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[Saundra Hummer]

*
PRIMAL SMIRK
The War God has his eyes on Iran — can we stop him?
By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services
01/06/05 "ICH" - -- I ache with fresh hope and foreboding at this time of year. The time is ripe for an overarching vision of a world without war — a tough, smart vision that can claim headlines and hold its own with the spin machines of government. Without it, we’re doomed to . . . war with Iran?

“Of course, Bush has publicly stated for months that he would not take the possibility of a military strike (against Iran) off the table. What’s new here, however, is that Washington appears to be dispatching high-level officials to prepare its allies for a possible attack rather than merely implying the possibility as it has repeatedly done during the past year.”

This is from the German publication Der Spiegel, at the end of 2005. Even the cynic in me is shocked by the lack of subtlety in these calculations: “During his trip to Turkey,” the article goes on, “CIA chief (Porter) Goss reportedly handed over three dossiers to Turkish security officials that purportedly contained evidence that Tehran is cooperating with Islamic terror network al-Qaida. A further dossier is said to contain information about the current status of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”

Terror link, WMD program. Uh oh.

Suddenly Ares’ primal smirk is all over this story, especially when you factor in the Bush administration’s plummeting poll numbers and its obvious need to do something decisive. It stops the heart. Are we once again watching the slow, methodical buildup to folly? Are we once again helpless to stop these guys from doing what they do best?

Our primary institutions are locked in a cycle of violence the public has been in the process of abandoning for several generations. The same poll numbers that bode so poorly for Bush point to Americans’ serious loss of appetite for militarism. In a University of Maryland survey a while back, 76 percent of respondents, asked what role the country should assume globally, agreed that, “The U.S. should do its share in efforts to solve international problems with other countries.” Only 12 percent thought it should be the predominant world leader. And 57 percent disagreed that the U.S. “has the right or even the responsibility to overthrow dictatorships”; only 12 percent agreed.

“Should we begin to think, even before this shameful war is over, about ending our addiction to massive violence and instead using the enormous wealth of our country for human needs?” asks Howard Zinn in the current Progressive. “That is, should we begin to speak about ending war — not just this war or that war, but war itself? Perhaps the time has come to bring an end to war, and turn the human race onto a path of health and healing.”

Perhaps indeed! Here at the dawn of 2006, I am allowing myself to slip into the current of this idea, to feel it quicken and fill the void in the public conversation about war, as purveyed by a fatalistic and self-importantly complicit media.

“You supply the pictures and I’ll supply the war,” said William Randolph Hearst a century ago. Today the cynicism is a little more couched, a little more craven. The New York Times and the Washington Post make a pretense at public soul-searching when reality exposes their atrocious pre-war drum-beating. Judith Miller theatrically atones for her propaganda pieces by going to jail (in defense of the public’s right not to know who fed her the B.S.). It’s all show.

When it’s time to make the case for the invasion of Iran, the administration’s horrific gobbledygook will be all over the front page and all over the op-ed page, and tenure-track journalists will once more put career ahead of principle and, in the words of Watergate icon Bob Woodward, join the groupthink. Our major institutions are hell-bent on making the same mistake over and over again. This is the myth of the “inevitability of war.”

We the American public experience the falseness of this myth one dead son or daughter at a time, but such lessons burn into the soul. Many who have learned it will be marching on Jan. 18 — Martin Luther King Day — in Washington, D.C., in opposition to the war in Iraq, a known disaster. Will they be outflanked by a fresh new undertaking in Iran?

“I don’t believe that our government will be able to do once more what it did after Vietnam — prepare the population for still another plunge into violence and dishonor,” Zinn writes.

I would phrase this great hope a little more cautiously. I think our government is perfectly capable of perpetrating another such plunge because most of the machinery of our society is calibrated to assist in the effort. But I believe the force to oppose this folly is enormous, and this time it will find leaders, and a voice.

Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bob@commonwonders.com - http://commonwonders.com/

"Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." — Albert Einstein
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article11472.htm

[ .. This story is not something which is calming to the heart. Instead it is heart sickening, and one we all need to be aware of. It seems the powers that be around the world are rushing headlong into a catastrophy, one the likes of which none of us here in the United States have ever lived through in recent memory. WWII never hit our shores, we were never the object of Atomic or Nuclear attacks, and to believe we will always be so fortunate is foolish. The Twin Tower, and Pentagon attacks will look like the plans of schoolboys. We will be shown what real devestation is like. Real tragedy and doing without will become the norm. We will be the object of whatever others can hurl our way, or plant on our shores.

We need men and women of conviction and vision in our seats of power working out these problems which have been arising as fast as we can blink an eye. Which are being worked on with seemingly unabashed stupidity and backward thinking. We need those who are competent, not those who we are seeing now, who are in the process of living out their wild, naively, if not carelessly, thought out dreams of empire. I don't know about you, but to me that is an unlikely to happen peaceful dream. I myself see no good to come of this, and I don't want us to be set on a throne in the Middle East. . ..A sitting target, or so it seems. SRH .. ]

[Saundra Hummer]

~ ~ ~ * * * ~ ~ ~You can't go home again

By Sheila Samples
01/06/06 "ICH" -- -- January 5th was the bloodiest day in Iraq since Bush's illegal invasion. As many as 140 were killed, including 11 US servicemen, and many more injured. Bush responded by suddenly summoning all living secretaries of state and defense to the White House for a skull session and photo op on what to do in the Middle East before he is completely overtaken by even more catastrophic success. He's willing to share the glory, and said he would "listen and take to heart" any suggestions offered, even from Democrats.

Except an exit plan, of course, and any suggestions of how to better equip or protect the "troops" who are thrown into an exploding nightmare where it's every man for himself. Good luck, soldier. Get out there and make us proud that you died for a noble cause...

Those of us who know that Bush is raving mad, destructively impulsive and totally incompetent suspect he was lining up former heavyweights to take the blame when the melt-down comes. The good news is this is Alexander Haig's last chance to be "in charge."

Haig will probably jump at it, even though he knows that he and his renowned counterparts are being set up as "patsies" for Bush's great madcap adventure in Iraq. This mess is so big, it's going to take more than a "few bad apples" to cover it up. I can just hear Bush now -- "I asked them what we should do, and they all agreed that I was doing a heckuva job, and we should stay the course. Hey, don't blame me. They had the same information I had..."

This "meeting" was nothing but another PR trick in Bush's announced campaign to whip the public back into line behind his "strategery" for winning the war and to con people into believing he plans to eventually bring what is left of our ground troops home. As soon as the cameras were turned off, the meeting was over and Bush, Rice, Cheney and Rumsfeld fled, leaving the former VIPs to find their own way out. It was a pitiful sight, and I can't help thinking it served them right for allowing themselves to be used in such a shoddy way.

But the media loved it. Associated Press writer Jennifer Loven crowed, "He (Bush) gambled that one-time high-level public officials, when personally summoned by the president, would resist temptation to be too critical. He was right." Loven assured us that Bush got support for his mission -- along with a few concerns -- and the right to claim that he was "reaching out."

Yeah. This guy is a real uniter, not a divider.

In his statement to the media, Bush said, "Not everybody around this table agreed with my decision to go into Iraq. I fully understand that. But these are good solid Americans who understand that we've got to succeed now that we're there. I'm most grateful for the suggestions they've given."

One "constructive idea" the secretaries broached, according to the White House, was to make sure that the military, not politicians in Washington, are determining troop levels in Iraq and making other on-the-ground calls.

Does anybody doubt that the secretary who came up with this bleak plan was none other than Donald Rumsfeld himself? Which, of course, means that it's business as usual, and the troops won't begin to come home until Rumsfeld says they can...

Meanwhile, the Green Zone in Baghdad finally has all the theaters, restaurants, hotels, swimming pools and golf courses it needs, so Bush is cutting off the promised reconstruction money for Iraq.

Except, of course, for the new billion-dollar embassy that will be more secure than the Pentagon. According to the UK Mirror, "The embassy will be guarded by 15ft blast walls and ground-to-air missiles and the main building will have bunkers for use during air offensives."

It gets better. "The grounds will include as many as 300 houses for consular and military officials. And a large-scale barracks will be built for Marines who will protect what will be Washington's biggest and most secure overseas building."

The source also said that the Bush administration has plans for four super bases across the country.

It doesn't matter if the crusty old New World Order patsies knew Bush has no intention of leaving Iraq until the last drop of oil is sucked from the region when they wandered out of the White House. Bush doesn't care what they think, so it also doesn't matter whether they advised against it if they did know.

That old adage must be true -- when you're in as deep as every single one of them is -- you can't go home again.

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

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11475.htm

[truthseeker]

TRUE TO FORM......

DEMS CUT AND RUN





A SOLDIER TAKES ON MURTHA AND MORAN
By Michelle Malkin · January 06, 2006 07:59 PM
Mudville Gazette has the details on an Army soldier who confronted Dem Reps. John Murtha and Jim Moran at a town hall meeting in Arlington, Va. Greyhawk transcribed the confrontation:

"Yes sir my name is Mark Seavey and I just want to thank you for coming up here. Until about a month ago I was Sgt Mark Seavey infantry squad leader, I returned from Afghanistan. My question to you, (applause)
"Like yourself I dropped out of college two years ago to volunteer to go to Afghanistan, and I went and I came back. If I didn't have a herniated disk now I would volunteer to go to Iraq in a second with my troops, three of which have already volunteered to go to Iraq. I keep hearing you say how you talk to the troops and the troops are demoralized, and I really resent that characterization. (applause) The morale of the troops that I talk to is phenomenal, which is why my troops are volunteering to go back, despite the hardships they had to endure in Afghanistan.

"And Congressman Moran, 200 of your constituents just returned from Afghanistan. We never got a letter from you; we never got a visit from you. You didn't come to our homecoming. The only thing we got from any of our elected officials was one letter from the governor of this state thanking us for our service in Iraq, when we were in Afghanistan. That's reprehensible. I don't know who you two are talking to but the morale of the troops is very high."

Moran - who is one of the few congressmen supporting Charlie Rangel's call to restore the draft - responded quickly: "That wasn't in the form of a question, it was in the form of a statement. But, uhh... let's go over here." And he took the next question.


Cut and run. It's the only way the Dems know.


http://michellemalkin.com/

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~*~~~Six degrees of Osama bin Laden?Are government agencies trying to connect you to al-QaidaMolly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
01.04.06 Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
01.04.06 AUSTIN, Texas -- My theory is that they don't tell him anything, that's why the president keeps sounding like he doesn't know what he's talking about.
There he was at Brooke Army Medical Center over the weekend, once again getting it wrong: "I can say that if somebody from al-Qaida's calling you, we'd like to know why. In the meantime, this program is conscious of people's civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited program ... I repeat, limited. And it's limited to calls from outside the United States, to calls within the United States."

So then the White House had to go back and explain that, well, no, actually, the National Security Agency's domestic spying program is not limited to calls from outside the United States, or to calls from people known or even suspected of being with al-Qaida. Turns out thousands of Americans and resident foreigners have been or are being monitored and recorded by the NSA. It's more like information-mining, which is what, you may recall, the administration said it would not do. But now Bush has to investigate The New York Times because Bush has been breaking the law, you see?

I really don't think he'd sound like an idiot if they kept him informed. He would, however, still sound like a kid trying to get out of trouble by tattling on something Billy did: "My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program (the NSA surveillance program) in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."

There he goes again. He is being deceitful and insincere. Bush and Co. have broken the law, and furthermore, it was completely unnecessary to do so. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is not a hindrance to tracking down al-Qaida -- every objection to its requirements is easily refuted.

So Bush breaks a law he didn't remotely need to and then denounces anyone who discusses this as helping the enemy. Come on. It's so stupid. The choice is not between a police state and another al-Qaida attack. (Speaking of disingenuous, if you wanted to make this country safer from terrorist attack, you'd do a lot better to trade in the NSA spy program for some sensible precautions at chemical plants, or making the Department of Homeland Security into something resembling an effective agency.)

I love the way we always start secret spy programs with great vows that the information shall be guarded and the innocent protected -- and it turns out one of the first to make use to the NSA program for his own purposes was that parfait, gentil soul of discretion John Bolton, the Godzilla diplomat. Came out during his confirmation hearings: Bolton -- no one's idea of a judicious, reticent man -- called on the NSA 10 times to identify sources he wanted the names of, presumably in connection with NSA's shamelessly undercover spying on the United Nations just before the Iraq War started.

Now, look at how this stuff spreads. We're only talking about the NSA, a top-security spy agency, super-secret -- surely it can hang onto information without having it leak all over hell and gone, right? Wrong. Also in the business of spying on American citizens are the Pentagon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors.

Do you remember a parlor game that was popular a few years ago called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon"? The game was to name any actor and then see who could connect him to the actor Kevin Bacon in the least number of moves. For example, Elvis Presley: Presley once appeared in a film with Ed Asner, Ed Asner later appeared in a film with Kevin Bacon, therefore Presley has a Bacon score of two.

How long do you think it would take to connect you to Osama bin Laden?

Another reason to be deeply worried about a huge domestic spying operation is that it will inevitably be manned by nincompoops. Just take, for example, this lovely 2003 memo from an FBI agent railing at what he perceived as the dreadful restraints by John Ashcroft's Justice Department: "While radical militant librarians kicks us around, true terrorists benefit from (Justice's) failure to let us the tools given to us."

Yep, time after time, it's those radical militant librarians impeding those pitiful, helpless agents at the FBI.

Speaking of helpless FBI agents, in a recent column I misattributed the FBI's fine program of spying on vegans and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to the NSA. I'm sure both agencies would appreciate a correction.

P.S. -- You can always suggest to the radical militant librarians that instead of saying, "Shhhh!' they yell, "Shut up!"

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20155

[truthseeker]

Media Critic Donald Rumsfeld


By Cliff Kincaid | January 6, 2006

We have a media that have done almost everything possible to undermine the prospect of victory in Iraq.
Defense Secretary's Rumsfeld's speech on Iraq, in which he strongly criticized the conduct of the U.S. media, deserves to be read in its entirety. Unfortunately, the Secretary expressed the false hope that the media might be persuaded to come around to responsible journalism.

He said, "it's important also for the media to hold itself to account." Well, don't count on it, Mr. Secretary.

REMEMBER HOW NEWSWEEK HAD PUBLISHED THAT
PHONY KORAN-IN-THE-TOILET STORY. RUMSFELD MENTIONED IT, SAYING "NOT TOO LONG AGO, THERE WAS A FALSE AND TERRIBLY DAMAGING STORY ABOUT A KORAN THAT WAS SUPPOSEDLY FLUSHED DOWN A TOILET IN GUANTANAMO, AND IN THE RIOTS THAT FOLLOWED IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES, PEOPLE WERE KILLED".[/U]


Yet nobody was fired or even reprimanded by Newsweek over that false story. So much for accountability from the media.

Rumsfeld said that "…almost every time I meet with troops, I am asked the same question: they ask why aren't the American people being given an accurate picture of what's happening in Iraq?"

The American Legion, the veterans group, has the answer. Noting that "Progress and daily accomplishments by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan often go unreported in the media," it is asking family and friends of deployed personnel to share letters and photos of "the other side of the story."

The media still want none of it. Tom Brokaw's NBC News special, "To War and Back," about soldiers in Iraq, was described as probing "the personal costs and tragic consequences for the soldiers from the war in Iraq—while raising the issue of leaders' neglect."

Yes, there have been failures by the Bush Administration. But what about the failures by our media? We have a media that have done almost everything possible to undermine the prospect of victory in Iraq.

Understanding that the war is being fought on the battlefield of ideas, Rumsfeld has tried to change the terms of the debate. At a Pentagon press briefing, he questioned the use of the term "insurgents" to describe the terrorists in Iraq. He suggested more appropriate terms, including "terrorists" and "enemies of the government."

Words have consequences.

While some might say it's too late to change the terms of the debate, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy suggests starting from scratch and replacing the phrase "war on terror" with "War for the Free World." That's the subtitle of his new book, "War Footing," which argues that we have to get serious about the challenges that lie ahead for our nation. I contributed to the chapter on the United Nations problem.

The book's website is at http://www.warfooting.com/. It is well worth reading.

The American Forces Press Service carried a story about Rumsfeld's remarks, under the headline, "Terrorists Can Win Only in U.S., Media."

That's the truth. The terrorists understand the lesson passed on by the Vietnamese communists. But will history repeat itself? We have the benefit of learning from history, and knowing that America can't suffer another such defeat. Our survival is at stake.


http://www.aim.org/media_monitor_print/4262_0_2_0/

[Saundra Hummer]

Originally posted by "truthseeker"

Media Critic Donald Rumsfeld

By Cliff Kincaid | January 6, 2006

We have a media that have done almost everything possible to undermine the prospect of victory in Iraq.
Defense Secretary's Rumsfeld's speech on Iraq, in which he strongly criticized the conduct of the U.S. media, deserves to be read in its entirety. Unfortunately, the Secretary expressed the false hope that the media might be persuaded to come around to responsible journalism.

He said, "it's important also for the media to hold itself to account." Well, don't count on it, Mr. Secretary.

REMEMBER HOW NEWSWEEK HAD PUBLISHED THAT
PHONY KORAN-IN-THE-TOILET STORY. RUMSFELD MENTIONED IT, SAYING "NOT TOO LONG AGO, THERE WAS A FALSE AND TERRIBLY DAMAGING STORY ABOUT A KORAN THAT WAS SUPPOSEDLY FLUSHED DOWN A TOILET IN GUANTANAMO, AND IN THE RIOTS THAT FOLLOWED IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES, PEOPLE WERE KILLED".[/u]


Yet nobody was fired or even reprimanded by Newsweek over that false story. So much for accountability from the media.

Rumsfeld said that "…almost every time I meet with troops, I am asked the same question: they ask why aren't the American people being given an accurate picture of what's happening in Iraq?"

The American Legion, the veterans group, has the answer. Noting that "Progress and daily accomplishments by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan often go unreported in the media," it is asking family and friends of deployed personnel to share letters and photos of "the other side of the story."

The media still want none of it. Tom Brokaw's NBC News special, "To War and Back," about soldiers in Iraq, was described as probing "the personal costs and tragic consequences for the soldiers from the war in Iraq—while raising the issue of leaders' neglect."

Yes, there have been failures by the Bush Administration. But what about the failures by our media? We have a media that have done almost everything possible to undermine the prospect of victory in Iraq.

Understanding that the war is being fought on the battlefield of ideas, Rumsfeld has tried to change the terms of the debate. At a Pentagon press briefing, he questioned the use of the term "insurgents" to describe the terrorists in Iraq. He suggested more appropriate terms, including "terrorists" and "enemies of the government."

Words have consequences.

While some might say it's too late to change the terms of the debate, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy suggests starting from scratch and replacing the phrase "war on terror" with "War for the Free World." That's the subtitle of his new book, "War Footing," which argues that we have to get serious about the challenges that lie ahead for our nation. I contributed to the chapter on the United Nations problem.

The book's website is at http://www.warfooting.com/. It is well worth reading.

The American Forces Press Service carried a story about Rumsfeld's remarks, under the headline, "Terrorists Can Win Only in U.S., Media."

That's the truth. The terrorists understand the lesson passed on by the Vietnamese communists. But will history repeat itself? We have the benefit of learning from history, and knowing that America can't suffer another such defeat. Our survival is at stake.


http://www.aim.org/media_monitor_print/4262_0_2_0/[QUOTE}


***About the Koran story not being true: Again, check up on what the Pentagon has released, and on the interviews the men involved gave then you'll see the incidents concerning the Koran are factual, not as has been said, "a fabrication." It happened as you well know, the Koran was defiled, it's a fact. That it's still being used as a talking point is so amazing to me, ??? It's just so old hat as to be funny, to see it's still being used as "Spin"??? Sounding pretty desperate don't you think?

No, there were instances of abuse of the Koran and their religion, and as far as torture goes, you seem to want to believe or have me believe it was only "panties' on their heads. That is another silly defense of some terrible things which went on - electric drills and any number in horrid torture techniques - which we know resulted in maimings and deaths. Just as there are abuses in just about any captive or prisoner situation, domestic and/or foreign; just the probabilities or known of instances from the past has to tell us that this does and will happen. Some instances are worse than others. Our men have been tortured and killed, Iraqi's are being killed by Iraqi's. Iraqi's in our captive programs were abused. No one denies that our men tortured and murdered as well except for the radical elements in the world of news.

Again mans inhumanity to man is overwhelming and uncalled for.

Do some checking and see what it is you can find. I find no surprise in learning of Koran or other abuse, it is to be expected. I wasn't shocked by it at all. I think you might find yourself in for a surprise if you aren't being disingenuous. Then go back and look at the post about Scaife, which I posted earlier, and others influencing the journalists who have written articles you've been posting, that in itself is an eyeopener. Are you going to be surprised again? Doubt it, as I do feel you already know who is behind the worst of the news. Most of the artiticles you're posting are not by the most well respected of journalists, not when it comes to their beliefs and as to who's paying their collective way.

Try not to just go to one source in reporting. Open up - look around, perhaps then you'll begin to see things for yourself, instead of having your mind made up for you with less than honest reporting. See for yourself. It couldn't hurt.

Check out some documented facts and television interviews as well, about the Koran and torture, that is if the ones on the Koran and religious abuses can be dug up, since you didn't see or remember them. They were done, and they were more to the point and factual than what you're saying you know about it. I saw and read how the Pentagon chose to relate their findings, using lawyer legalese terms, admiting, yet covering up. A much used method, and I believe you know this as well.

I do admit that public defiance of this war does make it difficult to continue with it and perhaps it does give those in Iraq hope that we will withdraw. Many here in our country are wanting this, they are wanting us to get out before more die and it escalates into something much worse. This is a scary time for alot of people, and the administration uses that fear to escalate and expand, or so we believe and so we've seen. It is about to take another giant step into Iran or Syria, or ? Wherever the wind might blow. This is how we feel and we don't like what we're seeing.

Here is the difference. No one of say, the stature of Molly Ivins, is hiding behind a veil of pretensions, she is an editorial writer, and as such her bias's are expected, she is telling it like she sees it, not pretending to be shocked at what it is she finds and reports on, not twisting the truth to suit her ambitions or beliefs. She is known for her truthfulness and her willingness to post retractions regarding any mistake she may have made. Oh that others were so willing and so darned witty while letting us in on how government works. She can at least make a dirty picture look pretty funny and a dull story so interesting.

[truthseeker]

The Wisdom in Wiretaps
Bush critics seek war-powers loopholes to benefit terrorists.

Saturday, January 7, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The Bush Administration's use of warrantless wiretaps in the war on terrorism continues to generate controversy, and Congress is planning hearings. Some of the loopier elements of the Democratic Party have even suggested the wiretaps are grounds for impeachment. But the more we learn about the practice, the clearer it is that the White House has been right to employ and defend it.

The issue is not about circumventing normal civilian Constitutional protections, after all. The debate concerns surveillance for military purposes during wartime. No one would suggest the President must get a warrant to listen to terrorist communications on the battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan. But what the critics are really insisting on here is that the President get a warrant the minute a terrorist communicates with an associate who may be inside in the U.S. That's a loophole only a terrorist could love.





To the extent the President's critics are motivated by anything other than partisanship, their confusion seems to involve a 1978 law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA provides a mechanism by which the executive can conduct warrant-approved surveillance under certain circumstances. But FISA covers only a limited number of intelligence-gathering scenarios. And no Administration--Democrat or Republican--has recognized FISA as a binding limit on executive power.
Jimmy Carter's Attorney General, Griffin Bell, emphasized when FISA passed that the law "does not take away the power of the President under the Constitution." And in the 1980 case of United States v. Truong, the Carter Administration successfully argued its authority to have conducted entirely domestic, warrantless wiretaps of a U.S. citizen and a Vietnamese citizen who had been passing intelligence to the North Vietnamese during the 1970s Paris peace talks.

In 1994, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick also asserted an "inherent authority" not just to warrantless electronic surveillance but to "warrantless physical searches," too. The close associate of Hillary Rodham Clinton told Congress that much intelligence gathering couldn't be conducted within the limits placed on normal criminal investigations--even if you wanted to for the sake of appearances. For example, she added, "it is usually impossible to describe the object of the search in advance with sufficient detail to satisfy the requirements of the criminal law."

Some critics have argued that the surveillance now at issue could have been conducted within the confines of FISA. But that doesn't appear to be true. FISA warrants are similar to criminal warrants in that they require a showing of "probable cause"--cause, that is, to believe the subject is an "agent of a foreign power." But if the desired object of surveillance is a phone number found on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's computer, you may not even know the identity of its owner and you can't show probable cause.

Nor does the actual track record of FISA argue for the sacredness of judicial oversight of intelligence gathering. In the 1990s, FISA judges nitpicked warrant requests to the extent that Ms. Gorelick and others believed FISA required a complete "wall" of separation between foreign intelligence gathering and U.S. criminal investigators. One consequence was the FBI's failure to request a warrant to search alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui's computer. Only after 9/11 did FISA's appeals panel rule that such a wall had never been necessary, and did the Patriot Act destroy it once and for all.

Other critics accept the President's inherent power but say he still should have asked Congress to approve the wiretaps. But some in Congress were informed of the wiretaps and did nothing to stop them. Instead, the ranking Democrat on Senate Intelligence, Jay Rockefeller, wrote a private letter to Vice President Dick Cheney expressing his "lingering concerns" and saying he'd keep it on file for posterity--or more precisely, for posterior-covering. The Senator then released the letter after the story became public as a way to play "gotcha."

If Mr. Rockefeller had been serious about his objections in 2003, he should have told Mr. Cheney to cease and desist or that he'd try to pass legislation to stop it. After reading Mr. Rockefeller's letter of self-absolution, we can understand if Mr. Cheney concluded that the wiretapping was too important to the war on terror to risk seeking an explicit legislative endorsement from so feckless a Congress. The way the Members have played politics with the Patriot Act is another reason not to give Congress a chance to micromanage war-fighting decisions.





As for the judiciary, one question that Congressional hearings should explore is whether FISA itself is unconstitutional. That is, whether it already grants the courts too much power over the executive branch's conduct of foreign policy by illegitimately imposing the "probable cause" standard.
Laurence Silberman, a former deputy attorney general, testified on this point while Congress was debating FISA. He also pointed out that while fear of exposure is a strong disincentive to executive abuse of surveillance power, "since judges are not politically responsible, there is no self-correcting mechanism to remedy their abuses of power" in such matters. In other words, FISA grants the judiciary a policy supremacy that the Constitution doesn't.

The upside of the coming Congressional hearings, we guess, is that Americans will get a lesson in the Constitution's separation of powers. We're confident they'll come away believing the Founders were right to the give the President broad war-fighting--including surveillance--powers.


http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110007783

[truthseeker]

OF COURSE, WE ALL KNOW....

SADDAM HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH TERROR







Saddam's Terror Training Camps
What the documents captured from the former Iraqi regime reveal--and why they should all be made public.
by Stephen F. Hayes
Volume 011, Issue 17




THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S.
intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq war.

The discovery of the information on jihadist training camps in Iraq would seem to have two major consequences: It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and U.S. intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator. It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years.

Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent. Despite the hard work of the individuals assigned to the "DOCEX" project, the process is not moving quickly enough, says Michael Tanji, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18 months. "At this rate," he says, "if we continue to approach DOCEX in a linear fashion, our great-grandchildren will still be sorting through this stuff."

Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists, since David Kay and his Iraq Survey Group--who were among the first to analyze the finds--considered those items top priority. "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited," says a former military intelligence officer who worked on the documents in Iraq.


"We had boxloads of Iraqi Intelligence records--their names, their jobs, all sorts of detailed information," says the former military intelligence officer. "In an insurgency, wouldn't that have been helpful?"

How many of those unexploited documents might help us better understand the role of Iraq in supporting transregional terrorists? How many of those documents might provide important intelligence on the very people--Baathists, former regime officials, Saddam Fedayeen, foreign fighters trained in Iraq--that U.S. soldiers are fighting in Iraq today? Is what we don't know literally killing us?

ON NOVEMBER 17, 2005, Michigan representative Pete Hoekstra wrote to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Hoekstra is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He provided Negroponte a list of 40 documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan and asked to see them. The documents were translated or summarized, given titles by intelligence analysts in the field, and entered into a government database known as HARMONY. Most of them are unclassified.

For several weeks, Hoekstra was promised a response. He finally got one on December 28, 2005, in a meeting with General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence. Hayden handed Hoekstra a letter from Negroponte that promised a response after January 1, 2006. Hoekstra took the letter, read it, and scribbled his terse response. "John--Unacceptable." Hoekstra told Hayden that he would expect to hear something before the end of the year. He didn't.

"I can tell you that I'm reaching the point of extreme frustration," said Hoekstra, in a phone interview last Thursday. His exasperated tone made
the claim unnecessary. "It's just an indication that rather than having a nimble, quick intelligence community that can respond quickly, it's still a lumbering bureaucracy that can't give the chairman of the intelligence committee answers relatively quickly. Forget quickly, they can't even give me answers slowly."

On January 6, however, Hoekstra finally heard from Negroponte. The director of national intelligence told Hoekstra that he is committed to expediting the exploitation and release of the Iraqi documents. According to Hoekstra, Negroponte said: "I'm giving this as much attention as anything else on my plate to make this work."

Other members of Congress--including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Senators Rick Santorum and Pat Roberts--also demanded more information from the Bush administration on the status of the vast document collection. Santorum and Hoekstra have raised the issue personally with President Bush. This external pressure triggered an internal debate at the highest levels of the administration. Following several weeks of debate, a consensus has emerged: The vast majority of the 2 million captured documents should be released publicly as soon as possible.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon's role in expediting the release of this information. According to several sources familiar with his thinking, Rumsfeld is pushing aggressively for a massive dump of the captured documents. "He has a sense that public vetting of this information is likely to be as good an astringent as any other process we could develop," says Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita.

The main worry, says DiRita, is that the mainstream press might cherry-pick documents and mischaracterize their meaning. "There is always the concern that people would be chasing a lot of information good or bad, and when the Times or the Post splashes a headline about some sensational-sounding document that would seem to 'prove' that sanctions were working, or that Saddam was just a misunderstood patriot, or some other nonsense, we'd spend a lot of time chasing around after it."

This is a view many officials attributed to Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone. (Cambone, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed.) For months, Cambone has argued internally against expediting the release of the documents. "Cambone is the problem," says one former Bush administration official who wants the documents released. "He has blocked this every step of the way." In what is perhaps a sign of a changing dynamic within the administration, Cambone is now saying that he, like his boss, favors a broad document release.

Although Hoekstra, too, has been pushing hard for the quick release of all of the documents, he is currently focusing his efforts simply on obtaining the 40 documents he asked for in November. "There comes a time when the talking has to stop and I get the documents. I requested these documents six weeks ago and I have not seen a single piece of paper yet."

Is Hoekstra being unreasonable? I asked Michael Tanji, the former DOCEX official with the Defense Intelligence Agency, how long such a search might take. His answer: Not long. "The retrieval of a HARMONY document is a trivial thing assuming one has a serial number or enough keyword terms to narrow down a search [Hoekstra did]. If given the task when they walked in the door, one person should be able to retrieve 40 documents before lunch."

Tanji should know. He left DIA last year as the chief of the media exploitation division in the office of document exploitation. Before that, he started and managed a digital forensics and intelligence fusion program that used the data obtained from DOCEX operations. He began his career as an Army signals intelligence [SIGINT] analyst. In all, Tanji has worked for 18 years in intelligence and dealt with various aspects of the media exploitation problem for about four years.

We discussed the successes and failures of the DOCEX program, the relative lack of public attention to the project, and what steps might be taken to expedite the exploitation of the documents in the event the push to release all of the documents loses momentum.


TWS: In what areas is the project succeeding? In what areas is the project failing?
Tanji: The level of effort applied to the DOCEX problems in Iraq and Afghanistan to date is a testament to the will and work ethic of people in the intelligence community. They've managed to find a number of golden nuggets amongst a vast field of rock in what I would consider a respectable amount of time through sheer brute force. The flip side is that it is a brute-force effort. For a number of reasons--primarily time and resources--there has not been much opportunity to step back, think about a smarter way to solve the problem, and then apply various solutions. Inasmuch as we've won in Iraq and Saddam and his cronies are in the dock, now would be a good time to put some fresh minds on the problem of how you turn DOCEX into a meaningful and effective information-age intelligence tool.

TWS: Why haven't we heard more about this project? Aren't most of the Iraqi documents unclassified?

Tanji: Until a flood of captured material came rushing in after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom [in October 2001], DOCEX was a backwater: unglamorous, not terribly career enhancing, and from what I had heard always one step away from being mothballed.

The classification of documents obtained for exploitation varies based on the nature of the way they were obtained and by whom. There are some agencies that tend to classify everything regardless of how it was acquired. I could not give you a ratio of unclassified to classified documents.

In my opinion the silence associated with exploitation work is rooted in the nature of the work. In addition to being tedious and time-consuming, it is usually done after the shooting is over. We place a higher value on intelligence information that comes to us before a conflict begins. Confirmation that we were right (or proof that we were wrong) after the fact is usually considered history. That some of this information may be dated doesn't mean it isn't still valuable.

TWS: The project seems overwhelmed at the moment, with a mere 50,000 documents translated completely out of a total of 2 million. What steps, in your view, should be taken to expedite the process?

Tanji: I couldn't say what the total take of documents or other forms of media is, though numbers in the millions are probably not far off.

In a sense the exploitation process is what it is; you have to put eyes on paper (or a computer screen) to see what might be worth further translation or deeper analysis. It is a time-consuming process that has no adequate mechanical solution. Machine translation software is getting better, but it cannot best a qualified human linguist, of which we have very few.

Tackling the computer media problem is a lot simpler in that computer language (binary) is universal, so searching for key words, phrases, and the names of significant personalities is fairly simple. Built to deal with large-scale data sets, a forensic computer system can rapidly separate wheat from chaff. The current drawback is that the computer forensics field is dominated by a law-enforcement mindset, which means the approach to the digital media problem is still very linear. As most of this material has come to us without any context ("hard drives found in Iraq" was a common label attached to captured media) that approach means our great-grandchildren will still be dealing with this problem.

Dealing with the material as the large and nebulous data set that it is and applying a contextual appliqué after exploitation--in essence, recreating the Iraqi networks as they were before Operation Iraqi Freedom began--would allow us to get at the most significant data rapidly for technical analysis, and allow for a political analysis to follow in short order. If I were looking for both a quick and powerful fix I'd get various Department of Energy labs involved; they're used to dealing with large data sets and have done great work in the data mining and rendering fields.

TWS: To read some of the reporting on Iraq, one might come away with the impression that Saddam Hussein was something of a benign (if not exactly benevolent) dictator who had no weapons of mass destruction and no connections to terrorism. Does the material you've seen support this conventional wisdom?

Tanji: I am subject to a nondisclosure agreement, so I would rather not get into details. I will say that the intelligence community has scraped the surface of much of what has been captured in Iraq and in my view a great deal more deep digging is required. Critics of the war often complain about the lack of "proof"--a term that I had never heard used in the intelligence lexicon until we ousted Saddam--for going to war. There is really only one way to obtain "proof" and that is to carry out a thorough and detailed examination of what we've captured.

TWS: I've spoken with several officials who have seen unclassified materials indicating the former Iraqi regime provided significant support--including funding and training--to transregional terrorists, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ansar al Islam, Algeria's GSPC, and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Did you see any of this?

Tanji: My obligations under a nondisclosure agreement prevent me from getting into this kind of detail.

Other officials familiar with the captured documents were less cautious. "As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Saddam Hussein's] support for transregional terrorists," says one intelligence official.

Speaking of Ansar al Islam, the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group that operated in northern Iraq, the former high-ranking military intelligence officer says: "There is no question about the fact that AI had reach into Baghdad. There was an intelligence connection between that group and the regime, a financial connection between that group and the regime, and there was an equipment connection. It may have been the case that the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] support for AI was meant to operate against the [anti-Saddam] Kurds. But there is no question IIS was supporting AI."

The official continued: "[Saddam] used these groups because he was interested in extending his influence and extending the influence of Iraq. There are definite and absolute ties to terrorism. The evidence is there, especially at the network level. How high up in the government was it sanctioned? I can't tell you. I don't know whether it was run by Qusay [Hussein] or [Izzat Ibrahim] al-Duri or someone else. I'm just not sure. But to say Iraq wasn't involved in terrorism is flat wrong."

STILL, some insist on saying it. Since early November, Senator Carl Levin has been spotted around Washington waving a brief excerpt from a February 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency assessment of Iraq. The relevant passage reads: "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."

Levin treats these two sentences as definitive proof that Bush administration officials knew that Saddam's regime was unlikely to work with Islamic fundamentalists and ignored the intelligence community's assessment to that effect. Levin apparently finds the passage so damning that he specifically requested that it be declassified.

I thought of Levin's two sentences last Wednesday and Thursday as I sat in a Dallas courtroom listening to testimony in the deportation hearing of Ahmed Mohamed Barodi, a 42-year-old Syrian-born man who's been living in Texas for the last 15 years. I thought of Levin's sentences, for example, when Barodi proudly proclaimed his membership in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and again when Barodi, dressed in loose-fitting blue prison garb, told Judge J. Anthony Rogers about the 21 days he spent in February 1982 training with other members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood at a camp in Iraq.

The account he gave in the courtroom was slightly less alarming than the description of the camp he had provided in 1989, on his written application for political asylum in the United States. In that document, Barodi described the instruction he received in Iraq as "guerrilla warfare training." And in an interview in February 2005 with Detective Scott Carr and special agent Sam Montana, both from the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, Barodi said that the Iraqi regime provided training in the use of firearms, rocket-propelled grenades, and document forgery.

Barodi comes from Hama, the town that was leveled in 1982 by the armed forces of secular Syrian dictator Hafez Assad because it was home to radical Islamic terrorists who had agitated against his regime. The massacre took tens of thousands of lives, but some of the extremists got away.

Many of the most radical Muslim Brotherhood refugees from Hama were welcomed next door--and trained--in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Spanish investigators believe that Ghasoub Ghalyoun, the man they have accused of conducting surveillance for the 9/11 attacks, who also has roots in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, was trained in an Iraqi terrorist camp in the early 1980s. Ghalyoun mentions this Iraqi training in a 2001 letter to the head of Syrian intelligence, in which he seeks reentry to Syria despite his long affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Reaching out to Islamic radicals was, in fact, one of the first moves Saddam Hussein made upon taking power in 1979. That he did not do it for ideological reasons is unimportant. As Barodi noted at last week's hearing, "He used us and we used him."

Throughout the 1980s, including the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam cast himself as a holy warrior in his public rhetoric to counter the claims from Iran that he was an infidel. This posturing continued during and after the first Gulf war in 1990-91. Saddam famously ordered "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) added to the Iraqi flag. Internally, he launched "The Faith Campaign," which according to leading Saddam Hussein scholar Amatzia Baram included the imposition of sharia (Islamic law). According to Baram, "The Iraqi president initiated laws forbidding the public consumption of alcohol and introduced enhanced compulsory study of the Koran at all educational levels, including Baath Party branches."

Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law who defected to Jordan in 1995, explained these changes in an interview with Rolf Ekeus, then head of the U.N. weapons inspection program. "The government of Iraq is instigating fundamentalism in the country," he said, adding, "Every party member has to pass a religious exam. They even stopped party meetings for prayers."

And throughout the decade, the Iraqi regime sponsored "Popular Islamic Conferences" at the al Rashid Hotel that drew the most radical Islamists from throughout the region to Baghdad. Newsweek's Christopher Dickey, who covered one of those meetings in 1993, would later write: "Islamic radicals from all over the Middle East, Africa and Asia converged on Baghdad to show their solidarity with Iraq in the face of American aggression." One speaker praised "the mujahed Saddam Hussein, who is leading this nation against the nonbelievers." Another speaker said, "Everyone has a task to do, which is to go against the American state." Dickey continued:


Every time I hear diplomats and politicians, whether in Washington or the capitals of Europe, declare that Saddam Hussein is a "secular Baathist ideologue" who has nothing do with Islamists or with terrorist calls to jihad, I think of that afternoon and I wonder what they're talking about. If that was not a fledgling Qaeda itself at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam's version of it.
In the face of such evidence, Carl Levin and other critics of the Iraq war trumpet deeply flawed four-year-old DIA analyses. Shouldn't the senator instead use his influence to push for the release of Iraqi documents that will help establish what, exactly, the Iraqi regime was doing in the years before the U.S. invasion?



Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.



http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

[truthseeker]

AND CERTAINLY, NO WMD'S





Salman Pak / Al Salman


Former Iraqi military officers have described a highly secret terrorist training facility at Salman Pak, where both Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabs receive training on hijacking planes and trains, planting explosives in cities, sabotage, and assassinations.

The Salman Pak biological warfare facility was located on a peninsula caused by a bend in the Tigris river, approximately five kilometers (km) from the arch located in the town of Salman Pak. The facility area comprised more than 20 square km, and might have been known as a farmers (or agricultural) experimentation center. The peninsula was fenced off and patrolled by a large guard force. Immediately inside and to the east of the fence line were two opulent villas: the larger built for Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the other for his half-brother, Barazan al-Tikriti. A main paved road ran through the center of the Salman Pak facility/peninsula. [GulfLINK]

Plans were made in the mid-1980's to develop the Salman Pak site into a secure biological warfare research facility. Dr Rihab Taha, head of a small biological weapons research team, continued to work with her team at al-Muthanna until 1987 when it moved to Salman Pak, which was under the control of the Directorate of General Intelligence.

Located at the facility are several buildings. The probable main research building at the site is a modern building, composed of twenty four rooms, housing a major BW research facility. Using current technology the research area alone had sufficient floor space to accommodate several continuous-flow or batch fermenters that could produce daily sufficient anthrax bacteria to lethally assault hundreds of square kilometers. Adjacent to the research building is a storage area which contains four munitions type storage bunkers with lightning arrestors. Two of these bunkers have facilities for storage of temperature sensitive biological material. Approximately a mile down the road from the research area is a complex US intelligence believed to be an engineering area. One building in this complex was thought to contain a fermentation pilot plant capable of scale up production of BW agents. A construction project comprising several buildings was begun in early 1989 adjacent to the engineering area, and was near completion in 1990. This new complex was assessed as a pharmaceutical production plant. As such, this facility would have an extensive capability for biological agent production. [GulfLINK]

Salman Pak, located 30-40 km SE of Baghdad, engaged in laboratory scale research on Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, Clostridium, perfringens (gas gangrene), mycotoxins, aflatoxins, and Ricin. Researchers at this site carried out toxicity evaluations of these agents and examined their growth characteristics and survivability.

Equipment-moving trucks and refrigerated trucks were observed at the Salman Pak BW facility prior to the onset of bombing, suggesting that Iraq was moving equipment or material into or out of the facility. Information obtained after the conflict revealed that Iraq had moved BW agent production equipment from Salman Pak to the Al Hakam suspect BW facility.

The Qadisiya State Establishment [aka Al-Qadsia], involved in the program to produce Al Hussein class missiles, is apparently located nearby, along with the Al-Yarmouk facility which according to some reports was associated with the chemical munitions program [and which other reports place at Yusufiyah.

Iraq told UN inspectors that Salman Pak was an anti-terror training camp for Iraqi special forces. However, two defectors from Iraqi intelligence stated that they had worked for several years at the secret Iraqi government camp, which had trained Islamic terrorists in rotations of five or six months since 1995. Training activities including simulated hijackings carried out in an airplane fuselage [said to be a Boeing 707] at the camp. The camp is divided into distinct sections. On one side of the camp young, Iraqis who were members of Fedayeen Saddam are trained in espionage, assassination techniques and sabotage. The Islamic militants trained on the other side of the camp, in an area separated by a small lake, trees and barbed wire. The militants reportedly spent time training, usually in groups of five or six, around the fuselage of the airplane. There were rarely more than 40 or 50 Islamic radicals in the camp at one time.



http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/salman_pak.htm

[Saundra Hummer]

***The Decline of Corporate Convictions
01/06/06 01:30 PM
Corporate Crime Reporter has a long and interesting new report: http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/report122805.htm
.out about "The Rise of Deferred and Nonprosecution Agreements" with respect to corporate crime. The brief summary goes something like this:
Federal and state prosecutors are increasingly offering major corporations – including Adelphia, Computer Associates, KPMG, Merrill Lynch, Monsanto, Sears, Shell, WorldCom/MCI – special deals – known as deferred prosecution or non prosecution agreements.

Under these agreements, prosecutors agree not to criminally prosecute the corporation to conviction in exchange for cooperation against culpable executives, implementation of corporate monitors, and fines.

So, for instance: In August 2005, the accounting firm KPMG admitted to fraud that generated at least $11 billion in phony tax losses. But there was no conviction, and the company was instead given a deferred prosecution deal: http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/0/63a17c1d1be6d973852570de0078fd34?OpenDocument
: which came over the objections of N.Y. Attorney General David Kelley. KPMG appealed directly to Deputy Attorney General James Comey—the man who has received a few plaudits of late for refusing to sign off on the Bush administration's spying program—and the deputy AG ordered Kelley to cut a deal. Comey was reportedly worried that KPMG would go the way of Arthur Andersen, and figured it was a company that was too big to fail. (Arthur Andersen, by the way, received its own deferred prosecution deal in 1996, in a case involving real estate fraud. http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?A=1777&Q=283758 :)

This practice has become much more common since 2002, after prosecutors became skittish about bringing more Enrons down, and the practice picked up legitimacy for major corporate crime cases after then-Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson issued a memo:http://www.usdoj.gov/dag/cftf/corporate_guidelines.htm in 2003 setting new "guidelines" for prosecuting corporations. (Previously, prosecutors defended these deals by saying they didn't want to clog up the courts with minor crimes—but now they're being used for major crimes as well.)

Now there's at least a plausible case for avoiding an indictment and possibly a conviction of a major corporation. Some prosecutors will say that corporations are too big to indict. If there's an indictment, the company's stock could tumble, innocent people could lose their jobs, the economy could suffer. And a conviction could put a company out of business altogether. (This isn't exactly true: Convicted criminals such as Chevron, Exxon, Tyson Foods, Pfizer, and Samsung are all still in business, last I checked.) So it makes much more sense, the prosecutors say, simply to put those individuals responsible (i.e."bad apples") in jail and just let the corporation reform itself. No conviction necessary!

The downside, of course, is that without the threat of conviction hanging over their heads, corporations have less incentive to avoid wrongdoing, especially if they know that if they get caught, at worst, they'll have to pay a fine, serve up the head of an executive or two, and then carry out a few nominal "reforms." After all, Arthur Andersen certainly didn't learn any heartfelt life lessons after cutting a non-prosecution deal in 1996, after engaging in real estate fraud.

Another potential problem is that the leeway that prosecutors get in cutting these deals opens the doors for abuse. In 2005, Bristol Myers Squibb, as part of its deferred prosecution deal over charges of conspiring to commit securities fraud, was ordered to pay a fine, make some reforms, and fund a chair in business ethics at Seton Hall, which just happened to be the New Jersey Attorney General's alma mater. It's hardly the slimiest thing in the world, and perhaps this example was perfectly innocent, but the possibility for corruption is certainly there.

So it's an interesting issue, and not something that has really been fully thrashed out yet. Me, I tend towards the "law and order" side of corporate crime and punishment, and probably wouldn't mind seeing the death penalty hauled out for especially flagrant corporations. But the debate's obviously less cartoonish than that. Russell Mokhiber of CCR suggests that even if you accept the arguments of prosecutors who favor these deals, it still might make more sense for AGs to pursue "corporate probation.

http://www.blankrome.com/Publications/Articles/barrett-wright.asp .

" That would achieve basically the same thing—force the company to pay a fine, reform itself, hand over executives head's on platters, etc.—but would keep the process within the judicial system, as a judge makes sure that the company has rehabilitated itself before lifting probation.
This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

- Bradford Plumer

http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_mojoblog.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/01/the_decline_of.html

Follow the links and go on site to see the complete story without my links chopping it all up, and for other articles of interest.

http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_mojoblog.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/01/the_decline_of.html

[Saundra Hummer]

~***~Commentary: The Pentagon spends $1 billion a day. So why do US soldiers have such shoddy combat supplies?

By Winslow T. Wheeler
anuary 6, 2006


Wounded Soldiers’ PayA Financial Management Horror Story

P L U S :
Not Rocket Science: US Defense Reform Needs Leadership, Oversight
Many in Congress and the Pentagon boast that American Soldiers and Marines have the best equipment in the world. Reports from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan say otherwise. The information about the failures is not new; solutions are long overdue.

Reports from the Army's Natick Soldier Center and its Tank-automotive and Armaments Command and the Marine's Systems Command Liaison Team in Iraq, all from 2002 and 2003, tell us, for example, troops' “dislikes,” including uniforms that rip easily, eyewear that fogs up and fits poorly under helmets, and boots that blister, crack, and burst, and are “poor for movement,” or as in one soldier's e-mail are “truly awful and also painful.”

Troops buy some equipment with their own money, usually because Government Issue performs poorly. Such items include gloves, socks, flashlights, padding for backpacks, “CamelBak” hydration systems, and weapons cleaning equipment. Banal items? Perhaps to us back home, but certainly not for Soldiers fighting in the winter mountains of Afghanistan and the desert heat of Iraq, doing whatever it takes to keep their bodies and their weapons working.

It is remarkable that the Pentagon refuses to pay out enough for top quality supplies while spending over $1 billion per day. The Defense Department is only now implementing procedures for reimbursing troops for their personal expenses—an idea thrust on it by Congress.

The most disturbing information is about infantry weapons. In one official report, 13 to 20 percent of soldiers reported jamming in the M-4 carbine, even though many augmented their cleaning kits with special brushes and picks. Fifty-four percent of those equipped with the M249 machine gun reported maintenance problems, and up to 35 percent said they were not confident in the weapon. There were also complaints about the M9 pistol, that it suffers from corrosion problems and the weak magazine spring does not reliably feed rounds into the chamber. Complaints about poor performing M16 magazines are also common. These are not problems for the enemy; the Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifle and its magazines operate unaffected in virtually all climates and conditions, even when not properly maintained.

An even more serious issue is lethality. The small size of the 5.56 mm bullet for the U.S. M4 carbine, M16 rifle, and M249 machine gun is highly controversial among some troops. One official report said troops “asked for a weapon with a larger round, ‘so it will drop a man with one shot.'” Even the M9 pistol, which shoots a sizeable 9 mm round, impressed few. Soldiers' blogs and e-mails report many of them like the small caliber weapons' lightness and the large amount of ammunition troops can carry, but some say those bullets are “too small and too stabilized” thus making them “woefully inadequate as a man stopper.” The complaints seem widespread, but it is unclear how many are from direct experience or just word of mouth. Deserved or not, there appears to be a real crisis of confidence in these small caliber weapons.

That the large 9mm caliber M9 pistol is collecting similar complaints brings into question just what it is that troops are complaining about. Up to now, neither the Army nor the Marines have performed any service-wide survey of troops' experiences in combat and therefore do not know how widespread is the low confidence or to what extent it is based on experience rather than rumor.

Nonetheless, the Army and Marine Corps seem to have decided what the solution is: Their reports state the rounds are lethal, for example, “as long as the shots were in the head or chest.” But not all troops are, or can be, expert marksmen, and most rarely have the time and presence of mind in combat for minutely aimed shots. Telling soldiers and Marines in the chaos of war to aim better is a bureaucrat's solution, not a real one.

Fortunately, there might be a way to address the problem. The DOD's Inspector General has announced it will study whether U.S. troops in Iraq have the equipment they need, and the Marines have announced an inquiry of returning troops. This research should include a broad, representative survey of troops' direct experiences in combat with their weapons. If the valid complaints about poor lethality are widespread, there should be an immediate, thorough, and independent evaluation of the nature of the problem. Only then, can meaningful solutions be identified.

In the meantime, troops who do not have confidence in their weapons should be permitted to equip themselves with alternate assault rifles and pistols, either from stocks of previous designs currently available in DOD's inventory or weapons, such as AK-47s, which are available, complete with ammunition, in huge numbers in Iraq right now.

In 2004, a furor broke out when reports reached Washington many Humvee vehicles in Iraq lacked armor and Americans were maimed and killed as a result. Congress quickly flooded defense budgets with funding for armor. Any problems in American infantry weapons are far more serious and can mean even more needless American casualties. If the DOD Inspector General and the services do not move out on the needed research immediately, they should be ordered to do so by Congress.

This article first appeared at Military.com.
~~***~~
Winslow T. Wheeler is director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/01/repealing_the_magna_carta.html

Go on site to see "Related Articles"

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~*****~~~Repealing the Magna Carta Commentary: Wondering just how far back the Bush administration would roll our constitutional system?
By Nick Turse
January 6, 2006

The Unrestrained PresidentWe now face a cult of imperial presidential power.

What might happen to an "often cruel and treacherous" national leader who "ignored and contravened the traditional" norms at home and waged "expensive wars abroad [that] were unsuccessful"?

On June 15, 1215, just such a leader arrived at Runnymede, England and --under pressure from rebellious barons angered by his ruinous foreign wars and the fact that "to finance them he had charged excessively for royal justice, sold church offices, levied heavy aids," and appointed "advisers from outside the baronial ranks"-- placed his seal on the Magna Carta. The document, which was finalized on June 19th, primarily guaranteed church rights and baronial privileges, while barring the king from exploiting feudal custom. While it may have been of limited importance to King John or his rebel nobles (as one scholar notes, "It was doomed to failure. Magna Carta lasted less than three months"), the document had a lasting impact on the rest of us, providing the very basis for the Anglo-American legal tradition.

Over the years, the Magna Carta came to be interpreted as a document that forbade taxation without representation and guaranteed trial by jury. In the U.S., it is seen as providing a basis for the 5th Amendment to the Bill of Rights that holds: "No person shall? be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law?" (The Magna Carta states: "No Freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned? but by lawful Judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land.") While many progressive and democratic understandings of the document, popular from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, have now been dismissed as misinterpretations, the Magna Carta has one absolutely significant feature. As the website of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) notes, "When King John confirmed Magna Carta with his seal, he was acknowledging the now firmly embedded concept that no man -- not even the king -- is above the law."

Fast forward 561 years. Says NARA, "In 1776, the Founding Fathers searched for a historical precedent for asserting their rightful liberties from King George III and the English Parliament." They found it in the Magna Carta. Fast forward another 230 years. Their war for independence long since over, Britain's former rebel colonies begin the new year of 2006 on a precipice. During the previous 365 days, they saw, among other shocking displays, their Vice President publicly campaign against Senator John McCain's anti-torture amendment and, as such, essentially offer his support for illegal torture. Then, following a failed attempt by the President to quash a New York Times story on the National Security Agency (which the paper had already suppressed for a year), the people also found out that their President had ordered unlawful spying on American citizens.

After the latter scandal became public, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (who, in 2002 as White House counsel, penned a memo advising the President on how to circumvent the 1996 War Crimes Act) claimed that George Bush had the right to violate the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (which makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without prior or retroactive -- within 72 hours-- court approval) due to his "inherent authority as commander in chief under the Constitution." This, despite the fact that in 2004 Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the court, insisted, "A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." Bush himself then came out swinging, claiming that he had no need for the courts since he acted as his own agency of oversight, and his acts were legal because he "swore to uphold the laws."

The President's threatened veto of the McCain anti-torture amendment, the Vice-President's pro-torture campaign, the President's illegal spying, which he proudly claimed he had re-authorized many times over, his attempt to squelch the free press (which Thomas Jefferson once called "the only security of all" and about which he stated, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter"), and his own and the Attorney General's defense of all of the above, are not only the latest examples of the administration's quest to shred the U.S. Constitution and expand already vast presidential powers past anything conceivably envisioned by the founders of the United States, but also a direct attempt to overturn nearly 800 years of Anglo-American legal precedent. In other words, the administration has launched nothing short of a bid to invalidate the guiding precepts of what the U.S. government acknowledges to be the Ur document that inspired and provided precedent for America's founders to issue their Declaration of Independence in 1776: the Magna Carta.

In 1957, the American Bar Association erected a monument at Runnymede to "acknowledg[e] the debt American law and constitutionalism" owed to the Magna Carta. Today, the defining tenet of the American legal system is in jeopardy as the Bush administration has attempted to roll back the clock to the 13th century. Such a gambit seeks to do nothing short of shatter and effectively bury the framework for the Anglo-American legal tradition by transforming the chief executive into an unchecked despot and so plunging us into a pre-1215 world. The implications are dire. As Harold Hongju Koh, dean of the Yale Law School, observed, "If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution."

During the birth of the United States, John Adams -- who also proclaimed that Britain's rule under which "The Law, and the Fact, are both to be decided by the same single Judge" was "directly repugnant to the Great Charter [Magna Carta] itself" -- wrote of "a government of laws and not of men." During the Watergate crisis (to hop a couple of centuries) and just after he was fired by a President who wanted to shield his criminal acts by citing the doctrine of executive privilege, Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox warned, "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." Just 33 years later, the question again begs answer -- is this to be a nation of laws or of men? Is this to be a nation that recognizes nearly 800 years of Anglo-American legal precedent in which even the nation's chief executive is subject to the rule of law, or one that allows that leader to assume the unchecked rights of a sovereign during the Middle Ages? Are we willing to accept the Bush administration's latest rollback campaign and reset the calendar to 1214?

Nick Turse is the Associate Editor and Research Director of TomDispatch.com. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, the Village Voice, and regularly for Tomdispatch. If you have whistles to blow or muck you think Nick should rake, send your insider information to fallenlegionwall@yahoo.com.

This piece first appeared, with an introduction by Tom Engelhardt, at Tomdispatch.com.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/01/repealing_the_magna_carta.html

[truthseeker]

~***~Commentary: The Pentagon spends $1 billion a day. So why do US soldiers have such shoddy combat supplies?

By Winslow T. Wheeler
anuary 6, 2006


Wounded Soldiers’ PayA Financial Management Horror Story

P L U S :
Not Rocket Science: US Defense Reform Needs Leadership, Oversight
Many in Congress and the Pentagon boast that American Soldiers and Marines have the best equipment in the world. Reports from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan say otherwise. The information about the failures is not new; solutions are long overdue.

Reports from the Army's Natick Soldier Center and its Tank-automotive and Armaments Command and the Marine's Systems Command Liaison Team in Iraq, all from 2002 and 2003, tell us, for example, troops' “dislikes,” including uniforms that rip easily, eyewear that fogs up and fits poorly under helmets, and boots that blister, crack, and burst, and are “poor for movement,” or as in one soldier's e-mail are “truly awful and also painful.”

Troops buy some equipment with their own money, usually because Government Issue performs poorly. Such items include gloves, socks, flashlights, padding for backpacks, “CamelBak” hydration systems, and weapons cleaning equipment. Banal items? Perhaps to us back home, but certainly not for Soldiers fighting in the winter mountains of Afghanistan and the desert heat of Iraq, doing whatever it takes to keep their bodies and their weapons working.

It is remarkable that the Pentagon refuses to pay out enough for top quality supplies while spending over $1 billion per day. The Defense Department is only now implementing procedures for reimbursing troops for their personal expenses—an idea thrust on it by Congress.

The most disturbing information is about infantry weapons. In one official report, 13 to 20 percent of soldiers reported jamming in the M-4 carbine, even though many augmented their cleaning kits with special brushes and picks. Fifty-four percent of those equipped with the M249 machine gun reported maintenance problems, and up to 35 percent said they were not confident in the weapon. There were also complaints about the M9 pistol, that it suffers from corrosion problems and the weak magazine spring does not reliably feed rounds into the chamber. Complaints about poor performing M16 magazines are also common. These are not problems for the enemy; the Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifle and its magazines operate unaffected in virtually all climates and conditions, even when not properly maintained.

An even more serious issue is lethality. The small size of the 5.56 mm bullet for the U.S. M4 carbine, M16 rifle, and M249 machine gun is highly controversial among some troops. One official report said troops “asked for a weapon with a larger round, ‘so it will drop a man with one shot.'” Even the M9 pistol, which shoots a sizeable 9 mm round, impressed few. Soldiers' blogs and e-mails report many of them like the small caliber weapons' lightness and the large amount of ammunition troops can carry, but some say those bullets are “too small and too stabilized” thus making them “woefully inadequate as a man stopper.” The complaints seem widespread, but it is unclear how many are from direct experience or just word of mouth. Deserved or not, there appears to be a real crisis of confidence in these small caliber weapons.

That the large 9mm caliber M9 pistol is collecting similar complaints brings into question just what it is that troops are complaining about. Up to now, neither the Army nor the Marines have performed any service-wide survey of troops' experiences in combat and therefore do not know how widespread is the low confidence or to what extent it is based on experience rather than rumor.

Nonetheless, the Army and Marine Corps seem to have decided what the solution is: Their reports state the rounds are lethal, for example, “as long as the shots were in the head or chest.” But not all troops are, or can be, expert marksmen, and most rarely have the time and presence of mind in combat for minutely aimed shots. Telling soldiers and Marines in the chaos of war to aim better is a bureaucrat's solution, not a real one.

Fortunately, there might be a way to address the problem. The DOD's Inspector General has announced it will study whether U.S. troops in Iraq have the equipment they need, and the Marines have announced an inquiry of returning troops. This research should include a broad, representative survey of troops' direct experiences in combat with their weapons. If the valid complaints about poor lethality are widespread, there should be an immediate, thorough, and independent evaluation of the nature of the problem. Only then, can meaningful solutions be identified.

In the meantime, troops who do not have confidence in their weapons should be permitted to equip themselves with alternate assault rifles and pistols, either from stocks of previous designs currently available in DOD's inventory or weapons, such as AK-47s, which are available, complete with ammunition, in huge numbers in Iraq right now.

In 2004, a furor broke out when reports reached Washington many Humvee vehicles in Iraq lacked armor and Americans were maimed and killed as a result. Congress quickly flooded defense budgets with funding for armor. Any problems in American infantry weapons are far more serious and can mean even more needless American casualties. If the DOD Inspector General and the services do not move out on the needed research immediately, they should be ordered to do so by Congress.

This article first appeared at Military.com.
~~***~~
Winslow T. Wheeler is director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/01/repealing_the_magna_carta.html

Go on site to see "Related Articles"


Of course, on a lighter note, Bill Clinton DID balance the budget.

Now we know at least some of the ways he did it.

I suggest you research military spending cuts from 1993-2000, as well as the "downsizing" of our military during his reign (I'd have to look it up to refresh my own memory, but in the Army alone, for example, I believe he abolished 8-10 Divisions). Quite a lot if you know anything about the military.

Between that and the neutering of our intelligence assets he saved us a buncha' money, didn't he??

Talk about "mortgaging our future".....

I don't present this as the sole excuse as to why our personnel don't have everything they need (although even that claim has been exaggerated), but you can't fix this type of problem overnight.

The point is, it wouldn't need fixin' if somebody hadn't broke it in the first place.

And, as usual the politicians and "activists" who scream the loudest today were the same ones who screamed the loudest in support of the cuts all those many years ago......

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~*****~~~
The Unrestrained President
Commentary: We now face a cult of imperial presidential power.
By Tom Engelhardt
January 4, 2006

As 2006 begins, we seem to be at a not-completely-unfamiliar crossroads in the long history of the American imperial presidency. It grew up, shedding presidential constraints, in the post-World War II years as part of the rise of the national security state and the military-industrial complex. It reached its constraint-less apogee with Richard Nixon's presidency and what became known as the Watergate scandal -- an event marked by Nixon's attempt to create his own private national security apparatus which he directed to secretly commit various high crimes and misdemeanors for him. It was as close as we came -- until now -- to a presidential coup d'etat that might functionally have abrogated the Constitution. In those years, the potential dangers of an unfettered presidency (so apparent to the nation's founding fathers) became obvious to a great many Americans. As now, a failed war helped drag the President's plans down and, in the case of Nixon, ended in personal disgrace and resignation, as well as in a brief resurgence of congressional oversight activity. All this mitigated, and modestly deflected, the growth trajectory of the imperial presidency -- for a time.

The "cabal," as Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department, has called Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and various of their neoconish pals, stewed over this for years, along with a group of lawyers who were prepared, once the moment came, to give a sheen of legality to any presidential act. The group of them used the post-9/11 moment to launch a wholesale campaign to recapture the "lost" powers of the imperial presidency, attempting not, as in the case of Nixon, to create an alternate national security apparatus but to purge and capture the existing one for their private purposes. Under George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their assorted advisers, acolytes, and zealots, a virtual cult of unconstrained presidential power has been constructed, centered around the figure of Bush himself. While much has been made of feverish Christian fundamentalist support for the President, the real religious fervor in this administration has been almost singularly focused on the quite un-Christian attribute of total earthly power. Typical of the fierce ideologues and cultists now in the White House is Cheney's new Chief of Staff David Addington. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank described him this way back in 2004 (when he was still Cheney's "top lawyer"):

"[A] principal author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects... a prime advocate of arguments supporting the holding of terrorism suspects without access to courts[,] Addington also led the fight with Congress and environmentalists over access to information about corporations that advised the White House on energy policy. He was instrumental in the series of fights with the Sept. 11 commission and its requests for information... Even in a White House known for its dedication to conservative philosophy, Addington is known as an ideologue, an adherent of an obscure philosophy called the unitary executive theory that favors an extraordinarily powerful president."

For these cultists of an all-powerful presidency, the holy war, the "crusade" to be embarked upon was, above all, aimed at creating a President accountable to no one, overseen by no one, and restricted by no other force or power in his will to act as he saw fit. And so, in this White House, all roads have led back to one issue: How to press ever harder at the weakening boundaries of presidential power. This is why, when critics concentrate on any specific issue or set of administration acts, no matter how egregious or significant, they invariably miss the point. The issue, it turns out, is never primarily -- to take just two areas of potentially illegal administration activity -- torture or warrantless surveillance. Though each of them had value and importance to top administration officials, they were nonetheless primarily the means to an end.

This is why the announcement of (and definition of) the "global war on terror" almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks was so important. It was to be a "war" without end. No one ever attempted to define what "victory" might actually consist of, though we were assured that the war itself would, like the Cold War, last generations. Even the recent sudden presidential announcement that we will now settle only for "complete victory" in Iraq is, in this context, a distinctly limited goal because Iraq has already been defined as but a single "theater" (though a "central" one) in a larger war on terror. A war without end, of course, left the President as a commander-in-chief-without-end and it was in such a guise that the acolytes of that "obscure philosophy" of total presidential power planned to claim their "inherent" constitutional right to do essentially anything. (Imagine what might have happened if their invasion of Iraq had been a success!)

Having established their global war on terror, and so their "war powers," in the fall of 2001, top administration officials then moved remarkably quickly to the outer limits of power -- by plunging into the issue of torture. After all, if you can establish a presidential right to order torture (no matter how you manage to redefine it) as well as to hold captives under a category of warfare dredged up from the legal dustbin of history in prisons especially established to be beyond the reach of the law or the oversight of anyone but those under your command, you've established a presidential right to do just about anything imaginable. While the get-tough aura of torture may indeed have appealed to some of these worshippers of power, what undoubtedly appealed to them most was the moving of the presidential goalposts, the changing of the rules. From Abu Ghraib on, the results of all this have been obvious enough, but one crucial aspect of such unfettered presidential power goes regularly unmentioned.

As you push the limits, wherever they may be, to create a situation in which all control rests in your hands, the odds are that you will create an uncontrollable situation as well. From torture to spying, such acts, however contained they may initially appear to be, involve a deep plunge into a dark and perverse pool of human emotions. Torture in particular, but also unlimited forms of surveillance and any other acts which invest individuals secretly with something like the powers of gods, invariably lead to humanity's darkest side. The permission to commit such acts, once released into the world, mutates and spreads like wildfire from top to bottom in any command structure and across all boundaries. You may start out with a relatively small program of secret imprisonment, torture, spying or whatever, meant to achieve limited goals while establishing certain prerogatives of power, but in no case is the situation likely to remain that way for long. This was, perhaps, the true genius of the American system as imagined by its founders -- the understanding that any form of state power left unchecked in the hands of a single person or group of people was likely to degenerate into despotism (or worse), whatever the initial desires of the individuals involved.

Sooner or later, the hubris of taking all such powers up as your own is likely to prove overwhelming and then many things begin to slip out of control. Consider the developing scandal over the National Security Agency's wiretapping and surveillance on presidential order and without the necessary (and easily obtained) FISA court warrants. In this case, the President has proudly admitted to everything. He has essentially said: I did it. I did it many times over. We are continuing to do it now. I would do it again. ("I've reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for so long as our nation is -- for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens.") In the process, however, he has been caught in a curious, potentially devastating Presidential lie, now being used against him by Democratic pols and other critics.

While in Buffalo, New York, for his reelection campaign in April 2004, in one of those chatty "conversations" -- this one about the Patriot Act -- that he had with various well-vetted groups of voters, the President said the following:

"There are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

By that time, as he has since admitted, the President had not only ordered the warrantless NSA wiretapping and surveillance program and recommitted to it many times over, despite resistance from officials in the Justice Department and even, possibly, from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, but had been deeply, intimately involved in it. (No desire for classic presidential "plausible deniability" can be found here.) So this, as many critics have pointed out, was a lie. But what's more interesting -- and less noted -- is that it was a lie of choice. He clearly did not make the statement on the spur of the moment or in response to media questioning (despite the claims in some reports). He wasn't even "in conversation" in any normal sense. He was simply on stage expounding in a prepared fashion to an audience of citizens. So it was a lie that, given the nature of the event (and you can check it out yourself on-line), had to be preplanned. It was a lie told with forethought, in full knowledge of the actual situation, and designed to deceive the American people about the nature of what this administration was doing. And it wasn't even a lie the President was in any way forced to commit. No one had asked. It was a voluntary act of deception. Now, he is claiming that these comments were meant to be "limited" to the Patriot act as the NSA spying program he launched was "limited" to only a few Americans -- both surely absurd claims. ("I was talking about roving wiretaps, I believe, involved in the Patriot Act. This is different from the N.S.A. program. The N.S.A. program is a necessary program. I was elected to protect the American people from harm. And on Sept. 11, 2001, our nation was attacked. And after that day, I vowed to use all the resources at my disposal, within the law, to protect the American people, which is what I have been doing, and will continue to do.")

In other words, by his own definition of what is "legal" based on that "obscure philosophy" (and with the concordance of a chorus of in-house lawyers), but not on any otherwise accepted definition of how our Constitution is supposed to work, the President has admitted to something that, on the face of it, seems to be an impeachable act -- and he has been caught as well in the willful further act of lying to the American people about his course of action. Here, however, is where ? though so many of the issues of the moment may bring the Nixon era to mind -- things have changed considerably. Our domestic politics are now far more conservative; Congress is in the hands of Republicans, many of whom share the President's fervor for unconstrained party as well as presidential power; and the will to impeach is, as yet, hardly in sight.

In his news conference defending his NSA program, the President took umbrage when a reporter asked:

"I wonder if you can tell us today, sir, what, if any, limits you believe there are or should be on the powers of a President during a war, at wartime? And if the global war on terror is going to last for decades, as has been forecast, does that mean that we're going to see, therefore, a more or less permanent expansion of the unchecked power of the executive in American society?"

"To say ?unchecked power,'" responded an irritated Bush, "basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the President, which I strongly reject."

How the nation handles this crossroads presidential moment will tell us much about whether or not "some kind of dictatorial position" for our imperial, imperious, and impervious President will be in the American grain for a long, long time to come.

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War. His novel, The Last Days of Publishing, has just come out in paperback.

Copyright 2005 Tom Engelhardt

This piece first appeared at Tomdispatch.com.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/01/presidential_power.html

Go On Site To Go To The Many Links In These Articles From MotherJones.com

[Saundra Hummer]

~~***~~
Pluses And Minuses

By Charley Reese
01/06/06 "ICH"-- -- Now that President Bush has launched a new propaganda campaign to convince Americans that we are winning the war in Iraq, it's a good idea to go back to the basics and look at the pluses and minuses of this war.
The minuses we all know. The war was sold on false pretenses, there being neither weapons of mass destruction nor ties to al-Qaida, which after all, was responsible for the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Saddam Hussein's government was secular, and the majority of people in Iraq are Shiites. Al-Qaida is a fanatical religious movement that is Sunni, which is why you need never fear that al-Qaida will take over Iraq.

The other minuses are the loss of American prestige, nearly 2,200 dead, about 16,000 wounded, and $221 billion and counting in money. So, that's the downside of the Iraq War. What's the upside?

Well, for the sake of argument, let's assume we do win the war, however strangely the Bush administration might decide to define victory. But let's assume we win. The insurgents are defeated. An elected government of pro-Iranian Shiites is in charge. What are the benefits to the American people?

When a young Marine asked that of Vice President Dick Cheney, he reeled off a list of benefits for the Iraqi people, but said not a word about Americans. Since victory (stipulated only for the sake of argument) is paid for by American blood and American treasure, some benefit should accrue to the American people. What?

I can't think of any. That's too high a price just to feel good that we did a bunch of foreigners a favor by relieving them of their homegrown dictator. You could argue, I suppose, that after victory Americans could visit Iraq as tourists, though on this beautiful planet Iraq is not quite — but almost — dead last on the list of scenic places to visit. Besides, it will be decades before Iraqis get over their hostility to Americans, who since 1991 have made their lives miserable with two wars, periodic bombings and cruel sanctions.

Americans jolly well won't be safer. The pathetic and infantile argument that if the terrorists weren't fighting us in Iraq they'd be in New York is not worth talking about. Ninety percent of the people fighting us in Iraq are not terrorists, but insurgents who resent the occupation of their country by a foreign power. The other 10 percent are using Iraq as a training ground. After we leave Iraq, some of those might attack us in other places, but they would have anyway. Just because it's been four years since the 9/11 attacks doesn't mean al-Qaida has given up or even been thwarted by our bureaucrats. There was a long time gap between the first attack on the World Trade Center and the second. Al-Qaida is patient.

That, by the way, is another downside to the Iraq War. Al-Qaida was our enemy, not Iraq, and we have aided al-Qaida by invading a Muslim country as well as diverting resources that could have been directed at finding and killing Osama bin Laden.

As for the original neoconservative belief that a democratic Iraq would infect the rest of the Middle East and Israel could live peacefully, that was a joke from Day One. The only friends Israel and we have in the Middle East are the dictators we pay, in one way or another, to be our friends. Popularly elected governments would make it quite clear they hate Israel and the U.S.

I can tell you one positive thing about this war, if the American people will learn from it. We should never, ever again allow a bunch of academic ideologues and Washington lawyers who don't know crap about the real world to gain control of American foreign policy.

The next American president should ask two questions of all the people who present themselves as Middle East experts. Have you lived in an Arab country? Do you speak and read Arabic? If the answers are no, then he should say, "Hit the road, Jack." Twenty-two hundred Americans probably would be alive if Bush had asked those questions of his neoconservative warmongers.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article11470.htm

[Saundra Hummer]

***
American journalist kidnapped in IraqJan 7, 2006, 15:13 GMT
BAGHDAD, Iraq (UPI) -- Iraqi police officials said Saturday unidentified gunmen have kidnapped an American female journalist after killing her Iraqi translator in Baghdad.

They said the driver of the bus in which the journalist and translator were riding managed to escape the incident when he fled and sought the help of a police patrol that happened to be in the same area at the time.

The woman and the translator were attacked by gunmen in the Arab Sunni district of al-Adel in western Baghdad as they were heading to meet the head of the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front, Adnan al-Dulaimi.

The name of the journalist was not released.

Around 200 foreigners, including civilians and relief aid workers, have been kidnapped by different armed groups in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003.

The kidnappers have mainly demanded troop withdrawal of foreign governments from Iraq.

Most of the hostages were released, but around 50 have been executed.

Four Western peace activists and an engineer remain in captivity.

Meanwhile, interior ministry sources said a suicide bomber blew himself up earlier in the day targeting an Iraqi police checkpoint in Baghdad, injuring 11 people, including five policemen.

In Fallujah, 37 miles (60 kilometers) west of the capital, residents said that violent armed clashes broke out Saturday between insurgents and joint U.S.-Iraqi forces.

Eyewitnesses in the city told United Press International they saw American military helicopters hovering above the area and heard a series of explosions.

There were no further details available on the reported clashes.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International
***
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.php/American_journalist_kidnapped_in_Iraq

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[truthseeker]

IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY??

ONLY WHEN THE SENATE FAILS TO DO IT'S JOB




Government by Recess
The world's greatest nondeliberative body.

Sunday, January 8, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

One of the more amusing Beltway fictions is the periodic alarm about the "imperial Presidency." If only. Nowadays Presidents barely have the power to appoint a government, as the White House showed again last week by announcing an extraordinary 17 recess appointments.

These are appointments made when Congress is not in session. And President Bush had every right to resort to this power because the Senate, which is supposed to give his nominees up or down votes, showed no sign of fulfilling this advise and consent obligation any time soon.

The appointees include Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, whose nomination has been in limbo since last spring. Also, Dorrance Smith, assistant Defense secretary for public affairs; Julie Myers, assistant Homeland Security secretary for immigration; Benjamin Powell, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Security; and Ellen Sauerbrey, an assistant secretary of State for population, refugees and migration.


Without recess appointments, several bodies--including the National Labor Relations Board, the Amtrak Reform Board and the Federal Election Commission--would have lacked quorums to operate. The appointments expire at the close of the next session of Congress, at the end of 2007.
Several on the recess list were victims of an unwritten Senate tradition known as the "hold," whereby an individual Senator can delay indefinitely a Presidential nomination. Michigan Democrat Carl Levin is the biggest abuser here--he has holds on Mr. Smith (for the sin of writing an article for this page), Mr. Powell and Ms. Myers, as well as on other senior Defense officials whom Mr. Bush recess-appointed earlier this year. The President's fellow Republican, Olympia Snowe, has a hold on Mr. England, who in his earlier job as Navy Secretary didn't direct enough ship-building pork to her home state of Maine.

Senator Joe Lieberman issued a statement last week saying the recess appointments show "disrespect" for the Senate. The only disrespect evident here is that shown by the Senate for the Constitution, which gives that body the responsibility of voting on nominees so the executive branch can function.


http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007784

[truthseeker]

CORRUPTION??

40 OF 45 DEMOCRATS TOOK ABRAMOFF MONEY





The Special Interest Trough Leads to Corrupted
Politics
Frank Salvato January 6, 2006

The issue of money in politics is always one that leaves the
American people feeling as though there is corruption running
rampant through our government. Visions of fat-cat, glad-
handing, multi-term, cigar-chomping politicians come to mind
whenever the term lobbyist is used. And while I will make no
excuses for politicians who are proven to be unethical in their
financial dealings, I will suggest that the focused eye of
condemnation be cast at the individuals and organizations who
find it so easy to “augment” our system of government with the
allure of easy money.

With the upcoming aria to be sung by über-lobbyist Jack
Abramoff the American public will witness the unbridled
arrogance of power. Abramoff, a highly successful Washington
influence peddler right up to the nanosecond of his plea-
bargain, doled out more complicated political bribery than the
UN Oil-for-Food program, and he did it on both sides of the
aisle.

While Democrats and the “progressive” left were quick in trying
to brand the Abramoff scandal as a “Republican scandal,” the
facts indicate that this declaration is just another attempt by
political opportunists at misdirection. In fact, Democrats do a
great job at feeding off the special interest trough.

According to Internal Revenue Service records, and
substantiated by the Campaign Finance Analysis Project, forty
of the forty-five members of the Democrat Senate Caucus took
money from Jack Abramoff, his associates, and their Indian tribe
clients. These recipients include: Charles Schumer ($29,550),
Harry Reid ($68,941), Patty Murray ($78,991), Mary Landrieu
($28,000), John Kerry ($98,550), Ted Kennedy ($3,300), Tom
Harkin ($45,750), Dick Durbin ($14,000), Barbara Boxer
($20,250), Hillary Clinton ($12,950) and Byron Dorgan
($79,300).

When tallied, Senate Democrats and their national committees
accepted $3.1 million from Abramoff, his associates and clients,
compared with $4.3 million in contributions to Republicans. So,
the statement that this is exclusively a “Republican scandal” is
simply not true.

The Abramoff scandal will no doubt bring about the final
chapters in a few political careers. Those exposed as money
swilling, privilege-addicted ego cases, ignoring their
constituents as they grasp at the irresistible brass ring of
political greed deserve to be “frog-marched” out of elected
office.

Equally disturbing, offensive and dramatically less publicized is
the fact that special interest groups in the form of compulsory
trade unions like the National Education Association essentially
extort money from their union members so their leadership can
dole out contributions to “friendly causes.”

A recent Opinion Journal editorial pointed out that the NEA
gave $65 million to left-leaning groups last year.

“The NEA is spending the mandatory dues paid by members
who are told their money will be used to gain better wages,
benefits and working conditions. According to the latest filing,
member dues accounted for $295 million of the NEA's $341
million in total receipts last year. But the union spent $25 million
of that on "political activities and lobbying" and another $65.5
million on "contributions, gifts and grants" that seemed
designed to further those hyper-liberal political goals.”

That’s quite a bit more than Jack Abramoff gave to anyone for
anything.

Included in the list of “progressive” special interest groups who
received money from the NEA last year are: the Human Rights
Campaign, which lobbies for "lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender equal rights," the National Women's Law Center,
whose website currently features literature opposing Supreme
Court nominee Samuel Alito and the Fund to Protect Social
Security, an organization created to defeat personal investment
accounts.

The key words here are “mandatory dues.” While a few states
allow for teachers to opt-out of the teacher’s union, the process
for attaining independence from the grip of the NEA is far from
simply checking a box on a form. It is much more complicated
than that, so much so that many teachers simply acquiesce.
Further, many of those who opt-out are most often required to
appropriate a percentage of what they would have paid in dues
to a charity or acceptable non-profit organization while still
paying a “fee” to the NEA for its efforts in collective bargaining
negotiations.

Aside from the obvious question – why is an organization
chartered to negotiate employment contracts involved in
supporting special interest groups lobbying social issues on
Capitol Hill – one has to wonder if the political actions of the
NEA leadership are even more despicable than those of soon-
to-be-felon Abramoff.

Jack Abramoff may have pled guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion
and mail fraud but when he pulled out his checkbook to
manipulate the mean streets of Washington, he did so with
money from those who agreed with his basic political ideology.
The NEA wields the same influence – maybe more – by
extorting mandatory union dues from many who completely
disagree with its chosen special interest philanthropy.

When one looks at both issues side-by-side one has to wonder
which is more criminal.

Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He
serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-
partisan, socio-political education project. His pieces are regularly
featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor and
numerous radio shows. His pieces have been recognized by the Japan
Center for Conflict Prevention and are featured in national and
international publications. He can be contacted at
oped@newmediajournal.us



http://capitolhilljournal.com/art000000058.html



WHO'S CORRUPT??

[truthseeker]

NOW REMIND ME AGAIN......

WHO'S CORRUPT??





List of Democrats who got Abramoff's money & a few Republicans for comparison:

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte $121,500
Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte $354,700
Democratic National Cmte $65,720
Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) $42,500
Patty Murray (D-Wash) $40,980Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) $36,000
Harry Reid (D-Nev) $30,500
Tom Delay-Tom DeLay (R-Texas) $30,500
Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) $28,000
Tom Daschle (D-SD) $26,500
Charles H. Taylor (R-NC) $25,750
Democratic Party of Michigan $23,000
Brad R. Carson (D-Okla) $20,600
Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich) $19,000
Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md) $17,500
Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) $15,500
Democratic Party of Oklahoma $15,000
Chris John (D-La) $15,000
Frank Pallone, Jr (D-NJ) $13,600
Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo) $12,000
Mary L. Landrieu (D-La) $11,500
Barney Frank (D-Mass) $11,100
Max Baucus (D-Mont) $11,000
Maria Cantwell (D-Wash) $10,000
Democratic Party of North Dakota $10,000
Nick Rahall (D-WVa) $10,000
John McCain (R-Ariz) $10,000
Democratic Party of South Dakota $9,500
Democratic Party of Minnesota $9,000
Ron Kind (D-Wis) $9,000
Peter Deutsch (D-Fla) $8,500
Joe Baca (D-Calif) $8,000
Dick Durbin (D-Ill) $8,000
Xavier Becerra (D-Calif) $7,523
Tim Johnson (D-SD) $7,250
Democratic Party of New Mexico $6,250
Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) $6,000
Fritz Hollings (D-SC) $5,000.
Democratic Party of Montana $5,000
Jay Inslee (D-Wash) $5,000
Tomas P. Keefe Jr. (D-Wash) $5,000
Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md) $5,000
Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ) $5,000
Deborah Ann Stabenow (D-Mich) $5,000
E. Bonior (D-Mich) $5,000
Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) $4,500
Lindsey Graham (R-SC) $4,500
Kent Conrad (D-ND) $4,000
Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) $4,000
Tom Carper (D-Del) $4,000
Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif) $4,000
George Miller (D-Calif) $4,000
Sander Levin (D-Mich) $4,000
Jerry Kleczka (D-Wis) $4,000
Kalyn Cherie Free (D-Okla) $3,500
James L. Oberstar (D-Minn) $3,500
Charles J. Melancon (D-La) $3,100
Ed Pastor (D-Ariz) $3,000
Cal Dooley (D-Calif) $3,000
David R. Obey (D-Wis) $3,000
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) $3,000
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) $3,000
Tom Foley (I-Minn) $3,000
John B. Larson (D-Conn) $3,000
Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss) $3,000
Brad Sherman (D-Calif) $3,000
Richard M. Romero (D-NM) $3,000
Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif) $2,500
Max Cleland (D-Ga) $2,500
Grace Napolitano (D-Calif) $2,500
Bill Luther (D-Minn) $2,250
Gene Taylor (D-Miss) $2,250
John Neely Kennedy (D-La) $2,000
Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn) $2,000
Dan Boren (D-Okla) $2,000
Robert Menendez (D-NJ) $2,000
Ned Doucet (D-La) $2,000
Ronnie Shows (D-Miss) $2,000
Ken Bentsen (D-Texas) $2,000
Nita M. Lowey (D-NY) $2,000
Adam Smith (D-Wash) $2,000
Sam Farr (D-Calif) $2,000
Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) $2,000
Doug Dodd (D-Okla) $2,000
Adam Schiff (D-Calif) $2,000
Lane Evans (D-Ill) $2,000
Mike Thompson (D-Calif) $2,000
Maxine Waters (D-Calif) $2,000
Carl Levin (D-Mich) $2,000
John D. Dingell (D-Mich) $2,000
Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif) $2,000
Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) $2,000
Norm Dicks (D-Wash) $1,500
Peter DeFazio (D-Ore) $1,500
John Kerry (D-Mass) $1,400
Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif) $1,000
Ron Wyden (D-Ore) $1,000
Brian David Schweitzer (D-Mont) $1,000
Pete Stark (D-Calif) $1,000
Paul Wellstone (D-Minn) $1,000
Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) $1,000
Derick B. Watchman (D-Ariz) $1,000
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) $1,000
Susan A. Davis (D-Calif) $1,000
Charles S. Robb (D-Va) $1,000
Eliot L. Engel (D-NY) $1,000
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) $1,000
Jim Costa (D-Calif) $1,000
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) $1,000
Rick Weiland (D-SD) $1,000
Gloria Tristani (D-NM) $1,000
Rick Clayburgh (R-ND) $1,000
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) $1,000
Jim Maloney (D-Conn) $1,000
David Phelps (D-Ill) $1,000
Tim Holden (D-Pa) $1,000
Bob Borski (D-Pa) $720
Shelley Berkley (D-Nev) $500
Howard L. Berman (D-Calif) $500
Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif) $500
Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) $500
Barbara Lee (D-Calif) $500
Democratic Party of Washington $500

opensecrets.org

[truthseeker]

U.S. shouldn't have to do tap dance over bugging

January 8, 2006

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST





Here's a Reuters headline from New Year's Day: "CIA May Need Decade To Rebuild Clandestine Service."



A decade, huh? Circa 2016, you mean? The last time I checked the job-completion estimates was back in spring 2004, when the agency's then-director, George Tenet, told the 9/11 Commission that it would take another half-decade to rebuild the clandestine service. In other words, three years after 9/11, he was saying he needed another five years. As I wrote at the time, "Imagine if, after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt had turned to Tenet to start up the OSS, the CIA's Second World War predecessor. In 1942, he'd have told the president not to worry, he'd have it up and running by 1950."

But CIA reform is like the budget for Boston's Big Dig or the 2012 London Olympics. Think of a number, triple it and update your excuses. Four years after 9/11, it may take 10 years to rebuild the clandestine service. So Tenet would be telling FDR not to worry, we'll have the World War II intelligence operation up and running in time for the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. OK, make that the Cuban missile crisis. But definitely by the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The latest estimate came from Gary Berntsen, who was the CIA's man on the ground during the hunt for bin Laden in Tora Bora in late 2001. That's what most folks think the agency does, just as "clandestine service" is assumed to be the core activity -- all the super top-secret undercover stuff you see whenever the CIA turns up in movies like ''Syriana,'' in which the sinister spooks subvert a Middle Eastern government. Oh, if only. Away from the glamorous adventuring of the silver screen, alas, the only government they're any good at subverting is the United States'.

It's very hard to fight a terrorist war without intelligence. By definition, you can only win battles against terrorists pre-emptively -- that's to say, you find out what they're planning to do next Thursday and you stop it cold on Wednesday. Capturing them on Friday while you're still pulling your dead from the rubble is poor consolation. For example, in 1988, a British SAS unit shot dead three IRA members on the streets of Gibraltar. The United Kingdom's Joint Intelligence Committee were acting on information that the cell was planning to blow up the changing-of-the-guard ceremony on the Rock. The two men and a woman were subsequently found to be ''unarmed,'' and as a result various civil liberties groups protested and critical TV documentaries were made. But there was no dispute that they were IRA members and that they had bomb-making materials in their car. If the state cannot take action until its sworn enemy uses those materials, it had better be prepared to lose the war.

It shouldn't be necessary to point out the obvious. But, unmoored from reality, wafting happily into fantasy land safe in the hermetically sealed Democrat-media bubble, Sen. Barbara Boxer and her colleagues are apparently considering impeaching the president for eavesdropping on al Qaida calls made to U.S. phone numbers. Surely, even Karl Rove can't get that lucky.

By the way, I'd love to see the witness list for that trial: Muhammad al-Jihad testifying that a week before he blows up a Bali nightclub he always makes a perfectly innocent call to his cousin in Milwaukee to ask how the kids are; Abu Musad al-Zarqawi testifying that he only called Howard Dean to issue a formal complaint about congressional Democrats stealing his rationalizations. Etc.

The Democrats and the media want to upgrade every terrorist into O.J. Simpson, insulated by legalisms and entitled to his own dream team. (Their figleaf, the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which previously denied not a single request, has turned down hundreds in the years since 9/11.) The practical effect of the Dems' approach is to extend the protections of the U.S. Constitution to any dodgy character anywhere on the planet who has a U.S. telephone number in his Rolodex. Indeed, given that perfectly ordinary cell phones can be used almost anywhere -- this week, I spoke to an American in London by dialing his Washington cell number -- if the Democrats have their way, all terrorist cells in Europe or Pakistan would have to do to put themselves beyond the reach of U.S. intelligence is get a New Jersey-based associate to place a bulk order for Verizon cell phones.

This isn't a hypothetical situation. Consider Iyman Faris, a naturalized American citizen also known as Mohammad Rauf and nailed by U.S. intelligence through the interception of foreign-U.S. communications. He was convicted in 2003 for doing the legwork on an al Qaida scheme to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. A "hardworking truck driver," he was introduced to Osama bin Laden while enjoying a well-earned vacation at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan in 2000. At the request of bin Laden's aides, he researched the terrorist possibilities of "ultralight" aircraft. In 2002, he was commissioned by al Qaida to return to America and procure the materials for severing suspension-bridge cables and derailing trains.

Do you want Iyman Faris in jail? Or do you think he should have the run of the planet until he's actually destroyed the bridge and killed hundreds of people? Say, the Golden Gate Bridge just as you're driving across after voting for Barbara Boxer and congratulating yourself on your moral superiority.

But, if you want Iyman Faris in jail, you better consider how you're going to get him there -- because, as a rule, the only way you find out details of a terrorist plot is by intercepting communications. And these days that means electronic communications, like telephones. If Iyman Faris was sporting enough to communicate with his handlers in Pakistan through sealed parchment delivered by steam packet via the Cape of Good Hope, no doubt the Democrats and media would be happy to consider allowing surreptitious unsealing in international waters provided you got a warrant from the Hague.

So that's where we stand four years after Sept. 11. The arthritic $44 billion intelligence bureaucracy is insisting it still needs another five to 10 years to have a clandestine service capable of infiltrating al Qaida operations in the field, but, while we're waiting, don't think of using that $44 billion to keep tabs on their phone calls, because the Dems will impeach you.

According to a Rasmussen poll, 64 percent of Americans believe the National Security Agency should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorist cells overseas and persons living in the United States; 23 percent disagree. What is it the Democrats and media don't get about this?



http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi?getReferrer=http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn08.html

[truthseeker]

WAIT...WASN'T CLINTON PRESIDENT THEN??



Docs: Secret Service took thousands of phone records
Project after Oklahoma City tragedy part of Nichols, McVeigh probe

Posted: January 5, 2006
9:00 p.m. Eastern


By J.D. Cash and retired Lt. Col. Roger Charles
© 2006 McCurtain Daily Gazette

A series of internal documents from the U.S. Secret Service obtained by the McCutain Daily Gazette provide details of a project involving the transfer of thousands of telephone and bank records to a government database with the help of U.S. telephone and financial company executives.

The detailed field notes were prepared by a special agent who once headed the Electronic Crimes Branch of the Secret Service, where the agent was responsible for case coordination of all telecommunications and computer network investigations conducted by Secret Service field offices.

During her tenure as a Secret Service agent, Mary Riley coordinated the forensic analysis of computer and telecommunications equipment seized as evidence in all investigations through a team of 150 special agents trained as experts in computer forensics. Riley also served as a technical adviser to the G-8 countries' high-tech subcommittee responsible for addressing international high-tech crime issues.


The documents, legally obtained by the newspaper, reveal the transfer of thousands of individual telephone records into a special database the Secret Service created during the first frantic days after the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing.

At the time the massive transfer of phone records took place, Riley was coordinating the project from the Miami, Fla., field office.

Notes created to explain the project were shared with top FBI and Department of Justice personnel.

Under wraps for a decade now, these Secret Service memos reveal an important behind-the-scenes role the Secret Service played in unraveling some 688 phone calls made using a debit card purchased by Terry L. Nichols and Timothy J. McVeigh, using a fake name, Daryl Bridges.

Federal prosecutors would, over a year later, use the roadmap created by the so-called Daryl Bridges calling card to obtain convictions in the Denver federal trials of McVeigh and Nichols. However, during each trial there was scant mention of any role played by Riley or the Secret Service in obtaining the phone records.

Instead, a series of FBI agents and phone company executives would take the stand to tell jurors a much more "sanitized" version of how the records were obtained.

At no time did the government admit that federal agents were able to obtain thousands of unsuspecting Americans' phone and bank records without their knowledge, nor did the government show a court any evidence that these citizens had done anything illegal.

In a step-by-step fashion, details contained in these Secret Service documents provide insight into a project that over a few days' time enabled the FBI and other federal agencies access to a database containing several thousand U.S. citizens' telephone records swept up and then stored in computer mainframes operated by the Secret Service in Washington, D.C.

Whether or not this data still exists in a government database is not known. The Secret Service declined to comment on the project and refused to say what the agency may have done with phone and banking records they obtained without legally sufficient subpoenas or other court orders.

Database building

The documents show that within 24 hours of the Oklahoma City bombing, Special Agent Riley began contacting telephone company executives in Oklahoma, and eventually across the nation, searching for telephone records.

Headed, "Telephone Research," Riley's April 20, 1995, notes reveal that one of Oklahoma's largest cell-phone service providers immediately agreed to turn over all the company's phone records.

Referring to a phone conversation with the head of security for Cellular One in Oklahoma City, Riley noted: "I requested the AMA tapes which show all cellular traffic in Oklahoma on their switch. These tapes will include all origination numbers, dialed number, date/time run/duration, and cell site information. Their system is run on an AT&T switch, they sent me the magnetic tape containing the data in high-density, 6250 BPI format. In addition they sent me the manual for the AT&T switch, which will explain the field layout for each record. We've got 30 days worth of information."

The following day, April 21, Riley received a tip from the FBI that led her to a master access phone number attached to several thousand debit card holders serviced by a company called West Coast Telecommunications (WCT). The company's senior vice president was John Kane, an industry innovator in the fledgling debit card business.

After a discussion with the OKBOMB task force in Oklahoma City, Riley noted: "The president of West Coast Telephone is working on the information himself. The 800 number is a pre-paid debit card purchased in a block of numbers by the Spotlight Company. This company is described as a 'right-wing organization located in D.C.'

"They have 50-70,000 subscribers to their mail-order catalog. One of the products offered in their catalog is the pre-paid long distance 800 number."

According to the agent's field notes, Kane called back with more information.

"Per West Coast Telephone, the subscriber to the 800-793-3377 is Daryl Bridges, 3616 N. Vandyke Road, Decker, Michigan, made nine other payments at various times, paid by check/money order for the debit card. (Send subpoena for records)."

The Secret Service quickly learned the address belonged to James Nichols and they soon discovered additional calls to James' brother, Terry Nichols, in Herington, Kan.

Not realizing at first that the name Daryl Bridges was an alias McVeigh and Terry Nichols used to purchase the debit card, the Secret Service did, however, understand the calling card was extremely important. Riley focused on running down any calls made with the card.

On April 21, Riley advised an attorney with the Department of Justice to apply for a subpoena for the so-called Daryl Bridges phone records. However, the number set forth in the notes is: 800-793-3377. There was no mention of the Bridge's individual PIN to identify the account.

Absent the PIN, any subpoena referring to this 800 number was not legally sufficient, because that number represented a platform of 5,000 debit card customers who also purchased a calling card from Spotlight.

Covert research expands

In 1995, WCT was one of only two companies in the nation that offered debit card services. Realizing that the company maintains a vast database of debit card customers, the Secret Service urged Kane to personally conduct extensive research for them.

In a report, Riley wrote: "Contacted by John Kane, West Coast Long Distance, he sent me the rest of the originating call information for all users of 800-793-3377. I requested the exact account number on Daryl Bridges, he provided the account #00563946 (PIN). In addition, we discussed other sources of any information on the account. Kane stated Spotlight receives the initial order for the debit cards and then immediately forwards the order to State Street Bank in Boston to process the order and send out the debit cards. All of the payment information and account holder information should be with State Street Bank (Boston Financial Data Services)."

Asked to intervene for the Secret Service and get this additional information, Riley noted: "John Kane, West Coast Telephone called to tell us that the debit card purchased by Daryl Bridges was bought by sending funds to Spotlight's bank, State Street Bank, Boston Financial. Funding was added to the account on the following dates: 3/7, 2/17, and 2/8."

Kane was asked to next search WCT's database for any Spotlight Card holders that may have called Nichols in Herrington. Riley's notes show the following exchange:

"(S)ince Bridges stopped using his debit card on 4/17, I asked West Coast to search their system for any other debit card accounts that have called Terry Nichols in the last week. That seemed to be the hottest number to search for at this time."

26 million numbers

Soon this database search was expanded to all WCT debit card users in Kansas.

"Talked to John Kane," Riley noted, "a check was made for any debit cards being used in Junction City, Kansas."

Then there is this stunning entry in the field notes addressed to a high-ranking DOJ lawyer:

"Talked with John Kane, (he) ran 26 million numbers against the five we have given him so far, looking for debit cards that may have called."

When Kane discovered a new debit card user had indeed called a number that the Bridges account had called days earlier, Riley's notes show the expanding use of the database.

"Kane is working on the rest of the calls placed by this new subscriber. We'll have to work in the name of the subscriber through State Street Bank, unless they sent a payment direct to West Coast Telephone."

On April 24, 1995, only five days after the bombing, WCT next arranged for the Secret Service to establish a wiretap.

Riley recorded the agreement: "(Kane) established a port for me to tie into their system and monitor the switch activity as it pertains only to Bridges data. … This is now being monitored by field office personnel 24 hours until further notified."

Complete download of all Spotlight cardholders

That same day that the Secret Service tap was made into WCT, a larger project was nearing completion – the complete downloading of every debit card customer who purchased a Spotlight calling card from Liberty Lobby since November 1993 – an estimated 5,000 persons.

To avoid tipping off Liberty Lobby, the publisher of the Spotlight newspaper, Riley made contact directly with the company that handled Liberty Lobby's bank transactions. Soon arrangements were made for all payment records of Spotlight's debit cardholders to be turned over to the Secret Service by a financial services company in Boston, along with customer names and addresses associated with each cardholder that ordered a debit card from the right-wing newspaper.

To cover the agency's tracks, Riley recorded the event this way:

"I requested the information on every customer currently using the Spotlight Debit Card System to include account number, account name, address, method of payment/payment history. These accounts will be voluminous, however the program was created in November of 1993, and probably has less than 5,000 total customers (estimate). In addition, I have advised Godfrey (manager of Customer Services for Boston Financial Data Services) he would be receiving a notice requiring non-disclosure of this information which would prevent him from advising anyone of this request to include Spotlight/Liberty Lobby. Godfrey agreed to begin pulling the records immediately and will pull records pertaining to account #00563946 (Bridges PIN) first and fax by tomorrow.

"Once all the Spotlight information is forwarded, we will enter all of it into a database system for further research."

Secret Service gets entire phone number database

Later, this entry appeared in Riley's field notes: "Jack Moffat, IRMD, did the file transfer of the call records for the entire West Coast Telephone Debit system via mainframe."

While no one from the now-defunct Liberty Lobby would agree to an on-the- record interview, Secret Service records reveal that 10 years ago executives at the far-right organization grew suspicious that their customers' records were somehow being siphoned off by the government.

Regarding a phone call with Bill Sweet at the Spotlight newspaper, a WCT employee advised Kane in a memo obtained by the Gazette:

"He (Sweet) stated several times that he expected the FBI to arrive at his office some time this morning. He was upset that WCT had not been up front with him regarding recent activity with his clients' cards. I mentioned that it was possible that our employees and top officers might not be able to discuss what was going on.

"Bill was clearly concerned about the privacy of his membership, and wanted assurances that we were not divulging call records (or any other records) that might implicate his employer."



Reflecting the secret nature of the downloading of Liberty Lobby's customer database, Riley's field notes reflect this: "Called Don Stephenson at the FBI command post who confirmed we should have no contact with Spotlight (Liberty Lobby) at this time."

Separately, Secret Service notes indicate SA Stephenson also advised Riley that the FBI told him they had not made contact with Spotlight/Liberty Lobby, either.

Financial records matched up

Presumably with a non-disclosure agreement in hand from Boston Financial, Riley recorded this: "I contacted Dan Godfrey, Boston Financial Card Services, to check on the status of the transfer of the Spotlight Calling Card customer base-information. Godfrey advised the information was available and could be forwarded via ASCII file in any format I needed."

On April 25, Riley noted her progress in developing a huge database of debit card users, nationwide: "Did the file transfer of the call records for the entire West Coast Telephone debit system via mainframe.

"Jeff Bufumo, IRMD, called to discuss the most effective way to deal with the databases being created regarding this telephone research. Bufumo suggested all of the databases, (Spotlight customers, calling patterns, and Bridges/Nichols data) be loaded into a common index so that anyone who runs any phone numbers will get a positive response and any time we need to query a suspect number, we can search all databases with one query. Bufumo is working closely with Jack Moffat to load the different databases into the system as Moffat gets the files from West Coast Telephone."

Several attempts were made to contact Riley at her current job. She did not respond to e-mails requesting comment on her role in the OKBOMB case.



http://capitolhilljournal.com/art000000058.html

[truthseeker]

MEDIA??? BIASED??

SAY IT AIN'T SO!!!!



AP Poll Biased: Anti-Bush, Anti-Republican


Posted by John Armor on January 7, 2006 - 17:35.


Today (Saturday) there are stories in numerous papers based on an AP-Ipsos poll just released. Typical of the lot is an article in the New York Post, whose lede and third paragraphs are here:

Dissatisfied with the nation's direction, Americans are leaning toward wanting a change in which political party leads Congress - preferring that Democrats take control, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Democrats are favored over Republicans 49 percent to 36 percent.

President Bush's job approval remains low - 40 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll, with only one-third saying the country is headed in the right direction. Bush also remains low on his handling of Iraq, where violence against Iraqis and U.S. troops has been surging.

THIS AND OTHER RESULTS IN THIS POLL WOULD BE BAD TO VERY BAD NEWS FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, IF THE POLL WERE STATISTICALLY ACCURATE. IT IS NOT. The poll is stacked in most of its demographics to favor pro-Democrat results.

Source: http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/P/POLITICS_AP_POLL?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-01-07-02-06-45

Another AP story drawn from the same poll and published on the Internet, had this lede and third paragraph:

A majority of Americans want the Bush administration to get court approval before eavesdropping on people inside the United States, even if those calls might involve suspected terrorists, an AP-Ipsos poll shows.

Yet 56 percent of respondents in an AP-Ipsos poll said the government should be required to first get a court warrant to eavesdrop on the overseas calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when those communications are believed to be tied to terrorism.

Source: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060107/D8F02GJO6.html

AnkleBitingPundits did the heavy lifting to examine the inputs for this AP-Ipsos poll. Only 81% of respondents were eligible to vote, with no indication whether even those were registered and did vote in the last election. Respondents were 52-40 percent Democrats over Republicans, even though in the last election the split was 37 each (the rest being unaffiliated or third party).

Every single one of the following crosstabs from the poll are wrong, and in every instance the error favors the Democrat responses. Each is compared to actual voters in 2004. Religion: 19% said they had “none,” versus 10% in 2004. Age: 31% were 18-34, versus 17% for 18-29 (closest available data). Income: 15% under $15,000, versus 8%.

Marriage: 56% married, versus 63%. Geography: 17% rural, versus 25%. Race: 71% white and 12% Hispanic, versus 77% and 8%. (Remainder were black, and other.)

Source: http://www.anklebitingpundits.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2916&mode=nested&order=1&thold=0

A first-year student in statistics would be flunked for turning in poll results as obviously bad as this AP-Ipsos poll. Yet thousands of articles will appear in all media, across the nation and the world in the next few days, based on this poll.

At the very least, the AP should withdraw the poll and apologize for it. At worst, those who purchase the “news” services of AP should demand their money back.

John_Armor@aya.yale.edu


http://newsbusters.org/node/3502

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~*****~~~
"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill." Aalbert Campus: The Plague, Modern Library Edition, p. 120

~~***~~

"War creates peace like hate creates love." David L. Wilson

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

[Saundra Hummer]

*****
SURELY NO ONE IS LISTENING TO THE IDEAS OF THIS MAN OF DEVIENT BELIEFS? SURELY NOT? SRH
Bush Advisor Says President Has Legal Power to Torture Children

01/08/06 "revcom.us" -- -- John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.

This came out in response to a question in a December 1st debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel.

What is particularly chilling and revealing about this is that John Yoo was a key architect post-9/11 Bush Administration legal policy. As a deputy assistant to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, John Yoo authored a number of legal memos arguing for unlimited presidential powers to order torture of captive suspects, and to declare war anytime, any where, and on anyone the President deemed a threat.

It has now come out Yoo also had a hand in providing legal reasoning for the President to conduct unauthorized wiretaps of U.S. citizens. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole wrote, "Few lawyers have had more influence on President Bush’s legal policies in the 'war on terror’ than John Yoo."

This part of the exchange during the debate with Doug Cassel, reveals the logic of Yoo’s theories, adopted by the Administration as bedrock principles, in the real world.

Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

The audio of this exchange is available online at revcom.us

Yoo argues presidential powers on Constitutional grounds, but where in the Constitution does it say the President can order the torture of children ? As David Cole puts it, "Yoo reasoned that because the Constitution makes the President the 'Commander-in-Chief,’ no law can restrict the actions he may take in pursuit of war. On this reasoning, the President would be entitled by the Constitution to resort to genocide if he wished."

What is the position of the Bush Administration on the torture of children, since one of its most influential legal architects is advocating the President’s right to order the crushing of a child’s testicles?

This fascist logic has nothing to do with "getting information" as Yoo has argued. The legal theory developed by Yoo and a few others and adopted by the Administration has resulted in thousands being abducted from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq or other parts of the world, mostly at random. People have been raped, electrocuted, nearly drowned and tortured literally to death in U.S.-run torture centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay. And there is much still to come out. What about the secret centers in Europe or the many still-suppressed photos from Abu Ghraib? What can explain this sadistic, indiscriminate, barbaric brutality except a need to instill widespread fear among people all over the world?

It is ironic that just prior to arguing the President's legal right to torture children, John Yoo was defensive about the Bush administration policies, based on his legal memo’s, being equated to those during Nazi Germany.

Yoo said, "If you are trying to draw a moral equivalence between the Nazis and what the United States is trying to do in defending themselves against Al Qauueda and the 9/11 attacks, I fully reject that. Second, if you’re trying to equate the Bush Administration to Nazi officials who committed atrocities in the holocaust, I completely reject that too…I think to equate Nazi Germany to the Bush Administration is irresponsible."

If open promotion of unmitigated executive power, including the right to order the torture of innocent children, isn’t sufficient basis for drawing such a "moral equivalence," then I don’t know what is. What would be irresponsible is to sit by and allow the Bush regime to radically remake society in a fascist way, with repercussions for generations to come. We must act now because the future is in the balance. The world cannot wait. While Bush gives his State of the Union on January 31st, I’ll find myself along with many thousands across the country declaring "Bush Step Down And take your program with you."
Philip Watts - pwatts_revolution@yahoo.comBy Philip Watts
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article11488.htm

[Saundra Hummer]

*China's Taoists philosophers warned that you become what you hate.
The 'fin de regime'?

An out-of-touch George Bush now presides over a lost foreign war and a morass of influence peddling.
By Eric Margolis

01/08/06 "Toronto Sun" -- -- WASHINGTON -- China's Taoists philosophers warned that you become what you hate. We see this paradox in Washington, where the current administration increasingly reminds one of the old Soviet Union.

The U.S.S.R. went bankrupt after spending 40% of national income on the military. President George Bush's administration will spend a staggering $419.3 billion US on the military this fiscal year. An additional $130 billion US has been budgeted in 2006 for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's $10.8 billion a month -- 40% above previous estimates -- and somewhat more than the monthly cost of the Vietnam War at its height. Add to this huge sum an estimated $1.5 billion in monthly secret expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan by CIA and Pentagon intelligence.

Astoundingly, U.S. military spending in 2006 will equal the rest of the world's total combined military expenditures. I just saw an ad for the new, $115-million F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, trumpeting how its radar can "intercept communications of insurgents." Using a $115-million aircraft to listen to cellphone calls by a bunch of jihadis in Waziristan staggers the imagination.

Meanwhile, Moscow on the Potomac is in an uproar over government spying on citizens, torture, and what appears to be the mother of all influence-peddling scandals. Revelations that the super-secret National Security Agency and FBI have been monitoring domestic as well as international telecommunications have roused even the deadheads in Congress and the lapdog media. FBI agents are reportely spying on such nefarious "terrorists" as vegetarians and animal rights activists.

Bush (shades of Leonid Brezhnev) claims the right to override any laws because the U.S. is at war. "Terrorists" ("enemies of the state" in Soviet talk) threaten the U.S., so anything goes. What next -- cancelling next fall's elections because of the threat of the phantom al-Qaida?

Meanwhile, a scandal bursts right out of the last days of the corrupt Soviet Union. A sinister Republican apparatchik named Jack Abramoff has admitted dishing out $4.4 million in bribes to senators, congressmen and political aides. Bigwigs like Bush, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Republican grand poobah Tom DeLay, Bible-thumping crusader Ralph Reed, Hillary Clinton and a bevy of venal legislators have been implicated in this culture of corruption.

Abramoff got over $30 million from various Indian tribes promoting their casino businesses. He and cronies scalped their Indian clients, pocketing $11 million in kickbacks. Where, one wonders with awe, did those persecuted native Americans find so much cash?

Republicans (and also some Democrats) are scared silly by the scandal. Many legislators may be headed for the big house.

All parties that stay in power too long become deeply corrupt. Wise voters need to kick out incumbents regularly. Longevity in office ensures bad government. The Republicans, buoyed by faked-up war fever, became deeply corrupted more quickly than usual.

The Achilles heel

Money is the Achilles heel of democracy. In America, winning and keeping office demands spending huge sums on TV advertising. The Washington lobbyists and bagmen who produce millions to fund politicians have become more powerful than elected legislators. This is how parasites like Abramoff flourish.

A smell of "fin du regime" hangs over Washington, just as it did over the last days of decaying Soviet oligarchy. An out-of-touch leader presides over a lost foreign war and a morass of influence peddling and bribery, as the secret police struggle to keep a lid on growing dissent.

margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Belafonte Calls Bush 'Greatest Terrorist' By IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writer
50 minutes ago

CARACAS, Venezuela - The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" on Sunday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday. Some in the group attended Chavez's television and radio broadcast Sunday.

"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution," Belafonte told Chavez during the broadcast.

The 78-year-old Belafonte, famous for his calypso-inspired music, including the "Day-O" song, was a close collaborator of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. He also has been outspoken in criticizing the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

Chavez said he believes deeply in the struggle for justice by blacks, both in the U.S. and Venezuela.

"Although we may not believe it, there continues to be great discrimination here against black people," Chavez said, urging his government to redouble its efforts to prevent discrimination.

Belafonte accused U.S. news media of falsely painting Chavez as a "dictator," when in fact, he said, there is democracy and citizens are "optimistic about their future."

Dolores Huerta, a pioneer of the United Farm Workers labor union also in the delegation, called the visit a "very deep experience."

Chavez accuses Bush of trying to overthrow him, pointing to intelligence documents released by the U.S. indicating that the CIA knew beforehand that dissident officers planned a short-lived 2002 coup. The U.S. denies involvement, but Chavez says Venezuela must be on guard.

Belafonte suggested setting up a youth exchange for Venezuelans and Americans. He finished by shouting in Spanish: "Viva la revolucion!"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060109/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_belafonte;_ylt=AlCL1mn1JA0yMgBNdVLfcDms0 NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Utah Theater Cancels 'Brokeback Mountain'
Sun Jan 8, 5:06 PM ET

SALT LAKE CITY - A movie theater owned by Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller abruptly changed its screening plans and decided not to show the film "Brokeback Mountain." The film, an R-rated Western gay romance story, was supposed to open Friday at the Megaplex at Jordan Commons in Sandy, a suburb of Salt Lake City. Instead it was pulled from the schedule.

A message posted at the ticket window read: "There has been a change in booking and we will not be showing 'Brokeback Mountain.' We apologize for any inconvenience."

Cal Gunderson, manager of the Jordan Commons Megaplex, declined to comment.

The film, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, is about two cowboys who discover feelings for one another. The two eventually marry women but rekindle their relationship over the years.

The movie's distributor, Focus Features, said that hours before opening, the theater management "reneged on their licensing agreement," and refused to open the film.

Gayle Ruzicka, president of the conservative Utah Eagle Forum, said not showing the film set an example for the people of Utah.

"I just think (pulling the show) tells the young people especially that maybe there is something wrong with this show," she said.

Mike Thompson, executive director of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah, called it disappointing.

"It's just a shame that such a beautiful and award-winning film with so much buzz about it is not being made available to a broad Utah audience because of personal bias," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060108/ap_on_en_mo/brokeback_canceled;_ylt=Ajqrea.kCwCJt2YyZ8hcVk6s0N UE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

[Saundra Hummer]

*****
WAY TO GO USA MILITARY!
WAY TO GO!
SRH
~*~
To fight Al Qaeda, US troops in Africa build schools insteadMore than 1,500 US troops are on a hearts-and-minds mission.By James Brandon | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
CAMP LEMONIER, DJIBOUTI – Pointing to his computer screen, Maj. Gen. Timothy Ghormley sounds more like a Peace Corps volunteer showing off holiday photos than the shaven-headed US Marine entrusted with defeating Al Qaeda in East Africa.
"That's what it's about right there," he says, stabbing his eyeglasses at the pictures of African children celebrating as water gushes from a new well. "Look at those kids. They're gonna remember this. In 25 years they'll say, 'I remember the West - they were goodIn 2002, more than 1,500 US troops were sent to this former French colony in East Africa to hunt followers of Al Qaeda throughout the region. Now, under General Ghormley, their mission has evolved to preempt the broader growth of Islamic militancy among the area's largely Muslim population.

"We are trying to dry up the recruiting pool for Al Qaeda by showing people the way ahead. We are doing this one village, one person at a time," says Ghormley, commander of the joint task force based in Djibouti. "We're waging peace just as hard as we can."

Previously East Africa has hosted an array of Islamic militant groups. In 1998, Al Qaeda bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 220 people. The group has also tried to shoot down an Israeli airliner in Mombasa, Kenya, and sink oil tankers and US navy vessels in the Red Sea.

Now many analysts worry that trouble is again brewing as rising poverty combines with the anti-Western ideologies of hard-line Islamic missionaries in a region already dogged by porous borders, plentiful weapons, and poor governance.

"There aren't actually that many groups or individuals involved," says Matt Bryden, director of the Horn of Africa project for International Crisis Watch. "But there's a danger that if these groups are not contained it is just a matter of time before they strike at Western targets in Somalia or start reaching out to the region again."

"Some of them did have links with Al Qaeda but for the most part there doesn't seem to be an active Al Qaeda or even an Al Qaeda franchise," says Mr. Bryden. "But the US has discovered that there are actually much fewer targets than they expected."

No targets but hearts and minds

Unable to find or strike at any visible Al Qaeda members, US forces based in Camp Lemonier - Djibouti's former French Foreign Legion base - have instead begun to work to tackle the factors that might contribute to the growth of extremism in the future.

Ghormley's men have so far built more than 30 schools and 25 clinics, as well as new wells and bridges. They are focusing particularly on the mainly Muslim areas close to the porous Somali border where poverty and dissatisfaction with pro-Western central governments might make many receptive to extremist teachings.

"Ungoverned spaces are vulnerable. The forces of law and order don't exist there," says Lt. Col. Richard Baillon, of Britain's Parachute Regiment. A small contingent of British troops are working with US forces in a coalition effort. "The people in these areas aren't getting government support."

Planners in Camp Lemonier say that their long-term strategy is to gradually move deeper into these poor and ungoverned areas.

"We're not likely to go where we're not wanted or where there's open hostility," says Baillon, tapping a wall-map like a schoolmaster. "But it's about pushing the boundaries of where we are wanted."

The Coalition's planners hope that by tackling localized dissatisfaction now, they can create long-term goodwill toward the US in the region. "A lot of times when we first show up there's a mixed reaction," says Sgt. Richard Crandall of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion. "One place we went to they considered the US to be warmongers. But we built a school and when we left they said they considered us friends."

The military is taking time to adapt to its new humanitarian mission too - and this means that there have been some mistakes made along the way.

For example, the task force's military budget only covers the cost of constructing and renovating school buildings. Before the schools can open, soldiers have to pester nongovernmental organizations, charities, and friends back home for donated textbooks. In other cases there has been poor communication between the US and local people. Some villages, thinking that the Americans could only build schools, requested a new school when they needed wells and bridges instead. The mistake was realized too late.

Meanwhile, the US increasingly depends on local governments to use their cultural and linguistic knowledge to track and tackle Islamic extremists.

"The information sharing is not ideal; not up to the point that we would like," admits Nabeel Khoury, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Sanaa, Yemen.

And although there are handfuls of up-armored Humvees parked alongside rusting French artillery pieces throughout Camp Lemonier, the US increasingly seeks to delegate its military operations.

"We're doing military-to-military training with five countries in the region," says Col. Doug Carroll, director of operations for the Horn of Africa task force. The US has trained Yemeni special forces in counter-terrorism while officers from Mauritius and the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean have been taught how to train their own soldiers once they return home.

"In Ethiopia we've taught border security, we've taught basic counter-terrorism, what they call advanced map reading and also defensive operations," says Carroll, who denies that the training will upset the region's delicate balance of power. "We're not teaching them anything that would be applicable to the Ethiopian-Eritrean border war," he says of the training of Ethiopian border guards, while also denying that US-trained troops have been used to crush recent uprisings in Yemen.

Somalia remains a clear blind spot

But although the lack of recent Al Qaeda attacks in the region points to the mission's success so far, there remains a clear blind spot at the heart of the US deployment.

"It's a bit of a paradox," says Bryden. "The threat that the US perceives in the region comes from Somalia, but that is the only place where they can't operate."

Senior officers in Djibouti refuse to even discuss Somalia, although one officer privately admitted having contact with high-level members of the government of Somaliland - a breakaway republic in the north of the war-torn country that recently arrested one Al Qaeda team linked to extremist groups in Mogadishu.

"The US has had to develop a much more nuanced approach and it shows that they are dealing with the problem," says Bryden. "They've had to discover the difference between terrorism and a domestic insurgency."

As the US gradually increases its understanding of the region there is no sign of the mission winding down. Instead, as more British troops also prepare to deploy to the region, the operation seems to have become entirely open-ended.

"It's important that we share what we have to allow all nations to advance," says General Ghormley. "We didn't earn being born in America - the Good Lord put us there and with that came responsibility."

An area five times larger than Iraq

Standing in his office, Ghormley, surrounded by maps where arrow-straight borders drawn by European colonialists cut across mountains, deserts, and complex ethnic groups, provides more than an echo of a Victorian soldier-missionary.

"You can win a heart and mind today and lose it tomorrow," Ghormley continues. "We see no spread of radical ideology. We see a lot of people who would like it to spread."

But with Camp Lemonier boasting less than 1 percent of the troops currently deployed in Iraq and responsible for an area five times larger, Ghormley is aware that there is a limit to what the US can achieve in the region.

"I could use more money, more people, but I've got the resources I need to carry on," he says, taking a last look at the pictures on his computer screen. "They're good people and it breaks your heart that you can't do more for them." http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0109/p01s04-woaf.htmlGO ON SITE FOR MORE AND TO SEE MAP OF THE AREA. SRH[ONE CAN ONLY HOPE THIS WILL TURN INTO THE NORM, AND THAT IT WILL BE LOOKED ON AS A GOOD THING BY THOSE IN THAT COUNTRY AND ON THE CONTINENT AND THAT IT'S NOT TOO LATE. SRH]

[Saundra Hummer]

***
How Alito would shift high court on key issues
COURT NOMINEE: Analysts disagree whether Alito would challenge Bush's authority to wage the war on terror
His confirmation hearings begin in the Senate Monday.
By Warren Richey Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The potential replacement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with appeals court Judge Samuel Alito sets the stage for a series of significant shifts in the legal landscape at the US Supreme Court.
It would bring into play some of the nation's most divisive issues, including abortion, affirmative action, campaign-finance reform, and the death penalty. And it would fundamentally alter the internal dynamics of the sharply divided nine-member court in which Justice O'Connor has single-handedly shaped much of American law by deftly wielding a decisive fifth vote in major cases.

Now, with the Senate Judiciary Committee set to begin confirmation hearings for Judge Alito on Monday, a key question is: Just how conservative would the high court become with Alito - including in the murky area of White House authority to wage the war on terrorism.

"It seems to me pretty clear that you can identify a half-dozen areas of the law that will probably change decisively from an O'Connor to an Alito vote," says Bruce Fein, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who served with Alito in the Reagan Justice Department.

Where O'Connor rejected restrictions on abortion, Alito is likely to uphold them, legal analysts say. Where O'Connor voted to uphold an affirmative action plan at the University of Michigan Law School, Alito is more likely to vote with conservatives who viewed it as an impermissible quota system. He is likely to vote to uphold the kind of public displays of the Ten Commandments O'Connor voted last summer to strike down, analysts say.

In death penalty cases he is expected to side with conservatives who reject the "evolving standard of decency" test embraced by O'Connor, which has made it more difficult for states to carry out executions. He also will be more likely than O'Connor to let stand death sentences despite claims that defense lawyers weren't effective enough. And even though O'Connor is viewed as a reliable vote in states' rights cases, Alito is expected to be an even stronger champion.

One looming question about Alito is how he might vote in cases challenging President Bush's unilateral assertion of powers as commander in chief to wage the war on terror.

O'Connor has staked out a middle position on that issue, deferring to some extent to the White House, but making clear at the same time that the Constitution requires a degree of judicial oversight.

Some analysts believe Alito would take a much harder line against the White House, siding with conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who completely rejected the White House position in a 2004 case involving an American held indefinitely in military custody as an enemy combatant.

Others suggest Alito will defer to the president even more than O'Connor, granting the executive branch broad power to respond unilaterally to what it views as national emergencies. Some analysts see this as a warning flag, given recent controversies over Mr. Bush's authorization of warrantless surveillance within the US, the establishment of military tribunals, and harsh treatment of terror suspects.

"I think the most dangerous aspect of Sam Alito is his deference to the government," says Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University School of Law. "When it comes to government abuse and assertions of government power, Sam Alito is an empty robe."

Not since the 1987 nomination of Judge Robert Bork to replace retiring moderate Justice Lewis Powell has the high court faced such an abrupt move to the right in so many areas at once. And not since the Bork nomination has there been such a large and determined coalition assembled in opposition to a high court nominee, analysts say.

Supporters portray Alito as a careful, conservative jurist within the mainstream of American legal thought. Opponents paint him as an agenda-driven ideologue.

For the past two months journalists and legal analysts have been poring over hundreds of Alito decisions issued during his 15 years as a judge on the Philadelphia-based Third US Circuit Court of Appeals. They have also examined memos and letters he wrote while working as a Justice Department lawyer during the Reagan administration. "I am particularly proud of my contribution in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," Alito wrote in one letter.

In a 1985 memo, Alito made clear his legal judgment that the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade, should at some point be overturned. But he said in the memo that the 1985 case then before the high court was not the right time to push for it. Instead, he counseled his Reagan administration colleagues to urge the court to cut back on abortion protections.

Some Alito supporters have downplayed the papers, saying they were produced 20 years ago when Alito was a young lawyer, and not yet a judge. They urge senators to focus instead on Alito's work as an appeals court judge.

But analysts like Mr. Fein say that the memos are a far more revealing source of insight than Alito's appeals court decisions when attempting to assess how Alito might behave as a Supreme Court justice. "The court of appeals isn't in an advocacy role, the appeals court is bound by the rulings of the Supreme Court," he says, "whereas a Justice Department lawyer ... is trying to anticipate and trying to nudge the court in a direction it thinks is correct and right."

Making judgments about where the law should be headed rather than studiously following the guidance of other courts is closer to the role of a Supreme Court justice, Fein says. Rather than backing away from the positions he advocated in the Justice Department, Alito should embrace and defend them. "In 2006, the country is ready for a conservative," he says.

Professor Turley agrees that the Alito memos are revealing, but he doesn't believe they help Alito. Instead, he says, they suggest a justice who may be oriented toward achieving conservative results rather than staking out and adhering to a principled position.

"I think you see that in his memos as an attorney," Turley says. "He believed that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned. However, he argued that it should be gutted rather than overturned for tactical purposes."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0106/p01s04-usju.html?s=u

[Saundra Hummer]

*****
Judging Alito as he would judge
The Monitor's View

From the January 09, 2006 edition No one but a candidate for president endures as much scrutiny as a Supreme Court nominee. This week, Samuel Alito takes his turn in being dissected by a Senate committee. Like the justice he may become, however, the senators need to judge him not on his political views but on his fidelity to the Constitution.
Injecting particular social causes or current politics into a Senate vote for or against a high court nominee is to assume a justice must and will always do the same. Therein lies the ruin of this republic's bedrock.

Political causes, no matter how moral or widely supported, must stop at the marble steps of the Supreme Court. For there the Constitution reigns like an invariable monarch with its own moral standing, and the justices must drop many human tendencies and apply common-sense meaning of constitutional text and established court opinions. It is an imperfect exercise done in hopes of a perfect outcome, creating a web of precedents that helps bring certainty to law. It relies on that rare virtue in which someone stops being an advocate in a political conflict and acts as an impartial judge, picking a side by applying the template of the Constitution and its principles.

In the months since Mr. Alito's nomination, both supporters and critics have combed his work as an appellate judge for 15 years (and before that as a legal advocate in the Reagan Justice Department) to predict if he will apply his personal, political causes in his high court decisions. Neither group is fully satisfied.

That's because many don't analyze his judicial opinions on whether he's been faithful to the law, legal precedents, or the Constitution, but whether he's delivered a result favorable to a particular cause, be it abortion, race, or gun rights. They tend to treat judicial reasoning as if it should be a party platform.

High court nominees of President Clinton faced similar scrutiny. Both left and right, frustrated at not always winning victories in the other two branches of government, have turned more to the courts in recent decades, and focused on putting "conservatives" or "liberals" on the bench. These hearings thus represent the latest battle in a relatively new intellectual war to erode centuries of mainstream legal jurisprudence (philosophy of law).

Much of law since the 18th century has been based on the idea that society runs best if judges don't act as legislators, but rather apply and follow the law - and not make it (or do whatever they think best). Critics of this "legal formalism" - or the conforming of new decisions to past decisions - say it doesn't advance rights fast enough or pays too much deference to executive or legislative authority. Alito, in this view, has "erred" by paying due deference to law and elected authority.

Both sides want to know, however, if that deference also includes his acceptance of major court decisions of the past century, especially ones about abortion and one man/one vote. Did some decisions "create" law but, by remaining on the books so long, become settled law, worthy of judicial respect? Or must a "bad" court decision be seen as "no law"?

Alito's answers to such questions will help define whether he, like any justice, would allow strict judicial reasoning rather than political views to extend civil rights, case by case.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0109/p08s02-comv.html

[Saundra Hummer]

*****
Secret surveillance is not new
By Daniel Schorr
WASHINGTON – The controversy over the National Security Agency's interception of domestic communications without court warrant is not the first time the government has tried to shield a new surveillance technique behind a cloak of secrecy

Here's a list of topical articles regarding spying on Americans with tie in to this article:
Domestic espionage
Stories
01/03/06
Debate over eavesdropping grows
01/03/06
Coming to the Hill: lots of hearing-room drama
12/29/05
Americans split on feds listening in
12/21/05
Can the government spy on citizens without a warrant?
12/19/05
Senators want investigation into eavesdropping program
Commentary
01/06/06
Secret surveillance is not new (todays story)
01/05/06
Congress is partly to blame for Bush's warrantless wiretaps
12/27/05
The war on terror should not supersede the laws of the land
Your Views
Domestic espionage

I can vividly remember the highflying U-2 spy plane that Lockheed developed for the CIA, unknown to the public until the Russians shot one down on May 1, 1960, precipitating a crisis that sent Nikita Khrushchev storming out of his Paris summit meeting with President Eisenhower.

Later in the cold war, aerial intelligence was largely replaced by the intelligence satellite, which could be used not only for pictures of the ground but for other purposes like space-based radar. For a long time the existence of the spy satellites - even the name - was a deep secret. They were referred to in arms-control talks as "National Technical Means of Verification."

In the 1970s, the Navy used submarines to tap Soviet cables under the ice off Murmansk. It was done secretly, until the existence of the submarine program was betrayed to the Russians by a spy in the Navy.

The post-9/11 war against terror brought to light new forms of secret surveillance. One was the Total Information Awareness Office, operated by a hush-hush Pentagon agency that assembled and computerized every kind of data about suspects - from medical records to travel plans. The project was headed by retired Admiral John Poindexter. He resigned when someone let the cat out of the bag. He said he still thought his data-scanning system was a very good idea.

So now we have the NSA's program of assembling and analyzing huge volumes of telephone and Internet communications in the hope of forestalling a terrorist act. All this without a warrant from the special court established for that purpose.

President Bush's first impulse when the NSA program was uncovered was to announce that the eavesdropping program would continue. His second impulse was to order an investigation of who leaked the story to The New York Times.

YOUR VIEWS (Go On Site To Post Your Thoughts:) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0106/p09s01-cods.html[/INDENT][/I][/B][/SIZE]
Did President Bush overstep his bounds by authorizing domestic wiretapping without court approval?

Share your thoughts and read what others are saying.

Periodically, the government will establish some secret program that will sacrifice a measure of individual freedom to some notion of national security. Periodically, thanks perhaps to an outraged whistle-blower, the surveillance plan may be revealed. Periodically, the government will try to wreak vengeance on the one who told. And, life in this democracy will go on.
• Daniel Schorr is a senior news analyst at National Public Radio

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0106/p09s01-cods.html

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Americans split on feds listening in
USA > Domestic Politics
from the December 29, 2005 edition

TAKING QUESTIONS: In a press conference on Dec. 19, President Bush defended his decision to authorize domestic eavesdropping.
KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS


Half of Americans say Bush has the right to OK the secret program.
By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Marilyn Acosta, a Boeing employee from Los Angeles, has a message for President Bush: "If he wants to listen in to my calls, it's OK. I'm all for it."
Not so fast, says Rosey Bystrak, who works for an architectural firm in San Diego. "Bush thinks he's a king and not a president, so it doesn't surprise me," she says, referring to the recent revelation that after 9/11, the president authorized the interception of communications between the US and other countries without a judge's approval.

These two women, speaking to a reporter in San Diego's Balboa Park, encompass the range of views on the issue and reflect the nearly even divide in public opinion found in the first survey that directly addresses the controversial program. The online Zogby Interactive poll, taken Dec. 20-21, found that nearly half of likely voters, 49 percent, say Bush has the constitutional powers to approve such a plan, while 45 percent say he does not.

The inclusion of the president in the question appears key, says John Zogby, the pollster. When Bush becomes part of the equation in polling, political polarization comes to the fore. "Since the president is at the core of the issue, we felt it legitimated the question by putting his name in there," Mr. Zogby says. In fact, he believes the Dec. 16 revelation of the National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropping program contributed to Bush's bounce in the polls this month, particularly by bringing some wayward Republicans back to his side.

"When you put the president and 9/11 and the war on terror together with NSA eavesdropping, you get great support among Republicans," he says. "It has become a wedge issue."

Two in three say civil liberties are key

By other measures, American concerns about the proper balancing of civil liberties with national security have increased since the early post-9/11 period. Gallup, which regularly polls on civil liberties, found four months after the terror attacks that nearly half of Americans believed it was OK to violate basic civil liberties in the name of battling terrorism. But by September 2002, the numbers had shifted to where they are today. By a 2-to-1 margin, Americans believe the government should take steps to prevent terrorism, but not at the expense of civil liberties.

"It could reflect the return of people's traditional skepticism of federal power," says Karlyn Bowman, an expert on polling at the American Enterprise Institute, who says other surveys show the same trend. "Or perhaps as memories of 9/11 recede, they could just be thinking the government is going too far."

The debate over the future of the antiterror Patriot Act also reflects growing unease on the part of some Americans - including senators, both Republican and Democrat - over how individual rights are handled during wartime. When Congress reconvenes in January, both issues will return to the foreground. But it is the newly revealed eavesdropping program that has captured more public attention of late. The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to have hearings as soon as it finishes Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito.

Americans, meanwhile, are sorting through the eavesdropping question. Back at Balboa Park in San Diego, physician Franco Spano says he's having trouble figuring out where the truth really lies. "You hear the sound bites from both sides, but you need an objective source to really comment on it." Still, he says, "I'm suspicious," adding that sometimes "people's rights are taken away slowly ... purportedly, for a good reason."

YOUR VIEWS (o on site to voice them etc.)

Did President Bush overstep his bounds by authorizing domestic wiretapping without court approval?

Share your thoughts and read what others are saying.

Retired construction worker Robert Hobbs comes down on the president's side. "We have to stop terrorists when they start talking about doing something," Mr. Hobbs says from his wheelchair in the park, watching dogs run in a canine-friendly grassy area. "You need to get them then. You can't wait for a court order."

He isn't concerned about having his phone tapped. "I'm not going to terrorize anyone," he says. "If you aren't going to do anything, you don't have anything to worry about."

Continued on Page 2

Cutting the president some slack

For some Americans, the issue is cloudy enough for them to give the president the benefit of the doubt. That's the case with Bruce Garrison, a resident of Ossining, N.Y. "It seems like it's one of those unfortunate borderlands where the interest of national security and the rights to privacy collide," he says. But "I am not convinced the president is overstepping his grounds, constitutionally speaking."
Domestic espionage
Stories
01/03/06

The war on terror should not supersede the laws of the land

Your Views
Domestic espionage
In the Monitor
Monday, 01/09/06

Tom Friedrich of Elmira, N.Y., believes the whole affair is overblown, the result of a lot of "Monday morning" quarterbacking. "If there had been another attack, Bush's critics would be asking why he didn't use every means at his disposal to stop an attack. There hasn't been, which can only be interpreted as his approach to terrorism being successful. So, he's criticized for being too aggressive. I'd like to hear Bush's critics identify which innocent civilians should have been sacrificed, so that nobody has to worry about telephone calls to Tehran being overheard."

But to Melissa Kirk of New York City, the spying is wrong - and not just because she's a Democrat: "I can understand the need to protect the public, but if it's done on the basis of fear or gut reaction, not involving the courts, then more often than not someone's rights get trampled. It's a slippery slope. It's important to prevent a tragedy, but by following the Constitution, we are protecting the nation."

In Garner, N.C., Michael Akins will give his name, but won't let a reporter take his picture. Mr. Akins worries a newspaper picture with his anti-administration opinions next to it would spark interest from federal agents. "They'd be tapping my phone. I'm serious," he says.

Akins admits that a growing distrust of politicians and cynicism about the news media clearly color his opinions and, added to what he calls the impossibility of privacy "since the Internet hit," he's convinced that what little privacy is left is worth fighting for.

"[Federal agents] are already doing more than anybody even knows, so if we appear to let them do whatever they want to do, it's only going to get worse," he says.

Undecided in the Midwest

In Chicago, many of those interviewed at the end of the long holiday weekend declined to express their opinions. Some said they didn't know the facts well enough; others weren't sure how to weigh privacy concerns against the chance of disrupting terrorist attacks. But while the undecided outnumbered the opinionated, opponents of the surveillance outnumbered supporters.

Graduate student Sam Goffman questioned the usefulness of the intelligence gathered through the wiretaps and worried about America's reputation. "In the long run, it will drive people away," he says. "It will increase hostility towards this country."

At Chicago's Intelligentsia coffee shop, Bonnie Angel says surveillance without a warrant could be justified if the government had good reason to suspect someone of involvement in terrorism. "Sometimes it's justified without a warrant," says Ms. Angel. "If you put too many strangleholds on [the government] they can't do their job. And the 'bad guys' know they can't do their job and take full advantage of it."
YOUR VIEWS
Did President Bush overstep his bounds by authorizing domestic wiretapping without court approval?
Share your thoughts and read what others are saying.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1229/p01s04a-uspo.htm

[Saundra Hummer]

*****
News: Beyond the remains of yesterday’s politics, the change you’re looking for has already begun.
Another World Is Possible

By Gar Alperovitz
January/February 2006 Issue

Where is America headed? It’s not hard to find pessimists. Author and former Nixon adviser Kevin Phillips believes the nation is dominated by a new “plutocracy” in which wealth reaches “beyond its own realm” to control government at all levels. The writer Robert Kaplan predicts that our society could soon “resemble the oligarchies of ancient Athens and Sparta.” Sociologist Bertram Gross has predicted a “friendly fascism.” Imagine what another 9/11 would do. It’s also not hard to find optimists. Bush is in trouble, the GOP is struggling to recruit candidates in many races, and liberals are beginning to smell blood. After all, if 70,000 votes had gone the other way in Ohio—and if voters hadn’t been forced to wait in line for endless hours–we might have a Democrat in the White House right now. The Dean campaign, America Coming Together, MoveOn, Wellstone Action, and many other efforts show new energies beneath the surface. The Iraq war is becoming increasingly unpopular. The pendulum will surely swing

My own view is that both these judgments are almost certainly wrong. Both assume that the crisis we face is a politicalone, pure and simple. But what if it is something different? There are reasons to believe we are entering what can only be called a systemic crisis. And the emerging possibilities are not easily described by the conventional wisdom of either left or right. The institutional power arrangements that have set the terms of referenc for the American political-economic system over roughly the last half century are dissolving before our eyes–especially those that once constrained corporate economic and political power. First, organized labor’s capacity to check the giant corporation, both on the shop floor and in national politics, has all but disappeared as union membership has collapsed from 35 percent of the labor force in the mid-1950s to a mere 7.9 percent in the private sector today. Throughout the world, at the heart of virtually every major progressive political movement has been a powerful labor movement. Liberalism in general, and the welfare state in particular, would have been impossible without union money and organizing. The decline of labor is one of the central reasons traditional liberal strategies are in decline.
~
Second, globalization has further enhanced corporate power, as the threat to move jobs elsewhere erodes unions’ bargaining capacity, while at the same time working to reduce taxation and regulation. (The corporate share of the federal tax burden has declined in eerie lockstep with union membership—from 35 percent in 1945 to 10.1 percent in 2004.) This in turn has intensified the nationwide fiscal crisis, further undercutting efforts to use public resources to solve public problems ranging from poverty and hunger to energy conservation and even simple repair jobs such as fixing decaying roads, bridges, and water systems throughout the nation.
~
Third–and most important–the Republican “Southern Strategy” has now completed the transformation of a once (nominally) Democratic South that at least voted for Democratic presidents into a reactionary bastion of corporate power based on implicit racism and explicitly religious divide-and-conquer fervor. Bill Clinton’s brief moment occurred just before the full consolidation of this Southern stranglehold. Very few observers have grasped the full implications of this shift: The United States is the only advanced political economy where the working class is fundamentally–not marginally–divided by race. It is also the only one where a massive geographic quadrant is now essentially beyond the reach of traditional progressive politics. George Bush, though extreme, is no accident; nor can the core political relationships that now define the South be easily unraveled. Hence, yes, a Democrat might be elected president one day. But no, such a shift is not going to nurture an era of renewed liberal or progressive reform. The system of power that once allowed this no longer exists. Period.
~
Some who have sensed the far-reaching character of these system-wide changes have despaired of any hope for the future. Perhaps the end of one set of structural relationships–the ones we have come to take for granted in our own lifetimes–spells the end of all potentially positive systemic possibilities. Perhaps.

But I am a political economist and a historian, one for whom the best way to understand current events is to think of them as an ongoing movie, not a snapshot. What is interesting is not simply the current reel, but the previous one, and above all what both suggest about the next one. Even though I think times are likely to get worse before they get better, let me explain why I am a prudent optimist about the long haul—even allowing for the profound changes taking place (and in some ways because of them).
To get immediate access to the complete version of this story, you must be a Mother Jones subscriber.
~Gar Alperovitz is a professor at the University of Maryland, and the Author of America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/01/another_world_is_possible.html

GO ON-SITE TO SEE THE ART WORK ACCOMPANING THIS ARTICLE.

[Saundra Hummer]

Liberty BeatGeorge Bush: Master SpyUnilateral president exposed in his ignorance of Constitution he's sworn to protectby Nat Hentoff
January 6th, 2006 4:53 PM "Trust me."
[photo: Paul Morse/whitehouse.gov Go on-site to see photo and links.]

The pursuit of terrorism does not authorize the president to make up new laws. Thomas G. Donlan , "Unwarranted Executive Power," Barron's, page 1, December 26
William Kristol, usually a reasonable conservative—staunchly defending the president's authorization of the National Security Agency's warrantless spying on telephone calls and e-mails into and out of the United States—declared in the January 2 Weekly Standard, of which he is the editor:

"Was the president to ignore the obvious incapacity of any court [including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] to judge surveillance decisions involving the sweeping of massive numbers of cell phone and e-mails by high-speed computers . . . [during] the threat of imminent new attacks?"

Kristol ignored the fact—as the president continually has—that the law creating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court permits the NSA to conduct its massive searches without first going to the FISA court in an emergency. The NSA then has 72 hours to go to the secret FISA court and get the warrant. Moreover, as John Riley reported in the best single analysis of this action by the master-spy president ( Newsday, "Eavesdropping Tests Legal Limits," December 26), "Even longer periods [than 72 hours] are permitted in wartime."

I do appreciate, however, William Kristol's making clear that this unilateral, pervasive attack on what is left of Americans' privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment involves a huge, ever expanding data bank—the data mining of which was indicated by Washington Post columnist William Arkin:

"Massive amounts of collected data-—actual intercepts of phone calls, e-mails, etc.—together with 'transaction' data—travel or credit card records or telephone or Internet service provider logs—are mixed through a mind-boggling array of government and private sector software programs to look for potential matches." (Emphasis added.)

For more on how far and deep this data mining continues, though not acknowledged by Bush when he denounced The New York Times for its "shameful" breaking of the story of how he had let the NSA loose, see "Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove . . . Actions Without Warrants Are Called Wider Than Acknowledged" (The New York Times, page 1, December 24).

From that Times story: "A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists. " (Emphasis added.)

Abraham Lincoln publicly suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and was told posthumously by the Supreme Court (Ex parte Milligan, 1866) that he had acted unconstitutionally. George W. Bush, in the war on terrorism, has secretly suspended the Fourth Amendment, with the complicity of private telecommunications companies. With John Roberts on the Supreme Court and Samuel Alito likely to be confirmed, it may be a long time before this administration is held accountable for this and other pillaging of the Bill of Rights. If the next administration continues in this vein, more of our liberties will turn into relics.
~
The Democratic Party has a huge responsibility in its choice of a candidate for the presidency in 2008.

As Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security—and the author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World—wrote in the December 21 Minneapolis Star Tribune:

"Unchecked presidential power has nothing to do with how much you either love or hate George W. Bush. You have to imagine this power in the hands of the person you most don't want to be president, whether it be Dick Cheney or Hillary Rodham Clinton . . . "

Meanwhile, the president and his apologists keep insisting that Bush had the approval of Congress for this omnivorous spying--—even though his "inherent executive power" as commander in chief presumably didn't require that courtesy. After all, right after 9-11, Bush claimed, Congress gave him the authority to use military force against the terrorists. But as Democratic senator Russ Feingold, of Wisconsin, instructed him, and us, in a letter in the December 29 Wall Street Journal:

"Members of Congress, even in the shadow of Sept. 11, did not think that the military force resolution was giving the president blanket authority to order warrantless wiretaps of American citizens on American soil. Congress has not granted the president that power, nor has he requested it [of Congress]."

But, says Bush—in due respect to the separation of powers—he did consult certain members of Congress about unfettered NSA spying. Answers Russ Feingold:

"Informing a handful of congressional leaders who are prohibited from discussing what they have been told is not oversight, and congressional inaction under these extraordinary circumstances is not approval."

How about Russ Feingold for president? Or if that seems too precipitous a step, it would be very useful for the Democratic Party and the nation to have a debate on the extent of constitutional executive powers— between Russ Feingold and Hillary Rodham Clinton!

As for our lawless president, Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pledges penetrating hearings on the president's allowing—and blessing-—the NSA's watching over all of us. The White House will mightily resist this investigation in the name, of course, of national security, and there will be resistance from the congressional Republican leadership. Specter needs to hear from you.

In this war on terrorism with no definite end, the mettle of this democracy and its Constitution will be tested severely as to how far this or any future president can go in asserting his "inherent" powers.

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Sirotablog
Real-world wisdom from outside the beltway.
An example of the media providing contextLast week I noted how absolutely pathetic it was that the media is providing no context in covering former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's supposed outrage over the GOP's corruption scandals. They are mentioning nothing about how Gingrich was actually the architect of the corruption in the first place. This refusal by many major political reporters to provide context and history in their coverage is one of the big reasons journalism is suffering a major crisis of confidence. It is also one of the big reasons average Americans have become so cynical about politics - it's nearly impossible to get any picture of reality or fact anymore if you read the papers.
But let's be clear - this journalistic malpractice does not have to exist. There are some good reporters out there who show that reporters can provide context if they want to, and can challenge power if they desire. As just one example, make sure to read this incredible story from Sunday's Helena Independent Record about former Governor and RNC Chairman Marc Racicot. Whatever your politics are, this piece by one of Montana's most respected political reporters clearly provides context, and clearly shows a willingness to punch back at lies instead of simply serving as a transcription service for famous politicians. That ethic is one that more journalists should aspire to in challenging both political parties, and in challenging power in general.

Posted by David Sirota at 9:05 AM | Link | Discuss (2)

categories: Corporate Whores, Media Bias/Idiocy

http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/

THERE IS MUCH MORE TO THIS ISSUE ON THE BLOG OF DAVID SIROTA'S

Bush's full-scale war on privacy
Over the last five years under the Bush administration, Americans have experienced a full-scale assault on on our rights to privacy. There have not only been over-the-top infringements under the guise of "national security," there have been corporate-backed efforts to eliminate financial privacy, and what seems to be anti-privacy moves based on partisan political motivations. Today, we get a good example of this last one from the Tacoma News Tribune, Bush hacks at the IRS "collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states" under the guise of tax enforcement.
To understand how this is part of a pattern, let's look back at some of the most egregious moves by politicians of late to trample on citizens' privacy:

CONGRESS TRIES TO GET ACCESS TO CITIZENS' PERSONAL FINANCIAL INFO: The Assoicated Press reported in November of 2004 that Republicans inserted a last-minute provision into a giant spending bill "to give more members of Congress access to income tax records" of ordinary citizens. As Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) noted about the provision, "Any agent of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee - and they could designate anybody as an agent - could go into IRS facilities anywhere in the country and get your tax returns."

BUSH & CONGRESS GUT STATE PRIVACY LAWS: In November of 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "in addition to previous votes that gutted state provisions to prevent financial institutions from sharing customers' information with others" Congress passed a bill to "roll back some of the [states'] anti-identity-theft measures." The bill, pushed by the credit card and financial services industry, essentially preempts states' financial privacy laws and replaces them with far weaker federal standards. That bill left open loopholes, for instance, that leave private telephone records highly suceptible to theft. Congress has known about these loopholes for months - and possibly years - but has refused to close them.

BUSH INSERTS PROVISION IN EDUCATION BILL TO HAND OVER PRIVATE INFO ON STUDENTS: Fox News in 2005 reported that President Bush inserted "a little-known provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that compels public high schools to open their doors and pupil records to military recruiters."

BUSH CIRCUMVENTS WARRANT PROCESS TO INITIATE DOMESTIC SPYING: The President last month admitted to ordering domestic spying operations without obtaining warrants as required by law. Bush has claimed the illegal operation only "listens to a few [telephone] numbers"all other Americans' international communications." Bush still has yet to offer an explanation as to why he has refused to seek warrants. But the story broke just after a string of stories about how the administration is having the FBI and Pentagon spy on anti-war, anti-poverty and civil rights groups. linked to Al Qaeda, even as the Boston Globe reported the Bush administration has "been using computers to monitor

BUSH PERMITS LIBRARY SEARCHES; LIES ABOUT IT, GETS CAUGHT LYING: The Bush administration inserted a provision in the Patriot Act allowing federal agents to obtain citizens' library and bookstore records without a traditional warrant. The Associated Press reported in 2003 that in response to criticism of that provision, the Bush administration claimed the Patriot Act "has never been used to monitor what the public is reading and viewing." But right after that denial, the University of Illinois released a study showing scores of libraries had been contacted by the Bush administration since the passage of the Patriot Act.

This is just some of what's been going on. The bottom line is clear: the Bush administration is waging a war on Americans' privacy - a war that has nothing to do with national security, and everything to do with paying back the GOP's big donors and punishing the GOP's political opponents.

GO ON~SITE TO SEE EVEN MORE ~ THERE ARE SEVERAL LINKS TO FOLLOW AND MORE ARTICLES AS WELL:

http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/

Posted by David Sirota at 7:11 AM | Link | Discuss
categories: Personal Space & Privacy

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Abramoff and DeLay have dishonored the work of many, many people who are devoted to helping others without even expecting a decent salary for it.

Proud to be an AmericanAbramoff sleaze can't touch real gold of nonprofit world
Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
01.06.06
AUSTIN -- We live in a great nation. The police blotter of the Mill Valley Herald in California informs us that the constabulary there had to be called out on account of a citizen "dressed like a penguin" who was "standing on a street corner playing a ukulele." Makes me proud to be an American.
What does not make me proud to be an American is a specific twist in the Jack Abramoff/Tom DeLay scandal -- in fact, this makes me want to urp despite the fact that I have a strong stomach when it comes to political corruption. Practice, practice, practice, that's what Texas provides when it comes to sleaze and stink. Who can forget such great explanations as "Well, I'll just make a little bit of money, I won't make a whole lot"? And "There was never a Bible in the room"?

But this is a reach too far, just that little extra that takes normal putrid corruption and moves it to the ranks of "Excuse me, I have to throw up." Both Abramoff and DeLay and many of their web of colleagues have consistently used nonprofit organizations ostensibly formed for charitable purposes to launder money, to move peculiar proceeds and to pay for high-flying perks. Come on, guys, give us a break -- if you're going to make a mockery of democracy and show your mastery at flipping money, wiring the system and fixing the odds -- please don't use charitable organizations designed to help crippled children to do it.

That's Bad Taste.

According to Associated Press, Tom DeLay "visited cliff-top Caribbean resorts, golf courses designed by PGA champions and four-star restaurants, all courtesy of donors who bankrolled his political empire.

"Over the past six years, the former House majority leader and his associates have visited places of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting there aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests.

"Public documents reviewed by the Associated Press tell the story: at least 48 visits to golf clubs, and resorts with lush fairways, 100 flights aboard company planes, 200 stays at hotels, many world class, and 500 meals at restaurants, some averaging nearly $200 for a dinner for two.

"Instead of his personal expense, the meals and trips for DeLay and his associates were paid with donations collected by the campaign committees, political action committees and children's charity the Texas Republican created during his rise to the top of Congress."

How cynical does that make you? When I hear Speaker Dennis Hastert is returning his campaign contributions from Jack Abramoff or "donating it to charity," I wonder which little charmer of a Republican campaign fund masquerading as a charity he's sending it to.

The DeLay Foundation for Kids was set up 18 years ago and works on behalf of foster children. But it is also a way for companies to give unregulated and undisclosed funds: It's a way for companies to get into DeLay's good graces or, as Fred Lewis from Campaign for People says, "another way for donors to get their hooks into politicians."

Meanwhile, Abramoff was even more cavalier about "charity." He created the Capital Athletic Foundation supposedly to help inner-city children through organized sports. There is no evidence any of the money ever went to that purpose, but The Washington Post reports it went to a sniper school for Israelis on the West Bank, a golf trip to Scotland for Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and a Jewish religious academy in Columbia, Md. Abramoff's hapless Indian clients were generous contributors: I wonder if he thought it was funny that Indians would more likely identify with Palestinians than Israelis.

Believe it or not, there are nonprofit organizations in this country where the CEO barely makes more than the janitor, where nickels and pennies are saved so the clients or the cause can get a little more. There are nonprofits where good and faithful servants have spent decades devoting their entire lives to helping those less fortunate than themselves -- without ever going to a cliff-top Caribbean resort. There are nonprofits where extra-bright young people from top schools work for peanuts because they want to make a better world. While Jack Abramoff padded his bills and falsified expenses to tribal clients, there are people who work for minimum wages on Indian reservations to help some of the poorest people in America get a minimally decent chance at life.

Abramoff and DeLay and their crummy hangers-on haven't just cheated and lied. They have dishonored the work of many, many people who are devoted to helping others without even expecting a decent salary for it.

So, here's to a few of them here in Austin off the top of my head -- the cheesy, sleazy, brass "charity" of conscienceless climbers can never touch the real gold of all you do: Tom "Smitty" Smith, Peyton Wimmer, Sheila Enid Cheaney, Charlie and Pauline Sullivan, Ernie Cortes, the "twisted sisters" at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, Sister Patty Tenorio, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Casa Marianella, D'Ann Johnson, the Texas Observer, the Breast Cancer Resource Center and so many, many more. You are heroes. Read more in the Molly Ivins archive .

Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Who Let the Dogs In?
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20170

[truthseeker]

***
Belafonte Calls Bush 'Greatest Terrorist' By IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writer
50 minutes ago

CARACAS, Venezuela - The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" on Sunday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday. Some in the group attended Chavez's television and radio broadcast Sunday.

"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution," Belafonte told Chavez during the broadcast.

The 78-year-old Belafonte, famous for his calypso-inspired music, including the "Day-O" song, was a close collaborator of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. He also has been outspoken in criticizing the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

Chavez said he believes deeply in the struggle for justice by blacks, both in the U.S. and Venezuela.

"Although we may not believe it, there continues to be great discrimination here against black people," Chavez said, urging his government to redouble its efforts to prevent discrimination.

Belafonte accused U.S. news media of falsely painting Chavez as a "dictator," when in fact, he said, there is democracy and citizens are "optimistic about their future."

Dolores Huerta, a pioneer of the United Farm Workers labor union also in the delegation, called the visit a "very deep experience."

Chavez accuses Bush of trying to overthrow him, pointing to intelligence documents released by the U.S. indicating that the CIA knew beforehand that dissident officers planned a short-lived 2002 coup. The U.S. denies involvement, but Chavez says Venezuela must be on guard.

Belafonte suggested setting up a youth exchange for Venezuelans and Americans. He finished by shouting in Spanish: "Viva la revolucion!"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060109/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_belafonte;_ylt=AlCL1mn1JA0yMgBNdVLfcDms0 NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-




HARRY BELAFONTE??

PUHLEASE!!...GIMME A BREAK!!

OR....ARE YOU JUST SHOWING YOUR TRUE COLORS??




Harry's Hatreds
By Ronald Radosh
New York Post | October 24, 2002

HARRY Belafonte's contemptuous and contemptible assaults on Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice surprised a lot of people - but shouldn't have. Most do not know that Belafonte always was, and apparently still is, an unreconstructed Stalinist - a man who firmly, profoundly believes that America is evil.
Belafonte told CNN's Larry King that Powell was the equivalent of a slave "who lived in the house" during the days of slavery and who "served the master."

Then he used his influence to get the African aid group, Africare, to disinvite Rice, the scheduled keynote speaker at their fund-raising dinner, at which Belafonte was to be honored for his humanitarian efforts.

On King's show, Belafonte said Rice is a "Jew . . . doing things that were anti-Semitic and against the best interests of her people." Evidently, helping lead the war against terrorism is something not of concern to African-Americans.

Most Americans remember Belafonte as a path-breaking opponent of segregation and racism, and the first black American artist to break the color bar in the 1950s entertainment world and become a major celebrity. Few are aware of the toxic political vision he espouses.

Let's look at a few of his tributes.

* In June 2000, Belafonte was a featured speaker at a rally in Castro's Cuba, honoring the American Soviet spies, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Tears, one observer reported, "streaked down" Belafonte's face, "as he recalled the pain and humiliation his friend [Paul] Robeson had been forced to endure" in 1950s America. Undoubtedly, he was pleased to hear Cuba presented "as an example of keeping the principles the Rosenbergs fought and died for alive."

* In 1997, Belafonte was featured speaker at the 60th Anniversary celebration of the "Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade," at which he honored these self-proclaimed "premature anti-fascists" who served in the mid-1930s as Stalin's private Comintern army, a battalion (not a brigade) that served as enforcers of Soviet policy during the Spanish Civil War. To Belafonte, nothing had changed since the 1930s. The VALB was still representatives of "a truth that engulfed the universe . . . that fascism anywhere is a threat to people everywhere."

He did not pause to remind the aging vets that their anti-fascism disappeared overnight after their return home - when the remaining soldiers got the news about the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939, and quickly declared that the only enemy was FDR's warmongering and Great Britain.

* Speaking in October 1983 at a "World Peace Concert" run by East Germany's official Communist youth organization, Belafonte gave his blessings to the Soviet-sponsored "peace" campaign pushing unilateral Western disarmament, at a time when the Soviets were putting SS-20 missiles in East Germany.

As The New York Times reported, Belafonte "attacked the American invasion of Grenada and also criticized the scheduled NATO weapons deployment" of Pershing 2 missiles in West Germany, which Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan deployed to offset the Soviet missile offensive.

Belafonte, in other words, was supporting the Soviet bloc in its Cold War with the United States. And he was doing so in full embrace with the East German prison state. Here, where the notorious secret police, the Stasi, ruled by waging a perpetual witch-hunt against the entire population - Belafonte had only love and good wishes for their success.

No wonder that the late Leo Cherne, head of the International Rescue Committee, rejected Belafonte's being honored. "I happen to have some reservations about Belafonte," he wrote one of the IRC's board, "I have found him . . . beyond my tastes for the elements of left-wing predisposition. He played a significant relief role in Ethiopia at a time when Ethiopia was under the control of the left wing dictator Mengistu, at the very time that the Castro military forces were playing an active support role."

To Harry Belafonte, Castro is a freedom fighter and Colin Powell and Condi Rice merely "house slaves." Ever the diplomat, Colin Powell responded to Belafonte's blast by calling the singer his "friend," and noting that the slave analogy was from another time and place and was simply "unfortunate." Secretary Powell should take to heart the simple adage, with friends like that . . . .


http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4154



THIS "MAN" HAS SACRIFICED HIS RIGHT TO CALL HIMSELF AN AMERICAN.

[Saundra Hummer]

HARRY BELAFONTE??

PUHLEASE!!...GIMME A BREAK!!

OR....ARE YOU JUST SHOWING YOUR TRUE COLORS??




Harry's Hatreds
By Ronald Radosh
New York Post | October 24, 2002

HARRY Belafonte's contemptuous and contemptible assaults on Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice surprised a lot of people - but shouldn't have. Most do not know that Belafonte always was, and apparently still is, an unreconstructed Stalinist - a man who firmly, profoundly believes that America is evil.
Belafonte told CNN's Larry King that Powell was the equivalent of a slave "who lived in the house" during the days of slavery and who "served the master."

Then he used his influence to get the African aid group, Africare, to disinvite Rice, the scheduled keynote speaker at their fund-raising dinner, at which Belafonte was to be honored for his humanitarian efforts.

On King's show, Belafonte said Rice is a "Jew . . . doing things that were anti-Semitic and against the best interests of her people." Evidently, helping lead the war against terrorism is something not of concern to African-Americans.

Most Americans remember Belafonte as a path-breaking opponent of segregation and racism, and the first black American artist to break the color bar in the 1950s entertainment world and become a major celebrity. Few are aware of the toxic political vision he espouses.

Let's look at a few of his tributes.

* In June 2000, Belafonte was a featured speaker at a rally in Castro's Cuba, honoring the American Soviet spies, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Tears, one observer reported, "streaked down" Belafonte's face, "as he recalled the pain and humiliation his friend [Paul] Robeson had been forced to endure" in 1950s America. Undoubtedly, he was pleased to hear Cuba presented "as an example of keeping the principles the Rosenbergs fought and died for alive."

* In 1997, Belafonte was featured speaker at the 60th Anniversary celebration of the "Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade," at which he honored these self-proclaimed "premature anti-fascists" who served in the mid-1930s as Stalin's private Comintern army, a battalion (not a brigade) that served as enforcers of Soviet policy during the Spanish Civil War. To Belafonte, nothing had changed since the 1930s. The VALB was still representatives of "a truth that engulfed the universe . . . that fascism anywhere is a threat to people everywhere."

He did not pause to remind the aging vets that their anti-fascism disappeared overnight after their return home - when the remaining soldiers got the news about the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939, and quickly declared that the only enemy was FDR's warmongering and Great Britain.

* Speaking in October 1983 at a "World Peace Concert" run by East Germany's official Communist youth organization, Belafonte gave his blessings to the Soviet-sponsored "peace" campaign pushing unilateral Western disarmament, at a time when the Soviets were putting SS-20 missiles in East Germany.

As The New York Times reported, Belafonte "attacked the American invasion of Grenada and also criticized the scheduled NATO weapons deployment" of Pershing 2 missiles in West Germany, which Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan deployed to offset the Soviet missile offensive.

Belafonte, in other words, was supporting the Soviet bloc in its Cold War with the United States. And he was doing so in full embrace with the East German prison state. Here, where the notorious secret police, the Stasi, ruled by waging a perpetual witch-hunt against the entire population - Belafonte had only love and good wishes for their success.

No wonder that the late Leo Cherne, head of the International Rescue Committee, rejected Belafonte's being honored. "I happen to have some reservations about Belafonte," he wrote one of the IRC's board, "I have found him . . . beyond my tastes for the elements of left-wing predisposition. He played a significant relief role in Ethiopia at a time when Ethiopia was under the control of the left wing dictator Mengistu, at the very time that the Castro military forces were playing an active support role."

To Harry Belafonte, Castro is a freedom fighter and Colin Powell and Condi Rice merely "house slaves." Ever the diplomat, Colin Powell responded to Belafonte's blast by calling the singer his "friend," and noting that the slave analogy was from another time and place and was simply "unfortunate." Secretary Powell should take to heart the simple adage, with friends like that . . . .


http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4154



THIS "MAN" HAS SACRIFICED HIS RIGHT TO CALL HIMSELF AN AMERICAN.


Surely you realize that this is how many blacks feel?

It is only one more view of how so many in this country feel, and it can only help not to be blind to it wouldn't you say? But then, if one can be blind to reams of warnings about terrorists planning on flying fuel ladden jets into our land marks, and into our buildings of commerce filled with so many poor souls, this after so many other attacks they'd planned and had carried out met with such glarring successes, then I suppose I can understand the blindness with which they stumble about in the world African Americans and other minorities are so accustomed to.

You must realize, there will be those who concur with Harry Belefonte, not just here in the USA, but all over the globe, and that is another concern I'd say. I do agree with many that this concerns a democratically elected official according to reports, and he needs to be left alone until the day he jumps into his military jet and threatens our borders or our military vessels, or whatever.

Again, I'm hoping we won't be end up believing every trumped up charge as so many of us have done with Saddam. Real is one thing, but this administration has cried wolf too many times I'd say.

[Saundra Hummer]

~*~
Mondo Washington
Looks Like Bush Knew Wiretaps Were Wrong
President's defense of spying yesterday doesn't square with past
by James Ridgeway
January 2nd, 2006 11:17 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C.--While President Bush denies any wrongdoing in the National Security Agency domestic wiretap and data-mining program, saying yesterday that it was perfectly legal, actions by top officials in his own administration suggest Bush and his inner circle of confidants did indeed know the spying was wrong.

Bush said yesterday in defense of the eavesdropping, "This program has been reviewed, constantly reviewed, by people throughout my administration. And it still is reviewed. Not only has it been reviewed by Justice Department officials, it's been reviewed by members of the United States Congress," he said. "It's a vital, necessary program."

But the New York Times revealed Sunday that when Bush couldn't get top level clearance for the wiretaps from deputy attorney general James Comey, two aides--Andrew Card, White House chief of staff, and Alberto Gonzalez, then White House counsel and now attorney general--went to George Washington University Hospital here, in a circuitous effort to get Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was recovering from gallbladder surgery, to sign off on it

Moreover, Bush, in Buffalo in 2004, was asked about a remark he made at an appearance in support of the Patriot Act, the president said, "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap," Bush said. "A wiretap requires a court order." He added: "Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

http://villagevoice.com/news/0601,ridgeway,71459,6.html

*****
Mondo WashingtonJustice Probe of Spy Leak Could Shield BushPresident gives self excuse not to talk about wiretapsby James RidgewayDecember 30th, 2005 5:16 PM WASHINGTON, D.C.—President Bush’s announcement Friday, that the Justice Department would begin an investigation into the leak that brought forth his probably illegal domestic spying project, is clearly political and meant to insulate the White House and intelligence agencies from further public scrutiny by saying they are the subject of a criminal investigation.

It will be up to Congress to undertake a serious investigation, issuing its own subpoenas, and calling the major participants to testify.

Even as he sought to gain advantage from the spy leak, Bush was faced with a series of new and unsettling events tied to intelligence and foreign policy.

The Associated Press revealed the National Security Agency had been placing Internet cookies in millions of computers owned by U.S. citizens. After inquiries by the Associated Press and privacy activists, the NSA claims it abandoned this part of the domestic spying project. The AP reported, "The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most files of that type."

The UN is investigating charges the U.S. is force feeding prisoners on a hunger strike at Guantanamo, by ramming pipes through the nose and down into the stomach, resulting in serious bleeding. The Pentagon denies it. "In a statement, the army said it was providing appropriate nutrition through nasal tubes, a procedure that would be consistent with force feeding," BBC reports.

John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s former counsel and one of the most persistent critics of the Bush administration’s handling of 9-11 and the War on Terror, writes that Bush should be impeached for his admitted direct violation of the constitution. "There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable," writes Dean in Findlaw. "After all, Nixon was charged in Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons."

Bush, says Dean, "may have outdone Nixon: Nixon's illegal surveillance was limited; Bush's, it is developing, may be extraordinarily broad in scope. First reports indicated that NSA was only monitoring foreign calls, originating either in the USA or abroad, and that no more than 500 calls were being covered at any given time. But later reports have suggested that NSA is 'data mining' literally millions of calls—and has been given access by the telecommunications companies to 'switching' stations through which foreign communications traffic flows. In sum, this is big-time, Big Brother electronic surveillance."

As for Bush’s criminal investigation into the leak, Dean says, "Such a criminal investigation is rather ironic—for the leak's effect was to reveal Bush's own offense. Having been ferreted out as a criminal, Bush now will try to ferret out the leakers who revealed him."
http://villagevoice.com/news/0601,ridgeway,71451,6.html

[Saundra Hummer]

HERE'S A COPY OF LETTER WITH A PETITION TO SIGN (GO ON SITE TO SEE, AS I CAN'T POST THE FORM, JUST THE GARBLED UP LETTERING INVOLVED IN IT) I REALIZED THERE WAS A BIT OF DISCUSSION ABOUT THIS, BUT DIDN'T REALIZE IT HAD COME SO FAR. AMAZING. I REMEMBER NEWT GINGRICH BEING SO VOCAL ABOUT WANTING TO RID THE AIRWAVES OF PBS, BUT DIDN'T REALIZE IT HAD REACHED SUCH A BOILING POINT. I FOR ONE WOULD REALLY MISS IT AS I DON'T HAVE CABLE OR A DISH. WE REALLY ENJOY PBS. THERE ARE SHOWS ON THERE THAT NETWORK JUST DOESN'T CARRY.

Tell Partisan CEO of Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Resign ImmediatelyContributed by Common Cause
Recent attempts by the Bush administration to politicize public broadcasting and give it a more conservative slant have been well-publicized. Kenneth Tomlinson, a staunch conservative appointed by President Bush to chair the Board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), resigned in the wake of twin political and financial scandals in November 2005.

During his tenure as Board Chairman, Tomlinson made several hiring decisions that were clearly designed to push public broadcasting to the right politically. Most notable among these was the hiring of Patricia Harrison, a former Co-Chair or the Republican National Committee, as the CEO and President of CPB.

As the recent Inspector General Report makes clear, Tomlinson utilized a political litmus test in selecting Harrison, and improperly consulted officials in the White House in the hiring process.

Because Ms. Harrison has a highly partisan background, as evidenced by her history with the Republican National Committee, her presence at the helm of the CPB does not engender public confidence in the ability of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to move forward in a non-partisan manner.

Call to action

Call on Patricia Harrison to resign immediately as CPB President and CEO.
Deadline: ongoing
I call on you to resign your position as President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting immediately.

It's clear from the Inspector General's report that former Chairman Tomlinson improperly used a political litmus test in selecting you, and also improperly consulted officials in the White House in the hiring process.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created specifically to insulate public broadcasting from partisan influence. However, your tenure as former Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee simply does not engender public confidence in the ability of the CPB to move forward in a non-partisan manner.

Again, I call on you in the strongest possible terms to resign. I am also communicating with my elected officials to let them know of my deep dissatisfaction with recent and blatant attempts to politicize public television.

Sincerely,
Add your name and address below and send this e-mail as is, or personalize it using your own words. When you click Send E-mail, your name and address will automatically be inserted at the bottom of this e-mail letter. The subject of your e-mail will be the title of the action.

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[Saundra Hummer]

The Lobbyist And The MediaSubmitted by editor on January 9, 2006 - 1:24pm.
By Edward Wasserman
Source: The Miami HeraldBeneath the glare of high-stakes political corruption, the unfolding scandal of former lobbyist and current felon Jack Abramoff has a media angle too, which involves his low-light stable of secretly paid commentators.

It's a story that has grown familiar. Exactly a year ago, after disclosures that the Bush administration had slipped a columnist and broadcaster named Armstrong Williams $240,000 to plump for its education policies, I suggested in a column that the oped pages of a typical newspaper were an ethical brothel. It's where outside experts, analysts and wordsmiths strut their stuff, claiming to be driven by love and principle, rarely admitting publicly that they're getting paid under the sheets for their ardor.

In the Abramoff affair, a prominent figure has been Doug Bandow, a syndicated columnist with Copley News Service and a senior fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute. Bandow had been a favored scribe for causes dear to Abramoff's clients, and he admitted accepting money from the lobbyist -- up to $2,000 a pop -- for 12 to 24 columns published since the mid-1990s.

Bandow has been remorseful. Other members of Abramoff's brain trust have been less so. Peter Ferrara of the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation told BusinessWeek Online that he too took money from Abramoff for opinion pieces. ''I do that all the time,'' Ferrara said. ''I've done that in the past, and I'll do it in the future.'' While Bandow was fired by Copley and Cato, Ferrara's boss defended him and said critics were applying ``a naive purity standard.''

Media coverage, predictably, has focused almost exclusively on the writers who accepted Abramoff's money. But what about the newspapers that accepted their work? Do editors really believe that the $200 they pay for that sophisticated column defending the health-insurance industry actually covers the cost of the work the column required? Of course not. But it's, ''Don't ask, don't tell.'' They say nothing, because their work depends on this payola.

In a front-page story last month, The New York Times reviewed recent opinion pieces secretly subsidized by industry advocates. The Times focused on the conservative think tank Institute for Policy Innovation and cited columns published by the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal while, unbelievably, devoting not a syllable to The Times' own practices and rules regarding oped funding and conflicts of interest.

To be fair, formulating such rules isn't so easy any more. That's because there's a big, vexing problem underlying what appear to be clear-cut instances of wrongdoing.

Today's journalist and commentator, in this converged, go-go, multimedia era we're entering, is likely to be bobbing and weaving an entrepreneurial career out of all kinds of different threads. He or she may write lengthy reporting pieces for magazines, punch the clock as a consultant on publishing projects for corporate clients, teach a course at the community college, offer online commentary via blogs and hunt for speaking fees to address chambers of commerce. Traditional full-time employment may not be an option.

Conflicts of interest

Doug Bandow himself, in a thoughtful mea culpa in The Los Angeles Times, described his own career after he left the Reagan White House as consisting of ''a patchwork of jobs.'' He recalled: ``I ghostwrote oped articles, drafted political speeches, prepared internal corporate briefings and strategized business media campaigns. All the while, I also wrote commentary and opinion pieces. Clearly, the ethical boundaries in all this aren't always obvious. Virtually everyone I worked with or wrote for had an ax to grind.''

Traditionalists like me shudder at the cascading opportunities such a career mosaic provides for ridiculous conflicts of interest. But while it's still possible for, say, a newspaper's ethics code to simply forbid its employees to moonlight, it's no longer feasible to apply such a prohibition universally to the journalism profession, which for many practitioners is morphing into one long series of moonlightings.

So what should the rules be? I don't know, but I think they should start with the idea that the distinction between principled argument and paid propaganda is worth upholding, and you can't offer the one masqueraded as the other. Claiming that convictions are still your own even if somebody else is paying you for them isn't tenable. Your paymaster must be identified.

But even with disclosure, the picture will be murky. If mainstream journalism and commentary become the work of professional wordsmiths who are perpetually on the hustle the challenge to ethical journalism will be severe. The future of a practice that's dedicated, however imperfectly, to truth-seeking in the public interest and that tries to stay free of undisclosed personal entanglements and conflicts will be far from sure.
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/2709

[Saundra Hummer]

*****
What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us
Submitted by editor on January 9, 2006 - 2:24pm.
By Dave Lindorff
Source: International Labor Communications Association
There are now eight members of Congress who have put their names to a bill calling for a special committee of the House to investigate impeachable crimes by the Bush administration. To date, all of them are Democrats.

So far, you'd be hard-pressed to know about any of this--including the very fact that Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the low-key and soft-spoken but dedicated ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, had even submitted such a bill--as well as two companion bills calling for censure of both Bush and Cheney for abuse of power.

Apparently in the editorial cloister of our once proud Fourth Estate, where decisions as to what it is safe or appropriate for us in the public to know, it has been determined that we do not need to know that the notion of impeachment of the president is starting to grow.

Most of the major corporate media have yet to let the public know that several respected polls have shown a majority of Americans to favor impeachment if Bush lied about the reasons for going to war against Iraq, which if combined with polls showing that two-thirds of Americans or more think he did lie about those reasons, tells you all you need to know about the public attitude on impeachment.

The same paternalistic and pro-administration mindset was at work when the editor and publisher of the New York Times decided a year ago to squelch for a year a story they had about the NSA warrantless spying program. They felt that we the people didn't need to know about that story in a presidential election year, even if the target of that spying may well have been the administration’s electoral opponents, just as it was in the 1972 Watergate spying scandal.

There is a clear slide towards dictatorship taking place in America. The president, it turns out, has been signing executive letters along with many of the bills Congress passes, essentially asserting that as commander-in-chief in his fake "war" on terror, he reserves the right to ignore those bills. The latest such letter was signed by him as he signed the bill banning torture. In other words, he conceded to the bill, but then said he'll authorize torture anyway if he wants to, in his role as commander in chief.

The beauty of this presidential scam is that, since the "war" on terror will never end, neither will his self-claimed draconian powers. And what is the limit of those powers? Well, basically the limit is whatever Congress and the courts tell him those limits are. And are we seeing Congress and the courts setting any limits? No.

A major part of the problem is that the media that are supposed to inform the American public about what is happening are instead dropping the ball, or even hiding it.

At the moment, I'm in Rome, trying, among other things, to look into one dark corner of the administration's crimes--the forgery of documents designed to make it appear that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program and was trying to buy uranium. I don't know what I'll be able to find in my too short stay. An Italian parliamentary committee concluded this past fall that the forgeries were the work of long-time right-wing con-man Michael Ledeen--the guy who helped bring us the criminal Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages-and-stinger-missiles deal during the Reagan administration, along with Dewey Claridge (another Iran-Contra veteran), convicted bank swindler Ahmed Chalabi and Frank Brookes, a PR man hired by the Pentagon to promote Chalabi’s CIA-created Iraqi National Congress. That's another story that we didn’t see in most of our corporate media, though, given that all those people are connected tightly to the White House and the Pentagon, it suggests strongly that top White House officials were behind the whole Niger document scam.

If so, it would make Lyndon Johnson's Tonkin Gulf deception seem like child's play (and all by itself would be grounds for impeachment).

I should note that Italy provides a good model of where the U.S. is heading. Here virtually the entire media--and certainly the entire electronic media--is literally owned by the right-wing prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Except for some fortunately excellent independent newspapers, like La Repubblica, which did most of the investigative work into the Niger document forgery story, it’s hard to get any information in Italy about what its government is doing. The one advantage Italy has is a genuine political opposition.

At least Italy’s media have an excuse: they’re literally owned by the prime minister. Our media, supposedly independent, only act like Bush owns them.
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/2716[/url]

[truthseeker]

Surely you realize that this is how many blacks feel?


No, Sandi...it's not.

You've bought into a liberal media-created myth. Most don't feel that way, and will privately admit it. PRIVATELY, rather than publicly and risk being branded a "slave" or "Uncle Tom" by the extremely small, but extremely vocal, MINORITY.

[Saundra Hummer]

No, Sandi...it's not.

You've bought into a liberal media-created myth. Most don't feel that way, and will privately admit it. PRIVATELY, rather than publicly and risk being branded a "slave" or "Uncle Tom" by the extremely small, but extremely vocal, MINORITY.

Vocal minority around the world?

[Saundra Hummer]

***
THEM vs. US: The IRS & The Right to Privacy
In my upcoming book Hostile Takeover, I show how there is a
disturbing trend overtaking American politics whereby the wealthy,
the corporations and the politicians legislate separate rules for
them to play by than the rest of us are forced to play by. One of the
best places to see that is in the IRS's policy.

FOR THEM:
"Records showing how thoroughly the Internal Revenue Service audits
big corporations and the rich, and how much it discounts the
additional taxes assessed after audits, are being withheld from the
public despite a 1976 court order requiring their disclosure...
lawyers concluded that no court order existed...Professor Long
responded by sending Mr. Keith a copy of the order. [Yet] the agency
has no plans to release the information, Mr. Keith said Friday."
- New York Times, 1/10/05

FOR THE REST OF US:
In 2004, "[during the] drafting of a huge spending bill, [GOP
lawmakers] added a provision that could give staffers on the House
and Senate appropriations committees broad access to Americans' tax
returns." And in 2005, "The Internal Revenue Service collected
information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20
states."
- Washington Post, 12/3/04; Tacoma News Tribune, 1/6/06

So basically, for the Big Money interests, corrupt
politicians/political operatives provide total secrecy, to the point
where court orders protecting the public's right to know are being
defied to protect the fat cats' ability to rip off taxpayers. But for
the rest of us, its open season for Republican hacks and IRS thugs who
want to use citizens' most personal financial info for their own shady
purposes. It is, in short, a right to ultimate, dicator-like secrecy
for the wealthy and powerful, and not even the very basic right to
minimum privacy for ordinary Americans.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/them-vs-us-the-irs-th_b_13538.html

{http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/them-vs-us-the-irs-th_b_13538.html

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Capitol Hillbillies


Some pols keep Abramoff's dirty money
By DAVID WHITNEY
McClatchey Newspapers
Jan 9, 2006, 04:22

In the two days since former lobbyist Jack Abramoff admitted that campaign contributions were among his tools to win favors from elected officials, the number of politicians rushing to disgorge the money from their campaign treasuries has swelled to at least two dozen.
Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., who reportedly could be caught up in the ongoing investigation, is not among them.
Scandal's poster child: Jack Abramoff (AP Photo On~Site)
Doolittle believes that following the lead of President Bush, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., would only make him look guilty of doing something wrong.

"Congressman Doolittle refuses to give even the slightest appearance of something wrong by returning money that was accepted legally and ethically," said the congressman's spokeswoman, Laura Blackann.

"Mr. Abramoff only contributed $4,000 to the congressman, so it wouldn't cause much of a hardship to our campaign," she said. "But this is a matter of principle to the congressman.

"He has done absolutely nothing wrong and has no intention of returning any contribution from anyone that was made in an ethical and legal manner, regardless of how many of his colleagues do so out of political expediency or how much the media tries to irresponsibly distort the propriety of Mr. Doolittle's actions," she said.

Doolittle is not alone in refusing, so far at least, to attempt to rid his campaign of any political stink from Abramoff money by shunting past contributions to charity.

Some of those joining him are Democrats.

For instance, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has received $47,000 from Abramoff associates and Indian tribes he represented and does not plan to give it away.

Sen. Patty Murray's office said the Washington state Democrat, who accepted $55,000 from the lobbyist, also doesn't plan to return any of the money because it did not come from Abramoff directly.

Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he doesn't think there's any clear-cut answer to the question of whether politicians tainted by Abramoff money should get rid of it.

"Returning the funds or contributing them to charity will do nothing whatsoever for those politicians being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery," Mann said.

It's not just a question of whether to shed Abramoff contributions, but of what constitutes an Abramoff contribution.

Abramoff contributed to politicians directly, but not that much.

Mostly he steered contributions to politicians from his clients, gaming-rich Indian tribes. In addition, there were contributions from Abramoff's ring of lobbying associates.

Hastert, for example, plans to shed as much as $60,000. Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, plans to send $57,000 to a charity. Those sums represent money from any Abramoff-connected source.

Others, however, are planning to jettison only money that Abramoff or his wife gave directly to them.

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, for example, received tens of thousands of dollars from Indian tribes represented by Abramoff but has elected to donate to charity only $7,000 given directly to him by the fallen lobbyist.

Doolittle received $4,000 directly from Abramoff, in four $1,000 contributions in 1999, 2000 and 2001. But he has received at least $130,000 in additional contributions since 1999 from Indian tribes associated with Abramoff, other Abramoff clients and associates.

Some of those contributions flowed from Abramoff clients and associates to Doolittle's political action committee, the Superior California Federal Leadership Fund, and a portion of that money has ended up in Doolittle's family budget. Since 2002 the political action committee has paid a commission amounting to about 15 percent of total receipts to a company owned by the congressman's wife, Julie Doolittle, and run out of the couple's suburban Virginia home.

The Abramoff money is likely to be an issue in Doolittle's 2006 re-election.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called on Doolittle in November to give up his Abramoff contributions.

"But what's really important here is not the dollars and cents," said DCCC spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg. "It's the cost of this corruption, that this Republican Congress is so focused on the special interests that it has lost sight of the real issues important to people in Doolittle's district."
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7966.shtml

[Saundra Hummer]

***
WHAT DO YOU KNOW! IT SEEMS DENNY HASTERT KNOWS WHEN TO ABANDON SHIP AFTER ALL, OR AT LEAST HE AND A FEW OTHERS THINK THEY KNOW WHERE THE LIFEBOATS ARE. THESE KINGS OF THE WORLD AREN'T GOING TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES IF THEY CAN HELP IT ARE THEY? TOO BAD HE AND THE OTHERS DIDN'T DO SOMETHING BEFORE THE LEAK BECAME CATASTROPHIC. HE'S NOW SHOWING HE CAN MOVE QUICKLY WHEN IT'S HIS BACON IN THE FIRE ISN'T HE?

Hastert Moves to Tighten Rules on Lobbyists
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 9, 2006; Page A02

With Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) formally removed from congressional leadership, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) took the next step yesterday in Republican efforts to distance the party from a growing corruption scandal, saying the House will move soon to tighten the rules governing lobbyists' access to lawmakers.

Hastert tasked House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) to head the GOP's effort to draft new lobbying rules. The move comes months after House Democrats, led by Reps. Martin T. Meehan (Mass.) and Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), and Republican Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), unveiled proposals to mandate more disclosure of lobbying contacts, ban most lobbyist-sponsored trips and lengthen the time former House members and staff must wait before taking up lobbying.

Rep. Tom DeLay's office was linked to Jack Abramoff's firm by one of his clients. (David J. Phillip - AP)

Special Report

Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist at the center of a wide-ranging public corruption investigation, pleaded guilty Jan. 3 to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in a deal that requires him to provide evidence about members of Congress.

• Abramoff Pleads Guilty (Jan. 4, 2006)
• Fast Rise, Steep Fall (Dec. 29, 2005)
• Stacking the Deck (Oct. 16, 2005)

» FULL COVERAGE (GO ON~SITE FOR LINKS)

"Over the past several months, I have spoken with many members about the need for such reforms. . . . Now is the time for action," Hastert said in a statement.

The move came as federal investigators probing the activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff moved closer to the House GOP's leadership suites in what promises to be one of the largest federal corruption scandals in decades. DeLay said Saturday that he would not try to regain his House majority leader post, which he was forced to relinquish in September after he was indicted on campaign finance charges in Texas.

That announcement has touched off what promises to be a fierce struggle for House leadership. In the first sign that even Hastert could be in trouble, Rep. John E. Sweeney (R-N.Y.) said Republicans should consider whether to replace the speaker. "The time is right for us to do some soul-searching and have an open dialogue about the direction of the House."

DeLay said yesterday his decision was not related to the Abramoff inquiry, telling Fox News Channel, "I am not a target of an investigation."

But last week, a prominent client of Abramoff's former law firm offered fresh revelations linking Abramoff to DeLay's office, saying it had sent $25,000 to an Abramoff-linked Orthodox Jewish group in 2000 as part of a lobbying campaign to thwart a proposed postal rate increase. That money appears to have then been paid to the wife of Tony C. Rudy, the deputy chief of staff of then-House Majority Whip DeLay who was helping to spearhead efforts against the increase.

Under the plea agreement made public Tuesday, Abramoff said that he and others sought Rudy's agreement to help torpedo the postal rate increase and a prohibition on Internet gambling. "With the intent to influence those official acts," the documents say, Abramoff provided "things of value, including but not limited to . . . ten equal monthly payments totaling $50,000" to the wife of a congressional aide called "staffer A" but identified elsewhere as Rudy. Those payments came from clients "that would and did benefit" from Rudy's actions.

The Washington Post had previously reported that $25,000 had come from eLottery Inc., an Internet gambling firm and Abramoff client, which sent the money to a Seattle-based foundation, Toward Tradition, that then paid fees to Rudy's wife, Lisa.

On Friday, the Magazine Publishers of America, which had hired Abramoff's firm Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP in 2000 for a $10 million campaign against the postal rate increase, revealed where the other half came from.

"I can confirm that based on direction from Preston Gates, the MPA did make a $25,000 contribution to Toward Tradition in 2000," said MPA spokesman Howard J. Rubenstein. The MPA directors "had absolutely no knowledge of how the money would be used, and if it turns out that it was used for an improper purpose, they would be, quite frankly, outraged."

A Preston Gates spokeswoman said Friday night that the firm cannot discuss private matters but that "neither the firm nor the client had any knowledge of Jack Abramoff's orchestration of a payment to the wife of a congressional staffer."

The foundation's leader, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, has said Lisa Rudy helped organize a conference for the group in exchange for her fees.

The Abramoff plea agreement's focus on the postal rate increase and Internet gambling bill signals that federal investigators are turning up the heat on Rudy and his wife, possibly with DeLay as an eventual target, said Stanley M. Brand, a former general counsel to the House, who described DeLay's legal problems as "extreme."

The U.S. Postal Service had proposed a 15 percent increase, triggering a fight from the magazine industry. With a lobbying contract worth millions, Preston Gates put its heavyweights on the team, including Abramoff, and then directed the MPA to make its $25,000 contribution to Toward Tradition, headed by Lapin, a longtime friend of Abramoff's.

On May 1, 2000, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call quoted Rudy as saying, "We're planning to do all we can so that the postmaster general sticks to his word" and reduces the rate increase. By December, the magazine publishers were claiming victory: The rate increase that went into effect in January 2001 was considerably smaller.

The case could be significant for investigators, Brand said. Federal prosecutors need only prove there was an agreement to pursue official action in exchange for favors, and the Abramoff plea repeatedly states that such agreements existed. But juries often want to see that the action took place, and in the postal rate episode, that would be clear.

Such episodes underscore why House leaders want to move forward with legislation. "We want to deal with this issue and get it behind us as quickly as possible," Dreier told Fox News yesterday.

The issue will also play prominently in the fight over a new slate of Republican leaders that could emerge after DeLay's departure. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) declared his candidacy for DeLay's job yesterday, challenging acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who also declared his candidacy yesterday.

Many members fear that neither Blunt nor Boehner represents a break with the DeLay era, because both have accepted donations from Abramoff clients. Boehner said that he would be the candidate for reform, noting that in the early 1990s he was one of seven members who tried to clean up a scandal in the House's bank and postal system.

"I've had a commitment to cleaning up problems and to accountability since I came to Congress," the eight-term lawmaker said.

Blunt told colleagues he was the candidate of GOP unity and "common-sense solutions."

Staff writer Jeffrey H. Birnbaum contributed to this report..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/08/AR2006010800686.html?nav=rss_politics

[truthseeker]

Vocal minority around the world?

Show me.

[J_Deighton]

Hey Truthseeker! I'd take you a lot more seriously if I saw you around the rest of the board. Do you even like jazz, or did you just want to make sure Saundra wasn't winning too many hearts and minds?

[the magnificent goldberg]

Hey Truthseeker! I'd take you a lot more seriously if I saw you around the rest of the board. Do you even like jazz, or did you just want to make sure Saundra wasn't winning too many hearts and minds?

I noticed that, too. But it's OK; I doubt that the jazz fraternity is fertile ground for the right.

MG

[jazz_man]

Originally Posted by J_Deighton
Hey Truthseeker! I'd take you a lot more seriously if I saw you around the rest of the board. Do you even like jazz, or did you just want to make sure Saundra wasn't winning too many hearts and minds?

I noticed that, too. But it's OK; I doubt that the jazz fraternity is fertile ground for the right.
MG

Just ignore him. At best he's a troll and is probably fond of The Greatest Hits of the Hitler Youth Marching Band.

[Saundra Hummer]

~***~
David Letterman versus Bill O'Reilly
January 04, 2006
Letterman 1 - O'Reilly 0

"I have the feeling that 60% of what you say is crap..." and with that Dave Letterman captured the essence of what is Bill O'Reilly. Earlier in the segment Bill O'Reilly said, "The Soldiers and Marines are noble they are not terrorists and when people call them that like Cindy Sheehan; called the insurgents freedom fighters we don't like that. " This quotation is a perfect example of O'Reilly's sophistry. Notice where he pauses, not after that, but rather after Cindy Sheehan, implying not only that does she view the insurgents as freedom fighters but that she views the troops as terrorists. It is exactly the same technique Bush used in linking Iraq and 9/11. It wasn't simply an awkward sentence but a device O'Reilly uses frequently to smear others. You don't debate with someone who has no respect for the facts, for someone who quotes out of context. You point out as Dave did that it is crap. You don't argue the fine points you can never win that sort of argument with a LIAR. When someone flings shit like O'Reilly does, you don't need to identify it point by point you can smell it.
Click on the picture to play the video. GO ON SITE TO DO THIS. THE ADDRESS IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.

Quicktime Video 12.6MB 11'47
Quicktime Required
Late Show with Dave Letterman

One of O'Reilly's Lies last night
***
A FEW COMMENTS BY READERS. GO ON SITE TO READ MORE.

Posted by Norm at January 4, 2006 12:10 AM
Comments

how funny is it that dave dips his pencil into bill's water. zing!

Posted by: mike on January 4, 2006 12:32 AM
Norm, I jumped right from the "Late Show" to OGM looking for this clip!

Can always count on you for the good stuff. Kudos.

What an exchange... Oh man --

This thing's already a classic!

Posted by: Al Giovanni on January 4, 2006 01:19 AM
Thanks for putting it up Norm. Gotta show this one to my friends.

Posted by: osama on January 4, 2006 01:28 AM
haha, O'Reilly is fun

Posted by: David Campbell on January 4, 2006 02:00 AM
I wonder if people really take Bill O'Reilly seriously. I mean that man is so ... DOH!

Once again, Dave letterman hats off and of course the Norm to bring it to people like me who are outside US and don't have access to this programs.

Posted by: Hemant on January 4, 2006 02:22 AM
Aaargh. It's em-eye-six (MI6), not em-one-six, you fuckhead. As in Military Intelligence (Section) 6.

Posted by: anon on January 4, 2006 02:58 AM
That was quite the blowout.

Letterman deserves every American's thanks for his strong response to this nonsense.

I have often heard BO'r warn Americans to watch what we say. I know he is just parroting Bush, Cheney, and others, but we Americans still have freedom of speech technically. No one can see the future but we can see which way the wind is blowing.

I wonder how soon before the new wave of McCarthyism really gains momentum? I bet BO'r is thinking not soon enough. BO'r is dreaming right now of the hearings calling Letterman out for such disloyalty to the Bush nation, don'tcha know it.

Yay Letterman! : )

Posted by: MikeC on January 4, 2006 03:38 AM
There is something about Bill O'Reilly that reminds me of Pat Robertson. Maybe its the showmanship, the conviction or sometimes fanaticism. They are both popular entertainers but its something more. Maybe my sleepy brain is just playing tricks on me. But oh no, I just googled them both and Billy had already commented on his website:

"It doesn't really bother me that my media cohorts feel I am the spawn of Pat Robertson."

I don't think it is just the Christmas fantasy of BO'r that had me thinking this. Most Americans would laugh at calling Robertson a journalist but how different really is O'Reilly. Anyway I figure someone will get a kick out of the "spawn of Robertson" quote from O'Reilly that I found on his own website.

There should be a warning before BO'r's shows that they are for entertainment purposes only.

Posted by: MikeC on January 4, 2006 04:15 AM
I'm not a Bill O'Reilly fan, but i do think Letterman looked like "a pinhead" for not being able to debate O'Reilly and hiding behind the "im not smart enough to debate you" line. You can't say the guy is 60% crap when you can't back it up. I am only being objective. Letterman is clearly no John Stewart.

Posted by: dave on January 4, 2006 04:42 AM
Yes, we heard you the first time, dave. You're not an O'Reilly fan. Got it.

Letterman is not about the debate. his show is entertainment. But I still think he schooled O'Reilly on some major issues, albeit very generalized. Why Bill is so anti-Cindy baffles me. Freedom fighters? What's wrong with that? They are freedom fighters. The insurgency is made up mostly of IRAQIS that want the US out of Iraq. We did the same thing in the 1770s. I feel bad for the Iraqis, but that doesn't mean that I support their violent means. They are between a rock and a hard place, and have no other way to further their own cause for freedom from the US. It's too bad that GWB took us down this road in the first place.

Posted by: Arnold Horshack on January 4, 2006 05:00 AM
He talks about the gradual erosion of Christmas and what's going to happen if everyone acts like they don't care, but calling out Bush for lies and legal infractions is bad for the country. Brilliant. I wish Dave had pounced on that.

Posted by: dday on January 4, 2006 05:10 AM

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002750.html
AN INTERESTING WEB SITE, CHECK IT OUT. SRH

[Saundra Hummer]

The Sword of God Jon takes a jab at the Christian Pat Robertson's bizarre attempts to invoke the wrath of his imaginary friend on his good buddy Ariel Sharon.

GO ON SITE TO SEE THE CLIP AND TO SEE OTHER TOPICAL VIDEOS OF JON AND OTHERS. THEN THERE ARE THE PRINTED ARTICLES AND COMMENTS FROM VIEWERS. INTERESTING AND OFTENTIMES FUNNY STUFF:

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/
Quicktime Video 5.13MB 4'10 Quicktime Required
The Daily Show Fake news that delivers the truth

Posted bhttp://www.workingforchange.com/index.cfm?y Norm at Permalink 01:27 AM | Comments (30)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~*******~~~'06 predictions
Will Durst - WorkingForChange.com


01.06.06 - It is the beginning of the new year: time for we average ink-stained wretches to trot out the tried but true "ye olde predictions" piece. The wretches that don't resort to trotting out the tried but true "ye olde resolutions" piece that is. Being the average traditionalist wretch with great respect for heritage that I am, (especially lacking any other fertile ideas whatsoever,) I am proud to honor this revered journalistic practice. Hence, I got your predictions for the new year right here. (Resolutions will show up the next time I get stuck for other fresh and bright ideas. In other words, soon.) Happy 2006 everybody.

IN THE YEAR 2006:

I predict George W. Bush will continue to cut programs to the poor and the old so that rich people can have more money. I also predict that through a series of tragic financial reversals, the 43rd President will die both poor and old. Because that's the way god would want it.

I predict Tom Delay will lose his Houston Congressional race to Conservative Democrat Nick Lampson, who lost his seat in '04 due to DeLay's redistricting scheme -- because that's also the way god would want it.

I predict this administration will break more laws, then conduct investigations into who told the press about the broken laws instead of investigating crimes being broken. Like blaming Toto for the Wizard of Oz's incompetence.

I predict Paris Hilton will hold a press conference to which no one will show up, and she will wither away like autumn leaves crushed by the tires of an 18-wheeler and blown away in a brisk breeze.

I predict Dick Cheney's face will freeze like that.

I predict technology will become so user friendly, geeks will go back to being nerds.

I predict air travel will become less user friendly to the point that certain discount seats require pedaling.

I predict the San Francisco Giants will win the World Series, but in lieu of going to Disneyland afterwards, Barry Bonds, the MVP, will instead be whisked straight away to a retirement village for a series of recuperative salt baths.

I predict Bill Gates will develop a donor recipient software program that makes himself obsolete.

I predict that Iraq will have so many elections this year, voter turnout will drop to levels normally seen in North Dakota during force five blizzards.

I predict Tom Cruise will lose another debate on the Today Show, this time to Katie Couric's assistant makeup artist.

I predict that during a stump speech in upstate New York, gubernatorial candidate Donald Trump's hair will be wind whipped into the shape of a sail, whisking him airborne into a mall parking lot in suburban Vermont.

I predict that lobbyist Jack Abramoff's squealings will bring down so many members of Congress, the 2007 Freshman Congressional House class will be known as The Abramoff Babies.

I predict governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will move so far to the left in his attempt to mend fences with California voters that Fidel Castro will denounce him as a Socialist tool.

I predict Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will engage in a bout of such verbal gobbledygook he will confuse himself and finally be forced to give a straight answer.
Political Comic Will Durst wants to buy Donald Rumsfeld's verbal gymnastics workout plan.

Don't forget the Will & Willie Show. Monday through Friday. 7-10am. KQKE. 960 AM. The QUAKE. San Francisco. Or quakeradio.com.

And live at the Point Arena Theater with Deb & Mike, Sunday the 8th at 8pm in yes, Point Arena. I don't know either. North somewhere.
http://www.workingforchange.com/

[Saundra Hummer]

Just ignore him. At best he's a troll and is probably fond of The Greatest Hits of the Hitler Youth Marching Band.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the magnificent goldberg
Quote:
Originally Posted by J_Deighton
Originally Posted by J_Deighton
Hey Truthseeker! I'd take you a lot more seriously if I saw you around the rest of the board. Do you even like jazz, or did you just want to make sure Saundra wasn't winning too many hearts and minds?



I noticed that, too. But it's OK; I doubt that the jazz fraternity is fertile ground for the right.
MG



Just ignore him. At best he's a troll and is probably fond of The Greatest Hits of the Hitler


_Deighton Hey Truthseeker! I'd take you a lot more seriously if I saw you around the rest of the board. Do you even like jazz, or did you just want to make sure Saundra wasn't winning too many hearts and minds?
January 10th, 2006 12:30 PM
truthseeker Quote:

Originally Posted by Saundra HummerVocal minority around the world?

THIS IS FROM AN ARTICLE i POSTED AND MY BELIEFS ABOUT MINORITES AND PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD BACKING HARRY BELEFONTES RANT AGAINST THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND ABOUT SO MANY BEING AGAINST THE BUSH ADMINISTRATIONS PICTATION OF HUGO CHAVEZ

Since there hasn't been an answer so far, yes J Deighton, The Magnificant Goldberg and Jazz_Man, that is why he is here, or so he tells me.

[Saundra Hummer]

NO CHILD'S BEHIND LEFT: THE TEST
A NEWSLETTER I RECEIVED TONIGHT. SRH. ..By Greg Palast
New York -- Today and tomorrow every 8-year-old in the state of New York will take a test. It's part of George Bush's No Child Left Behind program. The losers will be left behind to repeat the third grade.

Try it yourself. This is from the state's actual practice test. Ready, class?

"The year 1999 was a big one for the Williams sisters. In February, Serena won her first pro singles championship. In March, the sisters met for the first time in a tournament final. Venus won. And at doubles tennis, the Williams girls could not seem to lose that year."

And here's one of the four questions:

"The story says that in 1999, the sisters could not seem to lose at doubles tennis. This probably means when they played

"A two matches in one day
"B against each other
"C with two balls at once
"D as partners"

OK, class, do you know the answer? (By the way, I didn't cheat: there's nothing else about "doubles" in the text.)


My kids go to a New York City school in which more than half the students live below the poverty line. There is no tennis court.

There are no tennis courts in the elementary schools of Bed-Stuy or East Harlem. But out in the Hamptons, every school has a tennis court. In Forest Hills, Westchester and Long Island's North Shore, the schools have nearly as many tennis courts as the school kids have live-in maids.

Now, you tell me, class, which kids are best prepared to answer the question about "doubles tennis"? The 8-year-olds in Harlem who've never played a set of doubles or the kids whose mommies disappear for two hours every Wednesday with Enrique the tennis pro?

Is this test a measure of "reading comprehension" -- or a measure of wealth accumulation?

If you have any doubts about what the test is measuring, look at the next question, based on another part of the text, which reads (and I could not make this up):

"Most young tennis stars learn the game from coaches at private clubs. In this sentence, a club is probably a

"F baseball bat
"G tennis racquet
"H tennis court
"J country club"

Helpfully, for the kids in our 'hood, it explains that a "country club" is a, "place where people meet." Yes, but WHICH people?

President Bush told us, "By passing the No Child Left Behind Act, we are regularly testing every child and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing."

But there are no "better options." In the delicious double-speak of class war, when the tests have winnowed out the chaff and kids stamped failed, No Child Left results in that child being left behind in the same grade to repeat the failure another year.

I can't say that Mr. Bush doesn't offer better options to the kids stamped failed. Under No Child Left, if enough kids flunk the tests, their school is marked a failure and its students win the right, under the law, to transfer to any successful school in their district. You can't provide more opportunity than that. But they don't provide it, the law promises it, without a single penny to make it happen. In New York in 2004, a third of a million students earned the right to transfer to better schools -- in which there were only 8,000 places open.

New York is typical. Nationwide, only one out of two-hundred students eligible to transfer manage to do it. Well, there's always the Army. (That option did not go unnoticed: No Child has a special provision requiring schools to open their doors to military recruiters.)

Hint: When de-coding politicians' babble, to get to the real agenda, don't read their lips, read their budgets. And in his last budget, our President couldn't spare one thin dime for education, not ten cents. Mr. Big Spender provided for a derisory 8.4 cents on the dollar of the cost of primary and secondary schools. Congress appropriated a half penny of the nation's income -- just one-half of one-percent of America's twelve trillion dollar GDP -- for primary and secondary education.

President Bush actually requested less. While Congress succeeded in prying out an itty-bitty increase in voted funding, that doesn't mean the extra cash actually gets to the students. Fifteen states have sued the federal government on the grounds that the cost of new testing imposed on schools, $3.9 billion, eats up the entire new funding budgeted for No Child Left.

There are no "better options" for failing children, but there are better uses for them. The President ordered testing and more testing to hunt down, identify and target millions of children too expensive, too heavy a burden, to educate.

No Child Left offers no options for those with the test-score mark of Cain -- no opportunities, no hope, no plan, no funding. Rather, it is the new social Darwinism, educational eugenics: identify the nation's loser-class early on. Trap them then train them cheap.

Someone has to care for the privileged. No society can have winners without lots and lots of losers. And so we have No Child Left Behind -- to produce the new worker drones that will clean the toilets at the Yale Alumni Club, punch the cash registers color-coded for illiterates, and pamper the winner-class on the higher floors of the new economic order.

Class war dismissed.


**********
See a clip of the actual practice test at www.GregPalast.com
**********Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Read his investigative reports at www.GregPalast.com

[Saundra Hummer]

*****
Do Burned CDs Have a Short Life Span? John Blau, IDG News Service
Tue Jan 10, 8:00 AM ET

Opinions vary on how to preserve data on digital storage media, such as optical CDs and DVDs. Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland, has his own view: If you want to avoid having to burn new CDs every few years, use magnetic tapes to store all your pictures, videos and songs for a lifetime.

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," Gerecke says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more."

The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam.

"Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life span of around two years," Gerecke says. "Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years."

Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is difficult, he says, because few vendors use life span as a selling point.

Similar Limitations
Hard-drive disks also have their limitations, according to Gerecke. The problem with hard drives, he says, is not so much the disk itself as it is the disk bearing, which has a positioning function similar to a ball bearing. "If the hard drive uses an inexpensive disk bearing, that bearing will wear out faster than a more expensive one," he says. His recommendation: a hard-drive disk with 7200 revolutions per minute.

To overcome the preservation limitations of burnable CDs, Gerecke suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 years to 100 years, depending on their quality. "Even if magnetic tapes are also subject to degradation, they're still the superior storage media," he says.

But he's quick to point out that no storage medium lasts forever and, consequently, consumers and business alike need to have a migration plan to new storage technologies.

"Companies, in particular, need to be constantly looking at new storage technologies and have an archiving strategy that allows them to automatically migrate to new technologies," he says. "Otherwise, they're going to wind up in a dead-end. And for those sitting on terabytes of crucial data, that could be a colossal problem."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060110/tc_pcworld/124312;_ylt=Ao0tjcSYeCS2lrTe7RGZbxqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oD MTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

[the magnificent goldberg]

*****
Do Burned CDs Have a Short Life Span? John Blau, IDG News Service
Tue Jan 10, 8:00 AM ET

Opinions vary on how to preserve data on digital storage media, such as optical CDs and DVDs. Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland, has his own view: If you want to avoid having to burn new CDs every few years, use magnetic tapes to store all your pictures, videos and songs for a lifetime.

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," Gerecke says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more."

The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam.

"Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life span of around two years," Gerecke says. "Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years."

Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is difficult, he says, because few vendors use life span as a selling point.

Similar Limitations
Hard-drive disks also have their limitations, according to Gerecke. The problem with hard drives, he says, is not so much the disk itself as it is the disk bearing, which has a positioning function similar to a ball bearing. "If the hard drive uses an inexpensive disk bearing, that bearing will wear out faster than a more expensive one," he says. His recommendation: a hard-drive disk with 7200 revolutions per minute.

To overcome the preservation limitations of burnable CDs, Gerecke suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 years to 100 years, depending on their quality. "Even if magnetic tapes are also subject to degradation, they're still the superior storage media," he says.

But he's quick to point out that no storage medium lasts forever and, consequently, consumers and business alike need to have a migration plan to new storage technologies.

"Companies, in particular, need to be constantly looking at new storage technologies and have an archiving strategy that allows them to automatically migrate to new technologies," he says. "Otherwise, they're going to wind up in a dead-end. And for those sitting on terabytes of crucial data, that could be a colossal problem."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060110/tc_pcworld/124312;_ylt=Ao0tjcSYeCS2lrTe7RGZbxqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oD MTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

Saundra - my techncal limitations have got to me, I'm afraid. Can you post a link to this piece onto the "Vinyl or CD" thread, please? I don't know how to do it and we've been talking about that article today.

MG

[Saundra Hummer]

Saundra - my techncal limitations have got to me, I'm afraid. Can you post a link to this piece onto the "Vinyl or CD" thread, please? I don't know how to do it and we've been talking about that article today.

MG
Hello MG,

I have the link at the bottom of the post, I'll give it out again, and send me an email so I can get your address, and I'll send you a newsletter I get which is full of tech stuff, or maybe I can pull it up and find their address for you, it is full of new things each day or so. There are two I get, which I should pay more attention to, but I just skim them and file them away.

The story above is from PC World, I'm sure you can find them with google.com, but I picked up this article on the following site. I'm sure PC world will have a web site as well. It's a well known outfit.

Here's the address to the yahoo news article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060110/tc_pcworld/124312;_ylt=AtNFj6B9pCW1agHS0H24DK2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oD MTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

Here's the address to subscribe to the newsletter I was telling you about, the ZDNet Newsletter, it has a lot of information about numerous concern as far as computers go, all sorts of info, updates, etc.

http://nl.com.com/general.jsp

[the magnificent goldberg]

Hello MG,

I have the link at the bottom of the post, I'll give it out again, and send me an email so I can get your address, and I'll send you a newsletter I get which is full of tech stuff, or maybe I can pull it up and find their address for you, it is full of new things each day or so. There are two I get, which I should pay more attention to, but I just skim them and file them away.

The story above is from PC World, I'm sure you can find them with google.com, but I picked up this article on the following site. I'm sure PC world will have a web site as well. It's a well known outfit.

Here's the address to the yahoo news article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060110/tc_pcworld/124312;_ylt=AtNFj6B9pCW1agHS0H24DK2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oD MTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

Here's the address to subscribe to the newsletter I was telling you about, the ZDNet Newsletter, it has a lot of information about numerous concern as far as computers go, all sorts of info, updates, etc.

http://nl.com.com/general.jsp

Sandi, I'm not interested; I don't do this stuff. There are a few others who were commenting earlier, so I thought it would be helpful for them.

MG

[Saundra Hummer]

~~*****~~
The Case For Abolishing The CIA

By John Judis
The New Republic Online,
December 20, 2005
In early 2002 the CIA took custody of captured Al Qaeda commander Ibn Shaykh Al Libi. The agency loaned him to the Egyptians whom, under torture, he told of extensive ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The CIA reclaimed its prisoner and reported the Egyptians' findings to the White House, which used them to justify invading Iraq. Al Libi subsequently recanted, claiming his testimony had been coerced, and in March 2004, a year after American tanks rumbled into Baghdad, the CIA withdrew its support for his assertions.

In his memoir, Present at the Creation, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson expressed his misgivings about the creation of the CIA in 1947. "I had the gravest forebodings about this organization and warned the President that as set up neither he, the National Security Council, nor anyone else would be in a position to know what it was doing or to control it." In 1991 and again in 1995, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan introduced bills to abolish the CIA and assign its functions to the State Department, which is what Acheson and his predecessor, George Marshall, had advocated. But Moynihan's proposal was treated as evidence of his eccentricity rather than of his wisdom and never came to a vote.

It's time to reconsider Moynihan's proposal, or least the reasoning behind it. Al Libi's case, combining gross incompetence with the violation of international law, shows that the problems Moynihan and others cited have, if anything, gotten worse under George W. Bush. The intelligence reform act passed last year didn't address them; and the current director Porter Goss appears oblivious to them. These problems have for years plagued the two main functions of the agency: intelligence gathering and covert action.

The CIA was established to prevent unanticipated disasters, such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but it has repeatedly failed to warn the White House of looming threats. It missed the North Korean invasion of the South in 1950, and the Chinese entry into the war that fall; Israel, France, and Great Britain's attack on the Suez Canal and Egypt in 1956; the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968; the Shah of Iran's ouster in 1979; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that year; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990; the Indian nuclear tests in 1998 ("We didn't have a clue," CIA director George Tenet remarked afterwards); the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993; the bombing of American military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and of U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998; the attack on the USS Cole in 2000; and of course the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in September 2001.

The agency has been equally inept at analyzing current situations. The CIA consistently overestimated Soviet military and economic strength. In 1986 agency deputy director Robert Gates insisted to Secretary of State George Schultz, "The Soviet Union is a despotism that works." In the early 1960s the CIA wildly misjudged opposition in Cuba to Fidel Castro even in the face of public accounts to the contrary. In the late '80s it underestimated Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. From 1992 to 2004, it fuelled illusions that Saddam still had these programs.

Of course, the CIA did get some things right. It predicted, for instance, the exact length of the Six Day War in 1967. But many of the things it got wrong had disastrous consequences. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, because of faulty CIA intelligence, led to the Cuban missile crisis the next year--probably the closest the United States and the Soviet Union got to a nuclear war. Mistaken intelligence during the Balkan war led to American planes destroying the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. And the WMD errors in Iraq justified a war that might otherwise not have taken place.

Then there is the CIA's record of covert action. The agency was initially designed to gather information--whether through analysis or spying. But in the early '50s, it took upon itself a new function: serving as a secret army to topple governments that were deemed hostile to American interests. The full list is not public, but countries targeted include Iran, Syria, Angola, Guatemala, Cuba, South Vietnam, Chile, Angola, Nicaragua, Panama, and, of course, Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of these efforts were initially successful, but they have often had unwelcome consequences. In 1978, for instance, the secular and Islamic forces that took over Iran cited CIA support for the coup in 1953 that restored the Shah to explain their hostility to the United States.

In almost all these cases--except, perhaps, during the reign of William Casey--the CIA was acting under official White House supervision. And some of the CIA's intelligence failures can also be laid at the White House door. Without pressure from the vice president's office and the Pentagon, for instance, the CIA might not have validated the Bush administration's claims that Iraq possessed WMD.

But as Moynihan argued in his last book, Secrecy, there is a way in which the CIA's peculiar structure and function has encouraged errors and magnified their importance. Moynihan described a "culture of secrecy" created by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. This culture produced a distinction between insiders and outsiders; and outsiders, no matter their experience or expertise, couldn't possibly know with the same degree of certainty as insiders what was going on in a foreign country. For instance, the CIA ignored an extensive poll taken in Cuba just prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion by political scientist Lloyd A. Free that demonstrated widespread support for Fidel Castro. And prior to the Iraq war, the agency insisted that U.N. inspectors who reported an absence of WMD were being duped by Iraqis.

The distinction between insiders and outsiders not only insulated CIA analysts from obvious questions that outsiders without security clearances might ask; it also bestowed a special status upon the findings that were produced. Their very secrecy made them appear more likely to be true. Moynihan recounted how government officials gave special credence to the Gaither Report, which in 1957 wrongly predicted Soviet economic and military superiority, because it was classified.

In such a culture, dissenters risk isolation and even losing their clearances. That, in turn, serves to reinforce conventional wisdom on any given topic. Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner's account of why the agency was wrong about the Soviet economy could easily apply to the agency's deliberations in 2002 over whether Iraq was importing aluminum tubes for making nuclear bombs. "If some individual CIA analysts were more prescient than the corporate view," Turner wrote, "their ideas were filtered out in the bureaucratic process; and it is the corporate view that counts because that is what reaches the president and his advisers."

The culture of secrecy also makes those at the top of intelligence agencies highly susceptible to political pressure from above. Without a public community to sustain contrary conclusions, they dare not risk defying the expectations of those at whose discretion they serve. Tenet appears to have been particularly eager to please his superiors--whether in insisting that the Al Shifa factory in Sudan made chemical weapons or declaring that proof of Iraqi WMD was a "slam dunk."

Finally, the culture of secrecy has created common ground between CIA directors who have sought a special niche for their organization and presidents who have wanted to undertake foreign policies that would violate domestic or international law. The CIA has functioned as the White House's secret army, which is not subject to the same scrutiny as the regular armed forces. The CIA has tried to assassinate foreign leaders, mined harbors, and, most recently, tortured prisoners. If Congress had openly debated these actions, they would not have been approved. Some eventually caused an international uproar that undermined the legitimacy of American foreign policy.

Moynihan certainly understood the problem; but what about his solution? He proposed moving the CIA's functions into the State Department, where they would be more subject to international law and congressional oversight. But questions about this proposal abound. Would the State Department also perform covert operations, and not simply spying, overseas? What would happen to the intelligence agencies within the Pentagon and to the National Security Agency (which under George W. Bush appears to have taken on some of the domestic spying functions that were denied the CIA after Watergate)? Who would oversee them? The answers to these questions are unclear. What is clear is that the CIA is broken. And to repair it, we may have to start from scratch.

John B. Judis is a senior editor at TNR and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

To go to this article on-site, just click on the following link:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=17846&prog=zgp&proj=zusr

[Saundra Hummer]

~~*****~~
This is a good idea, even if you are against what it is MoveOn is all about. This is something that has to work, we need to move past party bickering and straighten up our own house, as look where it has led us, down a pretty crooked and dangerous path. We need to be insisting on a clean government, one which works for us; the average citizen once again. Our country is in dire need of such a movement, how could some honesty hurt? Go on site to ask the status quo be improved if not changed outright! SRH~~***~~
Dear MoveOn member,

Every day we hear about new congressional scandals. Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleads guilty. Tom DeLay is removed as Republican Leader. But there is no real action by Congress to stop corruption. The bottom line is: Congress cannot be trusted to clean up Congress.

The scandals are slimy but an opportunity to push reform. While members of Congress are home for the January break, it's important they hear that Americans want a real plan to enforce ethics rules and rein in lobbyists. And, the business of Congress just can't go forward until there is real reform with teeth. Will you sign our petition urging Congress to Stop Corruption First?

http://political.moveon.org/stopcorruption/?id=6631-4054703-unwU4yiRVpHCz9BhEAmHMA&t=3The recent scandals have opened a window of opportunity to pass a reform package. Leaders are going to try to pass something so they can say they've dealt with the problem. The question is, will it be tough or just business as usual? A real anti-corruption agenda with teeth would do something like:

Start enforcing ethics rules and punishing violators—Congress has proven they can't police themselves.


Rein in lobbyists—ban all gifts, free meals, free travel and cut lobbyists out of campaign fundraising.


Shine a light—real transparency and reporting. We want to know who is meeting with our leaders.


Get serious about public financing of elections.
These are just some of the ideas proposed by clean government advocates and some Democrats in Congress.1

Of all these ideas the most important is the first. Right now Congress thinks they can get away with corruption. The DeLay, Abramoff and other scandals were ignored by the neutered House Ethics Committee.2 That is why a new and independent ethics enforcement entity is badly needed.

Widespread corruption has real-world implications for ordinary Americans: higher prescription drug prices, high gas prices and bigger deficits. Passing a big ethics and lobbying reform plan needs to be the FIRST thing Congress does when they return. No renaming post offices. No picayune regulatory changes. Stop corruption first.

The plan is to deliver the petitions to Congress the day they begin their 2006 work. Our goal is to gather at least 250,000 signatures. Between now and then we'll be working together to build pressure for reform and highlight some of the worst consequences of corruption. Please sign the petition at the link below.

http://political.moveon.org/stopcorruption/?id=6631-4054703-unwU4yiRVpHCz9BhEAmHMA&t=4

If you do our part and other people do their part together we can do something big.

Thanks for all you do.

– Tom, Adam, Jennifer, Tanya and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Wednesday, January 11th, 2006

Sources

1. "Five Ways to Shake Up Washington." Common Cause. January 11, 2006.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1330

"Analysis: Pending Lobbying Reform Legislation Could Have Helped Prevent Much of Jack Abramoff Scandal." Public Citizen, January 6, 2006.
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Abramoff_Lobbying.pdf

"The Real Scandal: Our Big Money Political System." Nick Nyhart, Public Campaign. January 10, 2006.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0110-41.htm

2. CREW Calls on House to Restore Ethics Committee. Citizens for Responsible and Ethics in Washington, March 15, 2005.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1331


Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.3 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support our work, you can give now at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/email.html?id=6631-4054703-unwU4yiRVpHCz9BhEAmHMA&t=5


PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://political.moveon.org/?id=6631-4054703-unwU4yiRVpHCz9BhEAmHMA&t=6
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

***
Stop Corruption First

The corruption scandals have opened a window to push for real reform with teeth. Don't let Congress get away with ignoring their rules. Send a message that you want them to stop corruption first by signing our petition calling for tough new legislation to fix and enforce ethics rules and rein in lobbyists.

*******
Sign the Petition (Go on site to sign petition}*******
Corruption: Medicare

In 2003 under a cloud of corruption, Congress enacted a new Medicare law to provide prescription drug coverage—but it was a giant giveaway to the insurance and drug companies. The companies hired 952 lobbyists, spent $141 million on lobbying and contributed more than $30 million to campaigns. Drug profits rose $182 billion. Millions of seniors confused or hurt by the new law.

[Jack Good]

Jokes about current events and people are always fun to hear, keep them coming, if and when the mood hits you.

*** A li'l rye humor (unintended, maybe; deadpan, certainly) from yday's L.A. Times, which noted that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.) and children's publisher Scholastic Corp. plan a 56-page illustrated book about a typical day in his life as narrated by the senator's dog. Kennedy's proceeds will go to charity.

*** The senator has always been best-known, of course, for the notorious incident that derailed any plans for higher office - driving off the side of a local bridge into a river, after a party in Chappaquiddick, in June, 1969. The senator hauled himself out of the car and the water and got a ride home. Not so fortunate was 29-year-old blonde Mary Jo Kopechne, who was later found in the back seat, drowned.

*** Kennedy's wife and children were home at the time. The accident was reported to police eight hours after it happened.

*** The senator's mutt? A Portuguese water dog! Its name? Splash! (Un#@#@#@#believable! Don't think the press won't have a field day with this when the book hits). Straight ahead, man ...

[Saundra Hummer]

*** A li'l rye humor (unintended, maybe; deadpan, certainly) from yday's L.A. Times, which noted that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.) and children's publisher Scholastic Corp. plan a 56-page illustrated book about a typical day in his life as narrated by the senator's dog. Kennedy's proceeds will go to charity.

*** The senator has always been best-known, of course, for the notorious incident that derailed any plans for higher office - driving off the side of a local bridge into a river, after a party in Chappaquiddick, in June, 1969. The senator hauled himself out of the car and the water and got a ride home. Not so fortunate was 29-year-old blonde Mary Jo Kopechne, who was later found in the back seat, drowned.

*** Kennedy's wife and children were home at the time. The accident was reported to police eight hours after it happened.

*** The senator's mutt? A Portuguese water dog! Its name? Splash! (Un#@#@#@#believable! Don't think the press won't have a field day with this when the book hits). Straight ahead, man ...

Hard to imagine! What was he thinking? Really!

[the magnificent goldberg]

Hard to imagine! What was he thinking? Really!

Probably nothing. Probably his daughter or grandchild decided about the dog. Tough!

But maybe, just maybe, he didn't give a toss. Tougher!

MG

[Saundra Hummer]

~***~
Here are the 10 Most Read Articles on NYTimes.com from 2005.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006
[B][INDENT]1. Maureen Dowd: What's a Modern Girl to Do? Published: October 30, 2005 Burning your bra or padding it. Demanding "Ms." or flaunting "Mrs." Splitting the check or letting him pay. Playing it straight or playing hard to get.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/magazine/30feminism.html?ex=1152421200&en=4c0bd9b9392f83a7&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
*
*
2. Maureen Dowd: United States of Shame
Published: September 3, 2005
W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03dowd.html?ex=1152421200&en=33ed7a6104e306ce&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
**
3. Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World
By KURT EICHENWALD, Published: December 19, 2005
A 13-year-old was drawn into performing sex acts for an online audience in a tale of the dark collateral effects of technology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/national/19kids.ready.html?ex=1152421200&en=b6a6948be791b718&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
***
4. How Personal Is Too Personal for a Star Like Tom Cruise?
By SHARON WAXMAN, Published: June 2, 2005 Tom Cruise is puzzling associates and members of the public with his behavior while promoting the Paramount movie "War of the Worlds."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/movies/02crui.html?ex=1152421200&en=f6f5454fa08f2725&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
****
5. Officials Struggle to Reverse a Growing Sense of Anarchy
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL, JOSEPH B. TREASTER and MARIA NEWMAN, Published: September 1, 2005
Bodies floated in stagnant floodwaters, and food and water supplies dwindled for thousands of trapped, desperate residents who had not yet managed to find a way out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01cnd-storm.html?ex=1152421200&en=0355841e84744d2c&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
*****
6. Thomas L. Friedman: Osama and Katrina
Published: September 7, 2005If President Bush goes back to his politics as usual, Katrina will have destroyed a city and a presidency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/opinion/07friedman.html?ex=1152421200&en=bec05a0d389f1bd2&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
******
7. Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street
By DAN BARRY, Published: September 8, 2005
It is remarkable that on a downtown street in a major U.S. city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/national/nationalspecial/08orleans.html?ex=1152421200&en=554893528b6ae1b8&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
SIZE="3"]*******
8. Editorial: Waiting for a Leader
Published: September 1, 2005George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life Wednesday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/opinion/01thu1.html?ex=1152421200&en=185c1b502001627b&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
********
9. Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report
By DAVID JOHNSTON, RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL, Published: October 25, 2005
Notes of a previously undisclosed conversation between the vice president and his chief of staff appear to differ from I. Lewis Libby's federal grand jury testimony.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/politics/25leak.html?ex=1152421200&en=7868919a02852479&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
*********
10. Paul Krugman: [B]A Can't-Do Government By PAUL KRUGMAN, Published: SeptemberAmerica, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html?ex=1152421200&en=c08641d8eb2e4e9f&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep
**********[/SIZE]

CLICK ON THE LINKS ON EACH STORY TO ACCESS THE SITES

[Saundra Hummer]

*** A li'l rye humor (unintended, maybe; deadpan, certainly) from yday's L.A. Times, which noted that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.) and children's publisher Scholastic Corp. plan a 56-page illustrated book about a typical day in his life as narrated by the senator's dog. Kennedy's proceeds will go to charity.

*** The senator has always been best-known, of course, for the notorious incident that derailed any plans for higher office - driving off the side of a local bridge into a river, after a party in Chappaquiddick, in June, 1969. The senator hauled himself out of the car and the water and got a ride home. Not so fortunate was 29-year-old blonde Mary Jo Kopechne, who was later found in the back seat, drowned.

*** Kennedy's wife and children were home at the time. The accident was reported to police eight hours after it happened.

*** The senator's mutt? A Portuguese water dog! Its name? Splash! (Un#@#@#@#believable! Don't think the press won't have a field day with this when the book hits). Straight ahead, man ...

Friends of Johnny and Rosemari Rice? Or perhaps Mickey Munoz or Dale Velzy? But then again they're much farther South, of course Dale left. Meant to ask earlier. Rosemari and Johnny are at Steamers, practically live on top of it.

[Saundra Hummer]

~~***~~
OK ALL YOU BRAINY PEOPLE OUT THERE, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE ~ YOU'RE NEEDED AND WANTED ~ THERE'S PROBLEMS WAITING TO BE SOLVED ` CONQUERED ~ SO CHECK OUT THIS ARTICLE FROM THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR'
Grand challenges' spur grand results
Private groups are offering big cash prizes to anyone who can solve a range of daunting problems.By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

In October 2004 SpaceShipOne roared into space (twice) - the first privately funded spacecraft ever to reach suborbit, nearly 70 miles above Earth. A year later, "Stanley," a Volkswagen Touareg modified by Stanford University students, rumbled across some 130 miles of desert without a human driver, navigating the rough terrain guided by computer programs and sensors.
Chalk up two new technological accomplishments for the 21st century. In both cases, the designers were motivated to be the first to do something - and to win a cash prize. The Ansari X PRIZE for spaceflight paid out $10 million from a private foundation. The DARPA Grand Challenge for robotic vehicles awarded $2 million, put up by the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

VERY GRAND: Melinda (kneeling) and Bill Gates (standing behind her) pledged $437 million in their Grand Challenges for Global Health. They toured New Delhi recently.
BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION/AP
Using "grand challenges" to stimulate scientific progress isn't new. In 1714 the British government offered the equivalent of about $12 million to answer a vexing question: How could His Majesty's ships calculate their longitude - how far they were east or west of home - to avoid shipwrecks and other disasters? Great scientists of the day attacked the problem, but it was solved by John Harrison, a self-taught watchmaker.

In 1900 mathematician David Hilbert proposed 23 math problems he hoped would be solved in the 20th century (16 of them were). A problem "should not be too difficult lest it mock at our efforts," he said in presenting his challenges. "It should be to us a guidepost on the mazy paths to hidden truths...."

Now the early 21st century is seeing a raft of new grand challenges. The aim: Change the world - one prize at a time.

The cluster of challenges may be the result of both bad and good news facing science today, says Gilbert Omenn, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, D.C. On the downside, budget deficits have put federal science funding in jeopardy. Scientists are "quite anxious" about their projects, he says. Private "grand challenges" offer fresh resources and encouragement.

At the same time, breakthroughs like the sequencing of the human genome, announced in 2003, have brought exuberance, showing that complex scientific problems are solvable.

"Prizes change the public perception about an issue," says Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation in Santa Monica, Calif. People begin to believe that a problem is solvable. "The more prize money, the more the issue is seen as important by the public."

Last June, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation put an exclamation point after "grand challenge" when it announced one of the richest in history. The Grand Challenges for Global Health pledged $436.6 million (including $31.6 million from British and Canadian sources) toward solving some of the world's worst health problems. Preliminary funds have been granted to 43 groups attacking 14 challenges. They include: developing vaccines to prevent malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV that don't require refrigeration, needles, or multiple doses; finding new ways to stop the spread of insect-borne diseases; and developing more nutritious crops to feed the hungry.

"It's marvelous," Dr. Omenn says. The challenges are attacking problems "that have been neglected, probably to our shame, for lack of confidence that there was anything that could be done."

The AAAS has made "Grand Challenges, Great Opportunities" the theme of its annual meeting in St. Louis next month. And last July, a special issue of Science magazine asked, "What don't we know?" identifying 125 questions that puzzle researchers (though offering no prizes). Among them: "What is the biological basis of consciousness?" "What is the universe made of?"

"Science is shaped by ignorance," said 2004 Nobel physics laureate David Gross in an essay in that issue. "Great questions themselves evolve, of course, because their answers spawn new and better questions in turn."
*
SPACESHIPONE: The craft, linked to its launch ship, flew over the Mojave Desert Sept. 29, 2004, on its way to winning $10 million.
JIM CAMPBELL, POOL/AP

Meanwhile, prize-based Grand Challenges continue to spring up:

• The Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., is offering seven $1 million prizes for the solutions to seven classic problems in mathematics. The institute, founded in 1998, issued its challenge in May 2000. So far, no prizes have been awarded.

• Inspired by the X PRIZE's success, NASA has created its Centennial Challenges Program, funding a number of $250,000 challenges aimed at speeding space exploration. They include finding a way to extract oxygen from moon rocks and making advanced explorer robots.

• The Methuselah Mouse Prize will award more than $3 million to the first researcher who can extend the lifespan of a certain species of mouse from about three years to five years. "It's analogous to the sword in the stone. Whoever pulls it out gets the money," says David Gobel, cofounder of the Methuselah Foundation, which sponsors the prize, first offered in 2003.

But a successful grand challenge involves more than money, Omenn says. It needs to be clearly stated, socially worthy, and difficult but not impossible to achieve. It's misleading to assume "if you put a big enough amount of money on a stump every problem is solvable," he says.

Now that the first X PRIZE has been won, the X Prize Foundation is moving on to create new challenges, Mr. Diamandis says. The foundation expects to offer a prize, with NASA, for the first private orbital spaceflight. It also wants to offer a prize to uncover new energy sources for cars.

"Our mission is to cause radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity and to use prizes as our primary method," he says.

The government's DARPA robotic vehicle challenge was spurred by the X PRIZE concept. In the first DARPA challenge in 2004, none of the vehicles came close to completing the course. In 2005, four vehicles finished.

"The rate of success in just one year shows how powerful these challenges can be," says Ian Murphy, an X Prize Foundation spokesman.http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0112/p13s01-stss.html

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~*~~~Hang in, and raise hell
Corrupt politicians think we're morons -- time to strike back
Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
01.10.06 Fix it, and if corruption comes back again, you just whack back at it again
AUSTIN, Texas -- The governor of Texas is despicable. Of all the crass pandering, of all the gross political kowtowing to ignorance, we haven't seen anything this rank from Gov. Goodhair since, gee, last fall.
Then, he was trying to draw attention away from his spectacular failure on public schools by convincing Texans that gay marriage was a horrible threat to us all. Now, he's trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in freefall by proposing we teach creationism in biology classes.

The funding of the whole school system is so unfair it has been declared unconstitutional by the Texas Supreme Court. All last year, Perry haplessly called special session after special session, trying to fix the problem, and couldn't get anywhere -- not an iota, not a scintilla of leadership.

Instead of facing the grave crisis that may yet result in the schools being closed down, Perry has blithely gone off on creationism -- teach the little perishers the Earth is 6,000 years old, that people lived at the same time as dinosaurs and who cares if the school building is falling apart?

Perry faced a potential primary challenge from State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn. The Texas Republican Party is now so completely dominated by the Christian right, however, that a relative moderate like Strayhorn has no chance against Perry, who has been assiduously kissing the feet, to say the least, of the most extreme elements of the party. So Strayhorn announced she would seek election as an independent, and Perry played the creationism card. Gee, let's all have a big discussion about gays, creationism and covenant marriage -- that'll solve the state's staggering problems with schools and health care.

In case you missed it, the court decision everyone has been waiting for on teaching creationism in the schools came out on Dec. 20, and it explains, quite clearly, why creationism cannot be taught as science in this country. Because it isn't science, it's religion.

The decision in the Dover, Pa., school board case by Judge John Jones III, a Republican and Bush appointee, is well worth reading. It annihilates the case for teaching creationism. Calling creationism "intelligent design" changes nothing and is disingenuous to the point of being painful. Perry emphasized the equally disingenuous notion that there is "controversy" about evolution, supposedly two sides equally worth considering, so we should "teach the controversy." His spokesperson, Kathy Walt, actually said teaching different theories is part of "developing students' critical thinking skills." That's pathetic.

One hears evolution dismissed as "just a theory," as though all of science weren't based on theory and eternally subject to new evidence to the contrary. In science, gravity is "just a theory" -- and if you ever drop something and it falls up, they'll reconsider the whole theory for you. That's just how "theoretical" evolution is -- constantly subject to evidence and proof. But creationism cannot be tested and proved against evidence using the scientific method -- that is why it is not science, it is faith.

Meanwhile, it's heartening to note that political nincompoopery is not limited to Texas. A couple of recent quotes out of Washington, D.C., cause the jaw to drop. Our very own Tom DeLay, upon announcing he would quit as majority leader, said: "During my time in Congress, I have always acted in an ethical manner, within the rules of our body and the law of our land. I am fully confident time will bear this out." Good grief, the man was sanctioned three times by the House ethics committee last year alone.

Equally stupefying is the attempted emergence of Newt Gingrich, of all people, as an arbiter of ethics. Gingrich has been going about the media, holding forth on the shortcomings of today's Republicans. Let's see, that would be the same Newt Gingrich who originally started using the lobby as an arm of the Republican Party, right? Same Gingrich had the distinction of being the only House speaker to be reprimanded by his colleagues for ethical wrongdoing? Same Gingrich who was accused of misusing nonprofit organizations for political purposes, personally benefiting from political contributions, cutting a sleazy book deal and giving false statements to ethics investigators? Same Gingrich who was fined $300,000 for said lying? I thought it was that Gingrich.

They must really think we're morons.

On the general subject of political corruption, do not fall into the fatal error of cynicism. You do your country a great disservice by saying things like: "Eh, they're all crooks. Nothing anyone can do about it. Money will always find a way."

The answer is perpetual reform. Fix it, and if corruption comes back again, you just whack back at it again. The system as it is encourages corruption and must be changed. Public campaign financing is the best answer in the long-term -- all this "lobby reform" talk is hopelessly inadequate. Hang in, and raise hell -- this is a heaven-sent opportunity to clean it up. Don't blow the chance with cheap cynicism. Read more in the Molly Ivins archive .

Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Who Let the Dogs In? http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20192

Gotta luv er! .. Keep hittin em Molly! SRH

[Saundra Hummer]

***
"JAZZED"
An e-mail trail of money and influenceBy Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was, in his own word, "jazzed."
It was Sept. 25, 2001, and the night before he'd attended a small Georgetown dinner given by a Republican environmental group. He'd hobnobbed there with Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Deputy Secretary Steven Griles - two of the most important officials in the government, as far as Mr. Abramoff's Indian tribe clients were concerned.

DIFFICULTIES: Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty in two fraud cases and will cooperate with prosecutors.
MELINA MARA/WASHINGTON POST/AP Now it was the day after, and time for a little relationship cultivation.

"The event last night was outstanding!!" he wrote in an 11:54 a.m. e-mail to Italia Federici, president of the group, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy. "Bravo! ... I have a fantastic box at the Redskins stadium. How about you come this Sunday and see it (invite Steve to come with his family also), and we'll all discuss my doing a fund raiser there for you guys?

"Let me know as soon as you can ... I think [Attorney General John] Ashcroft and his guys will also be there. 1PM game," Abramoff concluded.

The case of Jack Abramoff, disgraced super-lobbyist, provides an unprecedented look at the way Washington really works.

That doesn't mean everyone on K Street is corrupt, as Abramoff and his former partner, public relations consultant Michael Scanlon, now have admitted they were. The pair's "Gimme Five" scheme, in which Abramoff steered business to Mr. Scanlon in return for a 50 percent kickback, was unique - and felonious.

But US investigations of Abramoff and Scanlon produced pointillistic detail about their daily political activities, much of which were perfectly legal. Hundreds of pages of e-mails and congressional testimony released by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs trace the pair as they scrabble for access, scratch backs, beg for money, and dole out contributions in return.

It's D.C. as it is, a Vanity Fair of skyboxes, name-dropping, and $130 Sushi Taro lunches. Few lobbyists have their own restaurant, as Abramoff did. But many might relate to that twinge of panic when it's the end of the month, and the checks don't seem to be rolling in.

"Our pool is getting shallow - we need to reload my man!" Scanlon e-mailed Abramoff in September 2002.

* * *

Let's start with what might be called The Great Circle of Influence. It's a basic procedure whereby lobbyists obtain access for their clients, and it's well illustrated by the connections that occurred at the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) dinner on Sept. 24, 2001.

There's no evidence that either the CREA group or any of its officials have done anything illegal in conjunction with Abramoff. Ms. Federici strongly defended her innocence in an appearance before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee last November, saying she had been subject to Abramoff's manipulations.

But in 2001, with the Bush administration still new, Federici held a card of value: Top GOP officials would show up if she asked. Secretary Norton had helped found the group, and Mr. Griles was a friend. So both agreed to attend when Federici invited them to a fundraising dinner.

"Just heard back from Interior and the date for the dinner is Monday, September 24th," Federici e-mailed Abramoff in late August 2001. "Steve is personally inviting everyone from Interior and talking with them about the dinner so I expect a wonderful turnout ..."

Abramoff, for his part, controlled something that the GOP environmental group needed: cash. Most of his Indian tribe clients agreed to sign on as trustees of CREA, at a cost of $50,000 each. Among the perks for trustees was an invitation to the CREA dinner. And the Interior Department is where many issues important to Indian tribes, such as land use and casino policy, are decided.

Not that the tribes paid quickly. A few days before the dinner, Federici asked Abramoff when some of that money might flow in, as she was trying to make some payments and budget for the next quarter.

"Hi Italia. Choctaw will come through with the $50K sometime next month (they are over budget for this fiscal year, which ends at the end of the month)," Abramoff replied in a Sept. 21 e-mail. "Kickapoo is going to give in two parts of $25K each, starting next month. Chitimacha has, I believe, already sent over some (was it $10K?) ...."

The dinner was a small one of 23 people, held in a private home near the Naval Observatory. Abramoff seemed happy afterward, as the invitation to his skybox shows. Federici replied a few days later - and asked again if the lobbyists could hurry along promised checks.

"Ahhh - the glamorous world of non-profit work - about one half step above beggar!" she concluded in an Oct. 4, 2001 e-mail to Abramoff.

In subsequent communications with Federici and others, Abramoff called CREA "our access to Norton" and talked about "our guy Steve." He bragged about quashing Interior Department policies that are against his client tribes' interests, and weighed in with his thoughts on who should get key Interior jobs.

But Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, chairman of the Indian Affairs committee, has said the panel has found no evidence that Norton was aware that Abramoff was invoking her name for gain. Griles has testified that he treated Abramoff no differently than other lobbyists.

And within the e-mail trail are hints that Abramoff didn't have quite the juice he claimed. He was taken by surprise when Norton named Aurene Martin acting head of Indian Affairs in January 2003 - just the sort of thing a well-connected lobbyist should know in advance.

And by July 2003, he appeared to be out of the loop, reduced to begging for advice.

Griles "won't discuss any of my clients with me," he complained in a July 17 e-mail to Federici. "The problem is that since he won't do so, and since you are not able to chat with him now, I am left in a real dilemma. I can't deliver anything from Interior for my clients."

Continued on Page 2

Now it was the day after, and time for a little relationship cultivation.

"The event last night was outstanding!!" he wrote in an 11:54 a.m. e-mail to Italia Federici, president of the group, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy. "Bravo! ... I have a fantastic box at the Redskins stadium. How about you come this Sunday and see it (invite Steve to come with his family also), and we'll all discuss my doing a fund raiser there for you guys?

"Let me know as soon as you can ... I think [Attorney General John] Ashcroft and his guys will also be there. 1PM game," Abramoff concluded.

The case of Jack Abramoff, disgraced super-lobbyist, provides an unprecedented look at the way Washington really works.

That doesn't mean everyone on K Street is corrupt, as Abramoff and his former partner, public relations consultant Michael Scanlon, now have admitted they were. The pair's "Gimme Five" scheme, in which Abramoff steered business to Mr. Scanlon in return for a 50 percent kickback, was unique - and felonious.

But US investigations of Abramoff and Scanlon produced pointillistic detail about their daily political activities, much of which were perfectly legal. Hundreds of pages of e-mails and congressional testimony released by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs trace the pair as they scrabble for access, scratch backs, beg for money, and dole out contributions in return.

It's D.C. as it is, a Vanity Fair of skyboxes, name-dropping, and $130 Sushi Taro lunches. Few lobbyists have their own restaurant, as Abramoff did. But many might relate to that twinge of panic when it's the end of the month, and the checks don't seem to be rolling in.

"Our pool is getting shallow - we need to reload my man!" Scanlon e-mailed Abramoff in September 2002.
* * *
Let's start with what might be called The Great Circle of Influence. It's a basic procedure whereby lobbyists obtain access for their clients, and it's well illustrated by the connections that occurred at the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) dinner on Sept. 24, 2001.

There's no evidence that either the CREA group or any of its officials have done anything illegal in conjunction with Abramoff. Ms. Federici strongly defended her innocence in an appearance before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee last November, saying she had been subject to Abramoff's manipulations.

But in 2001, with the Bush administration still new, Federici held a card of value: Top GOP officials would show up if she asked. Secretary Norton had helped found the group, and Mr. Griles was a friend. So both agreed to attend when Federici invited them to a fundraising dinner.

"Just heard back from Interior and the date for the dinner is Monday, September 24th," Federici e-mailed Abramoff in late August 2001. "Steve is personally inviting everyone from Interior and talking with them about the dinner so I expect a wonderful turnout ..."

Abramoff, for his part, controlled something that the GOP environmental group needed: cash. Most of his Indian tribe clients agreed to sign on as trustees of CREA, at a cost of $50,000 each. Among the perks for trustees was an invitation to the CREA dinner. And the Interior Department is where many issues important to Indian tribes, such as land use and casino policy, are decided.

Not that the tribes paid quickly. A few days before the dinner, Federici asked Abramoff when some of that money might flow in, as she was trying to make some payments and budget for the next quarter.

"Hi Italia. Choctaw will come through with the $50K sometime next month (they are over budget for this fiscal year, which ends at the end of the month)," Abramoff replied in a Sept. 21 e-mail. "Kickapoo is going to give in two parts of $25K each, starting next month. Chitimacha has, I believe, already sent over some (was it $10K?) ...."

The dinner was a small one of 23 people, held in a private home near the Naval Observatory. Abramoff seemed happy afterward, as the invitation to his skybox shows. Federici replied a few days later - and asked again if the lobbyists could hurry along promised checks.

"Ahhh - the glamorous world of non-profit work - about one half step above beggar!" she concluded in an Oct. 4, 2001 e-mail to Abramoff.

In subsequent communications with Federici and others, Abramoff called CREA "our access to Norton" and talked about "our guy Steve." He bragged about quashing Interior Department policies that are against his client tribes' interests, and weighed in with his thoughts on who should get key Interior jobs.

But Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, chairman of the Indian Affairs committee, has said the panel has found no evidence that Norton was aware that Abramoff was invoking her name for gain. Griles has testified that he treated Abramoff no differently than other lobbyists.

And within the e-mail trail are hints that Abramoff didn't have quite the juice he claimed. He was taken by surprise when Norton named Aurene Martin acting head of Indian Affairs in January 2003 - just the sort of thing a well-connected lobbyist should know in advance.

And by July 2003, he appeared to be out of the loop, reduced to begging for advice.

Griles "won't discuss any of my clients with me," he complained in a July 17 e-mail to Federici. "The problem is that since he won't do so, and since you are not able to chat with him now, I am left in a real dilemma. I can't deliver anything from Interior for my clients."
* * *
Another aspect of lobby life well illustrated in the Abramoff e-mails is infrastructure maintenance. As in, how to get your clients to share the bill for those must-have trappings of success, such as stadium boxes.

In May 2001, Abramoff asked Kathryn Van Hoof, chief counsel of the Louisiana Coushattas, if the tribe wanted to join some of his other clients in his sports suites program. For $185,000, Abramoff wrote in an e-mail, tribal leaders could be official cosponsors of his existing luxury boxes for D.C.-area baseball, hockey, and football venues.

This investment would translate into approximately 400 fundraising opportunities, Abramoff promised, virtually all used by members of Congress or their organizations.

"The huge leverage in doing this is that the tribe not only gets the political credit for making available the sports suite, but gets credit with the Member for all funds raised in that evening," wrote Abramoff.

Pressed by Ms. Van Hoof for more details, Abramoff said the Coushattas would be taking the place of some withdrawing Russian clients. Personal attendance is not a requirement of the deal, said the lobbyist; the Choctaws sent a representative "very rarely", his Marianas clients "never." The tribe should instead send a couple of framed items to hang on the football stadium and MCI Center walls.

"It helps when you attend, but if you are not there, we still make a big deal about you guys being their hosts and we spend a lot of time discussing the tribe," wrote Abramoff.

In Washington, clients of lobbyists are accustomed to being directed where to send large sums of money. Lists of lawmakers and organizations deemed important for the client to support are a staple lobbyist product; a number of these lists are included in the trove of Abramoff e-mails and documents.

Thus a request for an Indian tribe to pay $185,000 to allow other people to watch a football team named "Redskins" did not apparently strike the Coushattas as out of line. The tribe cut the check for the program on May 25, 2001.
* * *
Finally, if you're going to be a player in the lobby game, you've got to accept the concept of strange bedfellows. Your ally today can easily be the group that was at your throat last week.

Thus one of Abramoff's primary weapons for protecting the gambling interests of his Indian tribes was the antigambling Christian right. For at least three projects between 1999 and 2002, Abramoff enlisted the help of Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and current candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor.

The logic went this way: Use opponents of gambling to stamp out new gambling proposals that threaten the profits of existing casinos. And Mr. Reed enthusiastically rallied antigambling troops:

"We are opening the bomb bays and holding nothing back. If victory is possible, we will achieve it," wrote Reed in a 1999 e-mail to Abramoff regarding a campaign to kill an Alabama casino proposal for the benefit of the Mississippi band of Choctaw Indians.

But Reed and his campaign firm were expensive, prompting Abramoff to finally explode.

"He is a bad version of us! No more money for him!" the now-admitted felon e-mailed his partner Michael Scanlon in 2002.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0112/p01s02a-uspo.htm

[truthseeker]

Hey Truthseeker! I'd take you a lot more seriously if I saw you around the rest of the board. Do you even like jazz, or did you just want to make sure Saundra wasn't winning too many hearts and minds?

If you gentlemen go back a few pages you'll see what brought me here, and why I've stuck around so far.

Then again, I don't want to tax your small minds......or interrupt your Kool-Aid break.


BTW....where have you all been the last month or so?? You claim to be around here so often, but it's the first time I've seen you post (with the exception of Goldberg).

[J_Deighton]

That's because this is a jazz site. That little number under the name J_Deighton tells you how many posts I've made. I was trying to give you some help with your communication skills, so that you could reach us small minded jazz fans. I'm not going to wade through this thread to find out more about you, not after you insulted me. I mean this is a political thread on a jazz community site, so I wondered if you were into jazz. I now realize you are the type of troll I assumed you were. I'd have a lot more respect for any conservative who came around these parts if that conservative would learn some damn manners.

[Saundra Hummer]

I know guys that were in the 1/2. I have a close relative who was in the 1/2. He knows Dave Airhart.

Dave Airhart is a coward and a liar. Give him enough time and he will claim he was in Cambodia during Christmas in 1968.

It's a shame what some people will do for attention. Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, Dave; when the left-wing gets done using you they'll throw you away like yesterday's garbage. And you won't be able to go back to the guys you stabbed in the back, either.

Enjoy your lonely little life, Dave "John Kerry" Airhart.

Here's the post that he responded to, his post and the full quote is in post number:

#1525

and he posted it on December 9th,2005 after I posted an article about a fellow at Kent State, as I was wondering about the incident, but it never has been explained. Just a complaint.

Read my article and his response to my post. This is why he's here and he tells me I'm the reason as well, because of what I post.

I'll just drag it all over and you can see the original posts, his first and my post which percipitated this scene.

Here it all is.

Originally Posted by 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/d...5novO5_64k.mp3
or if that didn't work hit this link"
http://www.traprockpeace.org/audio/d...5nov05_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




I know guys that were in the 1/2. I have a close relative who was in the 1/2. He knows Dave Airhart.

Dave Airhart is a coward and a liar. Give him enough time and he will claim he was in Cambodia during Christmas in 1968.

It's a shame what some people will do for attention. Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, Dave; when the left-wing gets done using you they'll throw you away like yesterday's garbage. And you won't be able to go back to the guys you stabbed in the back, either.

Enjoy your lonely little life, Dave "John Kerry" Airhart.


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December 9th, 2005, 09:20 PM #1526
Saundra Hummer
Registered User




Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: West Coast
Posts: 6,327 Quote:
Originally Posted by truthseeker
I know guys that were in the 1/2. I have a close relative who was in the 1/2. He knows Dave Airhart.

Dave Airhart is a coward and a liar. Give him enough time and he will claim he was in Cambodia during Christmas in 1968.

It's a shame what some people will do for attention. Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, Dave; when the left-wing gets done using you they'll throw you away like yesterday's garbage. And you won't be able to go back to the guys you stabbed in the back, either.

Enjoy your lonely little life, Dave "John Kerry" Airhart.
************************************************** ********************************

One does have to wonder about his motives, but the name Kent State does dredge up memories which aren't at all happy ones, and I can understand some of the hostility towards it's administration and therefore the government, but it is unfair of anyone to capitalize on that tragedy, regardless of the time elapsed. If this is what he's doing, I join you in your criticism. I can agree with you totally. (SRH)
__________________
Sandi from Hermosa Beach

[truthseeker]

That's because this is a jazz site. That little number under the name J_Deighton tells you how many posts I've made. I was trying to give you some help with your communication skills, so that you could reach us small minded jazz fans. I'm not going to wade through this thread to find out more about you, not after you insulted me. I mean this is a political thread on a jazz community site, so I wondered if you were into jazz. I now realize you are the type of troll I assumed you were. I'd have a lot more respect for any conservative who came around these parts if that conservative would learn some damn manners.

A. this may be a jazz site, but I've seen essentially no mention of jazz on this thread. It's all been political, so that's what I've stayed with.

B. if you think you've been insulted, you must have very thin skin (for a jazz virtuoso).

C. Sandi....thanks for doing their homework for them.

Buh-bye.

[truthseeker]

Just ignore him. At best he's a troll and is probably fond of The Greatest Hits of the Hitler Youth Marching Band.

S.F. Bay Area.

Figures.

And for Deighton: THIS would be called an insult. Not that I give a rat's ass what some jamoke from the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia thinks of me.

[Saundra Hummer]

S.F. Bay Area.

Figures.

And for Deighton: THIS would be called an insult. Not that I give a rat's ass what some jamoke from the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia thinks of me.

You tell us you have a son in Iraq, so I have to believe you're an adult, however your retaliations against everyone have the flavor or an angry aggressive juvenile.

By the way, San Francisco is a wonderful, beautiful and interesting town, just one of my favorite places in California. Love it all. I've never known anyone who visits there to not come away with it's beauty and fun in their thoughts; just loving the place. To pick a city or a state as an insulting jab is odd don't you think? Then there's this; your neo Nazi spelling is pointing to you as being pretty out there. Get a grip.

[Saundra Hummer]

~~*****~~
Often wrong, but never in doubt
New research shows why political prognosticators are so seldom rightExperts are overly confident, choose evidence that supports what they already believe and are loath to remember, let alone admit, when they're wrong.
Ellen Goodman
Washington Post Writers Group
12.29.05

BOSTON -- This is the week when wise men bearing gifts are replaced by wise guys bearing lists. The news is full of the Best and Worst, the Ins and Outs, the Screw-ups and Fess-ups of 2005, not to mention the Predictions for 2006.
We have long followed the tradition by cleaning our slate of old mistakes in preparation for a fresh crop. This annual project is aided and abetted by vigilant readers, the sort who are quick to remind us that the world was created in six days, not seven -- on the seventh day He rested -- and that Vermonters do so eat pickles with their maple syrup.

But this year our mistakes seemed piddling compared to the whoppers made in the name of Katrina and Iraq, Harriet Miers and Judith Miller. Who are we to ask forgiveness when the president again denies any mistakes and declares, "This has been a year of strong progress toward a freer, more peaceful world, and a prosperous America." (Hold the champagne. Who needs bubbly when you're in a bubble?)

Thus, for assorted reasons we break from our Media Culpa awards to take a jaundiced overview of the entire field of experts, those whose punditry and predictions are now preparing you for 2006.

Our guide in this is Philip E. Tetlock, author of "Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?" Tetlock, a Berkeley business school psychologist, has become an expert on experts by following 284 men and women who make their living offering commentary and advice on political and economic trends. Over 20 years, he tracked 82,361 forecasts on specific matters such as the fall of the Soviet Union and the election of 2000.

The bottom line is that experts are no better at making predictions than dart-throwing monkeys or (not to be confused) careful readers of this newspaper. Experts are overly confident, choose evidence that supports what they already believe and are loath to remember, let alone admit, when they're wrong.

Lest this support what you already believe about experts, the more interesting part of Tetlock's research is not about what people think but about how they think. He divided experts by psychology rather than politics, using those anthropomorphic creatures described in Isaiah Berlin's famous essay: the hedgehog and the fox.

The closed-minded hedgehogs are those who know "one big thing" and relate everything to that single, central vision. The open-minded foxes "know many little things" and accept ambiguity and contradictions.

Expert hedgehogs come in blue and red, left and right, but when things go awry -- whether it's the Iraq War or the War on Poverty -- they are likely to go on believing they had the right idea but the wrong timing, or that they were blindsided by events. The foxes, on the other hand, are more likely to rethink the whole story.

As Tetlock writes, "Once many hedgehogs boarded a train of thought, they let it run full throttle in one policy direction for extended stretches, with minimal braking for obstacles that foxes took as signs they were on the wrong track."

It's no surprise that foxes are better at forecasting than hedgehogs. But the media roundtables and think tank conferences and wise guy lists are dominated by folks who speak the simple, decisive language of sound bites. Indeed, the quickest way to avoid cable show combat is to tell a booker desperately searching for someone to talk about the death penalty or the Patriot Act that "I have mixed feelings about that."

The end result is that the voices we hear most are not conservative or liberal. They are hedgehogs: think Bill O'Reilly and Michael Moore. No foxes need apply (even, or especially, on Fox).

In some ways, Tetlock's entire meta-analysis -- graphs, academic-speak and all -- can be boiled down to a favorite phrase my father would use to describe a colleague: Often wrong but never in doubt. In our media world, the more certain the expert, the more celebrated. And yet the more celebrated, the more likely he or she is to be wrong.

How then do we cultivate good judgment? Most Americans are probably hybrid creatures. In a fox-like moment, Tetlock advises that we listen to our own ambivalence as "we struggle to strike the right balance between preserving our existing worldview and rethinking core assumptions." Not a bad new year's resolution for a parent or even a president.

Meanwhile, those of us who would like to see politics depolarized might begin by keeping score on political experts and pundits the way we do on weathermen and stock analysts. So, welcome to 2006. Predictions are in the air. Anyone ready to make the first predictions on those predictions? For more, please visit the Ellen Goodman archives.

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20127

[truthseeker]

You tell us you have a son in Iraq, so I have to believe you're an adult, however your retaliations against everyone have the flavor or an angry aggressive juvenile.

By the way, San Francisco is a wonderful, beautiful and interesting town, just one of my favorite places in California. Love it all. I've never known anyone who visits there to not come away with it's beauty and fun in their thoughts; just loving the place. To pick a city or a state as an insulting jab is odd don't you think? Then there's this; your neo Nazi spelling is pointing to you as being pretty out there. Get a grip.

First it's implied, without any provocation, that I am a fan of Nazi military music, then I'm accused of neo-Nazi spelling (whatever that is). But, since it's directed at me I guess it doesn't qualify as insulting.

Then, when I respond in kind, I'M accused of acting like an angry, aggressive juvenile?? True to form, it seems that ANY behavior is acceptable, as long as you're a liberal.

Really, Sandi...look in the mirror.

Seems I'm not the one with the Nazi hang-up, especially since it's trotted out by you leftists almost as often as bogus charges of racism, and with about the same amount of basis in fact.

And, I happen to love S.F. also. It's the residents I could do without. I'm from NJ. And of course, you NEVER hear anything bad about MY state, right??

Since you seem so interested, I HAD a son in Iraq, and I'm in my late 50's.

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Heed the warning signs
Sectarian violence in Iraq reminiscent of recent foreign policy disaster
If the United States is not careful, our troops will find themselves in the middle of a full-blown Iraqi civil war that could make President Bush's talk about "victory" seem very hollow. E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Washington Post Writers Group
01.10.06 WASHINGTON -- "You can only help people if you have sufficient resources and they have sufficient political unity and will to be helped," declared Anthony Cordesman, the well-known military analyst. "And we should not risk American lives without far better planning, intelligence and understanding of exactly what it is we're trying to do and of the risks."
One prominent senator declared: "If the Congress voted right now, we would vote to pull our troops out." Another warned against "a vague, open-ended, humanitarian mission, gradually taking sides against an urban guerrilla force, having no exit strategy before you go in, having troops on the ground before you've defined their mission, and a series of ad hoc decisions ... ."

But the president insisted that we should "finish the work we set out to do," and won praise from an official on the ground who declared: "It would be a disaster if the United States pulled out now."

All these eerily contemporary comments came from an Oct. 10, 1993, broadcast of ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley." The participants were reflecting on administration policy in Somalia a week after a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down by rebel forces. 18 Americans died in the incident. The senators were Phil Gramm and Bill Bradley, the president was Bill Clinton, and the supportive comments came from Adm. Jonathan Howe, the U.N. special envoy to Somalia.

There are many flaws in comparisons between Somalia and Iraq, but one similarity should not be forgotten. If the United States is not careful, our troops will find themselves in the middle of a full-blown Iraqi civil war that could make President Bush's talk about "victory" seem very hollow.

No one is more aware of this than our military commanders, which is why attention must be paid to comments last week by Lt. Gen. John R. Vines to The New York Times, and to an important news story by Jonathan Finer in The Washington Post.

Vines praised the large turnout in Iraq's Dec. 15 elections, but noted that the "vote is reported to be primarily along sectarian lines, which is not particularly heartening." The new government, he said, "must be a government by and for Iraqis, not sects." He added: "As the government forms, if we see indicators that there are purges of competent people to be replaced with ideologues in the security ministries, that would be disturbing. If competent commanders were to be replaced by those whose main qualification is an allegiance to a sect, that would be of concern to us."

The importance of that last sentence was brought home by Finer's Jan. 4 report in the Post: "Over the strong objections of U.S. commanders in Baghdad, the Iraqi government has nominated a new leader for a brigade that is set to assume control over some of the capital's most sensitive areas."

Why was the American choice cast aside? "U.S. commanders," Finer wrote, "are concerned that the rejection of a qualified Sunni Muslim candidate by a government that is dominated by the rival Shiite Muslim majority will fuel perceptions of Iraq's security forces as sectarian institutions, particularly in Sunni regions where sympathy for the insurgency runs deep."

The potential for a full-scale civil war is closer than ever. The administration presumably knows this, but the Bush team's record for anticipating bad news is not encouraging. Paul Bremer, who led the U.S. civilian authority in Iraq after the invasion, admitted on NBC's "Dateline" that "we really didn't see the insurgency coming." If they missed that, what else can they miss?

This administration rarely pays attention to constructive criticism from the opposition party. But somebody in the White House ought to listen to Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who opposed the war but keeps trying to help Bush find a way out of this mess.

Levin argues that the United States' highest priority now is not simply to create a broad coalition government in Iraq. America must use its influence to push the Shiite majority to change provisions in the recently adopted constitution in ways that will give the minority Sunnis a bigger stake in the future. "There's no military solution in Iraq unless there is a political coming together in Iraq," Levin said during an interview, offering words that should be framed and hung somewhere in Bush's office. Without constitutional changes, he added, "there will be a civil war regardless of how many troops we have there."

Somalia offers a sobering lesson of what can happen to American forces when our government blunders into the middle of a civil war. We dare not do it again. And we had better see the warning signs. For more, please visit the E.J. Dionne, Jr. archives.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20195

[Saundra Hummer]

First it's implied, without any provocation, that I am a fan of Nazi military music, then I'm accused of neo-Nazi spelling (whatever that is). But, since it's directed at me I guess it doesn't qualify as insulting.

Then, when I respond in kind, I'M accused of acting like an angry, aggressive juvenile?? True to form, it seems that ANY behavior is acceptable, as long as you're a liberal.

Really, Sandi...look in the mirror.

Seems I'm not the one with the Nazi hang-up, especially since it's trotted out by you leftists almost as often as bogus charges of racism, and with about the same amount of basis in fact.

And, I happen to love S.F. also. It's the residents I could do without. I'm from NJ. And of course, you NEVER hear anything bad about MY state, right??

Since you seem so interested, I HAD a son in Iraq, and I'm in my late 50's.

It's like this, when you "Attack The Messenger" instead of the message, it gets messy and this is what's happened.

You and your "Libs" and other sayings by you which you toss around, which by the way, Liberal, "Lib", is worn proudly by me, so that is not an insult, it's the tone and intent of your posts which are suspect, but there are other things, other jabs at posters, although it has mostly been me, and no one jumped in until you were accusing me of showing my true colors? Maybe it was those words that just became too much, that enough was enough. Perhaps they just got tired of your accusatory and belittling tone. Remember how you posted about how I must hate my country? Me hating this country? You want me out of your ("MY") country, now really, how were those posts not personal? Me and my anarchist friends? That wasn't personal? Well of course when you post articles in that vein, things are bound to turn around and bite you, so now you're playing the Poor Me! card? You chose to take this down a personal path and so here we are.

[truthseeker]

It's like this, when you "Attack The Messenger" instead of the message, it gets messy and this is what's happened.

You and your "Libs" and other sayings by you which you toss around, which by the way, Liberal, "Lib", is worn proudly by me, so that is not an insult, it's the tone and intent of your posts which are suspect, but there are other things, other jabs at posters, although it has mostly been me, and no one jumped in until you were accusing me of showing my true colors? Maybe it was those words that just became too much, that enough was enough. Perhaps they just got tired of your accusatory and belittling tone. Remember how you posted about how I must hate my country? Me hating this country? You want me out of your ("MY") country, now really, how were those posts not personal? Me and my anarchist friends? That wasn't personal? Well of course when you post articles in that vein, things are abound to turn around and bite you, so now you're playing the Poor Me! card? You chose to take this down a personal path and so here we are.

Poor me?? Absolutely not.

I have no problem with comments directed at me...I can take it.

Apparently, you can't. And it STILL sounds as if you feel the term "Lib" is an insult. Maybe you should.

[Saundra Hummer]

Poor me?? Absolutely not.

I have no problem with comments directed at me...I can take it.

Apparently, you can't. And it STILL sounds as if you feel the term "Lib" is an insult. Maybe you should.


Oh my, who to believe, who to believe?

I'm the one who's been told to leave, (by you), that this is a battle and that me and my anarchist friends will die. That sounds like a loss of all that's rational to me. It's you who are on the attack and have been from your first post, although I do admit, with that one it was not against any members on the board, only against a post and the man in it from Kent State.

This is where you got off on the wrong track, you went personal, not in an inquisitive way or in a civil debate, you went off and just lost it, so it's been your own actions which have put you on the defensive. Maybe you need to step back and get a fresh start. If you would, perhaps your way, your ideas, if not personal, will be listened to with a bit more favor and or interest.

[Saundra Hummer]

~~~***~~~
Researcher: Early Man Was Hunted by Birds
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A South African anthropologist said Thursday his research into the death nearly 2 million years ago of an ape-man shows human ancestors were hunted by birds.

"These types of discoveries give us real insight into the past lives of these human ancestors, the world they lived in and the things they feared," Lee Berger, a paleo-anthropologist at Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand, said as he presented his conclusions about a mystery that has been debated since the remains of the possible human ancestor known as the Taung child were discovered in 1924.

The Taung child's discovery led to the search for human origins in Africa, instead of in Asia or Europe as once theorized. Researchers regard the fossil of the ape-man, or australopethicus africanus, as evidence of the "missing link" in human evolution.

Researchers had speculated the Taung child was killed by a leopard or saber-toothed feline. But 10 years ago, Berger and fellow researcher Ron Clarke submitted the theory the hunter was a large predatory bird, based on the fact most of the other fossils found at the same site were small monkeys that showed signs of having been killed by a predatory bird.

Berger and Clarke had until now been unable to show damage on the child's skull that could have been done by a bird.

Five months ago, Berger read an Ohio State University study of the hunting abilities of modern eagles in West Africa believed similar to predatory birds of the Taung child's era.

The Ohio State study determined that eagles would swoop down, pierce monkey skulls with their thumb-like back talons, then hover while their prey died before returning to tear at the skull. Examination of thousands of monkey remains produced a pattern of damage done by birds, including holes and ragged cuts in the shallow bones behind the eye sockets.

Berger went back to the Taung skull, and found traces of the ragged cuts behind the eye sockets. He said none of the researchers who had for decades been debating how the child died had noticed the eye socket damage before.

Berger concluded man's ancestors had to survive not just being hunted from the ground, but from the air. Such discoveries are "key to understanding why we humans today view the world they way we do," he said.

Berger's research has been reviewed by others and is due to appear in the February edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060112/ap_on_sc/south_africa_ancient_mystery;_ylt=ApyTRtT.xyzDlchU .1CS64ms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

At least Hollywood had that right. Remember the old old movies, with birds swooping down, grabbing everyone up? Same thing going on in todays movies as well. As large as we knew them to be, this isn't really a surprise, not at all. SRH

[Saundra Hummer]

*Ted Koppel Joining NPR By FRAZIER MOORE, AP Television Writer
Thu Jan 12, 12:54 PM ET

NEW YORK - Ted Koppel, who ended a quarter-century run on ABC News' "Nightline" in November, will join NPR.
NPR announced Thursday that, starting in June, Koppel will provide commentary about 50 times a year to its programs "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" as well as "Day to Day," its new midday newsmagazine. He also will serve as an analyst during breaking news and special events and contribute to the NPR Web site and the network's podcasts.

"I have been an unabashed fan of NPR for many years and have stolen untold excellent ideas from its programming," Koppel said. "It's time to give something back."

Koppel's deal is for one year.

"Ted and NPR are a natural fit, with curiosity about the world and commitment to getting to the heart of the story," said Jay Kernis, NPR senior vice president for programming. "The role of news analyst has been a tradition on NPR newsmagazines and there is no one better qualified to uphold and grow that tradition than Ted."

NPR, with 815 public radio outlets, draws almost 26 million listeners to the nearly 150 hours of programming it produces and distributes weekly.

Koppel's new NPR duties supplement his recently announced three-year deal to host and produce documentaries and town hall broadcasts for cable's Discovery Channel. Through a joint agreement, NPR will make an audio simulcast of Discovery-originated town hall programs available to NPR member stations for airing.

In addition, Koppel will be a contributing columnist for The New York Times, appearing periodically in the opinion and editorial section beginning Jan. 29, the paper announced Thursday.

The 65-year-old Koppel left ABC News after 42 years. "Nightline," the much-honored late-night news show he originated in 1980, has continued with three new anchors, replacing Koppel's single-topic format with a magazine approach that has left critics cold.

*
On the Net:

http://www.npr.org
*
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060112/ap_en_tv/tv_koppel_npr;_ylt=Aj_spSP3w_KumQGfyECM6jis0NUE;_y lu=X3oDMTA3YXYwNDRrBHNlYwM3NjI-

[Saundra Hummer]

~~*****~~
Let's all re-par-tay!
New book shows they don't make 'em like Churchill any more
Sean Gonsalves
Cape Cod Times
01.05.06
If we can't get honesty and humility, can't we at least have wit and humor?
Did you par-tay in the new year? Well, now let's re-par-tay, or repartee, with Dr. Mardy Grothe, author of the new book "Viva La Repartee: Clever Comebacks & Witty Retorts From History's Great Wits and Wordsmiths."
Repartee is a word we borrowed (or stole) from the French. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as 1) a ready, witty, or smart reply; a quick and clever retort. 2) Sharpness or wit in sudden reply; such replies collectively; the practice or faculty of uttering them."

The reason I bring Dr. Grothe's book to your attention is because of the sorry state of political discourse in this country, where "the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them," as Oliver Goldsmith observed way back in 1759.

Add cynicism and downright meanness to the mix and you've got a pretty good idea about the State of Our Linguistic Union.

Without any apparent relief in sight, I suggest you buy the book and send it to your congressional representative or the pundit you despise the most.

It might inspire a bit of imagination and creative thought, or encourage the disavowal of clichés, talking points and canned commentary so that, at the very least, we language lovers can be entertained. If we can't get honesty and humility, can't we at least have wit and humor?

After reading Grothe's book, you'll realize they don't make 'em like Winston Churchill anymore.

After one of his many drinking binges, an inebriated Churchill was interrupted during dinner by Nancy Astor, who said, "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee."

Churchill's famous reply: "Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."

Sure, Churchill was an imperialist. But he was witty and often very funny, which is far cry from W's aw-shucks, goofball rejoinders.

One of the many gems in "Viva La Repartee" comes from Voltaire, who also happened to utter one of my favorite aphorisms -- "the optimist and pessimist both have one thing in common. They both think this is the best of all possible worlds."

Voltaire was invited to an orgy in Paris, Dr. Grothe reports. "Having never participated in such an event...he eagerly accepted the invitation...The intellectually curious philosopher reported that he had learned many new things and had greatly enjoyed the experience," Grothe writes.

With his friends thinking they had won the famed philosopher over to their hedonistic lifestyle, they invited him to attend another orgy.

Voltaire replied: "Ah no, my good friends. Once, a philosopher. Twice, a pervert."

Imagine if when President Clinton was asked about his sexual trysts with Monica he had said, "Ah no, my good friends. Once, a president. Twice, a pervert." He may have avoided the impeachment vote.

Or, how about JFK's rejoinder when a reporter asked him why he read prepared remarks instead of having impromptu press conferences like he had when he was a senator.

Kennedy replied: "Because I am not a textual deviant."

Imagine President Bush saying that when asked why he appears to be allergic to extemporaneous speech. Then again, if the way he pronounces nuclear is any indication, maybe you can't imagine him saying that. I can't.

Remember when Nikita Kruschev took off his shoe at the U.N. and slammed it on the lectern? (Glad you do, because I don't -- I wasn't born yet.) But thanks to the good doctor, I'm privy to former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's reply. Macmillan calmly looked to an interpreter and asked: "Could I have that translated, please?"

Instead of diplomats who repartee like that, we have John Bolton, whose motto is Kruschev's: "We will bury you!"

Do us all a favor. Send Dr. Grothe's book (www.vivalarepartee.com) to a politician or pundit and help them ring in a new year. See more in the Sean Gonsalves archives.:lol:

Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and syndicated columnist. E-mail him at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com
[INDENT]http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20165

[truthseeker]

BUT ONLY REPUBLICANS ARE CROOKS......



Ex-Political Aide Pleads Guilty to Bribery By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jan 11, 10:24 PM ET



ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A Louisiana congressman demanded bribes in exchange for his help in promoting a pair of business deals in Africa, according to court documents filed Wednesday with a guilty plea by one of the congressman's former staffers.


Brett Pfeffer, 37, a former legislative director to Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La., pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting bribery of a public official and conspiracy. He could get 20 years in prison when sentenced March 31.

A spokeswoman for Jefferson declined to comment.

Specifically, Pfeffer said in federal court that a congressman demanded bribes in exchange for his assistance in brokering two African telecom deals.

Court documents did not identify the congressman by name, referring to him only as "Representative A." But the documents make clear that Jefferson is the congressman.

According to the documents, Pfeffer was employed as a legislative assistant by the congressman from 1995 through 1997. That is when Pfeffer served as a legislative aide to Jefferson, holding titles that included legislative director.

Pfeffer agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify if needed.

The conspiracy took place in 2004 and 2005, years after Pfeffer had left Jefferson's office, according to authorities.

Pfeffer said in court that a congressman had solicited his assistance in promoting business opportunities in Nigeria and Ghana. The congressmen demanded 5 percent to 7 percent of the newly formed African companies in exchange for his help promoting the deal to African government officials and others, according to Pfeffer.

Prosecutor Mark Lytle said the congressman and Pfeffer traveled to Ghana in July to promote a similar deal there.

Pfeffer's attorney, Paul Knight, declined to comment.

Court records give no indication how much money Jefferson stood to receive. That amount will be determined later as part of Pfeffer's sentencing.

Prosecutors have been investigating Jefferson in connection with a telecommunications deal involving a Kentucky-based company that specialized in providing high-speed Internet access over Nigeria's copper telephone wires.

The FBI raided Jefferson's home in August and, according to published reports, carted off cash from a freezer.

The FBI also raided the Maryland home of Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, seeking documents connecting him and his wife to the congressman and the telecommunications deal.

Jefferson was elected to the House in 1990, becoming the first black congressman from Louisiana since Reconstruction. He represents most of New Orleans, including sections of the city that were hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.

He was criticized after the hurricane for receiving a National Guard escort to check on his flooded home at a time when federal resources were sorely strained.

Jefferson's spokeswoman, Melanie Roussell, declined to comment on the plea bargain except to confirm that Pfeffer worked for Jefferson in the mid-1990s. Jefferson's lawyer, Mike Fawer, said he would not comment until he had spoken to Jefferson, who was traveling in Europe.

___

Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report from Washington.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/congressman_probe

[Saundra Hummer]

First it's implied, without any provocation, that I am a fan of Nazi military music, then I'm accused of neo-Nazi spelling (whatever that is). But, since it's directed at me I guess it doesn't qualify as insulting.

Then, when I respond in kind, I'M accused of acting like an angry, aggressive juvenile?? True to form, it seems that ANY behavior is acceptable, as long as you're a liberal.

Really, Sandi...look in the mirror.

Seems I'm not the one with the Nazi hang-up, especially since it's trotted out by you leftists almost as often as bogus charges of racism, and with about the same amount of basis in fact.

And, I happen to love S.F. also. It's the residents I could do without. I'm from NJ. And of course, you NEVER hear anything bad about MY state, right??

Since you seem so interested, I HAD a son in Iraq, and I'm in my late 50's.
*
Frankly the only thing I've heard spoken about New Jersey in a negative tone is from a fellow who is also from there.

Here's a fellow's AAJ (a partial post) post, in which he was discussing music and this thought came into play, these are "aquabenz's" thoughts:

"I don't think people are morons, but in a place like western NJ, nestled between ultra-conservative Princeton and the urban wastelands of Trenton and Camden (sorry to anyone who lives there, but they're shitholes ), most people don't have a clue what's going on in NYC or Philly or any part of Europe (places where I think the most artistic activity goes on) and people don't have a patience to even want to know. Nobody's stupid - they just don't get in the habit of thinking critically, independently and trying anything unusual. I'm not frustrated by these things (I'm getting old enough to not actively stress out about dumb crap like this), but I will call it as I see it so long as it's plopped in front of me. I'm probably just sugarcoating here, but I'm doing my best to level it out without sounding terribly arrogant (because I'll be the first to admit that I am sometimes)

...but I do respect the fact that you're more tolerant than I am about this kind of thing"

*
He at least has a sense of humor. I've of course heard of it's gangsters, and about it being "The Garden State", but nothing negative. I had no clue as to what attitudes or habits it's people have SRH

[truthseeker]

Oh my, who to believe, who to believe?

I'm the one who's been told to leave, (by you), that this is a battle and that me and my anarchist friends will die. That sounds like a loss of all that's rational to me. It's you who are on the attack and have been from your first post, although I do admit, with that one it was not against any members on the board, only against a post and the man in it from Kent State.

This is where you got off on the wrong track, you went personal, not in an inquisitive way or in a civil debate, you went off and just lost it, so it's been your own actions which have put you on the defensive. Maybe you need to step back and get a fresh start. If you would, perhaps your way, your ideas, if not personal, will be listened to with a bit more favor and or interest.



On the defensive?? I don't think I'm on the defensive.

Showing your true colors?? For example: Harry Belafonte extols the virtues of Fidel Castro (among many other things, this is just an example). Do you?? You seem to admire the man. This is my question. Hence: are you showing your true colors?

And you think this is an attack? I'm simply asking a question.

If you express an anarchist viewpoint, and I refer to you as an anarchist, is it an insult, or just accurate??

Based on your posts, I believe you are at war with this country and its ideals. This is just my opinion, that's all. And I believe that when the dust settles, either A, you will lose or B, this country will cease to exist.

I happen to hope you lose.

And yes, if you hate this country so much, then maybe you should leave. Perhaps some time in another environment will cause you to see the error of your ways.

I do know this: this seems to be the only country that 50 people will cram into a leaky 12 foot rowboat and try to cross 90 miles of sea in order to get here, knowing the odds are they'll drown before they get here. The only country where people try again and again, day after day, to get into, legally or illegally. I wonder what THEIR opinion if Harry Belafonte is.

France have that problem?? Germany have that problem?? Does ANY country other that the U.S. have that problem, especially on the scale that we have it here?? Doesn't that tell you anything?

And all you can do is badmouth this country and try to bring it down?? Then yes, leave. Make room for some of those people who will come here and thank God that they're here and have a chance at real freedom.

You seem to take it for granted anyway.

[truthseeker]

BILL OF RIGHTS


THE LIBERAL VERSION



What If Liberals Wrote the Bill of Rights?
By Joe Mariani (01/11/06)

It's become increasingly difficult to hold rational discussions with those who regard the Constitution of the United States as a "living document," subject to change without having to go through the bother of voting. It sometimes seems as though most Liberals have never read the Constitution, or at any rate not understood it. They persist in reading things into it that the Founders never intended, nor would have considered likely in their day.

The process for amending the Constitution is simple and clear, as laid out in Article V -- a vote of two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, followed by a ratification by three-fourths of the various state legislatures. Yet activist judges continually seek ways to alter or read the Constitution so as to find support for their agenda, and most of those judges are Liberal. While Conservative activism is just as bad, it is far less common, as most Conservatives believe the Constitution should be used to judge the validity of the law, not the law used to undermine the integrity of the Constitution.

Nevetheless, Liberals seem to see things, especially in the Bill of Rights, that the rest of us just cannot find there. If Federal-level "rights" like abortion and gay "marriage" were specifically enumerated as Liberals insist they were, they must have been secretly written on the back of the original document in lemon juice, just before it was ratified in 1791. Liberals must, therefore, have their own version that they refer to during arguments.

After careful consideration, research and discussion, I have managed to discover what I believe to be the actual Liberal version of the Bill of Rights, hidden away since the 18th century and only revealed to Liberals. Its existence explains why so many Liberals are so wrong so much of the time.


Bill of Rights (Liberal Version)

Amendment I
There shall be no show of respect for any Christian religion, or people who believe in a Christian religion, or Christian-based holidays, and no one who professes belief in any Christian religion shall be considered fit for any government position or office. No law shall abridge the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people, peaceably or otherwise, to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, unless that speech, that press or those people are in support the actions of Republicans, or in condemnation of the actions of Democrats, or might be construed as giving offense to anyone.

Amendment II
The military and police being the only forces necessary to the security of the State, the right of the common people to keep and bear arms shall be removed, weighed down with restrictions and regulations until private citizens can no longer own anything that might be used as a weapon.

Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace, be regarded as necessary to maintaining that peace. When at home, soldiers of any rank are to be considered disposable, interchangeable, dull-witted robots, who can be instantly trained at need, and considered dangerous, uncontrollable, dull-witted barbarians bent on murder, rapine and torture when overseas. As a group, American soldiers are to be lauded and pitied, but individually, reviled.

Amendment IV
The right of all people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against any searches and seizures shall not be violated without a court-ordered warrant, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by the kind of evidence of wrongdoing that could only be gathered with a warrant, and the warrant must precisely describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Personal security shall be considered inviolable for American citizens, foreigners living in America, and foreigners living elsewhere.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, because crimes are the fault of society, and not the individual. Republicans and Conservatives, on the other hand, shall be deemed guilty upon indictment by a grand jury, or even upon accusation of wrongdoing. No person shall be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, unless that person show evidence of Conservative thinking. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, unless that person shall be unborn or mentally incapacitated, or otherwise be deemed useless to the State, or a burden. Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, public use being defined as anything that might benefit the State in some way, including higher tax revenue from said property.

Amendment VI
In all prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial in the media, and later, if necessary, by jury. Guilt shall be determined by the extent of public outcry that can be created over the nature of the crime, but reduced by the level of celebrity status enjoyed by the accused. The word of anonymous witnesses and experts may be used as evidence in the media trial. If a person found guilty of a crime is able to claim disadvantaged status -- meaning non-white, non-Christian, non-male, poor or homosexual -- that person shall have the right to full and open public sympathy by celebrities and members of the media, unless that person happens to be Conservative or Republican, both of which are forbidden to members of disadvantaged groups.

Amendment VII
The right of trial by jury shall be preserved for captured opponents during time of war, who shall be accorded all the rights and benefits of American citizens in addition to the disadvantaged person status, which shall automatically be granted to all "enemies" of America.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted, not even curtailment of any freedoms or rights whatsoever. Those held for committing a crime shall be afforded luxuries in entertainment and food to make up for the injustice of being incarcerated, as well as the right to at least one book deal.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, especially the unquestionable rights of abortion, tax-paid health care and gay marriage.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the Judiciary, who shall have the power to overturn decisions made by vote of the people, amend the Constitution and even change the meaning of the words written herein at will and without recourse by the people.


http://www.americandaily.com/article/11178

[truthseeker]

THEY GOTTA BE REPUBLICANS....

IN DISGUISE!!




'Kerry's Criminals': Democrats on Trial
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Jan. 12, 2006



Five Democratic activists accused of slashing the tires of vans rented by Republicans on Election Day 2004 are now charging that "professional political operatives" with the Democratic Party actually damaged the tires and then set up the activists to take the blame.

Attorney Sheldon Shellow, who is representing accused tire-slasher Sowande Omokunde – son of Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) – said the operatives' loathing of Republicans and President Bush motivated the slashings.

The GOP rented more than 100 vehicles for a get-out-the-vote campaign in Milwaukee on Nov. 2, 2004. The vehicles were parked in a lot adjacent to a Bush campaign office, and party workers planned to drive poll watchers to polling places by 7 a.m. and transport any voters who didn't have a ride.

The defendants, paid workers for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign, are accused of slashing 40 tires on 25 vehicles, causing more than $5,000 in damage, at about 3:30 a.m. on the morning of the election.

Omokunde, Michael Pratt – the son of former Milwaukee acting mayor Marvin Pratt – Justin Howell, Lewis Caldwell and Lavelle Mohammad are charged with criminal damage to property, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 3 1/2 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Democratic operatives Opel Simmons, Levar Stoney and Leshaunda "Joy" Williams are expected to testify against the five defendants, saying they returned to Democratic headquarters "excited" about something just after the tires were found slashed by a security guard at the GOP office, CourtTV.com reports.

But the defendants' lawyers said in opening statements Tuesday that a group of out-of-town Democratic operatives led by Simmons were the true culprits.

Pratt's lawyer Rodney Cubbie said the security guard took down the license plate of a van rented by Simmons, and that the guard - the only witness at the crime scene - could not positively identify any of the defendants.

This could lead to only one conclusion, according to Cubbie: The out-of-town party officials framed the "locals," as they called the five campaign workers.

"The evidence in this case will be much stronger against the defendant's accusers than against the defendants themselves," Cubbie said.

Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney David Feiss acknowledged that there is no eyewitness, DNA or fingerprint evidence pointing to the defendants, but said they wore "Mission Impossible"-style clothing and bragged about the vandalism when they returned to the campaign office.

"What you will find is that the five gentlemen acted together ... It was done pursuant to a single plan."

But attorney Shellow said the vandalism was part of the campaign violence that had occurred across the U.S. in the weeks before the presidential election.

He told the jury: "The violence that they're trying to put on these kids from Wisconsin had been happening in an organized way across the country."

The trial is being shown live on Court TV Extra.


http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/1/11/181535.shtml

[truthseeker]

*
Frankly the only thing I've heard spoken about New Jersey in a negative tone is from a fellow who is also from there.

Here's a fellow's AAJ (a partial post) post, in which he was discussing music and this thought came into play, these are "aquabenz's" thoughts:

"I don't think people are morons, but in a place like western NJ, nestled between ultra-conservative Princeton and the urban wastelands of Trenton and Camden (sorry to anyone who lives there, but they're shitholes ), most people don't have a clue what's going on in NYC or Philly or any part of Europe (places where I think the most artistic activity goes on) and people don't have a patience to even want to know. Nobody's stupid - they just don't get in the habit of thinking critically, independently and trying anything unusual. I'm not frustrated by these things (I'm getting old enough to not actively stress out about dumb crap like this), but I will call it as I see it so long as it's plopped in front of me. I'm probably just sugarcoating here, but I'm doing my best to level it out without sounding terribly arrogant (because I'll be the first to admit that I am sometimes)

...but I do respect the fact that you're more tolerant than I am about this kind of thing"

*
He at least has a sense of humor. I've of course heard of it's gangsters, and aboutit being "The Garden State", but nothing negative. I had no clue as to what attitudes or habits it's people have SRH

We DO love our gangsters. And if you ever visited you'd know why it's called "The Garden State"

And, after 50-some years, I'll be the first one to make fun of the state I love, warts and all.

Fugedaboudit!!

[Saundra Hummer]

On the defensive?? I don't think I'm on the defensive.

Showing your true colors?? For example: Harry Belafonte extols the virtues of Fidel Castro (among many other things, this is just an example). Do you?? You seem to admire the man. This is my question. Hence: are you showing your true colors?

And you think this is an attack? I'm simply asking a question.

If you express an anarchist viewpoint, and I refer to you as an anarchist, is it an insult, or just accurate??

Based on your posts, I believe you are at war with this country and its ideals. This is just my opinion, that's all. And I believe that when the dust settles, either A, you will lose or B, this country will cease to exist.

I happen to hope you lose.

And yes, if you hate this country so much, then maybe you should leave. Perhaps some time in another environment will cause you to see the error of your ways.

I do know this: this seems to be the only country that 50 people will cram into a leaky 12 foot rowboat and try to cross 90 miles of sea in order to get here, knowing the odds are they'll drown before they get here. The only country where people try again and again, day after day, to get into, legally or illegally. I wonder what THEIR opinion if Harry Belafonte is.

France have that problem?? Germany have that problem?? Does ANY country other that the U.S. have that problem, especially on the scale that we have it here?? Doesn't that tell you anything?

And all you can do is badmouth this country and try to bring it down?? Then yes, leave. Make room for some of those people who will come here and thank God that they're here and have a chance at real freedom.

You seem to take it for granted anyway.
***

Hate this country? Well believe as you will.

I knew people who were in Castro's prisons before it was known what type of man he is, so don't give me that. Castro still lives high on the hog, it is the people who are doing without due to our policies and the ex-pat Cuban money machine. Cuba nor Castro are no longer any kind of threat, we all know this, all of us, that is except to their own. Fidel has no backing any longer due to the Cuban Missle Crisis. We made the Soviet Block blink so that was that. Now it is the Cuban people who are losing, not Castro, he's set and comfortable.

Had our government not allowed, for decades, the corruption which our own gangsters exported over there, perhaps Castro would have never been able to come to power. Had it not been for our Gunboat diplomacy and Fruit companies who ruled those parts of the world, it's tangled web of stealing from those countries, perhaps Castro would have never ever come to power in the first place. A satisfied, well fed and cared for happy populace aren't for revolution.

It hasn't been, nor is it now, a pretty picture. Even the Hawaiians have horror stories from earlier times, and some still do, as it is a struggle to make it work for them in their own islands, many of their stories are so similar to the American Indian's as to be tragic. Don't begrudge the Pork Barrel programs heading across the Pacific, to Hawaii, without them, more and more Islanders would suffer terribly, more than you'll know. Off track with Hawaii's problems, but they were in the same boat with the Banana and Pineapple producing countries, so thought I would just throw that in.

We're reaping what we sowed it seems. I'm not saying we don't do a lot of good as a country, a nation; we do and we have, and so have a lot of us as individuals, however, it's the damage we've inflicted which countries and their people tend to remember the most, that's just human nature.

About Harry Belefonte, he has listeners, for one: India. There is huge number of people who agree with him. There we are seen as an aggressor and a violator of human rights, when it comes to much of the world. We're seen as a country that milks another one dry leaving them with next to nothing. Of course leaders in other countrys do much the same and many are much worse, but we hold ourselves up as Champions of Human Rights, Law and Democracy, and look at where we've gone. Look at what we've been doing. Hard to not understand why suffering peoples and governments around the world say they don't believe in us.

It seems to me, it is hard for you to like anyone who doesn't fit into your view of how things are, and how you want them. We all have diverse ideologies, as well as dreams, and if you don't see your very own in everyone else then there is something wrong with them. What is that called in technical terms?

There is a difference in what you and I believe and want for our country, and how it is we talk about our ideals. I have hopes of a good and honest government. Good and honest men running it, and, when I don't see it being the case, I post what I belive to be evident truths. Loving this country, but wanting it to, like a child, behave.

[truthseeker]

[QUOTE=Saundra Hummer]***


About Harry Belefonte, he has listeners, for one: India. There is huge number of people who agree with him. There we are seen as an aggressor and a violator of human rights, when it comes to much of the world. We're seen as a country that milks another one dry leaving them with next to nothing. Of course leaders in other countrys do much the same and many are much worse, but we hold ourselves up as Champions of Human Rights, Law and Democracy, and look at where we've gone. Look at what we've been doing. Hard to not understand why suffering peoples and governments around the world say they don't believe in us.
QUOTE]



And yet, Harry thinks Fidel is just wonderful.

How can any THINKING person take him seriously. If he were truly an advocate for civil rights, it would be fine with me. But he's only for civil rights when, in the process of advocating it, he can denigrate America.

The man is an opportunist and a tool.

[Saundra Hummer]

[QUOTE=Saundra Hummer]***


About Harry Belefonte, he has listeners, for one: India. There is huge number of people who agree with him. There we are seen as an aggressor and a violator of human rights, when it comes to much of the world. We're seen as a country that milks another one dry leaving them with next to nothing. Of course leaders in other countrys do much the same and many are much worse, but we hold ourselves up as Champions of Human Rights, Law and Democracy, and look at where we've gone. Look at what we've been doing. Hard to not understand why suffering peoples and governments around the world say they don't believe in us.
QUOTE]



And yet, Harry thinks Fidel is just wonderful.

How can any THINKING person take him seriously. If he were truly an advocate for civil rights, it would be fine with me. But he's only for civil rights when, in the process of advocating it, he can denigrate America.

The man is an opportunist and a tool.

The man's a black and there are those out there who think as he does and we all know it. He's a successful one for sure, and there was a time when he had more clout than now, as most of the younger people around the world no longer know of him, not in this day and age. I believe it helps to tune in to what he and other African Americans and ethnic groups around the world are thinking and saying, regardless of whose "tool" he or they are, if they are that. Don't you? Believe it or not, his thoughts could have some influence. Shucks, I even think it helps to know all of the Neo Con spin you are so into.

[truthseeker]

[QUOTE=truthseeker]

The man's a black and there are those out there who think as he does and we all know it. He's a successful one for sure, and there was a time when he had more clout than now, as most of the younger people around the world no longer know of him, not in this day and age. I believe it helps to tune in to what he and other African Americans and ethnic groups around the world are thinking and saying, regardless of whose "tool" he or they are, if they are that. Don't you? Believe it or not, his thoughts could have some influence. Shucks, I even think it helps to know all of the Neo Con spin you are so into.


Just because he's black doesn't mean he speaks for the black people. And of course there are people who think as he does. There are people who agreed with Jim Jones in Guyana, too. So what.

He's successful because he's musically talented, not because he's smart or endowed with wisdom the common person doesn't have. He's a celebrity, so he gets exposure. If he was your regular guy nobody would pay any attention to him. Politically speaking, he's never had any "clout".

You should tune into what your average, everyday black American has to say. Or, if the common person isn't good enough for you, how about Bill Cosby?

We all know there are those who DON'T think as he does. Your arguments always seem to boil down to statements like "everybody knows....".

I don't mean this as an insult, really. I truly mean it. But don't you think the "well, everybody KNOWS such and such...." arguments somewhat childish??

Kinda like "everybody KNOWS Mary has cooties....."

The FACT that he claims to advocate human rights while praising Fidel Castro shows me what his REAL agenda is....

As an aside...the AARP appears to be backing away from him as fast as they can, now. Why? Because they found out the hard way the he DOESN'T speak for the majority. Not by a long shot.

[Saundra Hummer]

[QUOTE=Saundra Hummer]


Just because he's black doesn't mean he speaks for the black people. And of course there are people who think as he does. There are people who agreed with Jim Jones in Guyana, too. So what.

He's successful because he's musically talented, not because he's smart or endowed with wisdom the common person doesn't have. He's a celebrity, so he gets exposure. If he was your regular guy nobody would pay any attention to him. Politically speaking, he's never had any "clout".

You should tune into what your average, everyday black American has to say. Or, if the common person isn't good enough for you, how about Bill Cosby?

We all know there are those who DON'T think as he does. Your arguments always seem to boil down to statements like "everybody knows....".

I don't mean this as an insult, really. I truly mean it. But don't you think the "well, everybody KNOWS such and such...." arguments somewhat childish??

Kinda like "everybody KNOWS Mary has cooties....."

The FACT that he claims to advocate human rights while praising Fidel Castro shows me what his REAL agenda is....

As an aside...the AARP appears to be backing away from him as fast as they can, now. Why? Because they found out the hard way the he DOESN'T speak for the majority. Not by a long shot.

***
Who ever said all blacks listen to Belefonte? Or all believe as he does for that matter? Who said that? You're just reading into what has been posted that which might make you seem justified in your beliefs.

So many blacks and other ethnic groups are A~political, so much so as to be incredible - how can they not be? They haven't the ways it takes to get involved, there is no time or money to get into what might end up bettering their lives, so it takes people like Harry Belefonte, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and their varying thoughts to energize them and help them change their lives.

No, to think of Castro as a hero as the good guy? Hardly. And Belefonte believing this is delusional, in the extreme, however, there are those around the globe who do think he's the good guy and we're the monster.

Your Jim Jones and Cootie references are getting out there, don't you think? Notice I'm not telling you that you know that, just pointing it out so you can recognize it.

Who around the world knows that in the Civil Rights movement Harry Belefonte fought for them and actually did some good? Very few I would imagine. Judging him without having had his life experiences is another matter. I don't believe until we have experienced in some form or another what it is blacks and other minorities in ethnicity or religiosity have gone through in this country and elsewhere throughout the world that we should be judging any of them too harshly.

I haven't heard much about Harry Belefonte for a long, long time, that is until until Hugo Chavez. And as far as Hugo Chavez goes, he seems to be turning into not just a Venezuelian Robin Hood, he is being venerated by many other cultures as well.

Would I vote for him? Who knows. But we shouldn't be planing on adding his country to our pocket book.

By the way! Did you ever read the lead post on this thread? The first one? Perhaps this will give you a better understanding of what this thread is all about.

No, there are more around the world who favor Hugo Chavez over GW Bush than you seem to realize, or care to recognize. Not everyone is gung ho to have us rule the world. It is scaring them.

OK, no more insults, (do you believe that? Ha!) I won't be telling you that you know what it is I'm posting. These are things one would have to assume you know all about, I would have to myself, since a lot of what's in my posts are about what has been considered common knowledge, not all but a lot is, for what seems like forever, or a recently discovered event from various news organizations and blogs, proving what had been rumored forever, at least on many of these posts, then there's just a common sense issue at hand, and I just assumed you would have known what we're talking about.

[Saundra Hummer]

***
Bush could seize absolute control of U.S. government
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Jan 13, 2006, 07:42

President George W. Bush has signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S. troops on American streets. This would give him absolute dictatorial power over the government with no checks and balances.

Bush discussed imposing martial law on American streets in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by activating “national security initiatives” put in place by Ronald Reagan during the 1980s.

These “national security initiatives," hatched in 1982 by controversial Marine Colonel Oliver North, later one of the key players in the Iran-Contra Scandal, charged the Federal Emergency Management Agency with administering executive orders that allowed suspension of the Constitution, implementation of martial law, establishment of internment camps, and the turning the government over to the President.

John Brinkerhoff, deputy director of FEMA, developed the martial law implementation plan, following a template originally developed by former FEMA director Louis Guiffrida to battle a “national uprising of black militants.” Gifuffrida’s implementation of martial law called for jailing at least 21 million African Americans in “relocation camps.” Brinkerhoff later admitted in an interview with the Miami Herald that President Reagan signed off on the initiatives and they remained in place, dormant, until George W. Bush took office.
Brinkerhoff moved on the Anser Institute for Homeland Security and, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, provided the Bush White House and the Pentagon with talking points supporting revised “national security initiatives” that would could allow imposition of martial law and suspension of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1978, the law that is supposed to forbid use of troops for domestic law enforcement.

Brinkerhoff wrote that intentions of Posse Comitatus are “misunderstood and misapplied” and that the U.S. has in times of national emergency the “full and absolute authority” to send troops into American streets to “enforce order and maintain the peace.”

Bush used parts of the plan to send troops into the streets of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. In addition, FEMA hired former special forces personnel from the mercenary firm Blackwater USA to “enforce security.”

Blackwater USA, in its promotional materials, describes itself as “the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world,” adding that “we have established a global presence and provide training and operational solutions for the 21st century in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.”

Blackwater is also a major U.S. contractor in Iraq and has a contract with the Bush White House to provide additional security work “on an as-needed basis.”

The Department of Homeland Security established the “Northern Command for National Defense,” a wide-ranging program that includes FEMA, the Pentagon, the FBI and the National Security Agency. Executive orders already signed by Bush allow the Northern Command to send troops into American streets, seize control of radio and television stations and networks and impose martial law “in times of national emergency.”

The authority to declare what is or is not a national emergency rests entirely with Bush who does not have to either consult or seek the approval of Congress for permission to assume absolute control over the government of the United States.

The White House press office would neither confirm nor deny existence of Bush’s executive orders or the existence of the Northern Command for National Defense. Neither would the Department of Homeland Security.

But my sources within the White House and DHS tell me the plans are in place, ready for implementation when the command comes from the man who keeps telling the American public that he is a “war time president” who will “do anything in my power” to impose his will on the people of the United States.

And he has made sure that power will be absolute
*
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7986.shtml

*

Hopefully these will be powers which he won't abuse, turning them on the average USA citizen. SRH

[Saundra Hummer]

*
Where there's smoke, there's ire
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 12, 2005, 08:33

The firestorm over Friday’s column quoting President George W. Bush’s obscene outburst over the Constitution continues to grow with our email box overflowing from outraged readers who think the President should be impeached along with pro-Bushites who want my head on a platter.

I’m surprised by the public’s anger over this. When a GOP operative first emailed me about the White House meeting where Bush called the Constitution “just a goddamned piece of paper,” I put it aside as one of many reports I get about the President’s temper tantrums.

Bush lashed out at an aide who dared question him on the USA Patriot Act. That’s typical Bush. We started reporting on the President’s outbursts last year and those tantrums are now widely reported now by the so-called “mainstream media.”

As Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe write in the current edition of Newsweek:

“A White House aide, who like virtually all White House officials (in this story and in general) refused to be identified for fear of antagonizing the president… How many people dare to snap back at a president? Not many, and not unless they have known the president a long, long time. (Even Karl Rove, or "Turd Blossom," as he is sometimes addressed by the president, knows when to hold his tongue.) In the Bush White House, disagreement is often equated with disloyalty… his attitude toward Congress was "my way or the highway," according to a GOP staffer who did not want to be identified criticizing the president.”

We get tips about Bush’s temper and his comments all the time. Most of the tips don’t get used because we don’t go with information from just one source. The tip about “the goddamned piece of paper” seemed destined for the byte bin until a second aide, in casual conversation, mentioned the comment.

So I called a third source who has confirmed information in the past. At first he was defensive.

“Who told you about that?” I told him I’d picked it up from two other sources.

“Look, you know how the President is,” he said. “He gets agitated when people challenge him.”

All I wanted to know was did the President of the United States call the Constitution a “goddamned piece of paper.”

“Yeah. He did.”

So I went with the story. To me it was just another example of a President who too often lets his anger get the better of him, particularly with anyone who dares disagree. I didn’t see it as a rallying cry for those who either want Bush’s head for his various misdeeds or mine for daring report them.

Some say Bush should be impeached. Sorry, I don’t agree. He’s not the first President to consider the Constitution an expendable document and he won’t be the last. Most Presidents have complained that the Constitution gets in their way.

When Teddy Roosevelt decided to send the Marines into North Africa, his Secretary of State cautioned him such an act would be unconstitutional.

Teddy snapped back: “Why destroy the beauty of the act with legalities?”

Presidents, by their nature, look for ways to skirt the law when that law gets in the way of their agendas. If we impeached every President who disregarded the Constitution when it didn’t suit his purposes we probably would have tried just about every President in the last 50 years.

Those who support the President no matter what now demand that I release the names of aides who passed on the information.

Sorry. Doesn’t work that way. I don’t burn sources. Never have. Never will. And, as every news outlet that covers Washington knows, the Bush administration comes down hard on anyone who talks out of school about the President.

“Sometimes the only way to get a story is to promise confidentiality,” Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press advocacy group, told the Christian Science Monitor recently.

In a White House where any disagreement with the President is branded as disloyalty or, in some cases, unpatriotic, the only sources who will tell us what’s really going on are those who choose to remain anonymous.

It ain’t perfect but in these imperfect times, it’s the best we’ve got. *
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7797.shtml

If this is right on - factual - then no wonder there is such a stink going on as to whether the Constitution is a "Breathing, Living Document". The Bush Appointees saying it isn't - that it is outdated, so no wonder the Bush/Cheney administration and it's lawyers and advisors just overlook and constantly skirt around it's protections our founding fathers put in place. They're believing they know best and are so struck with their own powers they believe - in their state of hubris, because of who and what they are, they are permitted to do so. Can you imagine?

They want to overlook what it is our Constitution has always guaranteed us. It has held us in good stead all these years; through some trying and difficult times. Remember, we're only fighting a rag tag bunch of insurgents/freedom fighters. However one thinks of them, they're not a standing army, they pose a very small threat in the overall scheme of things. Of course they are capable of creating and delivering damage to our shores, if not just in Iraq, but we have weathered much worse, and survived without suffering the loss of our rights for any long length of time. I know the Constitution hasn't always been adherred to in crisis, but all in all it has been our Constitution which has been our backbone, our strength, our hope, and I have to believe our salvation. Never in our history have I known it to be so disregarded, never to this extent. I don't know when there has ever been such an open disregard by any administration as with the Bush/Cheney Presidency for this wonderful all encompassing document of ours. I believe they have and are exhibiting a total disregard for all we hold sacred. All this while claiming they want judges who will adhere to strict and strong principles of Constitutional Law, not interpret it. How disingenious is this? SRH
I forgot to say, our Constitution is our crowning glory, and we aren't even a monachry, it is our "Jewel In The Crown." We didn't need India as did England, we had our Constitutional rights, worth much more to us then all the wealth England derived from India.

[Saundra Hummer]

***
WHILE ORDERING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN REFITTED JEEPS, WHICH WEREN'T DEEMED NECESSARY TO ARMOR, WE ARE NOW LEARNING OF A STUDY WHICH SAYS "80% OF DEATHS IN IRAQ COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED WITH PROPER BODY ARMOR." IT'S A PRETTY SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS. EVEN THE VECHICLES THEY ARE ORDERED TO GO OUT IN ARE LACKING IN ARMOR. SOME IMPROVEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE, BUT STILL, THE MILITARY MEN AND WOMEN HAVE TO SCOUR THE JUNK AND SCRAP YARDS TO FIND METAL TO ARMOR THE VEHICLES THEY HAVE TO DRIVE, GERRY-RIGGING THEM TO TRY TO SAVE THEIR OWN LIVES AND LIMBS, AS THE ADMINISTRATION DIDN'T SEE FIT TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR NEEDS. HEY, THEY LET THEM DO WITHOUT NEEDED WATER IN HORRID UNBEARABLE KILLING HEAT, BUT GIVE HALLIBURTON BONUSES FOR KEEPING DOWN THE PRICE! DAMN THE MENS NEEDS. HOW MUCH DOES WATER COST? HALLIBURTON BE ASHAMED!

OUR MILITARY MEN AND WOMEN, OFTEN TIMES JUST YOUNG KIDS REALLY, ARE SENT OUT ON PATROLS ON LIFE THREATENING MISSIONS, ARE HAVEING TO PACK SANDBAGS UNDER THEIR FEET, ALONG WITH WHATEVER SHEET METAL THEY CAN FIND TO TRY AND SAVE THEMSELVES. AFTER ALL THIS TIME SINCE THESE NEEDS WERE LEARNED OF - ARMOR IS STILL AN ISSUE? A NEGLECTED ONE? TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. HOW HURTFUL THIS MUST BE TO THOSE WHO HAVE LOST THEIR LOVED ONES, OR FOR THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO SUFFERED LIFE ALTERING INJURIES FROM LACK OF PROCUREMENTS, LACK OF MONEY SPENT, LACK OF CARE AND PLANNING. IT IS HEART WRENCHING AND TO ME, DISGUSTING. SRH
*
Body-Armor Gaps Are Shown to Endanger Troops
Pentagon Studies Call Deaths Preventable
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 7, 2006; Page A05The Marine Corps and Army are working to upgrade body armor to prevent fatalities caused by torso wounds from gunshots and explosions, after classified Pentagon forensic studies highlighted how gaps in current armor are leaving troops vulnerable.

A recent military study of a random sample of scores of Marine deaths from torso wounds between the start of the Iraq war in March 2003 and mid-2005 found that more protection on the chest, back, sides and shoulder areas could have prevented up to 80 percent of the fatalities. It was the first time military forensic experts have reported on torso injuries to the Pentagon, according to a statement from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington.

U.S. troops in Iraq often complain that insurgents -- especially snipers -- have demonstrated they know how to exploit the gaps in the current armor. For example, enemy snipers have killed U.S. forces with single shots to the neck or upper torso.

The Pentagon has faced a steady stream of criticism from Republicans and Democrats in Congress who assert that the military has not moved quickly enough to provide the most advanced armor to U.S. troops -- from more heavily armored Humvees and trucks to bulletproof vests.

But Army and Marine Corps officials say developing, producing and fielding better armor is a constant effort as the military faces ever-changing and more lethal insurgent tactics in Iraq. An important consideration, they say, is the trade-off between heavier armor and troops' ability to move quickly and return fire.

"As we find the battlefield has changed, we constantly are trying to enhance the survivability and mobility of the American soldier," said Army spokesman Paul Boyce. "Throughout the fielding of body armor to our soldiers, improvements have been made and continue to be made." He cited five different upgrades to protective vests, as well as enhanced ceramic plates.

The Army avoids detailing the ballistic capabilities of body armor so as not to give an advantage to enemy forces, he said. "What we don't do is talk about what we're going to do next to change the body armor or the composites in it."

Currently U.S. soldiers and Marines use the Interceptor Body Armor System, issued beginning in 1999 and widely fielded since the Iraq war as an upgrade to an earlier bulletproof vest. So far, the Army has fielded more than 500,000 sets.

The medical examiner study analyzed a random sample of 93 Marine deaths from torso wounds and found that 60 percent of the fatalities were caused by gunshots. "As many as 42 percent of the Marine casualties who died from isolated torso injuries could have been prevented with improved protection in the areas surrounding the plated areas of the vest. Nearly 23 percent might have benefited from protection along the mid-axillary line of the lateral chest. Another 15 percent died from impacts through the unprotected shoulder and upper arm."

Findings from the study, conducted by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner for the Marine Corps, were published earlier this week on the Web site of Soldiers for the Truth, an advocacy group for U.S. troops, and two versions of the study were confirmed by the medical examiner. An article on the study appeared Friday evening on the New York Times Web site.

The medical examiner received $107,000 in funding from the Marine Corps in December 2004 to conduct the study, which marks "the first time information on torso injuries was disseminated" to the Defense Department, said a statement from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. The report evaluating body armor was based on full autopsies, which are conducted on all U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of the cause, said Christopher Kelly, public affairs director for the institute. "Information regarding the effectiveness of body armor has been shared with those who design and field personal protective gear," he said.

The Army and Marine Corps have recalled thousands of protective vests in recent months because they failed some ballistic requirements when they were manufactured, although an Army spokesman described the vests' departure from required standards as extremely small and said many are no longer in use.
*
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/07/AR2006010700005.html

[Saundra Hummer]

*
TIME MAGAZINES MIND & BODY

STAYING SHARP

BRAIN CALISTHENICS

A 20-MINUTE MENTAL WORKOUT: RESEARCHERS SAY THE MIND CAN BE STRENGTHENED WITH REGULAR TRAINING AND RIGOROUS PRACTICE. HERE'S A SIMPLE BRAIN WARM-UP FOR A QUICK MENTAL RECHARGE. IF YOU FEEL A BIT SLUGGISH, TRY REPEATING SIMILAR EXERCISES DAILY TO GET YOUR BRAIN BACK IN SHAPE. --BY JEREMY CAPLAN

1 - WORD TRICKS (STROOP TEST)

2 - SOUND TRACKING

3 - RAPID RECALL

4 - SUDOKU

5 - SPEEDY SUMS

6 - QUICK COUNTING

7 - TRIANGLE MATH

NEXT - MORE PUZZLES: ALPHABET JUMBLE - WORD TRICKS II (STROOP TEST) -
SOUND TRACKING II
http://www.time.com/time/covers/20060116/puzzles/?cnn=yes

[Saundra Hummer]

***
FROM A BLOG ON THE WEB
Fogey’s Political Lexicon, #1
Filed under: Fogey's Political Lexicon— trfogey @ 8:41 pm
Trying to figure out what a politician is really saying these days has become quite a challenge. I thought I’d start this new series to serve as a ongoing history of the distortions, contortions, and mutilations of our mother tongue that currently serve us as political debate in the modern campaign. Hope you enjoy it!

A popular phrase these days is “held accountable.” On the surface, it seems innocuous enough until you realize that it is almost always used in a negative sense. A good working definition for “held accountable” might be “fired, retired, resigned, removed, replaced, or defeated.” Add “impeached” and “imprisoned” to that list as well. Why not just say “the guy’s gotta go", instead of hiding your real meaning behind some false premise of objectivity? Nobody that uses the term “held accountable” about someone else intends to support any kind of balanced evaluation, pro or con, for that person — they’ve already weighed them and found them wanting. They just want you to think that the their judgment was the inevitable result of anyone’s reasonable application of logic.

Another current term of art I find amusing is “nuanced.” “Nuanced” is one of those words that sounds like either a fancy French cooking term — “Now we’ll nuance this head of cabbage to add to our salad” — or a pretentious and pseudointellectual bit of jargon. In our modern political discourse, the second description is most apt. The user of “nuanced” is usually saying one of two things about the policy they are advocating. First, that policy is so similar to that of their opponent that it would take poring over the fine print with a 10x magnifier to find the differences. Second, the policy in question is so complex that mere voters have no hope of understanding it, so we should defer to the “experts.” and go back to watching American Idol.

One last phrase for this time: “fiscally responsible“. A good definition for this phrase, as uttered by the average modern politician, would be “My supporters are getting the money/gravy/benefits from this policy, as it should be.” Of course, that means that “fiscally irresponsible” must mean “My opponents are getting the money/gravy/benefits from this policy, and that’s wrong.”

Feel free to note your favorite political words in the comments.
http://s90209925.onlinehome.us/trfogey/archives/category/fogeys-political-lexicon/

[Saundra Hummer]

*"Zealotry of either kind -- the puritan's need to regiment others or the victim's passion for blaming everyone except himself -- tends to produce a depressing civic stupidity. Each trait has about it the immobility of addiction. Victims become addicted to being victims: they derive identity, innocence and a kind of devious power from sheer, defaulting helplessness. On the other side, the candlesnuffers of behavioral and political correctness enact their paradox, accomplishing intolerance in the name of tolerance, regimentation in the name of betterment.": Lance Morrow (1939- ) Essayist, professor

~
"One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It ain't.": Lyn Nofziger [Franklyn C. Nofziger] Press Secretary for President Reagan

~
"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.": Theodore Roosevelt - (1858-1919) 26th US President - Source: letter 01/10/1917

~

[Saundra Hummer]

*
Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11
By Jason Leopold

01/13/06 "ICH" -- -- The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

In its "Transition 2001" report, the NSA said that the ever-changing world of global communication means that "American communication and targeted adversary communication will coexist."

"Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws," the document says.

However, it adds that "senior leadership must understand that the NSA's mission will demand a 'powerful, permanent presence' on global telecommunications networks that host both 'protected' communications of Americans and the communications of adversaries the agency wants to target."

What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information.

But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.

James Risen, author of the book State of War and credited with first breaking the story about the NSA's domestic surveillance operations, said President Bush personally authorized a change in the agency's long-standing policies shortly after he was sworn in in 2001.

"The president personally and directly authorized new operations, like the NSA's domestic surveillance program, that almost certainly would never have been approved under normal circumstances and that raised serious legal or political questions," Risen wrote in the book. "Because of the fevered climate created throughout the government by the president and his senior advisers, Bush sent signals of what he wanted done, without explicit presidential orders" and "the most ambitious got the message."

The NSA's domestic surveillance activities that began in early 2001 reached a boiling point shortly after 9/11, when senior administration officials and top intelligence officials asked the NSA to share that data with other intelligence officials who worked for the FBI and the CIA to hunt down terrorists that might be in the United States. However the NSA, on advice from its lawyers, destroyed the records, fearing the agency could be subjected to lawsuits by American citizens identified in the agency's raw intelligence reports.

The declassified report says that the "Director of the National Security Agency is obligated by law to keep Congress fully and currently formed of intelligence activities." But that didn't happen. When news of the NSA's clandestine domestic spying operation, which President Bush said he had authorized in 2002, was uncovered last month by the New York Times, Democratic and Republican members of Congress appeared outraged, claiming that they were never informed of the covert surveillance operation. It's unclear whether the executive order signed by Bush removes the NSA Director from his duty to brief members of Congress about the agency's intelligence gathering programs.

Eavesdropping on Americans required intelligence officials to obtain a surveillance warrant from a special court and show probable cause that the person they wanted to monitor was communicating with suspected terrorists overseas. But Bush said that the process for obtaining such warrants under the 1978 Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act was, at times, "cumbersome."

In a December 22, letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella wrote that the "President determined it was necessary following September 11 to create an early warning detection system. FISA could not have provided the speed and agility required for the early warning detection system."

However, what remains murky about that line of reasoning is that after 9/11, former Attorney General John Ashcroft undertook a full-fledged lobbying campaign to loosen the rules and the laws governing FISA to make it easier for the intelligence community to obtain warrants for wiretaps to spy on Americans who might have ties to terrorists. Since the legislative change, more than 4,000 surveillance warrants have been approved by the FISA court, leading many to wonder why Bush selectively chose to bypass the court for what he said were a select number of individuals.

More than a dozen legal scholars dispute Moschella's legal analysis, saying in a letter just sent to Congress that the White House failed to identify "any plausible legal authority for such surveillance."

"The program appears on its face to violate existing law," wrote the scholars of constitutional law, some of whom worked in various senior capacities in Republican and Democratic administrations, in an extraordinary letter to Congress that laid out, point by point, why the president is unauthorized to permit the NSA to spy on Americans and how he broke the law by approving it.

"Even conceding that the President in his role as Commander in Chief may generally collect 'signals intelligence' on the enemy abroad, Congress indisputably has authority to regulate electronic surveillance within the United States, as it has done in FISA," the letter states. "Where Congress has so regulated, the President can act in contravention of statute only if his authority is exclusive, that is, not subject to the check of statutory regulation. The DOJ letter pointedly does not make that extraordinary claim. The Supreme Court has never upheld warrantless wiretapping within the United States."

Additionally, "if the administration felt that FISA was insufficient, the proper course was to seek legislative amendment, as it did with other aspects of FISA in the Patriot Act, and as Congress expressly contemplated when it enacted the wartime wiretap provision in FISA," the letter continues. "One of the crucial features of a constitutional democracy is that it is always open to the President - or anyone else - to seek to change the law. But it is also beyond dispute that, in such a democracy, the President cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable."

Jeffrey Smith, the former General Counsel for the CIA under the Clinton administration, also weighed in on the controversy Wednesday. Smith said he wants to testify at hearings that Bush overstepped his authority and broke the law. His own legal opinion on the spy program was included in a 14-page letter to the House Select Committee on Intelligence that said that President Bush does not have the legal authority to order the NSA to spy on American citizens, aides to Congressman John Conyers said Wednesday evening.

"It is not credible that the 2001 authorization to use force provides authority for the president to ignore the requirements of FISA," Smith wrote, adding that if President Bush's executive order authorizing a covert domestic surveillance operation is upheld as legal "it would be a dramatic expansion of presidential authority affecting the rights of our fellow citizens that undermines the checks and balances of our system, which lie at the very heart of the Constitution."

Still, one thing that appears to be indisputable is that the NSA surveillance began well before 9/11 and months before President Bush claims Congress gave him the power to use military force against terrorist threats, which Bush says is why he believed he had the legal right to bypass the judicial process.

According to the online magazine Slate, an unnamed official in the telecom industry said NSA's "efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order. The source reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a 'data-mining' operation, which might eventually cull 'millions' of individual calls and e-mails."

Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at http://www.jasonleopold.com for updates.
~
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article11558.htm

~~***~~
This goes to what I've said earlier, intelligence gathered by spying is only as good as those whose hands it falls into. Remember, it was Condeeleeza Rice who told us, they weren't concerned with terrorists, they were into building (Star Wars) missle defenses? We know the reasons for that. War contractors were to be appeased with their enormous appetites for our tax dollar. Evidently the Bush/Cheney team just didn't see the threat, even after the USS Cole was hit and our men and women were killed. Not after our embassies were bombed around the world. Not after our military were bombed in Saudi Arabia, not after, not after, not after. Good grief. Who in life goes about with such blinders on? They held the information in their hands and chose to ignore it.

With more intelligience being collected now than ever dreamed of with these illegal taps and ways of spying on all of us, how are they to disseminate it and separate out the truly dangerous men and women from the rest of us? After so many foul ups, I have no faith that they will do the right thing. Not after so many lost chances. There was ignored intelligence, totally ignored, which too many died over, and then there are men and women who have been perceived as threats who were tortured, and some have died, and who have turned out to be so very innocent. Their suffering was for naught and our involvement in such nefarious deeds need not have ever happened. Again, intelligence is only as good as whose hands it's in. .. SRH
~***~

[Saundra Hummer]

*****LIKE PALM TREE AND AVOCADO THIEVES HERE IN THE USA. PALM TREES ARE WORTH THOUSANDS, OLIVE TREES MEAN SUBSISTANCE AND A LIVING FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS RAISED AND CARED FOR THE SAME TREES, OFTEN FOR GENERATIONS. HOW MUCH MONEY ARE THESE OLIVE TREES WORTH ON THE OPEN MARKET, OR TO THE FAMILY HAVING THEM TAKEN, HOW ARE THEY TO LIVE NOW?

I REMEMBER OLIVE PRESSES, ANCIENT ONES BELONGING TO PALESTINIANS HAVING BEEN IN ONE FAMILY DOWN THROUGH THE AGES - BEING DISMANTLED AND RUINED WHEN ISRAELIES TOOK OVER THEIR OLIVE GROVES - BUT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'VE HEARD OF TREES BEING TAKEN. SEEMS AS THOUGH NEITHER SIDE UNDERSTANDS FAIR PLAY, LIVE AND LET LIVE, LIVE BY THE GOLDEN RULE, BEHAVIORS TAUGHT TO US ALL AS CHILDREN, OR TO MOST OF US. PEACE? DO THEY EVEN UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT? FROM HERE IT SURE DOESN'T SEEM LIKE IT.

PERHAPS PAT ROBERTSON IS MISINTERPRETING WHAT IT IS HE'S READING, WHEN HE READS THAT GOD DOESN'T WANT THE LAND OF ISRAEL DIVIDED, IT BELONGS TO HIM AND TO ISRAEL. WELL THE DIVIDE IS IN THE HATREDS, NOT SO MUCH IN THE DIVISION OF LAND. PERHAPS THIS IS THE DIVIDE GOD SAYS NOT TO PARTAKE IN? THE DIVISION OF HEARTS AND MINDS. :shrug: WHY NOT? IT IS HATRED AND GREED WHICH HAVE DIVIDED ISRAEL AND THEREFORE THE LAND, AND IT'S THE PEOPLES.Features
Israeli army uprooting olive groves
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Thursday 12 January 2006, 7:28 Makka Time, 4:28 GMT
Heavy machinery was used to uproot or destroy trees

Related:
Settlers cut down W Bank olive trees
Palestinian farmers face settler terror
Israeli forces prevent olive harvest
When olive branch doesn't mean peace

The Israeli army has been destroying, uprooting and in some cases, stealing Palestinian olive trees in several parts of the West Bank, grove owners and witnesses says.

Palestinians living in villages and hamlets bordering Jewish settlements say the uprooting has increased since Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, quit the ruling Likud and formed his own Kadima party nearly two months ago.

According to villagers in Sikka, a small village 20km west of Hebron, the Israeli army on 2 January brought as many as 10 jackhammers and other heavy machinery to their groves on the western side of the separation wall and removed or destroyed over 1000 trees.

Ayed Hureibat, a Palestinian owner of some of the uprooted trees, told Aljazeera.net: "They uprooted the huge olive trees with the jackhammers, trimmed the bigger branches with large electric saws and then lifted the trees aboard awaiting trucks apparently in order to replant them elsewhere in Israel.

"It is theft in broad daylight."

Hureibat said soldiers threatened to shoot and kill villagers who sought to protest the Israeli action.

"I told one of the soldiers to allow me to speak to the officer in charge of the operation. He told me go speak with Allah."

Disputed land
Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adroa'ee admitted that "a number of trees" were uprooted in Sikka but said the acreage "belonged to Israel".

"It is theft in broad daylight. I told one of the soldiers to allow me to speak to the officer in charge of the operation. He told me go speak with Allah"

Ayed Hureibat, Palestinian owner of some of the uprooted trees

He told Aljazeera.net that the uprooted trees were transferred to Bait Guvreal, known to Palestinians as Bait Jebril, adding that Palestinian farmers could apply to recover their trees.

Majed Hishayesh, a Palestinian farmer, insisted that the area was part of the West Bank.

"We planted these trees more than 25 years ago. They could have stopped us then if they had had any evidence corroborating their claims.

"Besides, is this the way to settle disputes, to uproot our groves and steal them in broad daylight?"

On 5 January, Jewish settlers at Tuwwani, south of Hebron, felled 102 olive trees.

Christy Bsichoff, a Christian peace activist, described the scene as a funeral.

"As we approached the woman sitting by the 102 olive trees that the settlers cut the night before, I saw the tears rolling down her face as she (the owner) stared ahead. We were coming to pay our respects; it was a funeral, a graveyard where the 30-year-old trees were slaughtered."

Israeli assurances

When Israel constructed the separation wall in the northern and central parts of the West Bank in 2004 and 2005, Israeli officials assured Palestinian villagers that the wall was only a security measure and had no political significance.

This was Israel's main argument against the verdict by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in June 2004, which ruled that the wall was illegal and constituted a clear violation of international law and the fourth Geneva Convention.

When Palestinians complained to Israeli courts against the construction of the wall on their land, the Israeli army's Civil Administration said it would allow Palestinian villagers to freely access their groves and farms on the western side of the part-wall part-fence barrier.

Said Hishayesh, the farmer: "They lied to us, they told us in summer that we would be granted free access to our groves and be able to plough the land and harvest the crops. And look what they are doing now, they are uprooting our trees and taking them to be replanted in Israel."

Groves destroyed
According to B'tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation, Jewish settlers have destroyed thousands of olive trees belonging to Palestinian villagers in the northern West Bank in the past few months.


B'tselem: Jewish settlers have
destroyed thousands of trees
In early January, Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli defence minister, ordered an investigation into the destruction of olive groves in the vicinity of Jewish colonies in the northern West Bank.

However, both Palestinians and human rights activists remain sceptical about whether Mofaz and the Israeli justice system are sincere about the probe.

On 10 January, Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel's internal Shin Bet security service, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that the army did nothing to prevent the felling of Palestinian olive trees even though the army knew the identity of the perpetrators.

"These actions are very grave, in my opinion. Olive trees are just a symptom, and the problem is that there is no effective law enforcement when it comes to these settlers," he was quoted as saying by Israeli daily Ha'aretz.

Land theft
According to a report issued by the B'tselem on 28 December, the state allowed Jewish settlers to quietly appropriate a large area of privately-owned Palestinian land located on the "Israeli" side of the barrier.

The land reportedly comprised hundreds of dunams of farmland.

One dunam is equal to 1000 square metres.
"These actions are very grave, in my opinion. Olive trees are just a symptom, and the problem is that there is no effective law enforcement when it comes to these settlers"

Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's internal Shin Bet security service

An Israeli army Civil Administration official contacted by Aljazeera.net said "we have not examined this issue yet".

Ha'aretz described the theft of privately-owned Palestinian land as an "organised crime".

In an article published on 4 January, Ha'aretz correspondent Akiva Eldar pointed out that the state and its judicial branch were doing next to nothing to stop the illegal seizure of Palestinian land in various parts of the West Bank by settlers and their sympathisers in the government and the army.

Eldar accused the Defence Ministry of refusing to even carry out court orders to demolish illegal structures built by settlers on stolen Palestinian property.

Eldar was unavailable for comment for this article.
On 8 January, Menachem Mazuz, the Israeli attorney-general, reportedly ordered a freeze on building on the illegally seized property.Whether this order will be obeyed, remains to be seen.
***
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6D654A36-11F0-4917-AA2A-104DEBDEE54A.htm

[Saundra Hummer]

*****IT'S STILL GOING ON AFTER ALL THESE YEARS IN IRAQ
AP Enterprise: SOLDIERS BEEF UP HUMVEESBy RYAN LENZ and JASON STRAZIUSO
Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 1 minute ago

TIKRIT, Iraq - Soldiers exposed to Iraq's increasingly lethal roadside bombs, which can rip through armored Humvees, are drawing on wartime experience and stateside expertise to protect their vehicles with stronger armor and thermal detection cameras.

The upgrades are being done by individual soldiers and units as the Pentagon decides how Humvees should be changed, and follow public criticism of the Bush administration for not armoring all Humvees ahead of the war.

Nearly three years after rolling into Iraq in trucks covered in many instances only by canvas roofs, the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade is adding extra layers of armor to its Humvees.

Col. Michael Steele, the brigade's commander, said he ordered the improvements because the insurgents' roadside bombs — known to the military as "improvised explosive devices" — have become bigger and harder to detect.

"The responsibility of the commander is to figure out what we need to respond to this evolving threat. The easiest, the fastest and most appropriate answer is add additional armor," Steele said.

Iraqi insurgents are also using more anti-tank mines and making bombs that can penetrate the Humvee's current armor. Among the more deadly devices are explosives shaped to funnel a blast through Humvee plating — sophisticated bombs that officials suspect are being imported from neighboring countries like Iran.

Because additional armor won't always stop such explosives — one bomb destroyed an Abrams battle tank last month, for instance — a National Guard unit in Baghdad has added detection devices and other measures to protect its Humvees.

Drawing on the part-time soldiers' backgrounds as mechanics, electricians and carpenters, the 126th Armor Battalion based in suburban Grand Rapids, Mich., added thermal imaging cameras and a 6-foot boom that can be lowered in front of the Humvee. Dangling chains and an infrared countermeasure on the boom can help trigger explosives before the Humvee is directly over them, said Lt. John Caras.

Caras, a former Marine, was the driving force behind the improvements, which have been made to six of the unit's Humvees.

"Right from the beginning, I was looking for ways to go on the offensive," he said of the upgrades, which also include extra bulletproof glass around the Humvee gunner and lights and sirens to help with traffic control.

Many Humvees around Iraq also jam signals like cell phones, garage door openers and other remote-control devices used by insurgents to detonate explosives.

U.S. troops in the past have hardened soft-skin Humvees by using upgrade kits or by attaching spare steel to their vehicles, and the Army's chief of staff now requires that all combat vehicles in Iraq be armored. The military now has more than 25,000 armored Humvees in the country.

Commanders in Iraq and at the Pentagon have debated how to further improve the Humvee. The Army also has tested several vehicles to replace it, but a successor has not been developed.

There have been 43 bomb and mine attacks on Humvees operated by the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade since September, killing nine soldiers and injuring dozens.

Given those numbers, Steele said the need for new armor was apparent.

"There are a whole bunch of IEDs that are above the current protection level for the armored Humvee," he said. "Everybody has been trying to do something over the last couple of years."

Army officials would not comment on where Humvees have failed or detail how the armor improvements differ from current designs.

Nearly all the 530 Humvees in the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based brigade, which is deployed to north-central Iraq, will be upgraded at a makeshift assembly line the brigade created at Camp Speicher in Tikrit.

Maj. Tom Bryant, the brigade spokesman, said the armor program is not a reaction to faulty equipment but a response to change on the battlefield.

"We're not interested in creating controversy," he said. "It's about saving soldiers lives."

While the brigade plans to upgrade all its Humvees, the program is not in official use elsewhere. Francis Harvey, the secretary of the Army, was briefed on the improvements to the Humvee's armor months ago.

There is no Humvee armor strong enough to protect against roadside bombs packed with thousands of pounds of explosives, which the Army categorizes as "catastrophic IEDs," Steele said.

"There is nothing wrong with the Army," he said. "But I'm not willing to wait. I'm not sure I would be the priority and I don't know how many of my guys could be hurt or killed between now and then."

The National Guard unit's Humvee improvements also have been passed up the chain of command, but it's not clear if the military plans to make the changes on more vehicles.

Caras said the additions like the infrared camera — which might detect the thermal footprint of a bomb hidden among roadside debris — help turn the Humvee from an armor-wrapped defensive shell into an offensive vehicle.

"It's about moving to where the problem is and counteracting it," he said. "Your purpose is to move against any enemy that's out there."

Commanders in both units say insurgents are adept at hiding their work and improving their bombs. And they are quick to learn.

"All the stupid ones are dead," said Capt. Jamey Turner of Baton Rouge, La., a brigade commander in Beiji.

Ryan Lenz reported from Tikrit. Jason Straziuso reported from Baghdad.[/B]
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060114/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_super_humvees;_ylt=Ar1Xb0BL2x5iAGLs2p0YPB2s0N UE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[Saundra Hummer]

~~*~~Opinion
A hero scorned
Fri Jan 13, 6:45 AM ET
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In 1968, helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson flew into the thick of what he thought was a fierce battle in South Vietnam and discovered, instead, that a massacre was going on - of women, children and elderly men at the hands of U.S. soldiers. Horrified, he landed his helicopter between the soldiers and the civilians, ordered his crew to fire on any American who continued shooting, called for back-up and rescued victims, digging through corpses to scoop up one child.
~
An instant hero? It would be nice to think so. A year later, the public found out about the killings - infamous as the My Lai massacre, exposed by journalist Seymour Hersh. But Thompson, who died of cancer last week at age 62, received no honors then. He was made a pariah.
~
For years, when he walked into officers' clubs, they emptied out. He got threatening phone messages. Dead animals were left on his porch. When he was called to give closed congressional testimony, a senior lawmaker said that if anyone deserved to be court-martialed, it was him. As it was, only one officer, Army Lt. William Calley, was convicted, spending just three years under house arrest before President Nixon pardoned him.
~
In 1998, after a book and CBS' 60 Minutes told of Thompson's courage, the Pentagon was shamed into giving him and his crew the Soldier's Medal, the highest award for bravery not involving conflict with an enemy. He was invited to lecture on military ethics at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
~
What Thompson really deserved, and never got, is the hero's recognition afforded other national icons of moral courage, such as Rosa Parks. Not so much for his benefit as for the nation's. The mob mentality that took over at My Lai was an extreme manifestation of a common human instinct. It's just easier to go along with the crowd, rationalizing corrupt behavior, than it is to face the danger of stopping it. That was true at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at corrupt Enron.
~
Nobody likes a snitch. But when courageous people instinctively supply the moral compass missing higher up in their command - as Thompson did at My Lai, as a young soldier did at Abu Ghraib and as whistle-blower Sherron Watkins did at Enron - they deserve recognition.
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When Hollywood takes up that kind of plot, in movies such as The Insider, it's easy to cheer. Too bad it's so different in real life.~
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060113/cm_usatoday/aheroscorned;_ylt=AmeSH2d2p9oF_CKKQvOZ1n2s0NUE;_yl u=X3oDMTA3YWFzYnA2BHNlYwM3NDI-

[Saundra Hummer]

RANDOM EXCERPTS FROM A PAGE ON THE WEB
To read the complete text, click on the link at the bottom of this postGREED

by Julian Edney (1)

An essay concerning the origins, nature, extent and morality of this destructive force in free market economies. Definitions. Paradoxes and omissions in Adam Smith's original theory permit - encourage - greed without restraint so that in a very large society over two centuries it has become an undemocratic force creating precipitous inequalities; divisions in this society now approach a kind of wealth apartheid, and our values are quite unlike Smith's: this is an immensely wealthy society but it is not a humane society. Wealth and poverty are connected, in fact recent sociological theory shows our institutions routinely design inequality in, but this connection is largely avoided in texts and in the media, as is the notion that greed is a moral wrong. Problems created by greed cannot be solved by technology. We are also distracted by already-outdated environmental rhetoric, arguments that scarcities and human suffering follow from abuse of our ecology. Rather, these scarcities are the result of what people do to people. This focus opens practical solutions.

Sign the tab in certain Midtown eateries and your neighbors’ eyes slide over. Is that a $48,000 Michel Perchin pen? What’s on your wrist – a $300,000 Breguet watch?

In Palm Springs and Bel Air, $100,000 twin-turbo Porsches and $225,000 Ferraris buzz the warm streets. In New York at an exclusive Morell & Company auction last May, a single magnum of Dom Perignon champagne was sold for $5,750. And there are the paintings of course - one evening at auction two Monets sold for $43 million(2). Hotel rooms, anyone, at $10,000 a night? Estate agents in suburbs of Dallas and Palm Beach have advertised baronial homes for sale at over $40 million (3).

These are prices paid by the exceptionally wealthy, the folks who skim the pages of the Robb Report (average annual salary of subscribers: $1.2 million) in whose glossy pages are reviewed the best of everything. In a recent issue a southern plantation is advertised, "everybody's dream," at $8.5 million.

Robert Reich points out that the superrich live in a parallel universe to the rest of the country: much of the time we don’t see them because they live in walled estates, travel in private limousines and use different airports from the rest of us (4). There’s lots of them. There are now more than 200 billionaires. Some five percent of American households have assets over $1 million. And we’re back to levels of extravagant consumption not seen for 100 years (5).

By historical accounts this is a nation of persistent and resilient people with an unshakable mission: the pursuit of happiness. This idea of happiness is largely connected with wealth (and this connection has long philosophic roots). It is a nation of ambitious people with notions of unfettered future growth, a nation that celebrates abundance. There seems to be no reason anyone should be deprived of luxury, if he works hard. Indeed with this country’s aggregate wealth, there should be no reason anyone should ever go hungry or suffer.

People are going hungry in America. A Los Angeles survey found more than a quarter of low income residents, many working, are not getting enough food to meet basic nutritional needs. And 10% are experiencing hunger(6).

Estimates are that 3 out of 10 Americans will face poverty sometime in their lives (7).
~~
In practice, as James Childs points out, greedy individuals usually hoard both wealth and power (31).

The origins of greed are not mysterious. Like the origins of the drive for power the seeds are everywhere, and if a little bit feels good, more must be better. Previous lack is not necessary to start greed any more than fire is started by lack of fire, but like fire greed expands where it can, it has no internal homeostatic mechanism and the bigger it gets, the faster it grows. Its spread is also quickened by social imitation, akin to panic spreading through a crowd.

Greed is not a rational force.

As a concept greed has largely lost its moral sting. Few contemporary dictionaries include that it is reprehensible. The modern fashion not to sound judgmental, situation ethics, and the habit of social scientists to use past deprivation, social pressure, low self esteem, background, entitlement and myriad extenuating circumstances to explain the behavior, make the moral question so complex, all has crumbled into uncertainty.

This essay resurrects the moral dimension. If the consequences of greed are harm and pain, it is immoral. If greed is flaunted, when the pain is known, it is also sociopathic. These situations are quite common. Anyone doubting the concept of punitive greed should recall that the ancient book by Sun Tzu The Art of War is required reading in top corporate circles.

Not all wealth is created by greed, and not all inequalities are caused by greed, but if you could start with a society of complete equals, unrestrained greed will be sufficient to quickly render that society unequal.

It is also the purpose of this paper to suggest repairs, for which we need to know how our present problems started. Our founding economic theory is tangled.
~~

You had to be bold bringing out new ideas in the European 1700s but they were revolutionary times and philosophers risked their necks pushing some new arguments that people were created equal and each had the liberty to create his own destiny. The French Revolution opened with its violence for equality. In England these ideas took shape as utilitarianism, a put-together philosophy that is neither profound nor poetic, but which was brazenly inclusive, and it confronted a national system of unbearably elaborate dogma and ancient ritual. Jeremy Bentham, Henry Sidgwick,. J.S. Mill and Adam Smith drew the footings.
~~
Rather than religious, utilitarianism uses secular, psychological motivators to explain human behavior, the emotions of pleasure (happiness) and pain. Pleasure is a good. Its ethics: units of pleasure and pain can be summed and compared, and we should choose the act that results in the greatest good for the greatest number, calculations that any person can do. Utilitarianism is practical, astonishingly democratic, and astonishingly rule-free. The utilitarians bluntly advised governments, let the people alone. Let them be human, doing what they do naturally.
~~
]Historians Will and Ariel Durant (19) estimated in their survey that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest in America has become greater than at any time since Imperial plutocratic Rome.
~~
The whispered truth is that this nation bent on the pursuit of happiness is not so happy. Suicide afflicts all classes, and suicide rates are now so high as to eclipse homicide rates with three suicides for every two murders. Surgeon General Satcher partially blamed the media (20). Clinical depression is at its highest rate in decades (21). There are unprecedented rates of anxiety, companionship itself is receding, trust is fading (22). Tens of millions are using prescription mood elevators.

Scarcity oppresses. And the worst signs of unhappiness cluster in the lowest cuts: we have among the highest national rates of imprisonment, and the Administration concedes there are 5 million hard-core drug users in America (23) and millions of alcoholics, all disproportionately among the poor.

Resonating with the battle cry of the French Revolution, Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, the American Constitution was written with promises of human liberty and equality. Freedom and equality qualify as the fundamental political virtues. They are the two legs upon which democracy walks.

The second of the promises is broken.
~~
Greed is the outstanding moral wrong because it reverses the utilitarian ethic, with greatest happiness for the smallest number.~~
In fact, after the fall of communism, most of the original problems of industrial capitalism have reemerged too – in different guise. Instead of local factories and mills, we have transnational corporations, just as indifferently employing hordes of unprotected labor, including children, for egregiously low wages in foreign countries.

All notable developments for a philosophy that was invented against privilege and tyranny.~~

We are currently teaching our young two incompatible morality tales.

Horatio Alger's children’s books from the 1800s tell the story of a boy from ragged tenement origins who struggles from poverty up to riches in an urban odyssey of unflagging effort, single-minded ambition, determination, tenacity and hard work. The boy hero meets tyrannical employers, jealous competitors, wily criminals, prejudice and derision of the poor. He defeats mountainous odds to emerge finally on top, financially successful, pulling his own mother up out of poverty, and this all with his good character intact, in a world where the good guys always win.

The youngest minds get molded around the idea that this sort of ambition makes a person invincible. This myth instills a trust in long term, hard work .~~
So while we believe in a strong, happy society, brimming with progress and good for all its people, we get daily news hinting at our less-civilized st