeared after everyone spent three days together in the storm shelter," said the guard, declining to give his name.

The Occidental Grand, now closed to the public for minor repairs, was the only hotel on Cozumel not to evacuate its guests to the mainland before the hurricane, as it has a sturdy shelter which the security guard said was stocked with three months worth of food and water for 300 people.

http://news.yahoo.com

[Saundra Hummer]

GAS BOYCOTT WOULD HURT SMALL BUSINESSES

MONDAY NOV 21, 2005

]I'm troubled that the letter "Boycott oil companies" so blithely urges people to withhold business from local gas stations to punish the oil industry.

My family and I own a small truck stop, placing us firmly at the end of the oil food chain. The effects of such a boycott would not be felt for some time - or ever - by ExxonMobil or any major fuel brand.


Instead, the decline in sales would make it difficult for me to pay the mortgage, fuel deliveries and vendors. My employees would have financial problems as I wouldn't be able to pay or employ them. Governments would lose out on taxes.

When you boycott a local gas station, you might well instead be "sending a message" to your neighbor, who is trying to make a living in a volatile market. When fuel costs are high, margins sink.

Since charges of "price gouging" started, it seems consumers have been happy to point an accusing finger at retailers. I support taking action, but relying on such reports as a sole source of information is shortsighted. Why not talk to your local business owners and politicians? Making a difference takes time and involvement.

Kathryn Cluff,
http://news.yahoo.com

[Saundra Hummer]

IMAGINATIVE TOYS

The Toy Hall of Fame recently inducted the cardboard box to its esteemed roster of toys. We want to simultaneously shout "hooray!" and ask "what took you so long?" ("Cardboard box added to Toy Hall of Fame," USATODAY.com).

Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." There's a universe of imagination in a cardboard box. No embedded voices, no prepackaged back story, no lights and no sounds that annoy. Except those the child creates and brings to the box.

Good toys connect with kids. The best toys can be played with in many ways; they challenge children to do, think or feel. Good toys connect with a child's mind as well as a child's heart; they make sense within a child's world. They are fun and therefore filled with possibility.

And while there are plenty of toys, games and puzzles that spark imaginations, the modest cardboard box has a lot to brag about.

Claire S. Green, president, Parents' Choice Foundation, Timonium, Md.

[Saundra Hummer]

I'D HAVE US IN A 'DIFFERENT PLACE
SENATOR KERRY SPEAKS ON PREWAR INTELLIGENCE, TIMETABLES, ELECTION PLANS
Thursday, November 17, 2005; Posted: 7:15 p.m. EST (00:15 GMT)

Sen. John Kerry: "There are a lot of things we can do to do better."

•
(CNN) -- A top House Democrat called for a swift U.S. withdrawal from Iraq on Thursday amid a White House counteroffensive against allegations that the Bush administration misled the country over prewar intelligence.

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer spoke with Sen. John Kerry -- the Massachusetts Democrat who lost to President Bush in last year's election -- beginning by asking about the president recently quoting Kerry's prewar comments on Saddam Hussein.

"I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security," the president quoted Kerry saying, in part.

BLITZER: You firmly believed that, going into the war -- that's why you voted for that resolution?

KERRY: Providing he had those weapons, and providing -- which the president didn't quote, as he distorted again to America our position and the truth -- providing that he did the other things, which are: a follow-through on the inspections; not go unilaterally; build a legitimate coalition; plan carefully and go as a last resort. All of which the president said he would do; none of which he did do.

The record is now clear. So I said in that very same speech, which the president did not quote, that if you proceeded too rapidly, if you didn't do the things I just described, you could make a volatile region more dangerous, you could attract more terrorists and you would make America less secure, not more.

The president needs to stop being selective, and he needs to start to level with the American people. That speech on Friday, on Veterans Day -- a sacred day for veterans, which was a political-attack day for the president -- was not an honest speech.

BLITZER: But going into the war, based on the intelligence that you received, you had no doubt that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction?

KERRY: I believed that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles, and I believed Saddam Hussein wanted to get more weapons. But I also believed that, as did many of my colleagues, that the intelligent way to try to deal with that was to do the inspections.

I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which I suggested that you needed to go do them. Now, ... Vice President Cheney opposed those inspections. And the very cabal -- that the former chief of staff to Secretary [Colin] Powell talked about taking over the policy -- didn't want to even do the inspections. They wanted to rush to this confrontation and to war.

Even two days before, three days before the president decided to pull the trigger and launch the war, there were offers by [U.N.] Security Council members for further diplomatic efforts to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. And I said at that very time I believed those should have been pursued, and it was disappointing they weren't.

BLITZER: According to the Congressional Record on October 9, 2002, you said, "Saddam Hussein wants to retain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. ... These weapons represent an unacceptable threat."

You went on to say, "There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons.... "

On the intelligence that you saw, you came to those conclusions; on the intelligence the president saw, which he says is the same intelligence that you saw, he came to the conclusion that WMD existed.

KERRY: First of all, we did not see the same intelligence. Once again, the administration is not telling the truth. ... There were things that were not in the National Intelligence Estimate that the president put out that were not accurate. ...

Let me be very specific. When the president stood up in front of America and said that Saddam Hussein was trying to get nuclear weapons and nuclear fissionable material from Africa, that was not accurate. And the White House had been told three times in writing, three times verbally by the CIA not to use that intelligence. They did anyway.

They told America that Saddam Hussein could deliver these weapons in ... under an hour. That meant something to me. What he did not say was that the National Intelligence Agency -- or the CIA, I forgot [which] of those -- disagreed with that. That they didn't believe that. ...

Vice President Cheney stood up and said that Iraq had, in fact, had meetings, that there were meetings between Iraq and the hijackers of the 9/11 aircraft. That was [later] denied by the 9/11 commission. That never took place, and there [were] people who doubted that at the time. We weren't told that. We weren't told about these other doubts. ...

I went to Pentagon briefings, I went to the Mideast, I went to Great Britain and met with the defense and foreign secretary of Great Britain.

BLITZER: They believed he had weapons of mass destruction?

KERRY: So did we. Wolf, that's not the misleading. We believed that he had some weapons left over and that he wanted to get the nuclear weapons. What we were given was a picture that drew an immediacy of threat that was well beyond containing some of those weapons and trying, ultimately, to build a nuclear facility.

Beyond that, what I voted for I made very clear on the floor of the Senate. Every word of it was laid out in my statement.

BLITZER: Let me ask you if you agree with your former running mate, John Edwards, who wrote in The Washington Post the following ... : "I was wrong. It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002." ...

KERRY: I said that before Senator Edwards wrote that. ... I would not have voted for that resolution given what we know today. We wouldn't have even had a vote, given what we know today. ...

The reason that vote took place in the United States Senate and Congress in because they built up the immediacy of the threat.

And what many of us felt we were giving the president was the authority to use force as a last resort if -- if -- he had fulfilled his promises, gone as a last resort, built up a true coalition, done the inspections to the greatest degree possible. ...

BLITZER: You regret voting for that resolution?

The president of the United States leaves members of the United States Senate not able to believe what he says.
-- Sen. John KerryKERRY: I think anybody worth their salt ought to see the mistakes and incompetence of this administration. How could you possibly say you're going to vote that you'll have this incompetent administration go out and be incompetent again? Of course I wouldn't do that. But we didn't know that at the time.

BLITZER: There were some senators -- like Sen. [Carl] Levin, Sen. [Bob] Graham -- who didn't vote for the resolution, who thought it was a mistake. And clearly, from your perspective, with hindsight, they were right.

KERRY: They were prescient. And they saw things that others of us who took the president at his value and his word and shouldn't have. I mean, my regret is also that I believed the president. And I'm sorry, but the president of the United States leaves members of the United States Senate not able to believe what he says.

BLITZER: Was the president the victim of the same kind of intelligence you were the victim of? Or was there something more sinister there? Because, as you know, in that Bob Woodward book, he has a conversation he describes between him and the then-director of the CIA, George Tenet.

And the president seems to be wavering a little bit. And the president kind of [says], according to Woodward's book, "Are you sure about this?" And Tenet says, "It's a slam dunk." ...

KERRY: I can't tell you because we haven't had a full investigation, as promised over a year and a half ago for the Intelligence Committee, which is why we Democrats had to shut the Senate activities down and go into secret session -- to force people to do what they said they were going to do. ...The answer to that question lies in that investigation. I'll tell you what I believe. The president of the United States went before the Congress and used information that the White House had been told three times, verbally and in writing, did not happen. The president and vice president both, in their speeches, linked Saddam Hussein and Iraq to terrorism and to the war on terror, and put it into the whole basket of 9/11.

How else does 70 percent of America come to the belief that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11? It was the rhetoric of this administration.

BLITZER: ... The theme that's coming from the [Bush administration]: ... Your criticism is, A, undermining the troops ... , and, B, emboldening and encouraging the insurgency.

KERRY: That is exactly the kind of disgraceful fear tactic, scare tactic, exploitation that this administration continually delved into in pursuit of this war. They did it all through the election last year. They tried to scare America and did, in many cases. And they're still doing it.

And I'm not going to listen to this vice president of the United States tell me that, when they send troops without armor, when they send troops in inadequate numbers, when they send troops without the support structure that they need to be able to conduct a mission, ... when they make the misjudgment that those troops are going to be welcomed as liberators with flowers strewn at their feet in parade, when they make the misjudgment not even to block and secure ammo dumps -- the ammo which is now being used against our troops -- when they make the misjudgment about disbanding the military and the civilian structure of Iraq.

And they turn around and say to us -- who all the time were saying, "Don't do those things" -- that we're somehow putting the troops in jeopardy, I'm going to stand up and fight.

Those troops deserve leadership that's equal to their sacrifice, and I think this administration has lost lives of good troops at greater risk than they needed to be because they didn't do the things necessary to support the troops. I'm fighting for the troops. I'm fighting for the people that are on those front lines.

I've been over to Iraq; I met with them. They deserve our support. And the way they get our support is to have a policy that begins to have a sensible approach to what kind of missions they're sent on, and that begins to turn the responsibility over to Iraqis. Iraqis should go into Iraqi homes. ...

BLITZER: [Democratic Rep.] John Murtha, who's very involved in the Armed Services Committee, ... says there should be an immediate withdrawal over the next six months of all U.S. troops from Iraq. Good idea?

KERRY: I respectfully disagree with John Murtha. And I laid out a plan which is, I think, a good plan, a solid plan -- that builds consistently on everything I said throughout the campaign last year -- of what you need to do to be successful. And I believe my plan supports the troops in the right way.

If you do the right things, and I've laid out what they are, we can bring the bulk of our combat troops home over the course of next year.
-- Sen. John Kerry[Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq] has said very clearly that the large presence of our troops in Iraq is part of the problem. It attracts terrorists. ... Melvin Laird, secretary of defense for Richard Nixon, has written the same thing, that it's our presence of troops that's part of the problem. ...

BLITZER: But you don't want a timetable or a hard and fast deadline?

KERRY: I have laid out a plan where we could withdraw some 20,000 troops around the holidays, based on the fact -- not as a rigid timetable -- linked to the success of the election. (Full story)

We have about 160,000 troops in Iraq today, Wolf. We had 138,000; it went up for the purpose of making Iraq safer for the referendum and the election.

My benchmark is, if you have a successful election after having had a successful referendum, we've done our part with those extra troops; they should come home, taking us back to the level that we were at before that.

Then you set a target for the taking over of security responsibilities in Baghdad and another province ... in a sort of step-by-step basis. You set out a timetable, not for withdrawal, but for success, that allows you to withdraw. And I believe if you do the right things, and I've laid out what they are, we can bring the bulk of our combat troops home over the course of next year.

BLITZER: A year since you were defeated, do you wake up every day and relive some of the campaign, what you could have done? ...

KERRY: No, I don't relive that. I'll tell you what I obviously think about is, the different choices that I would be making today, and the difference I think there could be for the country on a number of issues.

Look at what they're doing on energy independence: more dependency on oil, not moving America to be energy independent. That affects our security and our foreign policy. We can do better than that.

Look at what we're doing on health care: Americans are just crunched under the costs of health care, more and more people losing it. They have no plan at all. ...

I had a plan, and I think about what we could be doing to make life better for Americans in health care.

Obviously in Iraq, I know we could be doing a better job of bringing countries to the table and we could, I think, save lives and restore America's honor and strength in the world. ...

BLITZER: But do you ever think, if only I had responded better to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against you? Do you go back and think about some of those kinds of things?

KERRY: Look, inevitably, you think about some of the mistakes we might have made or not made, but I'm not dwelling on them. I mean, I know what they are. And you got to go forward. Americans don't want to hear about the past. They want to know what we're going to do to make lives better for people today.

And I think there are a lot of things we can do to do better for Americans.

BLITZER: What about 2008 -- do you want to run for president again?

KERRY: It is honestly too early to tell. ... Would I like to be president? Yes, obviously. I ran for the job. I think I would have made a good president for America, a strong president. I would have had us in a very different place than we are today.

But that's in the past. Now my job is to help us provide alternatives for the country ... in 2006. And that is what I am really focused on, is helping senators, helping congressmen, helping mayors -- I was out campaigning -- helping governors. I was campaigning in New Jersey, helping Tim Kaine in Virginia.

We need to do all we can to make 2006 the choice that I think people really want to make and need to make in light of what's happening in our country. And then we'll see where we are.

BLITZER: Do you think you can beat Hillary Clinton in a Democratic primary?

KERRY: Well, I don't know if Hillary's running. Who knows who's running, not running? I'm not running yet. We need to see where we're at.

I'll tell you this: If I decide to run and I get into the race -- and it won't depend on who else is running. ... If I get in that race, having learned what I've learned, and the experience I had last year, I think I know how to do what I need to do and I will run to win. ....

BLITZER: When will you make that decision?

KERRY: Oh, some time after next year's elections, when we've all had a chance to let the dust settle a little and see where we are.

====

HERE'S A FEW MORE OF TODAYS HEADLINES ON CNN:
• Cheney: Murtha a 'patriot,' war debate legitimate
• Sharon shakes up Israeli politics
• CIA interrogation methods 'unique,' Goss says

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/17/cnna.kerry/index.html

[Saundra Hummer]

Wag the Dog

COMMENTARY: CRISIS SCENARIOS FOR DEFLECTING ATTENTION FROM THE PRESIDENTS WOES

By Michael T. Klare

In the 1998 movie Wag the Dog, White House spinmeister Conrad Brean seeks to deflect public attention from a brewing scandal over an alleged sexual encounter in the White House between the president and an all-too-young Girl Scout-type by concocting an international crisis. Advised by a Hollywood producer (played with delicious perversity by Dustin Hoffman), Brean "leaks" a fraudulent report that Albania has acquired a suitcase-sized nuclear device and is seeking to smuggle it into the United States. This obviously justifies an attention-diverting military reprisal. The press falls for the false report (sound familiar?) and all discussion of the president's sex scandal disappears from view -- or, as Brean would have it, the "tail" of manufactured crisis wags the "dog" of national politics.

As Brean explains all this to the White House staff in the film, American presidents have often sought to distract attention from their political woes at home by heating up a war or crisis somewhere else. Now that the current occupant of the White House is facing roiling political scandals of his own, it stands to reason that he, too, or his embattled adviser Karl Rove (not to speak of his besieged Vice President, Dick Cheney) may be thinking along such lines. Could Rove -- today's real-life version of Conrad Brean -- already be cooking up a "wag the dog" scenario? Only those with access to the innermost sanctum of George Bush's White House can know for sure, but it is hardly an improbable thought, given that they have done so in the past.

It bears repeating that this administration -- more than any other in recent times -- has employed deception and innuendo to mold public opinion and advance its political agenda. Indeed, the very scandal now enveloping the White House -- the apparent conspiracy to punish whistle-blower Joseph Wilson by revealing the covert CIA identity of his wife, Valerie Plame -- is rooted in the President's drive to mobilize support for the invasion of Iraq by willfully distorting Iraqi weapons capabilities. Why then would he and his handlers shrink from exaggerating or distorting new intelligence about other hostile powers, and then using such distortions to ignite an international crisis?

Add to this the fact that a rising level of belligerence is already detectable in the statements of top administration officials regarding potential adversaries in the Middle East and Asia. Most striking perhaps was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's truculent appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 19. Under questioning from both Democratic and Republican Senators, she refused to rule out the use of military force against Syria or Iraq, nor would she acknowledge any presidential obligation to consult Congress before engaging in such an action. Asked by Senator Paul Sarbanes (Dem.-Md.) whether the administration actually "entertains the possibility of using military action against Syria or against Iran" and "could undertake to do that without obtaining from Congress an authorization for such action," she replied: "What I said is that the President doesn't take any of his options off the table and that I will not say anything that constrains his authority as Commander in Chief." While insisting that the administration was still relying on diplomacy to resolve its differences with Syria and Iran, she left no doubt as to Bush's preparedness (and right) to employ force at any time or place of his choosing.

There are many who claim that Bush could not possibly contemplate military action against Iran, Syria, or any other hostile power at present. American forces, they argue, are stretched to the limit in Iraq and so lack the capacity to undertake a significant campaign in another country. At the very least, these analysts overlook the massive American air and naval capabilities hardly engaged in Iraq, and certainly available for use elsewhere. But this is not the point. As Wag the Dog suggested, war itself is not the only way to distract public attention from the President's domestic woes. An atmosphere of crisis in which rumors of war or preparations for war come to overshadow all else might well do the trick -- and administration officials don't need fresh armies to accomplish this, only plausible scenarios for the escalation of existing foreign troubles. These, unfortunately, are all too easy to find.

What then are the most promising scenarios at hand for such a purpose? Many such scenarios might be envisioned, but the most credible ones -- barring a major new terrorist attack on the United States -- would entail a military showdown with Syria, Iran, or North Korea.

The Syria Option

Syria appears the most likely candidate for an instant stir-and-mix foreign-policy crisis. To start with, it has already been branded a pariah state -- both because of its suspected involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and because the Bush administration regularly charges it with facilitating the entry of foreign jihadists into Iraq.

The issue of Syrian involvement in Hariri's assassination arose immediately following the February 14, 2005 bomb explosion that killed him (and 22 others) in downtown Beirut. Because Hariri had long campaigned for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, his supporters insisted that Damascus must have played a role in the explosion. The United States and Great Britain persuaded the U.N. Security Council to initiate an investigation of the explosion. A preliminary report by the international team formed to investigate, released on October 24, strongly suggested that Syrian officials had played a key role in organizing the attack. Washington and London then returned to the Security Council on October 31and pushed through a resolution that calls on the Syrian government to cooperate fully with the continuing investigation and make available for questioning any of its top officials suspected of involvement. This resolution also warns of unspecified "further action" -- an obvious threat of economic sanctions -- if Syria fails to comply. The ante was raised further on November 7, when UN investigators requested interviews with six top Syrian officials, including General Assef Shawkat, the powerful brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad.

From the very beginning, the White House has seized on these developments to portray Syria as an outlaw state and set the stage for a diplomatic assault on the Assad regime. Condoleezza Rice has been particularly harsh. After the October 31 resolution was adopted, for instance, she declared, "With our decision today, we show that Syria has isolated itself from the international community -- through its false statements, its support for terrorism, its interference in the affairs of its neighbors, and its destabilizing behavior in the Middle East." Then came the clincher: "Now the Syrian government must make a strategic decision to fundamentally change its behavior."

What changes must the Syrian government make? What are the consequences if it fails to comply? There are no clear answers to these questions, nor are there likely to be any. The intent, so far as can be determined, is not to reach some sort of peaceful resolution of this issue but rather to keep Damascus, and the rest of the world, on edge, expecting some new crisis at any moment. This strategy -- "rattling the cage," as it's known in Washington -- was reportedly adopted by senior aides to President Bush at an October 1st meeting at the White House. According to the New York Times, this strategy entails putting relentless pressure on the Assad regime, forcing it to make humiliating concessions to Washington (thus weakening it domestically) or face increasingly severe reprisals from Washington and its allies

The public face of this assault is the diplomatic campaign being waged by Condoleezza Rice and her associates at the Department of State. The Department of Defense, meanwhile, is conducting the dark side of this campaign, involving nothing short of a covert, low-level military campaign against Syria, including commando raids by Iraqi-based U.S. forces into Syrian territory. These raids -- first reported by the New York Times in October -- are supposedly intended to impede efforts by Iraqi insurgent forces or foreign jihadists to use Syria as a staging point for forays into Iraq. Undoubtedly, however, they constitute but another component of the "rattling the cage" strategy, designed to keep the Assad regime off balance, tempting or provoking it into clashes with American forces that would only provide a justification for further escalations of the attacks.

It is easy to see how this could lead to something closer to the outbreak of full-scale military hostilities with Syria or, more likely, escalating air and missile attacks. Indeed, military analyst William Arkin of the Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has already commenced full-scale planning for such contingencies. "U.S. intelligence agencies and military planners [have] received instructions to prepare up-to-date target lists for Syria and to increase their preparations for potential military operations against Damascus," he observed recently. Such operations could include "cross-border operations to...destroy safe havens supporting the Iraqi insurgency" as well as "attacks on the regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad." Attacks of this type could be mounted at any time, and should be considered highly likely if Damascus rebuffs U.N. efforts to compel testimony by its senior officials or if conditions worsen in Iraq (as is likely).

The standoff between the United States and Syria has already been ratcheted up to dangerous levels and could be intensified even further in the weeks ahead if Assad refuses to turn over his brother-in-law and other top officials for questioning (and possible arrest) by the U.N. investigating team. Under these circumstances, it would be all too easy for the White House to create a brink-of-war environment in Washington, possibly by stepping up commando raids on the Iraq-Syrian border or by threatening to bomb terrorist "sanctuaries" inside Syria. Even if such strikes were merely hinted at, discussion of a possible war with Syria would monopolize media coverage of the White House and so deflect attention from the President's political woes.

The Iran Option

After Syria, the ongoing imbroglio over Iran's nuclear activities represents the most promising option for a "wag the dog" scenario. This dispute has approached moments of acute crisis before, only to subside following a concession by one side or another -- and this could certainly happen again. At present, however, a very serious confrontation appears to be in the offing. While long in the making, the current standoff with Iran hasn't been eased any by that country's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who seems to be prone to making inflammatory statements. (Israel, he said recently, "must be wiped off the map.") Nonetheless, the primary issue is Iran's apparent determination to engage in nuclear activities viewed in Washington as indicative of a covert Iranian drive to manufacture nuclear weapons. Here, a bit of background is useful.

Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and, in accordance with the treaty, has asserted its right to build nuclear power plants and to construct the infrastructure needed to "enrich" natural uranium -- that is, increase the proportion of the fissionable isotope U-235 -- for use in its reactors. Over the years, however, Iran has violated its NPT obligations by building uranium enrichment facilities out of sight of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). These facilities include a plant to convert uranium ore into a gas, uranium hexaflouride (UF6), that can be introduced into high-speed centrifuges which separate U-238 from the lighter U-235, allowing for the gradual accumulation of "enriched" uranium -- the raw material for both power reactors and, in highly enriched form, nuclear weapons. The Iranians insist that they want the enriched material for peaceful purposes only; but their concealment of these efforts in the past leads easily to speculation that they ultimately seek to accumulate highly-enriched uranium for a future Iranian bomb.

The Bush administration has already made up its mind on this subject: "Iran [has] concealed a large-scale, covert nuclear weapons program for over eighteen years," then Undersecretary of State (and now U.N. Ambassador) John R. Bolton asserted on August 17, 2004. "The costly infrastructure to perform all of these [enrichment] activities goes well beyond any conceivable peaceful nuclear program," he added. "No comparable oil-rich nation has ever engaged, or would be engaged, in this set of activities -- or would pursue them for nearly two decades behind a continuing cloud of secrecy and lies to IAEA inspectors and the international community -- unless it was dead set on building nuclear weapons."

Despite such American assertions, the IAEA and the international community have not reached a consensus on Iran's ultimate intentions. The IAEA has, however, repeatedly stated that Iran is in violation of its obligations to fully disclose all nuclear-related activities and to abstain from actions that could lead to the manufacture of nuclear weapons. In 2003, a "trio" of European Union nations -- Britain, France, and Germany -- secured an agreement from Teheran to temporarily suspend uranium enrichment activities while negotiations were under way for a permanent suspension in exchange for a package of EU economic benefits. But neither these negotiations, nor repeated IAEA warnings, have fully halted Iranian enrichment programs. Now, the Bush administration is calling for an IAEA resolution that would find Iran in full breach of its NPT obligations and refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council for possible actions which could include the imposition of economic and other sanctions.

At a meeting on Sept 24, the IAEA Board of Governors formally held Iran in breach of its NPT obligations, but did not immediately refer the matter to the Security Council, presumably to leave more room for negotiations. President Ahmadinejad, however, has since rejected the IAEA resolution, and Iran subsequently announced the resumption of UF6 production in a strong rebuke to the EU trio. Meanwhile, Washington has stepped up its efforts to persuade other states that Iran is determined to acquire nuclear weapons. A showdown is likely in late November or early December, when the IAEA Board next convenes.

Were this matter to be sent to the United Nations, it is unlikely that harsh sanctions would be imposed as Russia and China, both allied to Iran, sit on the Security Council and possess veto power over any vote. What then might the White House do if Iran announces the full-scale resumption of nuclear enrichment activities? Under such circumstances, a military strike against nuclear facilities in Iran has to be considered a genuine possibility. After all, President Bush has already declared that the United States will not "tolerate" the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, a clear expression of his willingness to employ military force. In addition, as early as last January, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker magazine that U.S. Special Operations Forces units were already conducting secret forays into Iranian territory to pinpoint the location of hidden nuclear installations in preparation for any future decision to launch an attack.

Here again, the kindling exists for a full-blown international crisis. Although the European trio along with Russia and China are determined to avoid a military confrontation with Iran, the Bush administration clearly feels no such inhibitions. It has already laid the groundwork for air and missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and has refused -- in Condoleezza Rice's phrase -- to take any "options off the table." Even the strong hint of an impending assault on Iran would probably push crude oil prices to stratospheric levels and invite anger and concern around the world, but this may not be enough to deter Bush and his advisers from initiating such a crisis if they saw no other way to boost the President's approval ratings.

The North Korean Option

Although less appealing than the Syrian or Iranian options, a scenario entailing possible conflict with North Korea is also likely to be on any White House list of future provocations. This scenario is less appealing than the others because everyone knows that an all-out conflict with North Korea would probably produce a horrendous bloodbath and might even trigger first an Asian economic, and then a global, economic meltdown. Any move to crank up such a crisis to dangerous levels would also meet with fierce resistance from China, Russia, South Korea, and the rest of the international community. At the same time, however, North Korea has long been branded an outlaw state and its nuclear-weapons activities are far more advanced than anything conceivably under way in Iran. The Defense Department also possesses a very robust air, ground, and naval presence in the region, so a confrontation on the Korean Peninsula need not even require the redeployment of American forces from Iraq -- as would presumably be the case in a war scenario involving Syria or Iran.

North Korea is believed to have begun a secret nuclear weapons program after the end of the Korean War. However, under the so-called Agreed Framework of 1994, it pledged to cease all such activities in return for a basket of economic and political incentives from the United States and its allies. Both sides complied with some aspects of the agreement but balked at others. The Clinton administration was well on its way toward resolving these inconsistencies when George W. Bush assumed the presidency in early 2001.

Soon after taking office, Bush foreclosed any serious diplomatic contact with the North Koreans and froze many of America's obligations under the Agreed Framework. In his 2002 State of the Union address, he included North Korea in his famed "axis of evil." In response, the North Koreans announced that they were no longer bound by the Agreed Framework and had resumed their work on the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Rather than deal with Pyongyang directly on such critical nuclear-proliferation matters, the White House insisted than any future negotiations had to be conducted on a multilateral basis. China subsequently agreed to convene "six-party" talks -- involving the United States, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas, and itself -- for this purpose.

At a September meeting of the six-party group, the North Koreans finally agreed to abandon their nuclear-weapons activities but only in return for significant economic benefits from the other parties and non-aggression assurances about an American attack. In subsequent statements, Pyongyang indicated that any such step would be predicated as well on a promise by the other participants to supply them with a light-water nuclear reactor (that could only be used for generating electricity). The United States has since ruled out any commitment of this sort, but has suggested that various incentives might be provided once North Korea commenced the irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear-weapons program.

At this point, there is reason to believe that a peaceful resolution of the dispute is within reach. China and South Korea have worked hard to promote a constructive stance on Pyongyang's part, but it is a situation that could turn sour again in a diplomatic instant. As if to highlight that possibility, the United States has recently bolstered its military capabilities in the area -- sending fifteen F-117 "stealth" bombers and other advanced weapons to South Korea and announcing other efforts aimed at isolating North Korea.

The Bush administration has many levers it could pull should a decision be made to provoke a fresh confrontation with North Korea. No doubt this would prove unpopular with China and South Korea, along with most of the rest of the world, but it would be guaranteed to produce a crisis atmosphere in Washington and so distract attention from escalating Presidential problems at home. As a result, it cannot be excluded as a potential wag-the-dog scenario.

Minus a microphone (or a leaker) in the Oval Office, it is impossible for outsiders to determine what attention-grabbing scenarios President Bush, his Vice President, and his closest advisers might be discussing at the moment. To some extent, the state of play will be shaped as well by the unpredictable actions of foreign leaders, especially the leaders and chief aides of Syria, Iran, and North Korea. But if past White House behavior is any indication, we can safely assume that the President's men are considering every option for turning these foreign crises into a compelling distraction from the administration's current political malaise. They have already shown by their decisions in Iraq that they are prepared to spill a lot of blood in pursuit of political advantage, and so the possibility that a contrived crisis with Syria, Iran, or North Korea might erupt into something much greater -- even a full-scale war or economic meltdown -- may be unlikely to deter them from a wag-the-dog maneuver.

Michael T. Klare is the Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Owl Books) as well as Resource Wars, The New Landscape of Global Conflict

Copyright 2005 Michael T. Klare
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----http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/11/wag_the_dog.html


November 15, 2005
A Nation Under God
Let others worry about the rapture: For the inc