Justice Now!

US Morphs Into Cambodia -- In Less Than Ten Years

2006-02-12T16:15:00.000-10:00

The Sunday London Times reported on February 12, 2006 that the U.S. is helping to build a prison in Morocco which will be run by Moroccan secret police. Morocco has been cited as one of the U.S.’s principal partners in our “extraordinary rendition” program, wherein torture is used by foreign nationals to interrogate US prisoners, thus to avoid US anti-torture statutes.

In 1997, I headed a public defender project in Cambodia. Many practices of the infamous Pol Pot regime were still in evidence. Our attorneys encountered numerous instances of pre-trial torture, illegal detention in private prisons set up by government officials, and extra-judicial executions.

The experience gave me great respect for the American criminal justice system where such practices were virtually non-existent...then.

Now, less than ten years later, the use of torture for interrogation is promoted and defended by President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

The Bush administration has established private jails in foreign countries for the extra-judicial imprisonment and tortured interrogation of "detainees", even using former Soviet prisons in Eastern Europe. Those imprisoned are not afforded counsel, notice of the charges against them, trial by impartial magistrate or jury, not even notification to their families of their imprisonment.

We learn this week too that President Bush lied when he said that all the GITMO prisoners in Cuba were "bad guys". In fact, 90% of the GITMO prisoners are not Al Qaeda, Taliban or terrorists, but were kidnapped and sold to the US by Pakistani and Afghan allies at so much per head. FBI reports indicate that some of these prisoners have been tortured by U.S. agencies. It is no wonder that Bush didn't want these GITMO prisoners to be brought to a U.S. court. He had no evidence against them.

The Pol Pot regime was responsible for the death of almost two million Cambodians. Millions were killed in Hitler's death camps and Stalin and Mao's gulags.

It is no longer possible to say that the same can't happen in the United States when we learn from a January 27, 2006 press release that Vice President Cheney's Halliburton company has just received a billion dollar plus contract to construct detention camps inside the U.S. for "an overflow of immigrants and other special programs".

Yesterday a top CIA official quit or was fired because he opposed the Bush-Cheney pro-torture policy.

How much longer will it be before casting a vote for a Democratic candidate qualifies one for a berth in one of Halliburton's special detention facilities?

It is imperative that Americans who value democracy and our Constitution, be they conservative or liberal, unite to stop the Bush administration's imperial presidency.

We must demand that our congressional representative, Congressman Ed Case and Senators Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye, do everything they can to shut down the funds for secret detention centers, torturing interrogation teams, death squads, and new military excursions into the Middle East, Africa and South and Central America.

We must vote corrupt Republicans out of office and put a Democratic majority in Congress to restore our democracy.

Leader of the Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight

2006-02-12T16:13:00.000-10:00

Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter - Officially, It's The Other Guy's Fault

Yes, Deadeye Dick shot a fellow hunter while quail hunting in Texas yesterday, and the VP's office didn't report this until a day later.

Letter to Congressman Conyers: Ask Fitz to Investigate FISA Violations

2006-01-07T17:06:00.000-10:00

Dear Congressman Conyers:

I am writing to urge you to request Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate FISA act violations by President Bush and numerous members of his administration.

President Bush has admitted to authorizing surveillance in violation of the FISA statute. Cheney was instrumental in pushing for warrantless surveillance. Steven Hadley, Condi Rice, Alberto Gonzales and likely Rumsfeld and Bolton were also involved. Were all these people to be charged and convicted of violating the FISA Act, a five-year felony, they could all be impeached and removed.

It would not be necessary to seek the appointment of another special prosecutor to investigate FISA violations as Fitzgerald already has the authority to follow the Plame leak investigation wherever it leads.

It is highly likely that under Bush's authorization, the NSA was tapping Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson, as well as other governmental officials and journalists. Might they not also have tapped Fitzgerald phones and that of his investigators and cooperating witnesses? (And would Congressman Conyers and his staff have been spared?)

Please ask Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the FISA violations as part of his brief. We know he is competent and ethical.

Thank you for considering my views.

Justina

Fitz: After Rove, Go for FISA Violators!

2006-01-07T16:07:00.000-10:00

OK, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald. The holidays are over. Lobbyist Abramoff has been pled guilty to corruption and pledged to cooperate in taking down more corrupt Republicans. DeLay, indicted in Texas, has caved to Republican demands that he give up his dreams of returning as Congressional majority leader, and more indictments against him seem likely. It's time for Rove to be put out of action as well.

I would suggest, however, that you team up with some state prosecutors to make sure there are state charges against Rove as well as federal. (Possibly Rove could be charged with obstruction of justice in connection with his involvement in Bush's removing the Guam U.S. Attorney from office just as he was investigating Abramoff.) Bush doesn't have the power to pardon on state indictments or convictions.(But does Guam have non-federal laws in place?).

It would be nice if Rove, Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Rice and Rumsfeld could all be charged as conspirators in violating the FISA Foreign Surveillance Act. It's a five year felony for each occurence. They've admitted to re-authorizing the illegal taps at least 30 times. Since hundreds of U.S. citizens have likely been illegally tapped, that would be enough to get the whole lot of them impeached, removed and jailed.

Wow, Hadley,Cherfoff, the whole National Security Council and perhaps even John Bolton could be charged with FISA violations. Each illegal tap might even establish violations of state criminal laws as well. State convictions would insure that Bush couldn't pardon them all.

Please, Mr. Fitzgerald, hurry up and indict Rove and Cheney on Plamegate, so you can go on to prosecute the entire Bush administration for FISA felonies, including, no doubt, the illegal tapping of the Plame-Wilson household. The sixty-four billion dollar question (inflation, you know) is whether Fitz could prove that the Bush administration has been illegally wiretapping his phones and that of his investigators and cooperating witnesses. Proof of that would crumble the entire Bush cabal. Let us pray...

Well, It Could Have Been Tom Delay...

2006-01-07T15:27:00.000-10:00

War and Piece

"Comedy, Congressional GOP style. Ellen Miller writes:

Dennis Hastert is making the House take a refresher course on ethics rules.

Guess who the instructor is?

That would be "Representative #1" from the Abramoff plea agreement, a.k.a Bob Ney.

Posted by Laura at 04:19 PM"
http://www.warandpiece.com/

British Used Info Based on Torture

2005-12-29T11:41:00.000-10:00

Daily Kos: Leaked torture documents the UK Government are trying to block under Secrecy Act - published here

"Compare and Contrast the government's public position on Torture, with the information they were recieving at the time from their own Ambassador, and the legal advice they were seeking.
We have archived a selection of government spin and lies on the use of torture in these 4 pages:
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/708
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/709
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/710
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/711

and you can listen to Jack Straw and Tony Blair deny what you read in these hitherto 'secret' documents here.
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/down/strawhust.mp3
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/down/blairrend.mp3

What you can do:

We have published the documents in full here, and ask that anyone who can will do the same.
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/715
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/714

If you could publish, host and link to these documents on your own webspace, then it will be harder for anybody to be prosecuted here in the UK, and ensure that they get maximum coverage.

Craig Murray stood up for what many of us believe, and it cost him his Job, his health, and his professional reputation. The least we can do his stand by him as he defies the UK government's attempts at censorship, and possible prosecution.

Craig's own post on the subject can be found here:

I attach our latest post on the subject.
http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/716
"
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/29/13730/539

Look Who Lost the Iraqi Election.

2005-12-27T12:59:00.000-10:00

CHENEY'S MAN IN BAGHDAD GOT CLOBBERED

Chalabi got less than one percent of the vote, missing gaining even one seat in the Iraqi Parliament by some 8000 votes. Meanwhile, the great former prime minister, the State Department's "boy in Baghdad" former interim Prime Minister, Allawi, didn't do very much better. Thus explains the leftcoaster.

So if Chalabi and Allawi both find themselves out of power this year, who will be left to steer Iraqi oil towards the United States? No one.

See, I have no doubt that the major reason why Cheney is fighting the release of his Energy Task Force documents isn't so much his long-standing belief in unfettered executive power, but rather the reality that months before 9/11, this group of oil men were told in the White House that the Bush Administration would topple Saddam and get its hands on Iraqi oil by hook or by crook. There were already stories in the media that among the documents being reviewed and discussed at these meetings were the maps of Iraqi oil fields, so it isn't a long shot that Cheney and the PNAC/AEI soulmates were telling the oil companies to start planning for how to access these new fields and break OPEC's stranglehold on world oil supplies and prices.

One of the things that these oil execs would have been told was the grand plan to get rid of Saddam one way or another, and have him replaced with someone like Chalabi or Allawi, two guys only too willing to take our offer of installing them at the head of a new government in exchange for an Oil Ministry that let American firms car
ve up the country. You can almost hear the speeches by the AEI and PNAC guys to these oil execs now, about how now with the Bush team in charge, a number of dreams could now come true for Big Oil, and as a sidelight, oh yeah, we'd "liberate" the Iraqis and bring the benefits of capitalism to them while their national resources are once again plundered for our benefit. And if we can help Israel and cripple the Palestinians at the same time, great. The PNAC guys and the AEI whiz kids like Ledeen and the others could become the new "Wise" mean.

One thing is for sure: the American people and the Iragi people have also been clobbered by a lawless administration out for control of the world, but who are too incompetent to control even the six mile road between the Green Zone and the Baghdad airport.

Democrats Report on Impeachable offenses

2005-12-23T09:42:00.000-10:00

| House Judiciary Democrats issues report
alleging gross misconduct by Bush over Iraq

"There is at least a prima facie case that these actions by the President, Vice-President and other members of the Bush Administration violate a number of federal laws, including (1) Committing a Fraud against the United States; (2) Making False Statements to Congress; (3) The War Powers Resolution; (4) Misuse of Government Funds; (5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; (6) federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals; and (7) federal laws and regulations concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence.

While these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable misconduct, because the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have blocked the ability of Members to obtain information directly from the Administration concerning these matters or responding to these charges, more investigatory authority is needed before recommendations can be made regarding specific Articles of Impeachment. As a result, we recommend that Congress establish a select committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush Administration with regard to the Iraq war detailed in this Report and report to the Committee on the Judiciary on possible impeachable offenses."
[Thanks to rawstory.coml

2001 CONGRESS SPECIFICALLY REFUSED TO GRANT DOMESTIC WAR POWERS

2005-12-23T09:14:00.000-10:00

Rawst ory reports an article in today's Washington Post by former Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle,which explodes the White House claim that the "Authorization of Force" resolution passed immediately after the September 11th, 2001 attacks gave the president authority to conduct warrantless surveillance within the United States:

"As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons" who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text," Daschle wrote. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."

Daschle wrote that Congress also rejected draft language from the White House that would have authorized the use of force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States," not only against those responsible". http://www.washingtonpost.com,

Impeach, Convict, Remove

2005-12-22T11:15:00.000-10:00

Restore Democracy

Impeach Bush &Cheney

President Bush has publicly admitted to authorizing the warrantless surveillance of American citizens in violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) He said he had re-authorized the warrantless surveillance more than 30 times. The 1978 Act makes it a felony with a five year maximum and a $10,000.00 fine for each violation of the statute.

FISA creates a secret federal court to rule on warrant applications under FISA. Since 1978, over 19000 warrant applications have been made to the court. Up to 2002, no warrant applications had been refused. Since 2002 and under the Bush administration some 4 applications have been questioned by the court, while one was denied. That denial was appelled to a special appellate court, the first such appeal in the FISA court's history. The appellate court reversed the district court's denial of the warrant.

The FISA act provides that it is the exclusive procedure for the authorization of foreign intelligence surveillance involving American citizens on American territory.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Bush is claiming that as commander in chief of the military, as conferred by Article II of the Constitution, and under the September, 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against those who committed the 9-11 attacks and their supporters, he has the inherent right to authorize warrantless searches without applying for FISA warrants through the FISA court. Initially he claimed that the government had to act very swiftly to surveil potential terrorists and this need for speed obviated the requirement to get warrants from the FISA court.

When confronted by the provision in the FISA statute which allowed the government to begin surveillance immediately without a warrant so long as they applied for a warrant within 72 hours, General Michael Hayden then claimed that doing the paperwork for the FISA warrant was "inconvenient".

Bush is claiming the right to ignore any statutes which he decides interfer with his ability to
conduct the war on terror. He successfully claimed, in the Padilla case, that he had the right to detain an American citizen as an "enemy combatant" without charging him with a crime or according him the right to counsel, the right to trial by jury, the right to bail, or any of the other rights according to American citizens in our Bill of Rights. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed that Bush had that power. Padilla has since sought review by the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will review the lower court's decision.

The Bush administration has made no effort at all to ask the Congress to amend the FISA Act to make it more "convenient" for conducting surveillance. They have chosen to simply ignore FISA and the warrant requirement.

Bush's theory that he has the right to surveil without warrants and detain American citizens without according him normal constitutional rights, suggests that Bush is claiming that he has
the right to ignore any Constitutional provisions or criminal laws which he considers inconvenient. This is contrary to the fundamental structural underpinning of the American government of checks and balances in which the Congress is given the power to create the laws and the president has the authority to carry out those laws; both to be subject to review by the judicial branch.

Bush has sought to avoid judicial review of questionable policies by locating imprisonment of detainees from Afghanistan and elsewhere in Cuba and in secret prisons in eastern Europe, Asia, and Diego Garcia island, among other places. He has employed extreme interrogation methods in those secret prisons, as well as sending detainees to countries who employ torture for interrogations. Bush and Cheney adamently opposed Senator John McCain's bill prohibiting the use of torture against any detainee.

In Bush's State of the Union speech in 2003, he suggested that his administration had arranged for terrorists to "disappear", a practice formerly associated only with Latin American dictatorships. This president and his administration believe that they have the right to violate U.S. laws with impunity.

Since coming to office, President Bush has consistently attempted to avoid congressional and judicial oversight. He claims the right to an imperial presidency under color of his "commander in chief" role. No U.S. Supreme Court decision has ever held that the president has the authority to ignore U.S. statutes or constitutional provisions. He took an oath to execute the laws faithfully, not to assassinate them.

The Constitution provides that the president, vice president and all government officers can be impeached for commiting treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors.

Bush has admitted to violating the FISA criminal statute on 30 or more occasions, which amounts to 30 or more felonies. Oversight of the warrantless surveillance took place in the vice president's office. Both Bush and Cheney must be impeached and removed.

A FEW QUESTIONS FOR MRS. CHENEY.....

2005-09-19T08:28:00.000-10:00

Submitted to Mrs. Cheney via "Ask the White House" web interview of 9/18/05

Mrs. Cheney:

Can you tell us precisely where you and Vice President Cheney were and what you both were doing each day from August 28, 2005 to Saturday, September 3, 2005?

Between August 28, 2005 and Friday, September 2, 2005, on what dates did you or Vice President Cheney watch TV news? For how long on each respective day did you watch TV news concerning the Katrina hurricane and flooding?

If you know, where was Donald Rumsfeld and what was he doing on those same dates from August 28th to September 3rd?

On what day did you close the purchase of your new Maryland property?

On what date did your husband first learn that power companies in the North East needed fuel diverted for their use? Who did he call and when did he call or otherwise communicate the need for the diversion of fuel to the power companies?

Do you or Vice President Cheney own any stock in any of the power companies who received the diverted fuel or in any companies which were dependent upon those power companies for fuel?

Does Vice President Cheney or you own any stock or stock options in any of the companies which have received no-bid contracts from the government for repairs or restoration of Katrina storm or flood damage? If so, please identify each company in which you or Vice President Cheney own stock or stock options.

On what days between Sunday, August 28th and Friday, September 2, 2005 did you or Vice President Cheney talk with President Bush about the Katrina storm or flood damage or the delays by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security in getting rescue workers, food, water and medical care to Katrina victims? What was the nature of each such conversation?

What, if any, immediate steps were taken, and when, by you, Vice President Cheney or President Bush to personally order immediate relief to Katrina victims? When was the requested aid first delivered to actual victims in La, Ms. or Alabama?

In hindsight, what steps would you, Vice President Cheney and/or President Bush have taken to provide timely rescue, supplies and safe, sanitary accommodations to Katrina victims?

Are you aware that neither Mr. Chertoff, Mr. Brown nor five out of the eight other top FEMA officials have any training or professional experience in emergency management? Do you feel safer today than you did five years ago when a trained emergency management professional, James Witt, was running the FEMA agency under the Clinton administration?

Do you agree with President Bush that workers in the flooded Gulf states should be paid less than the prevailing wages in their job categories in the disaster areas?

Do you believe that reducing the wages of Katrina victims and recovery workers, many of whom lost everything they owned in the storms and floods, will assist these citizens to re-establish sane lives? If so, please explain your answer.

Do you believe that all CEO's and executive officers of firms receiving federal contracts for flood repairs and reconstruction, such as Halliburton, should be ordered by President Bush to donate the value of at least one year's salary and all stock options to local recovery charities?

If not, why should low wage workers be forced to donate from their salaries to the companies employing them?

Were you present during any meetings with Karl Rove and other government officials when Rove directed that state and local Democratic officials should be blamed for the delays in getting aid to the residents of the disaster areas?

Did you receive a copy of any "talking points" intended to divert press and public from blaming FEMA or President Bush for their inexcusable incompetence in failing to provide aid to our Southern citizens? Who drafted any such talking points and when were they given to you? On how many occasions did you use them in public interviews?

Were you aware that Governor Blanco requested federal emergency aid on August 26, 2005?

What, in your view, is the reason that emergency assistance requested from the federal government on August 26, 2005 was not supplied by the federal government by August 29, 2005, or even by September 2, 2005, and in some cases has still not arrived in the affected areas?

As a mother and grandmother, are you concerned that the failure of our Environmental Protection Agency and FDA to regulate mercury and other poisons in our water, soil, air and even children's vaccination serum may damage them? What steps have you taken personally to reduce pollution damage in our environment?

Are you aware that Vice President Cheney has apparently ordered the military to prepare a plan for attack on Iran which includes the use of nuclear weapons?

Are you aware that the nuclear weapons we are already using in Iraq, in the form of depleted uranium, cannot be removed from the environment or the human body and remains deadly to humans and our food chain for at least its half life of 4.5 billion years?

Are you aware that the cancer rate among children in Iraq has increased at least 600% since depleted uranium was first used in the First Gulf War?

Are you aware that our soldiers are being poisoned, some to death, by depleted uranium for which there is no treatment, and that some soldiers have produced horribly mutant children as a result of the depleted uranium exposure?

What have you done to stop your husband's reckless and irrational push for the use of any nuclear weapons against anyone?

Thank you in advance for addressing these questions. Most of them have not been asked by the national media. Do you have any idea why not?

Best wishes on your new 2 + million dollar beachfront property in Maryland. I'm sure it is big enough to house many homeless Katrina victims. Can you tell us how many of the homeless you have housed there or in your Jackson Hole, Wyoming property so far?

[ End -- And Don't Hold Your Breath for A Reply]

I'm Left Speechless by Bush Disasters

2005-09-17T19:54:00.000-10:00

Mot Juste:

Thanks to:

Steve Clemons:Thanks to JI for sending this photo -- which I offer you in humor.

-- Steve Clemons"
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/

FEMA REFUSED TO ALLOW HELP INTO NEW ORLEANS

2005-09-02T21:50:00.000-10:00

Not only did the Bush Administration withdraw funding for levee repairs in New Orleans, not only did they fail to pre-position ships with emergency supplies and personnel prior to the Katrina hit, not only did they fail to provide assistance in evacuating the city prior to the Katrina storm, but...

INCREDIBLE! The Bush Government refused to allow Canadian rescue teams to cross the northern border, [the determined Canadians put their teams and equipment on boats and sailed to Louisana, where state officials let them in to help.]

FEMA also refused to allow fourteen airboats from Florida to enter the city for search and rescue work, as well as refusing former Vice President Gore's donated air planes to remove hospital patients from N.O. Naturally Bush refused offers of medical personnel and supplies from Cuba and oil and gas from Venezuela, but....

EVEN MORE INCREDIBLE: FEMA prohibited the American Red Cross from bringing food and water to the refugees in the N.O. Convention Center and Sports complex on the grounds that if the Red Cross brought in emergency supplies, the refugees wouldn't want to leave the city. People, including babies, were dying there from dehydration and FEMA intentionally ignored them.

Bush and FEMA officials Should be Criminally Prosecuted For Negligent Homicide If Not Manslaughter.

Red Cross NEVER allowed into New Orleans.
by SteveRose [Subscribe]

Fri Sep 2nd, 2005 at 18:02:05 PDT
My first diary! This whole week has been so depressing. My Red Cross donation was one bright spot. At least I had done something to help.

Then, after reading dKos and the other blogs all week and seeing over and over again comments that that FEMA and the NG were no where to be seen from the people on the ground in NO, I was wondering where the Red Cross was in all this. They were never mentioned. It was like they didn't exist. And, after yesterday's drama at the convention center, the Brown and Chertoff lies, the Red Cross was still MIA. Then, earlier today, I saw a note that the Red Cross was not allowed to enter NO. Hmm, that's doesn't make sense. This simmered for a couple hours.

So I called the Red Cross and asked them if its true....

[editor's note, by SteveRose] updated to more blatant title.

SteveRose's diary :: ::

And, to my surprise, the nice lady answering the phone said it was true and they told/asked/ordered not to enter NO. She then went right into her spiel about all the other work the Red Cross was doing across the region. I said that's nice, but I still didn't understand why they weren't in NO. To my amazement, she patiently explained it to me. I even called back to verify what she said. This time she asked if I was media, I said no, just a concerned and confused contributor.

So here goes: Homeland Security (her term, not mine) told the Red Cross DO NOT enter New Orleans and says this still now. And why, you may ask? Not Security. Not worker safety. Not lack of access. It was because people would be drawn to the Red Cross food and they wouldn't want to go to be evacuated. So I asked: "The people starving and dying at the convention center yesterday couldn't get Red Cross food and water because they would be drawn to the food at the convention center, where they were, and not want to be evacuated from the convention center where no evacuations were going on or planned and all the while they are dying". (Actually, it was a couple questions.) She went back into her spiel about all of the other good work they were doing. When I asked again, she said yes, that was true. She seem relieved to admit it.

In closing, I asked if she asked this question before since she was very familiar with the answer she gave. She said yes. And I promised another donation. Which they will get after this post.

So, the question for Bushies, why was the Red Cross banned from NO when they knew people were starving? Could it be they were saving the convention center rescue until Bush's visit today? It certainly seems like it. Doesn't it?

Red Cross National Affairs number (202-303-5551)

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Is This Why U.K. Joined the Iraq Invasion?

2005-08-25T05:44:00.000-10:00

Blair to Get $855,000 Job with Bush
Family Pals in the Carlyle Group

Exclusive By Rupert Hamer

08/22/05 "Sunday Mirror" -- -- TONY Blair is expected to join one of the most exclusive groups of businessmen in the world after he leaves Downing Street.

The PM is being lined up for a highly lucrative position with the Carlyle Group - an American-based investment giant with strong links to the White House and the defence industry.

The firm has been nicknamed "The Ex-Presidents Club" because it has had a host of former world leaders on its books including George Bush Senior, his former secretary of state James Baker and former British PM John Major. There a also a large number of former US Army top brass.

Mr Blair has been keeping quiet about his plans after his departure from Number 10 - which could be as early as 2007 according to some Labour insiders.

But sources in the City have revealed that he is "seriously considering" a high-profile role with Carlyle - which manages $30billion (£20million) of investments worldwide.

The job could net Mr Blair up to £500,000 a year for only a few days work a month giving speeches and making "networking" trips on behalf of the company.

The move comes after it emerged that the premier's financial affairs are in an increasingly perilous state His dream home has crashed in value by £700,000 in just seven months and he and Cherie have to find £13,000 a month for the mortgage.

The £3million loan the couple took out to buy the house in London's Connaught Square is 17 times Mr Blair's current salary.

[End of Fair Use Quote from Sunday Mirror]]

But Who Pays His $22,000 A Month Mortgage?

Carlyle is the former financial home of George Bush, Sr. and a number of Bin Laden family investments.

Upon George Bush Senior's forced retirement from the presidency, he became Carlyle's ambassador plenipotentiary to the top officials in all the countries he'd visited as U.S. president, giving Carlyle immediate entree for its desired investments as well as enormous cachet to match its vast cash. It is the top private equity investment firm in the world.

A job offer from Carlyle at U.S. $855,000 a year --for just a few days work a month--might just turn the head of a previously modest Labour Party official and lawyer. Would it turn the official's head far enough to buy an otherwise unjustified military invasion of Iraq?

Hamer reports that Blair's new U.S. $5,130,000 house is 17 times his yearly salary of approximately $25,000 a month, and he is scrambling to make the $22,000 a month mortgage payments.

Poor dear. He could hold rent parties or take in boarders to make the mortgage but surely President Bush's Dad would float Tony a loan to cover his monthly payments until he's on board at Carlyle. After all, Blair did go to the trouble of invading Iraq just to keep young George company, and what's a $264,000 a year loan among friends?

If Blair put the usual ten percent down on his 5 million dollar house, he would have plunked down $513,000 in cash. Dare we ask where that came from? The families of the dead British soldiers certainly should.

Didn't glorious young George have lots of loose millions in cash lying around in Iraq? Perhaps he gave Tony a tip off the top? Thats the least he could do when he refused Blair's pleas to sign the Kyoto Treaty or to make a substantial contribution to Blair's povery fund.

But Bush does believe in rewarding loyal friends, as long as it doesn't damage his standing with his neo-conservative pals and as long as it doesn't come out of his his own pocket. Didn't Bush hand out a few billion in non-bid contracts to his friend Cheney's Halliburton firm as well as to several Carlyle owned defense contractors? That money came from the US tax payers and Iraqi oil profits.

But what the hell is the head of the British Labour Party doing with a five million dollar house and a $22,000 a month mortgage? Why is the head of the British Labour Party, the ruling British prime minister, taking a job with the wealthiest capitalist investment company in the world?

Carlyle, which owns many defense contractor companies, has made billions off the Iraq war. Did it first buy off the British Prime Minister with a job offer to smooth the way toward Britain's active participation in the invasion, even though Blair and all his advisors knew the factually unjustifiable invasion was illegal?

Will we next learn that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been on the Carlyle's payroll as well? That might explain their odd enthusiasm for "staying the course to accomplish the mission" in Iraq.

Exactly What is the Remaining Mission in Iraq?

The remaining mission in Iraq obviously does not include ferreting out weapons of mass destruction. All Bush's carefully chosen expert ferretors, who ferreted to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, had to admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq.

The remaining mission in Iraq obviously does not include removing Saddam as a threat to us and his neighbors. He is in jail and on the fast track to being executed before he can tell how much help, and what chemical and biological weapons he was given for his fight with Iran, by that now cannonized saint of Washington National Airport and the Republican Party, President Ronald Reagan.

And for heaven sakes don't let Saddam bring up George Bush Senior's treasonous manipulations to forestall Iran from releasing the American hostages before the November election. That stopped President Carter's re-election. It was just pure luck that Iran released those hostages on the very day that Reagan and Bush Senior were sworn into office.

Then of course, Saddam must be convicted and killed before he tells all he probably knows about the details of Bush Senior's involvement in selling weapons to our terrorist enemy, Iran, so he could funnel the profits to the right wing Contra's to fund their illegal war against the duly elected Sandinistas government.

But who cares about that old Iran-Contra business anyway? People have long forgotten that Congress specifically prohibited our government from giving funds or aid the Contras. Most of those who were convicted for their illegal smuggling or perjury, were pardoned by Bush Senior. Now many of those same criminals have been re-hired to prestigious jobs in the current Bush administration. The Bush family is truly loyal to the crooks who serve them. Karl Rove needn't worry a bit.

Well, we've now learned that for several years prior to the 2003 Iraq invasion, Saddam was too busy writing romance novels to organize any threats against the US or his neighbors, and, besides, he didn't have any of the necessary weapons. Isn't it a shame that the CIA's intelligence on Iraq was so bad?

We'll Fire Our Nukes on Iraq, to Stop Nuclear Proliferation

Saddam's neighbor and old enemy, Iran, is severely threatened now -- by us, or more properly by Bush and his band of rogue neo-conservative terrorists -- who are threatening to attack Iran with "tactical" nuclear weapons no less.

Or, if it seems more politically expedient, Bush will allow Israel to carry the nuclear bombs to Iran. Don't worry, it will all appear to be perfectly legal. To justify their pre-emptory attacks on Iran, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld will stage....

Yet Another Fake Pearl Harbor?

A recent British publication reported that Vice President Cheney had directed the Pentagon to prepare plans for an attack on Iran if the US was the target of another terrorist attack, whether or not Iran had any connection to the terrorist attack. (And whether or not it was a "real" terrorist attack or one Cheney cooked up to look that way).

[ Funny, I thought our founding fathers only gave war powers to the president. I guess Bush hasn't read that far in the Constitution or maybe he likes having his co-president Cheney do all that annoying reading and, while Cheney does all the hard work, like starting wars, Bush can go blissfully off on his bike rides and five week vacations.]

As I write, while Bush "vacates" in Crawford and hides from Cindy Sheehan, Cheney is busy making plans for the imposition of martial law on the country "if there should be another terrorist attack". Cheney really means "when he orchestrates the next fake terrorist attack, not "if".

Right on point are several American news reports relating the Pentagon's extraordinary demotion of a four star general who only has a few months before his retirement date.

The Associated Press reports that General Kevin Byrnes was "relieved of his duties" because he had unpermitted telephone communications with a civilian woman to whom he was not married, while he was separated from his wife and awaiting the final divorce decree. There was no suggestion of sexual harassment complaints against the General, and the telephone calls in question were apparently mutually consensual.

General Byrnes was one of only eleven four star generals in our military.

The Pentagon probably spends half a billion dollars or more training and grooming a four star. It wouldn't toss that investment out lightly, and certainly not for the military equivalent of failing to walk within the white lines of a pedestrian crossing. The General was not even alleged to have known the woman in question while he was still living with his wife.

Another American website report (www.arcticbeacon.com) makes more logical, if much more terrifying, sense: General Byrnes, in charge of all the military Training and Doctrine programs, was demoted because he had interfered with the execution of a Cheney plan to use a live nuclear weapon in a training exercise which would intentionally be detonated in Charlestown, South Carolina attributed to terrorists, Iranian terrorists. The nuclear detonation would be blamed on Iranians terrorists, thus giving the US and Israel legal justification for an immediate nuclear attack on Iran.

General Byrnes was in charge of the "nuclear terrorist attack drill" to take place in Charleston, South Carolina in August.

There is also an assertion that General Byrnes was part of a group of Army officers who were actively working to prevent the Pentagon's neo-conservatives from starting a nuclear war on Iran which would might cause a general global conflagation.

If this story is true, my deep thanks to General Byrnes and all those working with him. Your actions, along with those of Cindy Sheehan and all her supporters, may help us to stop this mad cabal of war mongers and profiteers.

If the story about the General Byrnes interfering with a faked nuclear terrorist attack has truth to it though, I wonder how the General avoided assassination long enough to be officially demoted.

Byrnes has not made any public statements. I pray he lives long enough to tell his tale in sworn testimony to a joint session of of Congress. That's what it may take to wake our Congressional delegations and our citizens to fact that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are quite prepared to re-enact the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on US towns just so they can justify nuking Iran to control its oil.

Maybe its just pure fantasy that Cheney is planning to fake a terrorist attack and to nuke Iran. But what worries me is that Cheney's statements concerning the nuclear threat presented by Iran are so very, very similar to his statements about the non-existent weapons of mass destruction and nuclear program in Iraq. It appears quite likely that like the 9-11 attacks which set the stage for the Iraq invasion, Cheney would welcome a terrorist attack if it meant he could permanently change Iran's regime by "tactical" nuking of all its leaders around Tehran and points north, while leaving its southern oil fields uncontaminated so they could be seized.

See Greg Syzmanski for details. [Warning: I just saw a web note saying that Syzmanski makes up stories, but who can tell fiction from fact with this insane administration?]

Footnote 1: The story of Cheney's planned fake nuclear attack for 2005 brings to mind the questions many of us had about whether the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the 9-11 attack and just let it happen. Now I wonder if they had that foreknowledge of the 9-11 attack because they engineered it.

Syzmanski quotes a former Vietnam War and Pan Am pilot who flew the same planes that crashed into buildings on 9-11:

Concerning 9/11, Wittenberg knew right off the bat the hijackers - who couldn’t handle a Piper Cub - couldn’t fly the ‘big birds” he flew for so many years, knowing the planes were also incapable of performing such high speed maneuvers as the government claimed.

He also knew the possibility of jet fuel bringing down the towers made no sense. ["Jet fuel burns cold, not hot", he said.] In fact, he knew the whole 9/11 story made about as much sense as crossing the Atlantic in a row boat...* * *

Knowing the flight characteristics of the “big birds” like the back of his hand, Wittenberg convincingly argued there was absolutely no possibility that Flight 77could have “descended 7,000 feet in two minutes, all the while performing a steep 270 degree banked turn before crashing into the Pentagon’s first floor wall without touching the lawn.”

Wittenberg claimed the high speed maneuver would have surely stalled the jetliner sending it into a nose dive, adding it was “totally impossible for an amateur who couldn’t even fly a Cessna to maneuver the jetliner in such a highly professional manner, something Wittenberg said he couldn’t do with 35 years of commercial jetliner experience.

footnote 2: I watched a tall building being imploded in Honolulu years ago. I repeatedly watched a video of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 which was not hit by any airplanes and suffered no fuel explosions. Building 7 collapsed as neatly into its own footprint as the professionally set detonation of that Honolulu building. Odd.

footnote 3: Another web site linked to Syzmanski's asserts that the outing of Valerie Plame was not a personal attack on her career, but was the intentional destruction of the CIA front company where she worked and the undercover status of its many operatives around the world. It states that the leaking of Plame's undercover role at the CIA's energy company was devastating to the CIA's capacity to track nuclear weapons, and may have resulted in the deaths of some of its agents or sources.

The site suggests that knocking out all the CIA's surveillance capabilities on nuclear weapons components, especially those known to be badly secured in Russia, allowed Israel's intelligence operation, Mossad, to be the only source of information on their location at any given time. Mossad's control over the all information about the Russian nukes would allow them to claim a nuke had been stolen by Iranian terrorists. The intentional detonation of a similar nuke on US soil could then be attributed to the Iranians, providing the US and Israel with the preferred legal justification for the immediate nuking Iran.

Footnote 4: This article rings true concerning the substantial consequences suffered by the CIA as a result of illegal disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. The Appellate Court's opinion upheld the appealed order to journalist Judith Miller to testify before the grand jury concerning information she received from a putative confidential source concerning the identity of Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative on nuclear proliferation issues. The Appellate Court emphasized the seriousness of the crime, which had to mean its adverse impact on the CIA and its other proliferation agents.

Democracy Means that He Who Stuffs the Most Votes in the Ballot Box Wins, No?

The remaining mission in Iraq isn't to establish a democracy. Bush dispensed with democracy when he successfully stole two presidential elections in the U.S. His luck was not as good in Iraq. Even though he loaded his chosen election candidates with money, media coverage, intelligence, his candidates lost badly.

But even without the benefit of the easily altered electronic voting equipment, Bush's boys gave it the old college try. They simply extended the vote counting for a few days to allow them to manually fix the vote totals so that the winning party didn't carry a voting majority of the total, and had to enlist allies to carry to the day. But even with the vote fixing, Bush soon lost control of the constitutional drafting process.

The winning Shi'ite fundamentalists are now in the process of approving the theocratic constitution they drafte which enshrines Islam as the official state religion and the basic source of law, putting Islamic Shar'ia rules in force as the determinant of family and domestic law.

Shi'ite Iran, which trained and protected Iraqi Shi'ite mullahs during Saddam's anti-Shi'ite, anti-clerical regime, will be delighted. As the apt saying goes, " Bush went to war on Iraq -- and Iran won." And Iraqi women lost.

Occupation Subverts Iraqis Women's Rights

Even before Islam becomes the official state religion and source of law, women are being attacked in the streets, even in the Universities, for not wearing scarfs or otherwise dressing and acting as mandated by the Sadr Shi'ite mullahs. Acid has been thrown in the faces of the non-compliant. Women fear to stand for election because targetted assassination is a distinct possibility.

[There were more homicides in Iraq this past July than there were in the all of New York City for the year 2004, so homicide, targeted or otherwise, is a distinct possibility for all Iraqi citizens.]

Women can no longer walk to work, school or shopping alone, not only because of fear of the Shi'ite extremists, but because the rate of rape and kidnapping is so high. Bush has failed to provide even minimal civil security from crime; such crime control as there is is being carried out by armed party or religious militias.]

Well, Bush never said that accomplishing the mission in Iraq meant preserving women's rights -- to dress as they wish, to go to work, school or shopping without a male relative as chaperon, to marry, to divorce and to obtain custody of their children. Perhaps when the religious extremists begin chopping off the fingers of women who wear the forbidden nail polish, Laura Bush and Cherie Blair will take an interest.

The civil rights that women had under Saddam's secular regime, however despotic in other respects, produced more highly educated, employed women than anywhere else in the Middle East. Now access to higher education and employment for many women will no longer be possible.

The Real Reasons for the Invasion of Iraq

The only missions remaining to be accomplished in Iraq are the real reasons we invaded that country in the first place. They are the reasons Bush refuses to leave.

He wants permanent U.S. control of Iraqi oil fields and the establishment of 14 military bases there, so US can control access to oil by other countries, especially China and Russia, and so the US can bully the rest of the Middle East into keeping their oil sales in dollars, not Euros, - following the dictates of our neo-conservative rulers. When these conditions are satisfied, we can reward our Israeli friends with an oil pipeline direct from the Iraqi oil fields to Israel.

We haven't had the opportunityto bomb Iran and seize its southern oil fields yet, nor have we managed to change the regime in Syria to a more US-compliant ruler. Those items remain on the Bush-Cheney-Sharon "To Do" list for their mission in the Middle East.

Thus are recited above the noble causes for which Casey Sheehan, 2000 other US soldiers and some hundred thousand Iraqis have given their lives -- and will continue to give their lives until our troops are all brought home and Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all their neo-conservative would-be world rulers are removed from office.

Bush Cheerleads As Our Soldiers Play for Keeps

Our President Bush is so deeply endowed with "noblesse oblige" that he will manfully stay the course until the last US soldier and the last Iraqi has died for his noble cause of US control of oil resources and the 14 military bases which will provide US dominance over the entire the Middle East.

Meanwhile the formerly Laborite Blair is going off to toil dutifully in the fields of capitalist filth for the Carlyle Group, so he can continue to pay his $22,000 a month mortgage. Is that the noble cause for which British soldiers have died, and for which more will die if their troops remain with ours in Iraq?

We must stop this madness and restore our constitutional democracy before we are all sweating in Gulag Gitmo wondering how the hell we lost our country in five short years.

Bush Is So Afraid of Cindy, He Declared Her a Threat to National Security

2005-08-11T14:31:00.000-10:00

GO CINDY!

DONATE AT WWW.CRAWFORDPEACEHOUSE.COM

RUMSFELD COULDN'T ORGANIZE A SUCCESSFUL WAR, MAYBE HE'LL DO BETTER AT A PARADE

2005-08-11T14:25:00.000-10:00

Nothing Honors the Dead like an Old-Fashioned Hoedown

Posted by James Wolcott

When one thinks of the great showmen and impresarios who have brought to world so much culture and entertainment, certain names step to the fore.

Diaghilev. P.T. Barnum. Billy Rose. Mike Todd. Sol Hurok. Ed Sullivan.

Now add another name to that illustrious roster.

Secretary of Defense and future host of the Grand Ol' Opry, Donald Rumsfeld.

"PENTAGON TO HOST
9/11 MARCH, SHOW

BY MICHAEL McAULIFF
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will hold a massive march and country music concert to mark the fourth anniversary of 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an unusual announcement tucked into an Iraq war briefing yesterday.

"'This year the Department of Defense will initiate an America Supports You Freedom Walk,' Rumsfeld said, adding that the march would remind people of 'the sacrifices of this generation and of each previous generation.'

"The march will start at the Pentagon, where nearly 200 people died on 9/11, and end at the National Mall with a show by country star Clint Black."

Rumsfeld was disappointed that famed documentarian Leni Riefensthahl will be unable to film the event for posterity because, well, she's dead. But he's pleased as punch ("you bet!") that he'll be able to duet with Clint Black as they perform Rumsfeld's original honkytonk composition "It Takes Big Feet to Fill Big Boots (and I'm in the High Teens, Baby)."

Here Comes the Recessive UN Ambassador, the Epitome of the Mayberry Machiavellies

2005-07-30T01:00:00.000-10:00

I am the WALRUS or Lewis Carroll=Nostradamus (none / 1)

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"

My Name is John Bolton, and I'm Here to Stop The Diplomacy

by Hunter

Fri Jul 29th, 2005 at 20:27:32 PDT

It's been a long, winding road of "misstatements", forged intelligence, botched diplomacy, and spectacular tales of obsessive "kick-down" middle management vengeance, but it's looking like a recess appointment of John Bolton as America's U.N. Ambassador is likely to happen in the next few days. Current reports are citing officials inside the White House saying Bush wants to get it over with before he leaves for his summer vacation. (No, I'm not kidding. It's like he's a kid packing for camp or something.)

If North Korean Terrorists Attack U.S., Cheney Will Nuke Iran

2005-07-23T23:27:00.000-10:00

Justin Logan excerpts an article that's apparently in the print issue of The American Conservative:
The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing--that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack--but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

Thanks to http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/

Johnny Bolton & Judy Miller, Up in a Tree, L-E-A-K-I-N-G

2005-07-22T14:43:00.000-10:00

SCOOP from WashingtonNote.com:

John Bolton Was Regular Source for Judith Miller WMD and National Security Reporting.

TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.

The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.

It's all "thickening."

ROVE DID IT AND LIED ABOUT DOING IT

2005-07-19T23:50:00.000-10:00

Here's what one of the judges (4.00 / 5)

that ruled against Cooper and Miller wrote:

Applying this standard to the facts of this case, and considering first only the public record, I have no doubt that the leak at issue was a serious matter. Authorized "to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to intefere with, [Fitzegerald's] investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses..."

Concurring opinion of Judge Tatel, United States Court of Appeal, District of Columbia Circuit ruling against Miller in Cooper on February 15, 2005.

When They Ask You Why We Died, Tell Them That Our Fathers Lied -- Rudyard Kipling

2005-07-10T21:41:00.000-10:00

A variety of emotions wash over me as I reflect on our Iraq war: Disbelief at the length of time it took to call an insurgency by its name. Alarm at our continuing failure to promote at wartime speed the colonels and generals who have a talent for fighting it, while also failing to sweep aside those who do not. Incredulity at seeing decorations pinned on the chests and promotions on the shoulders of senior leaders -- both civilians and military -- who had the helm when things went badly wrong. Disdain for the general who thinks Job One is simply whacking the bad guys and who, ever conscious of public relations, cannot admit that American soldiers have tortured prisoners or, in panic, killed innocent civilians. Contempt for the ghoulish glee of some who think they were right in opposing the war, and for the blithe disregard of the bungles by some who think they were right in favoring it. A desire -- barely controlled -- to slap the highly educated fool who, having no soldier friends or family, once explained to me that mistakes happen in all wars, and that the casualties are not really all that high and that I really shouldn't get exercised about them.

The above is from an article by Eliot Cohen in the Washington Post today (7/10/05). Cohen, a military historian and a rabid neo-conservative, was one of the founding members of the Project for a New American Century and one of the architech's of their plan for Total US World Dominance, the plan which Bush and his top thugs have been trying to carry out, starting with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Funny, I guess when Cohen found out his soldier son was about to be shipped to Iraq to fight, he got a bit concerned about the incompetents who are running this war. He still supports the idea of invading Iraq, he's just critical of how it's being carried out.

If all their sons and daughters had to go to risk their lives in Iraq, this war would never have been started.

CONTEMPT FOR JUDITH MILLER, NY TIMES STENOGRAPHER -- AND A NUMBER OF OTHERS

2005-07-01T00:51:00.000-10:00

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its order refusing to review the Federal District Court's orders to Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper to testify before the grand jury investigating the the illegal disclosure of an undercover CIA agent's identity, now known as the
"Plame" case.

Miller now faces jail if she persists in refusing to testify concerning information she presumbably received from Bush Administration operatives that former ambassador Joe Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA agent. Miller refused to testify on the grounds that, as a journalist, she was priviledged to refuse to disclose her sources.

There is no absolute privilege protecting journalists from disclosing their sources. It is only a "quasi-priviledge". Generally, in a routine civil case, to obtain testimony or evidence from a journalist who claims priviledge, the party requesting the journalist's evidence must show that either that the information sought cannot be obtained from any other source or that reasonable efforts to obtain the evidence elsewhere have been fruitless, further efforts would be unduly burdensome, and that the requested evidence is material to a substantial issue in dispute in the case.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has likely made the required representations to the trial court to justify calling Miller and Cooper as a witness; the details are unknown as his affidavit is sealed.

The Federal District judge ordered Miller to testify before the grand jury or he would put her in jail. She refused, claiming the journalists' priviledge and appealed his order to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals upheld his order and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the lower courts' decisions, leaving Miller to face jail unless she decides to testify.

This Special Prosecutor's case against Miller seems odd because Robert Novak, not Judith Miller, was the journalist who initially received the embargoed information on Wilson's wife. Novak, not Miller, is the one who wrote the nationally syndicated column which disclosed Plame's status as a CIA "operative", thus destroying her "cover".

Novak wrote the story by way of attacking Joe Wilson, demeaning him, and reducing his credibility by asserting that Wilson only got the Niger trip thanks to his wife who was a "CIA operative". He suggested that CIA agent Plame was guilty of nepotism for sending her ex-ambassador husband to Niger to investigate a putative uranium sale to Iraq.

("This Joe Wilson is just an unemployed has been who used his wife to get him a job. He's just living off of her. Don't believe anything he says about Niger or uranium. He's not a physicist, what does he know?" That was the song that Karl Rove composed, the anonymous "senior White House officials" put to music and gave to Novak to sing. Novak sang loud, but was way off tune.)

Ambassador Wilson, having once been a diplomat in Niger, knew all the key political and business folks there, and spoke fluent French, the lingua franca of Niger. Wilson, who had been honored by the first President George Bush for his heroism in protecting American citizens in Iraq at the onset of the first Iraq war and who was formerly the American Ambassador to the African state of Gabon, was willing to go to Niger for nothing, and was more than qualified for the assignment of tracking down whether or not yellow cake uranium had been sold to Saddam.

Wilson was not given any of the documents which supposedly proved that Saddam had bought uranium from Niger, but was told that they existed. The documents were later proved to be forgeries. Given his diplomatic knowledge of the country and his fluency in French, it is highly likely Wilson would have discovered that the documents were forgeries as soon as he read them, had he been given them to read. He wasn't.

Wilson's investigation in Niger revealed that the mining of uranium was under the strict control of a multi-national governmental consortium, not the Niger government. The consortium kept almost minute by minute track of all the uranium mined and where and how it was shipped out of Niger and delivered to its owners' countries. Iraq was not an owner nor a designated recipient.

All of the government and business officials Wilson spoke with denied that it would have been possible to sell Saddam uranium "under the counter", especially as Iraq was under strict UN sanctions and continuous US surveillance at the time. The then U.S. Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Fitzpatrick, had also investigated the uranium sales claims and reported to Washington that they were baseless. A U.S. General sent to Niger for the same purpose before Wilson's visit also concluded that the claim was false.

To top it all off, Wilson learned that Saddam already had an large supply of yellow cake uranium, purchased in the 1980's, and would not need to buy more.

Wilson received only expenses for the trip, no consultant fees, and five days schlepping around sub-Saharan Niger would not be most anyone's idea of a "plum" assignment; it was certainly not worthy of a nepotism charge. The CIA expressly denied that Valerie Plame Wilson had any authority in Wilson's selection for the Niger investigation.

When Wilson returned from Niger, he duly reported to the CIA that it was highly unlikely that Saddam had purchased any yellow cake uranium from Niger since the 1980's. He assumed his conclusions were then reported, as was normal protocol, to Vice President Cheney, the person who had asked the CIA for more information on the alleged Niger purchases in the first place.

Ambassador Wilson was shocked when he heard President Bush, in his State of the Union Address in January of 2003, announce that Britain had proof that Saddam had purchased uranium "from Africa". ("Be vague, no one will notice," Rove probably said.)

Weeks after Bush's speech, the International Atomic Energy Agency which had been requesting the documentation supporting the U.S.'s Niger purchase charge since December, 2002, was finally given the documents which purported to recite the uranium purchases.

Virtually within hours of receiving the documents, the IAEACommission established that they were forgeries, and very crude forgeries at that. The Niger official signing the documents had been out of office for several years before the sales documents purporting to bear his signature were supposedly signed. Several official names were misspelled as were a number of French words.

The documents had been given to the American embassy in Rome by an Italian journalist who had received them from an individual with past connections to the Italian equivalent of the American CIA. The journalist later learned that the Rome offices of the Niger embassy had been burgularized a few months before; nothing of value appeared to have been stolen. It is quite likely that what was stolen were some documents and the official Niger stationary used to forge the uranium sales documents.

At one point the Bush administration tried to blame the French for the forged documents. Totally unfair. If intensely francophone France had forged the documents, they would have spelled the French words right. Despite access to the most sophisticated document examination technology in the world, the Bush government has seemingly made no effort to trace the provenance of the forged documents.

For some unfortunate reason, Ambassador Wilson did not immediately inform the world that President Bush's allegations about Saddam having purchased uranium from Niger were false. The Iraq invasion was a fait accompli when he wrote an op ed article in the NY Times in early July of 2003, exposing the falsehood.

For some odd reason -- perhaps Bush, Rice and Rove were all suffering from jet lag that day -- the Bush administration actually admitted that they made a mistake by putting the " uranium was purchased from Africa" claim in the State of the Union speech. (Some unfortunate underling of the terrible triumverate probably got fired for accidentally telling the truth that day.)

The Bush administration, however inadvertently, publicly admitted their mistake, but were enraged at Wilson for revealing the fact that he had warned them about the falsity of the Niger uranium purchase claim at least a year before the President's 2003 State of the Union speech.

Wilson's NY Times article, "What I Didn't Find in Africa" of July 6, 2003, about his February, 2002 trip to Niger, also established that the U.S. ambassador to Niger, Fitzpatrick, had also previously warned Washington that the uranium claim was false. CIA director Tenet later revealed that he had personally warned Bush's national security staff to remove the reference to the uranium purchase from a Bush speech in October, 2002.

Bush operatives proceeded to denigrate Wilson and his qualifications for the Niger investigation, accusing him of being a liberal and a partisan Democrat, although he was on record as having made contributions to Republicans as well as Democrats. As a part of the orchestrated take down of Wilson, one or more Bush officials told journalist Robert Novak that Wilson's wife was a CIA "operative" who had gotten Wilson the job, an attempt to taint Wilson and his wife with a nepotism charge.

Novack, being the oily, Bush sycophant that he is, first tried to get the CIA to admit that Wilson's wife was the CIA operative who got Wilson the Niger job. His source in the CIA urged him not to publish Ms. Plame's CIA affiliation, but he ignored the warning, and laid the whole ugly smear out in his nationally syndicated column.

The disclosure of the identity of a undercover CIA agent by someone who was officially authorized to receive that information and who knew that the named individual was an undercover agent whose identity was being concealed by the government, is a felony under the Federal Intelligence Identities Protection Act, punishable by up to ten years in prison.

Some might call disclosure of an undercover agent's identity treason. (In fact, President Bush's father did call it treason. The senior Bush, a former CIA director, pushed for passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in response to ex-CIA agent Phillip Agee's 1975 book which intentionally disclosed the names of a number of active CIA agents.). Novak, however, likely could not be convicted under that statute because he was not someone who learned that information in an official, authorized capacity. He learned it from an official Bush administration leaker. It's the Bush leakers who could face the ten years in jail.

Novak was not the only journalist who was told about Valerie Plame Wilson's occupation. Karl Rove personally called at least one other journalist to spread the tale, saying that Wilson's wife "was fair game". That journalist immediately called Joe Wilson and told him what Rove had said, which prompted Wilson to say that he looked forward to seeing Karl Rove "being frog marched" out of the White House to jail.

While that might be an idyllic conclusion to the reign of Karl Rove in the Bush White House, there is a catch. If Karl Rove had told journalists that Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA agent after that information had already been published by Novak, then her identity was no longer secret and arguably he couldn't then be charged with unlawfully disclosing it. He certainly can be charged with being a scurrilous miscreant, but he wears that charge like a badge of honor.

Someone from the Bush administration called Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper and told them about Valerie Plame's occupation as well. Miller did not write a story about it,, but the issue of who called her and when is definitely of major importance in Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald's investigation. Cooper did write about it, but long after Novak's piece was published.

Cooper, who works for Time Magazine. has likely been taken off the hook of the testifying dilemna, by Time, Inc., which has announced that Time will turn Cooper's notes and his editor's notes over to the grand jury. Time, Inc. believes that turning over the notes will absolve Cooper from having to testify.

Judith Miller's employer, the New York Times, on the other hand, has announced that it will defend Miller's privilege against disclosure, at least for the time being.

This is not a very strong case for defending the journalist's privilege as the act of disclosing the information to Miller is potentially a felony. If she was an actual witness to a felony or has evidence of one, her information is not priviledged. It may be that Fitzpatrick is no longer looking for proof of the disclosure, but for evidence that one or more witnesses lied when questioned by his investigators or the grand jury. Her information could yield evidence of perjury or an obstruction of justice, even if the violation of the Intelligence Identities Act cannot be proved. (Ask Martha Stewart about the downside of lying to a federal investigator, the only safe way to talk to a federal investigator is to say nothing at all -- just mime your name and home address and keep smiling.)

It's curious that Miller, who dutifully published every lying word which flowed from exiled Iraqi Ahmed Chalabi's lips about the phony existence and locations of all Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction , did not choose to publish the information she received from the Plame informant. (Good heavens, did Miller actually try to confirm the verisimilitude of her informant and fail? Or was she simply extending professional courtesy to Plame, fearing that she herself might one day be outed at the Times as an undercover agent for the Project for a New American Century's neo-conservative cabal?)

The federal District Court judge will likely give Miller the opportunity to change her mind and decide to testify before actually locking her, but she can always get out. This will be a civil (and dignified, no doubt) contempt proceeding.

In civil contempt, the recalcitrant contemnor is seen as "having the key to her jail cell in her own pocket". She can get herself out of jail by agreeing to testify. Once she testifies fully and honestly, she is free, no criminal conviction attaches. Usually, she can only be held in jail for the duration of the term of the grand jury before which she refused to testify. But the prosecutor may then convene a new grand jury, subpoena her again, and if she refuses to testify, its back to jail for the term of the second grand jury, etc.

Of course, if she lies and is proven to have lied, she can be convicted of perjury. If she steadfastly refuses to testify, it is possible that the prosecutor could bring obstruction of justice charges, but he would have have to prove that a crime took place and that she witnessed it or had material evidence concerning its commission which she refused to disclose. That could be difficult to prove if her evidence is the only proof of a crime and she chooses jail rather than testifying.

The federal judge hearing the contempt case has said that Judith Miller can be jailed for up to 120 days unless she uses her key to the jail cell and agrees to testify.

The nice thing about Judith Miller's civil contempt proceeding is that, to the best of my research, a civil contempt proceeding does not constitute "an offense against the United States" and thus cannot be the subject of a presidential pardon or commutation. No criminal conviction or determinate sentence results from a civil contempt order. While Tom Delay and the Republican Schiavoites have threatened to defund the courts they don't like and to restrict the jurisdiction of others, they haven't dared to actually try it yet.

The contempt powers of a court are such a fundamental part of judicial authority, that any attempt at a presidential "cancellation" of a civil contempt proceeding would likely cause a unified and overwhelming uprising of the federal bench.. Imagine hundreds of those normally austere, black robed federal judges staging a mass march on the White House to arrest the president. Indeed, President Bush might find himself in jail for criminal contempt-- with a long determinate sentence -- if he tries it.

Of course, Bush can always order Attorney General Gonzales to fire Prosectutor Fitzpatrick. That happened once before, it was called the Saturday Night Massacre. Nixon lost quite a few troops in that fight.

The disclosure of Plame's identity and the name of the "cover" energy corporation for which she was "employed" was not merely a technical criminal act, it may have gotten people Plame was working with jailed or even killed.

Minimally, everyone else working for her outed energy company will hence forward be tagged as CIA staff. Their future careers as undercover agents are likely destroyed.

It has been reported that Plame's undercover work was in the area of stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. President Bush told us that stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was so vital to American security that we had to invade Iraq to stop Saddam from giving his weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

In taking their petulent revenge against Ambassador Wilson for pulling the covers on their phoney "Saddam bought uranium from Niger" claim, Bush administration officials destroyed an intelligence operation that may have been critical to U.S. security. I think that qualifies as treason, but Bush was insufficiently worried about have a traitor among his senior officials that he didn't even bother to conduct his own investigation to identify those responsible for the illegal disclosures. So we are all left to guess -- until Miller and Cooper relent --as to who the culprits could be.

Some say that an Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (officially tasked with trying to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons) might be a prime candidate. He certainly could have known that Plame was an undercover CIA agent working on WMD proliferation issues. His first deputy was actually still working for the CIA while he worked for the under secretary at the State Department.

Or could it be the guy who got the head of the UN's Chemical Weapons commission fired because he wanted to send his inspectors to Iraq in 2002 to check for chemical weapons? He couldn't allow that, the chemical inspectors might have found no chemical weapons in Iraq, and that would have thrown a monkey wrench in Bush's plan to invade Iraq because it had chemical weapons.

Or maybe it's the same guy who tried to get the head of the Atomic Energy Inspection Agency fired? After all, the AEIA's nuclear weapons inspectors dared to say that there weren't any nuclear weapons in Iraq. That did not exactly comport with Bush's justification for invading Iraq because it had nuclear weapons that it was about to give to Al Qaeda terrorists.

Or maybe it was guy who tried to get the CIA analyst fired for disagreeing with his factually unsupported charges that Cuba was rife with biological and chemical weapons which it intended to use against the U.S.?

Or maybe it was the guy who chased the female AID worker around the hotel and kept pounding on her door because she criticized the company he worked for? Then he falsely told her co-workers that she was about to get charged with fraud for mismanaging project money? Would a guy that crazy out a CIA agent for spite?

Or maybe it was the guy who refused to allow the Justice Department lawyer to take maternity leave when her baby was born?

Or maybe it was the under secretary guy from the State Department who was both a bully and a sycophant, one who reportedly "kissed up and kicked down" much like his life-long friend, Robert Novak, who "sucks up and smears down".

If it was that under secretary John Bolton guy, the one who President Bush nominated for the Ambassadorship to the United Nations, it would be nice to know that before he gets there.

If he gets there, the UN better keep demolition experts on duty as security guards 24/7. If Bolton gets pissed at somebody high up in the UN, he's liable to blow up the top ten floors of the UN building. That would be "no loss" according to Bolton.

Do you suppose that President Bush actually nominated a guy who committed treason to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations? It's definitely possible. I guess that after a president has committed treason himself by taking his country into an illegal war based on deliberate lies, placing a traitorous co-conspirator at the UN seems like a pretty minor play.

I used to think that no president could be more criminal than Nixon. He bombed two countries we weren't at war with and orchestrated surveillance burglaries at the psychiatrists' offices and that of Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate, the word which became synonymous with political corruption. But, considering what Bush has managed to accomplish in corrupt in less than five years, I was wrong. Nixon's crimes were definitely bush league compared to Bush.

With apologies to Judith Miller, it is certainly time for the fat lady to sing.

t

be
"outing" of CIA operative Plame by Bush administration officials in retailiation for her husband's NY Times article contesting Bush's allegation that Iraq had been trying to purchase uranium from Niger

Thank Goodness for Krugman and Herbert at the NY Times

2005-07-01T00:39:00.000-10:00

Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert's honest and accurate descriptions of the American debacle in Iraq almost make up for the duplicity of Judith Miller's front page war mongering for the Bush Administration by channeling the trickster exile, Chalabi.

Krugman (NY Times, 7/1/05) is right, the sooner US troops leave Iraq, the fewer terrorists will be created and trained. The Al Qaeda kidnappers of two French journalists told them before their release that Al Qaeda was voting Bush-Cheney in 2004. Al Qaeda knew that, with Bush in office, they would never need to give out $40,000 bonuses to get their new recruits.

The sooner US troops leave Iraq, the sooner that devastated country will be able to repair their electrical, water and sewerage systems without getting shot or blown up in the process.

Iraq cannot resurrect the hundred thousand or more civilians killed in Bush's illegal war, but perhaps they could then be given a decent burial.

A fitting memorial gift to their dead would be Articles of impeachment and Senate removal of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Hopefully that would save lives in Syria and Iran too, which seem to be the new targets of choice of the neo-conservative oil robbers.

Bush is Certainly Bogged Down

2005-06-10T17:21:00.000-10:00

"
thanks to www.hoffmania.com.

AP BUSH APPROVAL POLL: DOWN TO 43%

Holy shit. They truly are. I'll bet they're REALLY invoking the name of Jesus Christ in the White House this morning.

Associated Press/Ipsos poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs. June 6-8, 2005. N=1,001 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.1.

"Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?" If "mixed feelings" or not sure: "If you had to choose, do you lean more toward approve or disapprove?"

Approve: 43%
Disapprove: 55%
Mixed Feelings: 1%
Not Sure: 1%

Parade for Independence from OIl and Oil Wars

2005-06-10T16:41:00.000-10:00

MARCH FOR PEACE IN THE MAKAWAO INDEPENDENCE DAY PARADE

Saturday, July 2, 2005 at 8:30 a.m. on Aala Street

Call 808 573 3255 for more information

Sensenbrunner Shuts Off Dem Testimony in the Name of Patriotism

2005-06-10T16:19:00.000-10:00

GOP House Judiciary Chair Uses Pinochet Tactics to Abruptly and Unilaterally Shut Down Hearing Into Abuses of the (Un)Patriot Act, Because He Was Afraid the Truth Would Come Out. America: "IT" is Happening Here. Democracy is Being Dismantled by GOP Thugs.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Representative Sensenbrunner shut off microphones and graveled hearing to a close in the midst of Democratic speech and witness testimony.

I wonder what this "Democracy" Bush is so eager to peddle abroad is made of? Bush's democracy doesn't seem to include the rights against unlawful search and seizure, the right to be free from torture, the right to an attorney and due process if detained, the right to bail, and it apparently doesn't include the right to have your elected representative speak and present testimony to Congress.

THANK YOU CONGRESSMAN CONYERS

2005-06-09T16:10:00.000-10:00

Michigan Congressman, John Conyers, was one of the few Democratic politicians to truly work to expose the fraud of the 2004 election. He held hearings and took testimony.

Now Congressman Conyers has taken the lead on the "Downing Street Memo" issue. He wrote a letter to Bush demanding an explanation for his failure to tell the American people and Congress that he had decided on war well prior to asking the Congress's authorization to act. Eighty nine Congressional Representatives signed on to his letter.

Representative Conyers has also begun a petition demanding an independent investigation of the issues raised in the Downing Street Memo. He started with a goal of 100,000 signatures, but the reponse has been so over-whelming that he now is aiming for 500,000. Go to www.moveon.org to sign the letter.

Today Conyers announced that he will be holding public hearings starting June 16, 2005 where testimony will be taken on the lies that Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

For details on the hearings, go to www.bigbrassalliance.org.

Who Do the Republicans Represent? Stop the Circular Firing Squad!

2005-06-09T16:00:00.000-10:00

PAUL BEGALA: ...ABC News has a new poll out. Here's how they described part of President Bush's support.

The only population groups in which majorities say the president is concentrating on issues important to them are Republicans, Evangelical White Protestants, Conservatives and better off Americans.

Former UN ambassador Dansforth wrote recently that the Republican Party had been taken over by the Christian fundamentalists.

But if Howard Dean says it, it's divisive. The Bidens, Liebermans, even the Pelosi's and Obama's need to get out of the circular firing squad, and direct their attacks on Bush and the Republicans who are really dividing our country.

Write them and tell them to stop helping the Republicans by public attacks on Dean. They should make any criticisms they have to him privately. Go to www.congress.org, pick "Congress", then enter the name you are seeking, and write your message. If you want your message e-mailed, its free.

In Memoriam for the Death of Democracy

2005-05-29T15:33:00.000-10:00

http://www.peacecandy.com/gwbush/remindus/

TIME FOR SOME GOOD OLD AMERICAN OUTRAGE

2005-05-18T15:26:00.000-10:00

Newsweek recently published a report that interrogators in Quantanamo had flushed the Koran, the Moslem equivalent of the Bible, down a toilet to humiliate and distress Moslem prisoners. Moslem communities throughout the world took to the streets to express their moral outrage.

The Bush administration demanded that Newsweek retract the story and apologize. It is not as if the story isn’t true.

Numerous similar reports of interrogators attempting to humiliate Moslem prisoners by trashing their religion have emerged since the Bush Administration invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, to say nothing of stories of systematic beatings, shocking detainees’ genitals, putting simulated menstrual blood on their faces, setting vicious dogs upon them, forcing them to masturbate in public and simulate homosexual sex acts, reports detail that some prisoners have been beaten to death, others nearly to death. These reports have been coming from the most reputable of sources – FBI agents and American soldiers who have personally observed these horrors in Gitmo, Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush could end the torture and the revolting renditions to foreign allies known to “take off the gloves” in interrogations with a stroke of his pen, but he hasn’t. Attorney General Gonzales is still defending his treatise on why the Geneva Convention’s prohibition of torture is obsolete. The Pentagon’s response to the myriad reports about US interrogators and guards torturing prisoners, has been to issue orders prohibiting soldiers from bringing their cameras in range of any of our foreign jails, detention camps or interrogation rooms.

Given all the credible evidence that Bush’s policies have expressly permitted not only torture but sexual and religious humiliation, you have to almost admire the colossal arrogance of the Bush Administration’s response to the Newsweek story.

Speaking on behalf of President Bush, press secretary Scott McClellan complained: “This [Newsweek] report had serious consequences. People have lost their lives. The image of the United States has been damaged abroad.”

What has damaged the image of the United States abroad is that over a hundred thousand civilian Iraqis, the majority children under the age of fifteen, have been bombed, shot, beaten, raped and starved to death. Over 1600 American soldiers have been killed, some 30,000 soldiers seriously maimed, made limbless, and handicapped for life by either physical wounds or the emotional trauma of witnessing their buddies being blown to bits or seeing that the passengers they drilled with hundreds of machine gun bullets thinking they were suicide bombers turned out to be an innocent Iraqi family with a passel of young kids.

Their suffering was not a result of a story in Newsweek. It was the result of an arrogant and ignorant administration which took this country to wars on a pack of lies. Bush’s fraudulent invasion “has had serious consequences… People have lost their lives…The image of the United States has been damaged”.

No, not merely damaged. The image of the United States has been irretrievably destroyed throughout the world. We are the most feared of all the terrorists. We are the terrorists who are holding the whole world to ransom, demanding control of all its oil and the use of its land for our military bases.

We threaten war against Iran and North Korea for trying to develop nuclear weapons, while we are the ones actually using the nuclear weapons – for that is what depleted uranium is – and leaving the peoples of Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq with radiation that will keep killing their inhabitants for the next four billion years.

Oh, the US has finally admitted that many of our Gulf War I soldiers – one out of every four of them, are sick and many are dying from depleted uranium poisoning, the poison that damages their genes, producing horribly deformed children.

It is time that we Americans stand up and express our fierce moral outrage at the horrendous acts of terrorism and destruction our government has unleashed in the Middle East and on our own young men, young women and their innocent children.

US Seeks Political Help from Saddam

2005-05-02T16:55:00.000-10:00

RUMSFELD AND SADDAM MEET AGAIN?....Via TalkLeft, Al Jazeera reports that Ynetnews reports that Al-Quds Al-Arabi reports that Donald Rumsfeld paid a secret visit to Saddam Hussein during his visit to Iraq two weeks ago. The purpose of the visit? Rumsfeld "offered him freedom and a possible return to public life if he made a televised request to rebel groups for a ceasefire with allied forces."

Another rumor has it that Saddam agreed to help Rumsfeld out by stopping the insurgency, but drew the line at Rumsfeld's next request.

When Rumsfeld asked Saddam to join a dog and pony show to increase support for privatization, negotiations collapsed.

"That pig just won't hunt." Saddam said, " I refuse to waste my considerable political capitol on a dead pig like privatization of social security. George should give up trying to sell that pig, even with all the lipstick he's put on it."

Let's Have Real "Right to Life" Amendments

2005-03-27T19:16:00.000-10:00

Reading all the stories about the Terri Schiavo I've learned quite a few interesting factoids. I learned that Tom DeLay, that font of extreme right religous wisdom who ran so fast to get to the front of the "Save Terri" Parade to escape his ethics problems, participated in arriving at the decision to pull the plug on his own father, who was badly injured in a bizarre backyard accident.

The monks who are with the "Save Terri" parade jointly agreed to pull the plug on the leader of their sect a few years ago.

In 1999, as governor of Texas, George Bush signed into law a bill which permits hospital authorities to pull the plug on those who are "beyond help" and who don't have the money to pay for further treatment.

Within the last two weeks, a five month old baby boy was just taken off his life saving ventilator over the strong protests of his mother. Too bad, she didn't have enough money to pay for further treatment. Where were the "right to life" anti-abortion folks when the Texas hospital was pulling the plug on baby Sun? Oh, I forgot to mention that Baby Boy Sun and his mom were Afro-American.

The current federal budget has no funding for the "Therapeutic Head Trauma Injury act", which was to provide services for those, like Terri Schiavo who need extraordinary care. The funding was removed by the Republican majority in Congress. Bush's proposed budget reduces funding for nutrition, Headstart and educational services.

Bush's proposed budget reduces funding for section 8 FHA housing for the poor and disabled. It reduces grant money paid to the state for social welfare programs and food programs. It reduces funding for children's health insurance. It reduces funding for school repairs and renovations, and for grants and loans to college students.

It reduces funds for medical care for our veterans, and mandates the closing of some VA hospitals and military bases. It increases the "co-pay" amounts that our veterans have to pay for their medical care from the VA. And, while it is decreasing the benefits to our soldiers....

It increases funding for the defense budget which, including funds for Afghanistan, Iraq, and other hidden military costs, will exceed 600 billion dollars. More than the defense budgets of all the other countries in the world put together.

I think its time we take back the phrase "Right to Life" from the extreme right.

I think we need a "Right to Life" Amendment to the constitution. The services provided under my "Right to Life" Amendment can easily be paid for by reducing the defense budget to three hundred billion.

The "Right to Life" should mean the right to a life in which all one's needs are met, physical, emotional, and intellectual. In which an individual can develop all of his or her talents and skills freely, without being hampered by lack of money for survival.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide that every person born in the U.S. or coming within its territorial boundaries, shall have the right to three nutritious meals a day and at least two quarts of clean, sanitary water.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide that every person born in the U.S. or coming within its territorial boundaries, shall have the right to adequate accomodation, at state expense if necessary, with a secure roof to keep out the rain, electricity, water, and telephone service, and with adequate heat in the winter and sufficient cooling in the summer if needed.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide that every person born in the U.S. or coming within its territorial boundaries shall have the right to a full time job that will pay at least as much as $5000 over the poverty level.

My "Right to Life Amendment" will provide that no woman or man born in the U.S. or coming within its territorial boundaries, shall be forced to take a low paying job when she or he is responsible for caring for a child under the age of twelve years old. She or he shall be paid by the state to care for the children until the child reaches the age of twelve.

My "Right to Life Amendment will provide anyone born in the U.S. or coming wihtin its territorial boundaries with adequate, safe, and secure housing accomodations, for free if needed, to every disabled person and every person over the age of sixty years old who wants it.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide free public transportation for all persons born in the U.S. or coming within its territorial boundaries, with appropriate facilities for disabled persons and for transporting bicycles.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide those born in the U.S. or coming within its territorial boundaries will have free and accessible medical, dental and eye care under which program they can choose their own personal physicians and dentists.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide that each person born in the U.S. or coming within its territorial boundaries, will fill out a "Living Will" form when they obtain or renew their driver's license or state ID. A code on the license or ID will direct medical personnel to the details of each "right to Life" form, and medical personnel will be required to carry out the wishes expressed in the right to life form unless the patient personally expresses a change of desire. Donations of bodies and organs will be possible through this form.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide for free education to the Ph.d or M.D. level for every person born in the U.S. or coming within its territorial boundaries.

My "Right to Life Amendment" will provide scientifically accurate sexual education to all children starting at age seven and continuing until the twelfth grade of high school, with free contraceptives and "morning after pills" available over the counter to any one who wants it.

With proper sexual education of our young, we need never worry about criminalizing or decriminalizing abortion again, as it will be what it ought to be a rare, but occasionally necessary, medical decision. Those desiring to have a child together would be required to complete a 24 session "pre-baby" course in order to qualify for a "baby license". (Learning how to bring up a child is at least as important as learning to drive a car!) A baby license entitles the holders to quality childcare at state expense until the child reaches the age of 12.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide that this country will not send its children to war as soldiers or bomb or invade any other country without the prior approval, by a seventy per cent majority, of all citizens of the U.S. provided that the votes of those citizens under the age of thirty will counted as two votes each, as against one vote per capita for those over the age of thirty. If the citizens vote for war, then all physically able citizens under the age of seventy five shall be subject to being drafted to fight in it.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will mandate that we spend at least 50 billion a year on developing alternative energy sources and that we be 100% independent of oil as an energy source within ten years of passage of the Amendment.

My "Right to Life" Amendment will provide that persons making up to five hundred thousand dollars a year will pay no taxes;, that earnings between $500,000 and $700,000 shall be taxed at the rate of thirty per cent. Earnings in excess of $700,000 to $ 4.9 million shall be taxed at the rate of 40%. Earnings in excess of
five million dollars a year will be taxed at the rate of 90%.

Corporations shall be taxed on their gross proceeds at an equivalent rate as that for individuals, provided that the greater the total aggregate of corporate income, the larger the tax free bonuses that will be paid to its employees and investors.

Please feel free to add to our "Right to Life Amendment. I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of whats needed to truly enjoy the "Right to Life."

WHY SYRIA, WHY NOW?

2005-03-16T18:22:00.000-10:00

Are you wondering why President Bush has been berating Syria so adamantly in the last few months? Wondering why he has arrogantly demanded that Syria remove its troops from Lebanon? Syrian troops were originally invited into Lebanon, with the approval of the U.S., Europe and the U.N. to stop the seemingly endless civil war between Christians, Muslims, Palestinians and Israeli occupiers which turned Beirut into an earlier version of Fallujah. It worked. Syrian troops have effectively guarded the peace.

Syria responded to Bush by saying it would remove its troops in stages, and immediately began moving them into eastern Lebanon, next to its own border, but Bush was not satisfied. Not only did he then demand that Syria remove all its troops from Lebanon immediately, but all its purported "secret services" agents as well. Basically Bush demands that all Syrians, whether affiliated with the Syrian government or not, leave Lebanon. Prior to 1926, Syria and Lebanon were one country. The French carved it up into two.

Isn't it extremely hypocritical that Bush is demanding that Syria remove its invited troops from Lebanon, while Bush, whose illegal invasion of Iraq has wrecked havoc on Iraqi citizens, talks of remaining in Iraq for the next eight to ten years against the wishes of the majority of Iraqis?

The reason that Syria has temporarily risen to Number One on Bush's hit parade is that he has plans to put -- guess what? -- an oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel which will go through Syria, if the U.S. can wrest control of it. Bush is setting Syria up for another American take over. Over 1500 of our soldiers have been killed to get control of Iraqi oil, how many more will be killed to pipe that oil to Israel? Call or Write your senators and representative to oppose the war on Syria -- and Iran, and Venezuela. Bring our troops home!

Ed Case Letting Patsy Mink's Democrats Down

2005-03-16T18:19:00.000-10:00

When Ed Case ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket he pledged to carry on the tradition of our beloved Patsy Mink. Congresswoman Mink, dedicated her life to helping the citizens of Hawaii. Why then is Case supporting the efforts of the credit card companies to deprive those who are overwhelmed by debt of the right to start over with a clean slate through debt discharge in bankruptcy?

The majority who need bankruptcy protection are folks who have been hit by a serious illness which created large medical bills. Sometimes the same illness also caused them to lose their jobs. Many of us in Hawaii are living from pay check to pay check. A serious illness or a job loss can generate bills way beyond one's ability to pay.

Under the old Bankruptcy law, people in this situation could discharge all their debts and start over. The new law will mean that most people cannot get out from under their debts. The credit card companies are making enormous profits from their exorbitant interest rates and high collateral fees, but they don't want their customers to be able to discharge their debts, so they've made millions of dollars in contributions to persuade our politicians to vote for their "No Credit Card Company Left Behind" bill.

It is disheartening to see Ed Case supporting a bill which will hurt those who need help from overwhelming debt. It is a slap in the face to those who voted for him because he said he would carry on the great work of Patsy Mink. Mink worked for laws to help her constituents. She would never have voted for a bill which would injure poor and working people in Hawaii. If Ed Case is going to vote with the Republicans, we need to find a real Democrat to run against him in the 2006 primary.

YEAH HOWARD, WE'RE TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK!

2005-02-10T20:05:00.000-10:00

In Hawaii, Support H.B. 1740 and S.B. 1325 & SafeVoting Hawaii

2005-02-09T13:19:00.000-10:00

SafeVoteHawaii Urges Support for Their Safe Voting Bills

Today's edition of "Think Globally, Act Locally" (KAOI 1110 AM, Wednesdays 11-noon) featured Jason Forester, the computer expert who helped write the two bills now pending in the Hawaii legislature to require voter verifiable auditable ballots in all Hawaii voting machines. Jason Forester is with SafeVoteHawaii (www.safevotehawaii.com). Check out their website for more information about the state of voting in Hawaii and the proposed new legislation.

If we don't have an honest, accurate vote procedure, we don't have a democracy. The two bills now pending will help insure that Hawaii votes are accurately counted. There will be a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday, February 11th. Please e-mail, fax or phone your senators and ask them to support S.B. 1325. Then, in two weeks, there will be a hearing before the Finance Committee.

Go to www.safevotehawaii.com or e-mail info@safevotehawaii.com for more information on hearing times and dates.

Maui Peace Action will present "Invisible Ballot" on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. at 103 Kalama Building, Maui Community College. Everyone welcome.

The next Maui Peace Action meeting will be at 6:00 p.m. Monday, February 21, 2005 at 102 Kalama Building, Maui Community College campus. If you want to work for peace in this world, join MPA and share your ideas and energies.

For more information about Maui Peace Action Committee, go to www.peaceaction.org or call 573- 3255.

Stop Election Fraud, Demand An Honest and Accurate Voting Procedure

2005-02-09T13:15:00.000-10:00

	Support National Election Reform! Contact Congess today in support of the VOTER Act!

The VOTER Act bill (H.R. 533) is fully supported by Progressive Democrats of America, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the AFL-CIO, People for the American Way, the NAACP, the NAACP National Voter Fund, the UAW, Rainbow Push, the Black Leadership Forum, and the National Voting Rights Institute.

The VOTER Act (H.R. 533) would permit all citizens to register to vote on election day; require early voting for the two weeks prior to election day; require a defined minimum number of voting machines present at each precinct; ensure that those who manufacture and service voting machines and software do not have conflicts of interest; strengthen the powers of the EAC (Election Assistance Commission) to create national standards for elections - so that every vote WILL count, regardless of what state it is cast in; require the source code of voting machines to be public; and require the option of a voter-verified paper ballot so that voters can verify their selection and results can be audited when discrepancies occur.

Letter to the Maui News

2005-02-05T21:58:00.000-10:00

ANYONE FOR A GAME OF SOCIAL SECURITY ROULETTE?

Just as President Bush grossly distorted the facts about Iraq's supposed possession of nuclear and chemical weapons in order to convince Congress and the American public to support his invasion of that country, so he is distorting the facts about Social Security in order to convince us to agree to his hidden abolition of Social Security.

Yes, abolition. He is trying to scare people into supporting the destruction of Social Security.

Bush has opposed Social Security since he was 32 years old and running for office in Texas. He predicted then that Social Security would be insolvent in 10 years. Social Security wasn't insolvent in 1992 and, if left alone, it won't be insolvent in 2018, 2042 or even 2052. For SS to keep paying full benefits after 2052, it will only take a minor tweaking to raise the cap of $90,000 to $120,000 on taxable salary.

Bush’s privatization plan will add two trillion in costs to the administration of SS and billions in commission to private financial managers but not make any improvement to social security.

Bush’s plan will remove the guaranteed, (“defined”) benefits from SS and replace them with a “defined” contribution. But, having made the required contributions, there is no guarantee whatever that there would be money in the privately invested accounts to pay you benefits upon retirement. Money for benefits payment would depend on your luck in the stock market. Ask Enron investors what happened to their retirement funds.

Republican senate majority leader Frist's campaign committee, which has access to the best investment advisors in the business, lost $524,000 playing the stock market last year. How will the average Joe make out, especially given Bush’s massive trade deficits and his trillion-dollar increases in the national debt which has made our economy so insecure.

Bush might as well call for a national roulette game to fund the winners’ retirement, for most of us, the odds might be better.

Well, It's One Way to Stop the War in Iraq-- Invade Korea

2005-02-05T21:40:00.000-10:00

But Do We Have 690,000 Troops Left?

February 5, 2005

SOUTH KOREA

SEOUL -- The United States would dispatch 690,000 troops and 2,000 warplanes if war breaks out on the Korean peninsula, according to a South Korean defense policy paper released yesterday. The plan for committing US troops in the event of war appears aimed at easing concerns that Washington is using US troops in South Korea as a rapid deployment force. North Korea has been resisting US pressure to give up its nuclear weapons program. (AP)

Wow, It Looks Like Dean is the One!

2005-02-05T21:30:00.000-10:00

Leland is out, Webb is out, Frost is out, Rosenberg is out, Fowler is out....and Roemer is...
out of the question.

HOORAY! WE'VE TAKEN OUR PARTY BACK.

Next is the 2006 Election.

Letter to Hawaii Congressional Representatives

2005-01-26T22:25:00.000-10:00

STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT NOW!

Thirty six more American soldiers were killed in Iraq today. Bush's inaugural address indicated that he intends to widen our war in the Middle East, not end it. Democrats must, as individuals and as a group, stand up and call for an end to the horrific carnage in Iraq and the torture and violation of basic human rights which is repeatedly occurring in "Gitmo" and other private prisons around the world.

U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) today released the following statement on U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq:

"Under false pretenses, the Bush Administration took our nation to war against a country that did not pose imminent threat to our security. In Iraq today, over 1,300 U.S. soldiers and an estimated 100,000 civilians are dead. This war is costing an average of $1.6 billion taxpayer dollars every week, while the mission remains vague, the troops overstretched and under-armored, friendly Iraqis chafe at our presence and unfriendly Iraqis bomb our convoys and enclaves. Neither democracy in Iraq nor security at home has been achieved. Instead, Iraq has become, in a gruesome self-fulfilling prophecy, the ground zero for terrorism that it was not when President Bush chose to invade."

It is imperative that the Democrats in Congress unite and speak as one voice against the horrendous outrages that are taking place in Iraq. The Bush administration's continuing bombing and strafing of homes and businesses, its condoning of torture as evidenced in the Gonzales confirmation hearings is insidiously corrupting our young soldiers and destroying our moral standing in the world.

Every Democratic representative in Congress should be rising to express his/her horror at the torture and other violations of basic human and constitutional rights which are being repeated by the Bush administration on a daily basis.

Our congressional representatives need to stand up on a daily basis and tell Congress and the world that it is wrong to hold any person for years without criminal charges being brought before a neutral magistrate. It is wrong and violative of our eighth amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment to permit anyone in our government to subject any person to near drowning by "water-boarding", to subject anyone to naked exposure to extremes of heat and cold, to deprive anyone of sleep through relentless repetitions of loud music and glaring lights, to subject anyone to sexual humiliations, let alone rape and sodomy. Were these same conditions imposed on captured American soldiers, we would certainly call it torture.

The American Civil Liberties Union has posted numerous documents on their website obtained from government agencies which detail the horrific treatment our government has allowed to occur during our "war against terror". These documents should be read aloud daily in Congress and investigations conducted.

We cannot allow our government to continue these practices or we will be just like the good German people who ignored the vicious practices of the Nazis in the 1930's. The failure of the German people and their elected representatives to actively protest the policies of Hitler and his cult followers facilitated Hitler's invasions of other European countries and directly contributed to the murders of well over six million people in Hitler's extermination camps.

Yesterday there were commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz prison sixty years ago, one of a number of prisons where the Nazis gassed , tortured and exploited the labor of hundreds of thousands of their "detainees".

When will we liberate the detainees in Abu Graib, Gitmo, and all our other prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Diego Garcia, and our "secret" prisons elsewhere in the world from the illegal practices of the Bush Administration?"

If every member rose every day that Congress is in session and read from the ACLU documents or from his or her own personal protest of the inhuman and unconstitutional practices of Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rice and their assorted deputies in the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, perhaps enough of the Republican members of Congress would be sufficiently ashamed to vote to end these practices once and for all.

If enough Republicans did not feel sufficiently ashamed to act, then perhaps, if the proceedings of Congress were daily taken up with recitations against Bush's practices, then the Republicans might be motivated to act against the illegal practices simply in order to get their other legislation passed.

In short, the Democrats, one by one, need to conduct a daily "teach-in" on the evil practices of this administration until those practices are stopped. We should not allow another bill to be passed while the torture and violation of basic rights continues.

Bush has turned our country into a rogue, terrorist nation. We Democrats must unite and speak as one voice to stop Bush's terrorism and restore the rule of law in America.

-30-

Say No to Torture, Stop Gonzales Confirmation

2005-01-26T14:58:00.000-10:00

It is sad that the first Hispanic nominee for U.S. Attorney General has a documented history of opposing the rule of law in our country. Gonzales believes that Bush can ignore any law that gets in in his way as commander in chief. He believes that it is OK to torture someone provided no major organ is destroyed in the process.

Contact your Senators and tell them that a Yes vote on Gonzales is a Yes vote to torture.

Our Constitution prohibits "cruel and unusal punishment". Our president, Secretary of Defense and attorney general nominee Gonzales are ignoring our Constitution and condoning torture. They must be removed.

Freedom --for Corporations, Not People

2005-01-23T20:38:00.000-10:00

Bush used the word "freedom"

27 times in his Inaugural Address.

What he failed to make clear is that his freedom applies only to corporations. The Enrons, Halliburtons, Bechtel's, Monsanto's are free to make outrageous profits, while the poor are free to starve.

But the law in its majesty forbids the rich, as well as the poor, from sleeping under bridges.

When Jerry Bremer, the pro consul, arrived in Iraq he had his "to do" list. He was assigned to privatize everything, dismantle all state ownership of businesses, cut the tax on corporations, end tariffs, allow foreign investors to buy Iraqi businesses, allow all profits to be taken out of the country, and require Iraqi farmers to buy seed from big American corporations, forbiding them to save seed from last year's crops.

Freedom in America means that coal companies, oil companies, gas companies and chemical companies are to be free from safety regulation, workers are to be free from unions, working people are to be free from health insurance, and the Arctic Refuge is to be freed from its burden of oil resources.

Freedom for Americans will truly mean "Nothing Left to Lose".

USA mandates Iraq must open to GM seed multis

by F. William Engdahl

Iraq as not only lost its political sovereignty to foreign occupiers. It has lost its very sovereign right to produce and grow its own essential food crops. Just before arranging the so-called "transfer of authority" in June 2004, US Coalition Provisional Administrator, Paul Bremer III, imposed a list of 100 laws on Iraq which insure that the US dictates every feature of Iraq economic life according to Washington free market wishes. This includes governing of an Iraqi central bank, an essential aspect of national sovereignty. It includes rules on Iraqi trade unions. And most significantly, it mandates the future rules of Iraqi agriculture production to conform to the wishes of Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow Chemical and other US-tied agri-business giants that are aggressively pushing for control of world food production through Gentically-Modified (GM) seeds and plants.

Bremer imposed Order 81 on "Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety." This Order 81 or law, has the status of binding law. The US puppet regime of the hand-picked former CIA asset, Allawi, has made no outcry against this or any other of the 100 laws. What does Order 81 do?

For generations and generations, farmers in Iraq as in most of the world have run an informal, unregulated seed supply system in which they experiment and breed the optimal seeds for essential food crops. Farmers traditionally save a portion of their seeds for the next plantings. Now, that will be forbidden. Monsanto and other foreign corporations now hold an Intellectual Property Right (IPR) which gives them an exclusive monopoly on all GM altered seeds and "similar" plant varieties. Iraqi farmers now not only have to cope with Allied bombing of their fields and streams. They have to pay foreign corporations for the right to plant what they have planted for hundreds of years.

Order 81 is a cleverly written law, with the deceptive title, "protection of new varieties of plants," or PVP. PVP is an Intellectual Property Right such as Washington and other major G7 countries got into the WTO rules, even though Iraq is not a WTO member. The Iraqi PVP law gives Monsanto and other international seed giants patent rights over plant seeds which they claim to have "discovered." The patent, under procedures of GM bio-engineering, is typically for a tiny alteration of the DNA or gene sequence of a given existing seed or plant such as soybean, cotton, rice or potato. Of course to do that alteration, Monsanto and others take the product of Iraqi farmers' own successful breeding and development, and, of course, without paying. There is strong suspicion that Monsanto and the other giant GM firms have secretly tapped the seed bank of Iraq, held in trust for farmers during the recent years by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in their center in Syria. CGIAR was established with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and World Bank to spread use of GM seeds across the developing sector countries.

Why We Need Howard Dean ...

2005-01-09T18:58:00.000-10:00

To Chair the Democratic National Committee

There's More Hope With Howard!

There follows my letter of January 9, 2005 to the leadership of the Hawaii Democratic Party. Your comments or response would be most welcome:

Dear Brickwood, Stephanie and fellow Democrats.

I just got back from Ohio, where I helped with the election fraud litigation there. Last January I was in Iowa working for Dean in the Democratic primary. I'm telling you this so you'll know I care enough about electing Democrats to brave zero degree weather twice in one year!

One of my jobs in Ohio was to review absentee votes in Warren County. Warren was the county that locked out the press and public while they were counting the votes, claiming there was a national security threat. My review showed that there were some 1500 absentee votes that were shown in the voter roster but never counted in the published results. A number of the signatures in the roster clearly did not match the original signatures on file and a number of, provisional votes were rejected improperly for not having a picture ID. And all this in just one county.

In other counties, insufficient numbers of voting machines were delivered to highly Democratic voting precincts. causing impossibly long waits to vote. Many -- the disabled, those with children or old people to care for, those required at work-- could not wait the two to ten hours required, and so they left without voting.

The evidence of fraud and suppression of the Democratic vote across the state was massive, but the official Democratic Party and Senator Kerry did very, very little to fight that fraud. The Green Party and the Libertarian Party took the lead. Many of the Democratic volunteers who were working on the recount and vote fraud case were appalled by the lack of action by the party and by Kerry. In the Ukraine, the opposition party and candidate fought election fraud and won. Why not in the U.S.?

As a result of its failure to lead the fight against the fraud, the Democratic Party is in danger of losing thousands of its most active workers. The only thing that can stop this loss is if the new leadership of the DNC is a respected as a force for change. Howard Dean has that credibility, and he has the energy and ideas to restore the party's credibility.

As I'm sure you know, after Dean lost in the primary, he began traveling all over the country, including Hawaii, to speak and raise money on behalf of John Kerry and local candidates. Dean is a terrific speaker who energizes crowds and energizes local party activists.

We in Hawaii have seen him in action when he came to our 2004 Democratic Party convention. He had us on our feet cheering and clapping repeatedly, then he appeared at a small fund raiser for the benefit of our state party, then he met with local Democratic activists to encourage support for progressive candidates here. He has done the same all over the country, so we know that he is sincerely committed to building a strong grass roots based Democratic Party.

Looking at the national perspective, Dean is very well known across the country. (Thanks, in part, to the endless playing of that misleading Iowa scream tape which left out the roaring sound of Dean's enthusiastic supporters. John Sucich and I were there. The hall was packed with yelling and clapping supporters, so Dean had to yell to be heard over the din, but the media microphone was directed at Dean and didn't pick up the yelling supporters.)

None of the other possible candidates for the Democratic National Committee chair have the national recognition that Dean has, and none of them attract the same media attention. Such media attention will yield wide spread publicity for Party positions.

Dean was the first Democratic primary candidate to denounce Bush's invasion of Iraq, so we know that he has the independence and guts to stand up to the Republican Taliban to expose their lies and hypocrisy.

After the debacle of yet another stolen election, after yet another meek withdrawal from fighting that fraud, we need Howard Dean more than ever. I hope you will do everything possible to see that Dean is elected as the chair of the Democratic National Committee when it votes on its leadership position in February.

Aloha, Justina

P.S. I'd appreciate it if this letter could be sent out to the Democratic Party mailing list.

What I Learned in Ohio,

2005-01-09T16:43:00.000-10:00

Thanks to Maui Folks Who Paid the Freight

With the exception of Senator Boxer, Congressman John Conyers and a small group of other congressional representatives, the leadership of the Democratic Party -- Terry McAuliff, John Kerry, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, have abandoned any pretense to leading the party rank and file. While many staunch Democratic voters stood in line for eight to ten hours to cast their vote for Kerry, Senator Kerry betrayed their support by conceding the election to Bush less than 24 hours after the polls closed.

While the Green and, Libertarian parties initiated the campaign for recounts in Ohio and New Mexico, and even Ralph Nader put up money for a recount in New Hampshire, John Kerry's lawyers in Florida were reportedly telling party activists to suppress any evidence they found of vote fraud. The fifty odd millions of dollars that Kerry did not use in the campaign could have funded an extensive investigation of the vote fraud, but Kerry kept it in his pocket as he walked away, leaving rank and file activists with their small individual contributions to keep the heat on in the Ohio and New Mexico recounts and the Ohio election contest suit.

Speaking of individual contributors, my thanks to all those loyal Democrats and enraged independents who contributed to enable me to go to Ohio to work on the Moss-v Bush election contest case. The lawsuit charges that the Ohio Presidential election was replete with fraud and illegal suppression of the Democratic vote.

The suit was brought by thirty-seven Ohio voters, led by Bill Moss, a leader in the Ohio NAACP. Afro-American voters were particularly hard hit by the fraudulent vote practices. People died to get the right to vote, now its been taken away again in Flordia (twice) and Ohio. It's very sad that, in Ohio, the move to suppress the Afro-American vote was led by Afro-American Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell who, like Katherine Harris in Florida, 2000, was also co-chair of the Bush re-election campaign.

The contest complaint alleges that the discrepancy between the exit polls and the officially announced vote totals indicated extreme irregularity in the vote count, and that if the votes had been counted correctly, John Kerry would have won. The exit polls, based on actual votes by voters interviewed as they left the polls, showed that Kerry had won Ohio. Late that night, officially released vote totals contradicted the exist poll figures. The odds of the exit poll figures being wrong were less than 900,000 to 1. By early on the morning of the 3rd, the exit polls had been "fixed" to correspond with the released totals. (Hm...just like Triad "fixed" the counting machines.).

The exit poll discrepancies didn't even reflect the huge number of Democratic voters who were obstructed from voting at all. Democratic precincts were given far fewer voting machines than Republican precincts. Democratic voters, especially those in Afro-American precincts, faced waiting lines of up to 10 hours (Kenyon College precinct), while waits of four to eight hours were not uncommon. There is a great video which shows the problem referenced below.

While I was in Ohio, I investigated vote fraud in Warren County. Warren County was the county that illegally locked out the public and press while the vote was counted, claiming the lock out was justified by a non-existent national security threat. (Warren County was also the site of the Dolly Parton film "Harper Valley PTA", although there is hardly a hill to form a valley there). In Warren, we discovered a 1500 vote discrepancy between the number of absentee voters listed as voting absentee by the vote rosters and the published absentee voting results. My co-worker there, Andy Stephenson, also discovered a number of signatures that our handwriting expert confirmed did not match the signature on the corresponding voter registration application, so I guess Warren County had good reason for locking out potential witnesses during the vote count.

Andy, formerly with BlackBoxVoting, has spent the last two years warning the country of the dangers inherent in the electronic vote counting.. After November, 2004, Andy was one of the main investigators in Florida, where he discovered the illegal trashing of the original poll tapes in Volusa County. I learned a great deal working with him. If you ever need a voting "ghostbuster", call Andy!

Originally, I was asked to go to Ohio to help with taking the depositions of election officials for the Ohio Supreme Court election contest case, Moss v. Bush. Although these officials were duly served with notices of depositions and subpoenas, Secretary of State Blackwell obtained a protective order which stopped the depositions. George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, who were named as defendants in the contest case along with Secretary Blackwell claimed they were never served with notices of their deposition, and so they never showed up to be deposed.

It was the duty of the Ohio Supreme Court to serve those papers on them. As the Ohio Supreme Court is overwhelmingly Republican, one wonders if the Court was sufficiently diligent in seeing that all the Defendants were properly served. Indeed, Chief Justice Moyers, who presides over the Moss v. Bush case, was re-elected to his position on the Republican ticket with Bush and Cheney in the 2004 election. He might be less than zealous about setting aside that election for fraud.,

In Ohio, it wasen't so much the electronic machines at the polls that skewed the votes, but the machines that counted the votes once the punched paper ballots were delivered to the counting centers.

When the recount was demanded, technicians from Triad, which supplied the central tabulating equipment to more than half the Ohio counties, went out to "fix" the machines for the recount, preparing "cheat sheets" for the county election officials to use to make sure the initial hand count of three percent of the votes came out with the same numbers as the machine count so they would not have to recount all the county's votes. Triad's tampering with the machines, without proper authorization or bi-partisan witnesses, was a clear violation of Ohio election law. So the recount may have been as fully erroneous and fraudulent as the original vote count.

Hopefully, despite the Congressional acceptance of Ohio's Bush electors on January 6th, that suit will go on to
document and publicize the many different illegal practices that the Republican Secretary of State and co-chair of the Bush Re-election campaign, Kenneth Blackwell, used "to deliver the vote for Bush". Or so did Blackwell brag in his fund-raising letter of last week. In the letter, Blackwell announced that he will be running for Governor of Ohio on the Republican ticket. He, will undoubtedly get a great deal of help and money from Bush and Bush backers for that race. "I'll scratch your back, if you'll scratch mine" as the monkeys say.

To sum up, what I learned in Ohio: no matter how effective our "get out the vote" efforts are, no matter how good our candidates are, no matter how popular our party platform is, it is all useless unless we can insure an honest election and accurate vote count.

Again, my thanks for your support. I'll keep you posted on the progress of the Moss- V Bush suit.

From Selma to Columbus

2004-12-24T19:26:00.000-10:00

Afro-Americans Still Disenfranchized:

Columbus, Ohio - Voter Suppression Videos
Posted by reprehensor
Added to homepage Thu Dec 23rd 2004, 11:52 AM ET
This first link is .mpg all the rest are .wmv

http://www.primisware.com
Clip One
Clip Two

http://www.460design.net
Clip One
Clip Two
http://www.spinningplates.net
Clip One
Clip Two

http://www.wildboar.net
Clip One
Clip Two

http://www.abstratica.org
Clip One
Clip Two

Ohio voter suppression.

The video footage provides a first hand glimpse of what transpired in Franklin County on Election Day, only in heavily leaning Democratic precincts, including unexplained voting machine shortages, organized campaigns directing voters to the wrong polling places, malfunctioning voter tabulation equipment, election worker confusion and incompetence, and a host of other problems. However, as detailed in an official affidavit by Richard Hayes Phillips, a geomorphology Ph.D. from University of Oregon, the extent of voter disenfranchisement was systematic and widespread in African American precincts throughout the state. Dr. Phillips sworn testimony read:

"For the second Presidential election in a row African American voters have been subjugated to second class citizens through systematic efforts by Republicans to suppress, intimidate, and disenfranchise our vote," said Rev. Bill Moss, the original Plaintiff in Ohio, and founder of the Center for Freedom and Justice. "Whether its Katherine Harris or Kenneth Blackwell, the purpose is the same: do everything in their power to ensure George W. Bush becomes President. If those in power are willing and able to thwart democracy and abuse the civil rights of American voters, right in the face of the press and public, what won’t they do? I am contesting this election because tyranny, particularly in the guise of democracy, is our civic duty to fight."

And, graphically, from The Election, Part 2: Fraud, Intimidation, and Suppression by Hunter
Wed Dec 22nd, 2004 at 11:37:19 PST www.dailykos.com:

By far the single most troubling demonstration of possibly widespread voter suppression -- and when I use this term, make no mistake that I mean race-based suppression -- was demonstrated visually by dKos diarist jmknapp in his diary Cuyahoga County African American voting patterns, and again emphasized earlier this week by TocqueDeville. Mapping precinct locations over a color-coded map of Cuyahoga County showing majority-black vs. majority white municipalities, we can get a good approximation of precinct densities and, roughly speaking, population densities:

But in mapping where actual ballot spoilage occurred, jmknapp demonstrated visually that spoiled ballots (presidential over- and under-votes) occurred primarily in majority-black neighborhoods.

That's not just a "strong correlation". That's something damn near approaching conclusive evidence that something was going on in the black precincts that wasn't going on elsewhere. In his other diaries, he demonstrates similar patterns.

I will state outright that, of all the statistical analyses that purport to "prove" something about this election, this is one of the very few that, in my own opinion, is both demonstrating something concrete and has no immediately obvious counter-explanation. It is strong circumstantial evidence of something, and that something needs to be investigated, regardless of other election efforts.

The Bottom Line

It is clear, just from the most solid tier of evidence, that there were Republican efforts to disenfranchise minority voters in specific, and Democratic-leaning voters in general. Whether it be flyers, phone calls, or the work of Sproul & Associates, this election, like many past elections, demonstrated once again that the Republican Party goes to great lengths to try and keep certain minority groups from expressing their voting rights.

The question is, of course, what to do about it. If these efforts had a common organizer, it hasn't been discovered yet; in fact, most of these minority intimidation/deception tactics have been going on a very long time, and hardly need an "organizer" at this point. If we were serious about voter suppression and intimidation efforts, however, we'd be pursuing evidence against and indictments of the people who participated in those efforts -- including some specific Republican poll "challengers" at certain precincts who took their role as "challengers" of minority voters very, very seriously.

Unbelievable Hypocrisy: Torture Means Just What Bush and Gonzales says It Means

2004-12-24T16:48:00.000-10:00

Bush's New Attorney General:

...in July of 2002 the president's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, convened his colleagues in his cozy, wood-paneled White House office. One by one, the lawyers went over five or six pressure techniques proposed by the CIA. One such technique, a participant recalls, was "waterboarding" (making a suspect think he might drown). Another, mock burial, was nixed as too harsh. A third, the open-handed slapping of suspects, drew much discussion. The idea was "just to shock someone with the physical impact," one lawyer explained, with "little chance of bone damage or tissue damage." Gonzales and the lawyers also discussed in great detail how to legally justify such methods...

Sources close to the Senate Judiciary Committee say a chief focus of the hearings will be Gonzales's role in the so-called "torture memo," as well as his legal judgment in urging Bush to sidestep the Geneva Conventions. In a Jan. 25, 2002, memo to Bush, Gonzales said the new war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners." Some State Department lawyers charge that Gonzales misrepresented so many legal considerations and facts (including hard conclusions by State's Southeast Asia bureau about the nature of the Taliban) that one lawyer considers the memo to be "an ethical breach."

By Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman and Michael Hirsh
Newsweek

President's Statement on the U.N. International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

Today, on United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the United States reaffirms its commitment to the worldwide elimination of torture. The non-negotiable demands of human dignity must be protected without reference to race, gender, creed, or nationality. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law.

To help fulfill this commitment, the United States has joined 135 other nations in ratifying the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. America stands against and will not tolerate torture. We will investigate and prosecute all acts of torture and undertake to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment in all territory under our jurisdiction. American personnel are required to comply with all U.S. laws, including the United States Constitution, Federal statutes, including statutes prohibiting torture, and our treaty obligations with respect to the treatment of all detainees.

The United States also remains steadfastly committed to upholding the Geneva Conventions, which have been the bedrock of protection in armed conflict for more than 50 years. These Conventions provide important protections designed to reduce human suffering in armed conflict. We expect other nations to treat our service members and civilians in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Our Armed Forces are committed to complying with them and to holding accountable those in our military who do not...

From the White House web site

Steadfastly Committed to Upholding the Geneva Conventions?

A heavily redacted June 25 FBI memo titled "URGENT REPORT" to the FBI director, provided details from someone "who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees" in Iraq.

"He described that such abuses included strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings, and unauthorized interrogations," the document stated. The memo also mentioned "cover-up of these abuses."

War Crimes

Thursday, December 23, 2004; Page A22
Washington Post Editorial

THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.

Though they represent only part of the record that lies in government files, the documents show that the abuse of prisoners was already occurring at Guantanamo in 2002 and continued in Iraq even after the outcry over the Abu Ghraib photographs. FBI agents reported in internal e-mails and memos about systematic abuses by military interrogators at the base in Cuba, including beatings, chokings, prolonged sleep deprivation and humiliations such as being wrapped in an Israeli flag. "On a couple of occasions I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water," an unidentified FBI agent wrote on Aug. 2, 2004. "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more." Two defense intelligence officials reported seeing prisoners severely beaten in Baghdad by members of a special operations unit, Task Force 6-26, in June. When they protested they were threatened and pictures they took were confiscated...

Creating the Nightmares We Went There to Prevent

2004-12-12T13:16:00.000-10:00

From Prisonplanet

US Troops Ordered To Commit War Crimes:

* * *

"A second convoy from Baghdad, headed by Dr. Said Ismael Haki, the IRCS president, delivered aid to Fallujah on Nov. 26. 'There are no houses left in Fallujah, only destroyed places,' Haki said. 'I really don,t know how the people will return to the city. No one will find their homes.'

As U.S. troops in Fallujah engaged in what has been described as the most intense urban combat since Vietnam, the controlled press scrupulously avoided discussion or footage of the devastation of the rebellious Sunni city. For example, during the second week of the attack, rather than discuss the widespread devastation of Fallujah, U.S. television news programs focused largely on a brawl between basketball players and fans in Detroit.

At least 136 U.S. soldiers were killed during November in Iraq, and more than 800 were wounded, most of them in Fallujah, making it the most costly month, and operation, in terms of U.S. lives lost since the invasion of Iraq began in March 2003.

FOR WHAT CAUSE?

Michael Ware, Baghdad bureau chief for Time magazine, who has been in Fallujah during the fighting, said U.S. actions in Fallujah are 'creating the nightmare that we are seeking to prevent.

'I stood there as I saw American boys die,' Ware told Chris Matthews of MSNBC on Nov. 24, 'I mean, a man shot at close range, blown apart by a rocket-propelled grenade. He dies there in front of you, and I can,t help but think why? For what cause?"

'I see us creating the very thing that the president said we went there to prevent,' Ware said, '. . . . subsequent to this invasion and the occupation and the guerrilla war that is currently under way, we are the midwives of the next generation Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist.' "

Report from Baghdad's Riverbend

2004-12-12T11:52:00.000-10:00

Bush is turning the Middle East into Rubble:

Baghdad Burning:

"The assault on Falloojeh and other areas is continuing. There are rumors of awful weapons being used in Falloojeh. The city has literally been burnt and bombed to the ground. Many of the people displaced from the city are asking to be let back in, in spite of everything. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must be for the refugees. It's like we've turned into another Palestine- occupation, bombings, refugees, death. Sometimes I'll be watching the news and the volume will be really low. The scene will be of a man, woman or child, wailing in front of the camera; crying at the fate of a body lying bloodily, stiffly on the ground- a demolished building in the background and it will take me a few moments to decide the location of this tragedy- Falloojeh? Gaza? Baghdad?

There is still little gas or electricity in Baghdad:

People are wondering how America and gang (i.e. Iyad Allawi, etc.) are going to implement democracy in all of this chaos when they can't seem to get the gasoline flowing in a country that virtually swims in oil. There's a rumor that this gasoline crisis has been concocted on purpose in order to keep a minimum of cars on the streets. Others claim that this whole situation is a form of collective punishment because things are really out of control in so many areas in Baghdad- especially the suburbs. The third theory is that this being done purposely so that the Iraq government can amazingly bring the electricity, gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas back in January before the elections and make themselves look like heroes.

If True, Here's the Smoking Gun of Election Fraud

2004-12-06T13:51:00.000-10:00

Florida Congressman Commissioned Vote Stealing Program :

WHISTLEBLOWER AFFIDAVIT: Programmer Built Vote Rigging Prototype at Republican Congressman's Request!
CLAIM: Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) Asked Company to Create E-Vote Fraud Software!

*** A BRAD BLOG EXCLUSIVE! PLEASE CREDIT! ***

In stunning revelations set to rock the vote from Tallahassee to Capitol Hill -- and perhaps even a bit further up Pennsylvania Avenue -- a Florida computer programmer has now made remarkable claims in a detailed sworn affidavit, signed this morning and obtained exclusively by The BRAD BLOG!

- Affidavit in .PDF format - (Generously hosted by Raw Story!)

The affidavit states in part:

Curtis says that Feeney "was very specific in the design and specifications required for this program."

" He detailed, in his own words, that; (a) the program needed to be touch-screen capable (b) the user should be able to trigger the program without any additional equipment (c) the programming to accomplish this needed to stay hidden even if the source code was inspected."

Though there was no problem with the first two requirements, Curtis explained to the Congressman that it would be "virtually impossible to hide such code written to change the voting results if anyone is able to review the uncompiled source code"

Nonetheless, he was asked at the meeting by Mrs. Yang to build the prototype anyway.

Curtis, "a life-long Republican" at the time, claims that it was his initial belief that Feeney's interest was in trying to stop Democrats from using "such a program to steal an election". Curtis had assumed that Feeney, "wanted to be able to detect and prevent that if it occurred."

Upon delivery of the software design and documentation on CD to Mrs. Yang, Curtis again explained to her that it would be impossible to hide routines created to manipulate the vote if anybody would be able to inspect the precompiled source code.

Mrs. Yang then told him, "You don’t understand, in order to get the contract we have to hide the manipulation in the source code. This program is needed to control the vote in South Florida." [emphasis in affidavit]

Mrs. Yang then took the CD containing the software from Curtis, reportedly for later delivery to Feeney.

In other meetings with Feeny prior to the 2000 elections, it became clear to Curtis that Feeney had plans to suppress the vote in strong Democratic precincts. In the affidavit, Curtis claims that in those meetings Feeney had "bragged that he had already implemented 'exclusion lists' to reduce the 'black vote'." Feeney also mentioned that "proper placement of police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25%."

Don't Forget to Contact DNC Members for Dean

2004-12-05T20:08:00.000-10:00

See Addresses Below at:

There's Even More Hope With Howard.

Be Scanned or Be Shot

2004-12-05T19:56:00.000-10:00

Here what We have to look forward to:

Reported on a Tom Brokaw show:

Reporter: "So far the plan is for most of the city's 250,000 residents [of Falujeh] to return in stages and first only a few thousand will be let in.

They'll be fingerprinted, given a retina scan and then an ID card, which will only allow them to travel around their homes or to nearby aid centers which are now being built.

The Marines will be authorized to use deadly force against those breaking the rules....Tom?"

Brokaw: "Richard, what's the latest on the election?...."

For more, see Alex Jones' prisonplanet.com

.

First, Kill the Witnesses

2004-12-05T06:20:00.000-10:00

"Mr Ambassador, I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses."

The very first act of the U.S. military in storming Fallujeh was to seize the general hospital located across a bridge from the city. Next came the bombing of the clinic inside Fallujeh town. Twenty medical personnel, including almost every doctor inside Fallujeh were killed. Why?

Naomi Klein
Saturday December 4, 2004
The Guardian

David T Johnson,
Acting ambassador,
US Embassy, London

Dear Mr Johnson, On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".

The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested.

We Must Stop These Atrocities, All Emanating from the "Family Values" President

2004-12-04T17:15:00.000-10:00

In Fallujah, our soldiers first took over the general hospital on the outskirts of the town,, arresting doctors in the middle of a serious operation, pulling them away and leaving the patient to die on the operating table. Then they bombed the small clinic inside the city, killing twenty doctors.

Reportedly, the military attacked the hospital and clinic first because in the last Fallujah attack in April, medical personnel had given journalists the numbers of the civilians killed and wounded. Once the medical personnel were effectively silenced, the military was free to announce that "No civilians were killed in Fallujah", which is what they did.

In Baghdad, U.S. soldiers invaded a mosque during Friday prayers, killing and wounding those at prayer. From the Blog of independent journalist, Dahr Jamail, in Iraq. Would that his daily journals on events in Iraq could be reprinted in all local newspapers in America. Americans need the truth about how George Bush is bringing democracy to Iraq:

Just like in Fallujah, soldiers denied Iraqi Red Crescent ambulances and medical teams access to the mosque. As doctors negotiated with U.S. soldiers outside, more gunfire was heard from inside the mosque.

About 30 men were led out with hoods over their heads and their hands tied behind them. Soldiers loaded them into a military vehicle and took them away around 3.15 pm.

A doctor with the Iraqi Red Crescent confirmed four dead and nine wounded worshippers. Pieces of brain were splattered on one of the walls inside the mosque while large blood stains covered carpets in several places.

Later Abu Talat comes to my hotel to see me. He is distraught, crying while he recounts the story. After listening to the tape he recorded inside the mosque during the atrocity, he says…

“I am in a very sad position. I do not see any freedom or any democracy. If this could lead into a freedom, it is a freedom with blood. It is a freedom of emotions of sadness. It is a freedom of killing. You cannot gain democracy through blood or killing. You do not find the freedom that way. People are going to pray to God and they were killed and wounded. There were 1,500 people praying to God and they went on a holiday were people go every Friday for prayers. And they were shot and killed. There were so many women and kids lying on the ground. This is not democracy, neither freedom.”

After several weeks of relative calm in Adhamiya, the detention of the Imam of Abu Hanifa and killing of worshippers inside their mosque is sure to ignite the fires of revenge in this area, which is already known as the Fallujah of Baghdad.

2004-12-04T15:12:00.000-10:00

There's Even More Hope With Howard

Lobby the Hawaii delegates to the National Democratic Committee:

Brickwood Galuteria
Stephenie Ohigashi
Richard Port
Dolly Strazar

E-mail them at democrats.hidem.org. For other states, thanks to www.mydd.com, here is an updated DNC roster(PDF) of people to contact.

Tell them six-term Vermont Governor Doctor Howard Dean is who we need to resusitate our Party, grow our membership, and put Democrats in office at every level of the political spectrum.

Dean's "Democracy for America" organization (www.democracyforamerica.com) has been fundraising for local Democratic candidates all over the country. Many of them won. We need the National Democratic Party to be actively assisting local and state Democratic candidates in the same way. Dean will do that.

This week, Dean's "Democracy for America" made an internet appeal for donations to enable the Washington State Democratic Party to fund a recount in the governor's race there. Dean's DFA raised $250,000 in ONE DAY, which assures that the recount can take place.

Republican Rossi is only forty two votes in front of Democrat Christine Gregoire in the Washington race, and a few thousand "spoiled" ballots and provisional ballots remain un-counted. See www.mydd for more on this.

For more about Dean, see www.mydd and www.democracyforamerica.com.

Time for the Democratic Party to Take Cooperative Action on Healthcare.

2004-12-04T13:08:00.000-10:00

Health Care Costs Overwhelm the Uninsured.

There are forty-five million Americans without health insurance. The majority avoid going to doctors because they don't have insurance and can't afford the cost for visits. The result is that minor medical problems may turn into major medical emergenicies, forcing emergency room visits and enormous bills. Those who can't pay the emergency room bills may be forced to file bankruptcy.

At least half of my bankruptcy clients seek my help because they have thousands of dollars in medical bills which they cannot pay. Their delinquent credit card bills frequently arose because they were ill, had no income, and were forced to rely on their credit cards for basic survival expenses.

What does this have to do with the Democratic Party?

The Party Used to Provide Direct Help to Its Members.

Historically, the Democratic Party, organized into precincts or wards, was the chief social worker in over-crowded, immigrant-packed slums. When someone needed a job, they went to the Democratic "ward boss", who knew who to call and where to send them. If the family's wage earner was hospitalized and the rent was due, the ward boss would call the landlord and work out an extension of time to pay. At Christmas, the Party gave out turkeys and canned goods to its members. Indeed, the Democratic Party ran the first food banks and social work centers in the U.S. In return, party members showed up and voted Democratic on election day.

The Democratic Party held a central and crucial role in the life of the community. Its party leaders knew its members and knew intimately what the needs and aspirations of the community were. Those needs and aspirations became the party's platform and the legislation that they pushed at the county, state and national level.

The Democatic Party has lost its integral function in the community and we have to get it back if we are to start winning elections again.

Access to good health care has been on the party platform for years, and those of most of the Democratic Party presidential hopefuls in 2004. Congressman Dennis Kucinich called for universal, government organized health care, former Governor Howard Dean called for universal access to health insurance, such as he created in Vermont, Senator Kerry promised access to the same benefits of health insurance provided to members of the Congress.

Democrats, being in the minority in the House and Senate, are not in a position to implement any of their health care plans legislatively.

Build the Democratic Party By Providing Cooperative

Health Care to the Community.

What the Democratic Party can do is make group health insurance available to its party members. We are a large group, and would be very much larger if the forty five million uninsured Americans could gain basic health insurance through membership. The fees for our group health care might be set on a sliding scale based on income, with fundraising to cover
the costs for those completely unable to pay.

Ultimately, we might have a pool of "Democratic Doctors" who would agree to provide service at a reasonable rate in return for a guaranteed yearly fee. This would free doctors from having to see 100 patients a day to make their office expenses because the large insurance companies are massively under-paying doctors for their services. Expensive equipment purchase could be pooled for a given geographic area.

The farmers in the mid-west have used "cooperatives" for years, sharing the costs of purchasing feed at bulk prices, creating cooperative food markets for bulk purchasing and giving all the profits back to its members. We could establish medical service cooperatives for those ancillary services needed in the medical profession: cooperative laboratories for blood tests, cooperative radiology services for x-ray and ultra sound. The profits, instead of going to the insurance companies, would be used to improve services, even return as "dividends" to the members.

The Democratic Party Can Establish a Cooperative Model for the Provision of Health Care and Thereby Grow the Democratic Party

Once our cooperative health care service is in operation, it can be used as a model for national implementation when the Democratic Party is back in power in the White House and the Congress. And, with the possible addition of forty-five million new Democratic Party members, then we will be in power for a good long time.

When Johnny Comes Marching Home...

2004-12-04T11:27:00.000-10:00

The Bush Administration hides it dead and wounded. No pictures are allowed of their caskets arriving at Dover from Iraq, no journalists are allowed to interview wounded soldiers at military hospitals without express written permission of the commander. In order to ask for permission, journalists must know the name of the soldier they want to interview. The names of the wounded are, of course, hidden from journalists as confidential "to protect the privacy of the soldiers."

Figures for the number of injured soldiers returning from Iraq go from 9000 to 30,000. The military's released figure is 9,000 -- they only count those wounded in battle, not the otherwise injured or ill. Figures from hospital personnel in Germany for treating all those coming from Iraq amount to 30,000. Neither of these figures include the massive number of returning soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder, who may or may not ever receive diagnosis and treatment. This is the illness that can potentially kill or injure entire families, such as the Georgia soldiers who killed their wives and then themselves. The soldiers' injured families are not counted at all in the statistics, but they are there.

Basic training is intended to turn otherwise peaceful people into killers. Most frequently it works, and thus we see on the evening news, tapes of soldiers killing the wounded and helpless. The military has no program for turning the killers back into peaceful citizens at the end of their hitch. The killers are returned to their home communities and left to fend for themselves. Many seek solace in suicide, some murder. Some receive the medical treatment and other assistance they need, some don't. But this has been true throughout American military history:

The Way Our Country Treats Returning

Soldiers is a National Shame

. By Tim Pluta, T he Asheville Citizen-Times, excerpt from www.truthout.org

In 1917, Congress authorized disability compensation, insurance and vocational rehabilitation to help support the 200,000 wounded and 5 million returning soldiers from World War I.
On the other hand, in 1924, these same World War I veterans were promised a bonus payment of $1,000. In July of 1932, during the Great Depression, between 12,000 and 15,000 veterans and their families marched in Washington, D.C., to demand immediate payment of their bonus. They camped in shantytowns along the Anacostia River until their numbers grew to 25,000. At one point, 20,000 veterans walked slowly up and down Pennsylvania Avenue for three straight days protesting the government decision not to pay their bonus. By late July, riots began after police shot two of the marchers. Gen. Douglas MacArthur then led a machine-gun squadron, troops with fixed bayonets and a number of tanks to destroy the shantytowns and disperse the marchers with tear gas, injuring hundreds of veterans in the process.

In 1944, the GI Bill of Rights was enacted. Veterans were supported by providing money for education, low-interest mortgage loans and $20 a week while looking for employment.

While some of these benefits are still available today, nearly 300,000 current veterans can be found homeless each night, and more than 500,000 veterans will experience homelessness sometime during the year.

Korean and Vietnam veterans received little of the support and recognition that previous veterans received. Thirty years after being exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, and suffering numerous medical problems, a neighbor of mine finally began to receive compensation from our government's admission that Agent Orange is toxic.

Because of situations like this, nearly three times the number of Vietnam veterans died after coming home than died during the war.

Today, there are reports of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, being secretly transferred from Andrews Air Force base, under the cover of darkness, to military transport planes and dispersed out to military hospitals across the country. Why? So that we do not see them.

Coffins of dead U.S. soldiers cannot be photographed returning home. Why? So that we do not see them.

Privatize SS? Higher Benefits for Stockbrokers, Losses for Us.

2004-12-02T13:20:00.000-10:00

Bush wants everyone to "own" their own brokerage account, which is an excellent way for everyone to go broke. If even multi-millionaires like Senator Frist, with access to the best investment brokers around, can't manage to make a profit, just how well will the rest of us do at "growing" our own retirement funds. Privatizing Social Security should be re-named the "Leave No Stockbroker Behind" bill. It's just another Bush scheme for giving money to the wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class.

: "A campaign fund controlled by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has lost almost $460,000 in stock market investments since 2000 and now does not have enough to cover a sizable bank loan, according to federal election records and the manager of the Frist account.

The heaviest losses, totaling more than $500,000, occurred in a stock index fund in 2001 and 2002, years when the securities markets suffered a major downturn. But the Frist campaign account lost an additional $32,050 in July and August, a setback that was only partially offset by a gain of $11,472 in September, according to Linus Castignani, treasurer of 'Frist 2000,' which was created to finance the senator's successful campaign for a second six-year term in 2000."

Thanks to: MyDD :: Due Diligence of Politics, Election Forecast & the World Today.

Dynamite Article by Naomi Klein: Kerry and the Gift of Impunity

2004-11-27T21:03:00.000-10:00

Naomi Klein is one of the best political writers extant. She is fearless and calls it as she sees it. This article reminds me of all the issues I put aside in working to get Bush ousted. In my wish to have a sane and intelligent president, I rationalized that Kerry would likely stop the Iraq War, even if he said he was going to "win" it. I hope that was true, but the longer Kerry stays out of sight, rather than leading the fight for an honest vote count, I wonder.

Klein is right. Nothing was said during the campaign about the War Crimes, about the numerous violations of the Geneva Convention, about the trashing of constitutional rights for those arrested and imprisoned.

K erry and the Gift of Impunity: "The real-world result of all the 'strategic' thinking is the worst of both worlds: It didn't get Kerry elected and it sent a clear message to the people who were elected that they will pay no political price for committing war crimes. And this is Kerry's true gift to Bush: not just the presidency, but impunity. You can see it perhaps best of all in the Marlboro Man in Falluja, and the surreal debates that swirl around him. Genuine impunity breeds a kind of delusional decadence, and this is its face: a nation bickering about smoking while Iraq burns."

Read the whole article, it's all too terribly true. We simply must stop this madness.

Oppose the Right Wing Likud Attacks on Juan Cole

2004-11-25T16:49:00.000-10:00

just checked my campus mail and found a letter in it from Colonel Yigal Carmon, late of Israeli military intelligence, now an official at the Middle East Media Research Organization, or MEMRI. He threatened me with a lawsuit over blog comments I made here at Informed Comment, reprinted at anti-war.com. This technique of the SLAPP or Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation had already been pioneered by polluting industries against environmental activists, and now the pro-Likud lobby in the US has apparently decided to try it out against people like me.
I urge all readers to send messages of protest to memri@memri.org. Please be polite, and simply urge MEMRI, which has a major Web presence, to withdraw the lawsuit threat and to respect the spirit of the free sharing of ideas that makes the internet possible.

Apparently MEMRI took umbrage when Cole dared to suggest that they cherry-pick news to make the Arab countries look bad. As he didn't accuse MEMRI editors of murder, mayhem or stealing,and as corporations or organizations can't be libeled, the threat of litigation seems pretty baseless, but none the less, sending memri@memri.org suggesting that they engage in a fair battle of ideas rather than trying to put Cole out of commission with legal fees might be a good idea.

There's Hope With Howard

2004-11-25T16:24:00.000-10:00

I'm not at all convinced that the Democratic Party lost the 11/2/04 election. One thing is for sure, if the votes of all the people who showed up at the polls and tried to vote for Kerry were counted, we definitely won.

A part of me thinks that perhaps it was clever of Kerry to immediately concede, and then to wait out the re-counts and lawsuits, thus depriving the Republican Party of ammunition for its predictable attacks on him for not conceding, but does he have to remain this quiet?

Meanwhile, Howard Dean has been traveling all over the country for the last six months to support Kerry and grass roots candidates through his Democracy for America organization. When he spoke to the Hawaii State Convention in May of 2004, he had the hall enthralled with his ideas and constantly on their feet applauding. He is a great rabble rouser, and that is what we need to lead the Democratic Party right now. I hope the DNC will see the light and vote for Dean in February. (Thanks to MYDD for the donkey).

My, My, Some Truth Escapes

2004-11-24T10:55:00.000-10:00

My Way News:

"'We cannot accept this [election] result as legitimate, because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse,' Powell said."

Of course, Powell is talking about the Ukrainean election, not the U.S. one. It seems the exit polls don't agree with the poll totals and the U.S. is upset about it. I certainly hope all their criticisms of the Ukrain election may come back to haunt them.

There's Hope Fraud Can be Proved

2004-11-14T17:30:00.000-10:00

The following article by a polling professional appears on www.zogby.com's website. Hopefully, its appearance there means that pollster zogby agrees with him. (With thanks to www.dailykos.com of 11/14/04).

I Smell a Rat
I smell a rat. It has that distinctive and all-too-familiar odor of the species Republicanus floridius. We got a nasty bite from this pest four years ago and never quite recovered. Symptoms of a long-term infection are becoming distressingly apparent.

The first sign of the rat was on election night. The jubilation of early exit polling had given way to rising anxiety as states fell one by one to the Red Tide. It was getting late in the smoky cellar of a Prague sports bar where a crowd of expats had gathered. We had been hoping to go home to bed early, confident of victory. Those hopes had evaporated in a flurry of early precinct reports from Florida and Ohio.

By 3 AM, conversation had died and we were grimly sipping beers and watching as those two key states seemed to be slipping further and further to crimson. Suddenly, a friend who had left two hours earlier rushed in and handed us a printout.

"Zogby's calling it for Kerry." He smacked the sheet decisively. "Definitely. He's got both Florida and Ohio in the Kerry column. Kerry only needs one." Satisfied, we went to bed, confident we would wake with the world a better place. Victory was at hand.

The morning told a different story, of course. No Florida victory for Kerry--Bush had a decisive margin of nearly 400,000 votes. Ohio was not even close enough for Kerry to demand that all the votes be counted. The pollsters had been dead wrong, Bush had four more years and a powerful mandate. Onward Christian soldiers--next stop, Tehran.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

I work with statistics and polling data every day. Something rubbed me the wrong way. I checked the exit polls for Florida--all wrong. CNN's results indicated a Kerry win: turnout matched voter registration, and independents had broken 59% to 41% for Kerry.

Polling is an imprecise science. Yet its very imprecision is itself quantifiable and follows regular patterns. Differences between actual results and those expected from polling data must be explainable by identifiable factors if the polling sample is robust enough. With almost 3.000 respondents in Florida alone, the CNN poll sample was pretty robust.

The first signs of the rat were identified by Kathy Dopp, who conducted a simple analysis of voter registrations by party in Florida and compared them to presidential vote results. Basically she multiplied the total votes cast in a county by the percentage of voters registered Republican: this gave an expected Republican vote. She then compared this to the actual result.

Her analysis is startling. Certain counties voted for Bush far in excess of what one would expect based on the share of Republican registrations in that county. They key phrase is "certain counties"--there is extraordinary variance between individual counties. Most counties fall more or less in line with what one would expect based on the share of Republican registrations, but some differ wildly.

How to explain this incredible variance? Dopp found one over-riding factor: whether the county used electronic touch-screen voting, or paper ballots which were optically scanned into a computer. All of those with touch-screen voting had results relatively in line with her expected results, while all of those with extreme variance were in counties with optical scanning.

The intimation, clearly, is fraud. Ballots are scanned; results are fed into precinct computers; these are sent to a county-wide database, whose results are fed into the statewide electoral totals. At any point after physical ballots become databases, the system is vulnerable to external hackers.

It seemed too easy, and Dopp's method seemed simplistic. I re-ran the results using CNN's exit polling data. In each county, I took the number of registrations and assigned correctional factors based on the CNN poll to predict turnout among Republicans, Democrats, and independents. I then used the vote shares from the polls to predict a likely number of Republican votes per county. I compared this `expected' Republican vote to the actual Republican vote.

The results are shocking. Overall, Bush received 2% fewer votes in counties with electronic touch-screen voting than expected. In counties with optical scanning, he received 16% more. This 16% would not be strange if it were spread across counties more or less evenly. It is not. In 11 different counties, the `actual' Bush vote was at least twice higher than the expected vote. 13 counties had Bush vote tallies 50--100% higher than expected. In one county where 88% of voters are registered Democrats, Bush got nearly two thirds of the vote--three times more than predicted by my model.

Again, polling can be wrong. It is difficult to believe it can be that wrong. Fortunately, however, we can test how wrong it would have to be to give the `actual' result.

I tested two alternative scenarios to see how wrong CNN would have to have been to explain the election result. In the first, I assumed they had been wildly off the mark in the turnout figures--i.e. far more Republicans and independents had come out than Democrats. In the second I assumed the voting shares were completely wrong, and that the Republicans had been able to massively poach voters from the Democrat base.

In the first scenario, I assumed 90% of Republicans and independents voted, and the remaining ballots were cast by Democrats. This explains the result in counties with optical scanning to within 5%. However, in this scenario Democratic turnout would have been only 51% in the optical scanning counties--barely exceeding half of Republican turnout. It also does not solve the enormous problems in individual counties. 7 counties in this scenario still have actual vote tallies for Bush that are at least 100% higher than predicted by the model--an extremely unlikely result.

In the second scenario I assumed that Bush had actually got 100% of the vote from Republicans and 50% from independents (versus CNN polling results which were 93% and 41% respectively). If this gave enough votes for Bush to explain the county's results, I left the amount of Democratic registered voters ballots cast for Bush as they were predicted by CNN (14% voted for Bush). If this did not explain the result, I calculated how many Democrats would have to vote for Bush.

In 41 of 52 counties, this did not explain the result and Bush must have gotten more than CNN's predicted 14% of Democratic ballots--not an unreasonable assumption by itself. However, in 21 counties more than 50% of Democratic votes would have to have defected to Bush to account for the county result--in four counties, at least 70% would have been required. These results are absurdly unlikely.

The second rat

A previously undiscovered species of rat, Republicanus cuyahogus, has been found in Ohio. Before the election, I wrote snide letters to a state legislator for Cuyahoga county who, according to media reports, was preparing an army of enforcers to keep `suspect' (read: minority) voters away from the polls. One of his assistants wrote me back very pleasant mails to the effect that they had no intention of trying to suppress voter turnout, and in fact only wanted to encourage people to vote.

They did their job too well. According to the official statistics for Cuyahoga county, a number of precincts had voter turnout well above the national average: in fact, turnout was well over 100% of registered voters, and in several cases well above the total number of people who have lived in the precinct in the last century or so.

In 30 precincts, more ballots were cast than voters were registered in the county. According to county regulations, voters must cast their ballot in the precinct in which they are registered. Yet in these thirty precincts, nearly 100.000 more people voted than are registered to vote -- this out of a total of 251.946 registrations. These are not marginal differences--this is a 39% over-vote. In some precincts the over-vote was well over 100%. One precinct with 558 registered voters cast nearly 9,000 ballots. As one astute observer noted, it's the ballot-box equivalent of Jesus' miracle of the fishes. Bush being such a man of God, perhaps we should not be surprised.

What to do?

This is not an idle statistical exercise. Either the raw data from two critical battleground states is completely erroneous, or something has gone horribly awry in our electoral system--again. Like many Americans, I was dissatisfied with and suspicious of the way the Florida recount was resolved in 2000. But at the same time, I was convinced of one thing: we must let the system work, and accept its result, no matter how unjust it might appear.

With this acceptance, we placed our implicit faith in the Bush Administration that it would not abuse its position: that it would recognize its fragile mandate for what it was, respect the will of the majority of people who voted against them, and move to build consensus wherever possible and effect change cautiously when needed. Above all, we believed that both Democrats and Republicans would recognize the over-riding importance of revitalizing the integrity of the electoral system and healing the bruised faith of both constituencies.

This faith has been shattered. Bush has not led the nation to unity, but ruled through fear and division. Dishonesty and deceit in areas critical to the public interest have been the hallmark of his Administration. I state this not to throw gratuitous insults, but to place the Florida and Ohio electoral results in their proper context. For the GOP to claim now that we must take anything on faith, let alone astonishingly suspicious results in a hard-fought and extraordinarily bitter election, is pure fantasy. It does not even merit discussion.

The facts as I see them now defy all logical explanations save one--massive and systematic vote fraud. We cannot accept the result of the 2004 presidential election as legitimate until these discrepancies are rigorously and completely explained. From the Valerie Plame case to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, George Bush has been reluctant to seek answers and assign accountability when it does not suit his purposes. But this is one time when no American should accept not getting a straight answer. Until then, George Bush is still, and will remain, the `Accidental President' of 2000. One of his many enduring and shameful legacies will be that of seizing power through two illegitimate elections conducted on his brother's watch, and engineering a fundamental corruption at the very heart of the greatest democracy the world has known. We must not permit this to happen again.

(11/12/2004)
- By Colin Shea, The Freezer Box

My Country Commits War Crimes: Bush Must Be Stopped!

2004-11-10T23:17:00.000-10:00

U.S. Reportedly Firing White Phosphorous Rounds

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. has begun firing white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Iraqi doctors are reporting that corpses are being brought into the hospital with their skin melted -- a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

Report: 20 Medics Killed in Clinic Bombing

The city's medical system is in shambles. The Chinese news agency Xinhua is reporting that dozens of Iraqis, including 20 medics, were killed when the US bombed a medical clinic in Fallujah yesterday. The clinic was just erected to substitute for the main hospital which was seized by the U.S. on Monday. One doctor told Reuters "There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."

Red Cross Warns About Actions in Fallujah

The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a statement on Fallujah. It read in part "The ICRC urges the belligerents to ensure that all those in need of such care - whether friend or foe - be given access to medical facilities and that medical personnel and vehicles can function without hindrance at all times." In the initial days of the attack, the US has destroyed one hospital, seized a second, destroyed a medical supply center and bombed a first aid clinic.

One Hundred Thousand Iraqis Dead, and More from Falloojeh

2004-11-10T22:57:00.000-10:00

So this is how Bush kicks off his second term. More bloodshed.

"Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble,"

How do they do that Rumsfeld? While tons of explosives are being dropped upon your neighborhood, how do you do that? Do you stay inside the house and try to avoid the thousands of shards of glass that shoot out at you from shattering windows? Or do you hide under a table and hope that it's sturdy enough to keep the ceiling from crushing you? Or do you flee your house and pray to God you don't come face to face with an Apache or tank or that you aren't in the line of fire of a sniper? How do you avoid the cluster bombs and all the other horror being dealt out to the people of Falloojeh?

From Riverbend

9-11 Commisioners Took Oath to Deceive Voters?

2004-11-10T11:03:00.000-10:00

PAULA ZAHN NOW

Aired November 8, 2004 - 20:00 ET

ZAHN: And joining me now, a Democrat who has served as both a governor and U.S. senator. Bob Kerrey also was a member of the 9/11 Commission and is now president of the New School University here in New York.

You better not do much more, because I can barely get that all into the introduction.

BOB KERREY (D), FORMER U.S. SENATOR: That's it. That's it.

ZAHN: Welcome back...

KERREY: .....
George Bush knows when to kiss the baby. And that's a hard thing to teach. In fact, it's an impossible thing to teach. He's very good on the street and he's good with the message. His message was, I will keep you safe, and the other guy won't. And when you are the incumbent, it's a much higher standard for an opponent to prove that you're wrong. So...

ZAHN: The American public, by and large, didn't think John Kerry was the guy to do that.

KERREY: That's correct, because the president had a case, a very simple case to make: I am the commander in chief. I won the war in Afghanistan, even though John Kerry supported it, even though, by the way, there's a credible case that the president's own negligence prior to 9/11 at least in part contributed to the disaster in the first place.

ZAHN: How so?

KERREY: Well, the 9/11 report says in chapter eight -- now that it's beyond the campaign, so the promise I had to keep this out of the campaign is over.

The 9/11 report in chapter eight says that, in the summer of 2001, the government ignored repeated warnings by the CIA, ignored, and didn't do anything to harden our border security, didn't do anything to harden airport country, didn't do anything to engage local law enforcement, didn't do anything to round up INS and consular offices and say we have to shut this down, and didn't warn the American people.

The famous presidential daily briefing on August 6, we say in the report that the briefing officers believed that there was a considerable sense of urgency and it was current. So there was a case to be made that wasn't made.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: But what we continue to hear from this administration is that the threat was much too diffuse. There was no way you could zero in on the fact that al Qaeda was going to use jets as bombs and ram them into buildings.

KERREY: That is a straw man.

The president says, if I had only known that 19 Islamic men would come into the United States of America and on the morning of 11 September hijack four American aircraft, fly two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and one into an unknown Pennsylvania that crashed in Shanksville, I would have moved heaven and earth. That's what he said.

Mr. President, you don't need to know that. This is an Islamic jihadist movement that has been organized since the early 1990s, declared war on the United States twice, in '96 and '98. You knew they were in the United States. You were warned by the CIA. You knew in July they were inside the United States. You were told again by briefing officers in August that it was a dire threat.

And what did you do? Nothing, so far as we could see on the 9/11 Commission. Now, that's in the report. And we took an oath not to talk about it during the campaign, I think correctly so, to increase the capacity of that commission's report to be heard by the people's Congress.

But the report, I think, it's difficult for a challenger. If I had been the challenger, it's difficult to make that case when you are running against an incumbent. He can stand back and say, oh, you're just grousing.

ZAHN: Oh, we couldn't connect the dots is what we heard.

Stunned into Silence, Shocked into Action, Give to Blackboxvoting.com

2004-11-09T14:46:00.000-10:00

On November 2nd, as the first exit polls were reported, I was amazed to see Kerry leading by huge margins. Pennsylvania was 60% to 40% for Kerry, Minnesota was almost a twenty point spread too. Was it possible that we were really going to win, to get the neo-conservatives out of power?

Then, less than ten hours later, the reports had Bush leading. It was Wednesday morning here in Hawaii when Kerry conceded. How was it possible that Kerry could concede? There were still thousands of votes to be counted in Ohio and Florida, not to mention Iowa and New Mexico.

I was stunned into silence for several days. Until Friday, when I chanced upon www.blackboxvoting.org, which stated that they believed some of the vote totals were fraudulent, citing Florida. Florida was a key state. I began looking at the figures for Florida counties, and saw that the counties having optical scan machines had almost uniformly given Bush at least a 5% margin over Kerry, and the totals were discrepant with the exit polls.
In counties using other methods, there was no discrepancy with the exit polls.

Then I noticed that the votes in Palm Beach County totaled over a hundred thousand votes more than the number of people registered to vote in that county. Another discrepancy, this one yielding over 137,000 questionable votes.

Between Florida and Ohio, it looked like massive fraud was committed to make Bush the winner. But why was I surprized. I had known that any president corrupt enough to take his country to war on lies would not hesitate to manipulate vote totals if it was necessary to keep him in power. And, based on the exit polls, Bush was losing and needed to manipulate the votes to stay in power.

I had expected that Bush might stage a terrorist attack just prior to the election, even declare martial law and suspend the election "until the danger has passed". Why was I so naive to think that he wouldn't just change the vote totals. So much simpler, cleaner, to give yourself a "mandate" for the next four years.

Now, with his self-created "mandate" Bush is setting upon the Iraqis of Falluja. They took out the hospitals first because they don't want the hospital staff to report on the number of dead and wounded civilians. Bombing hospitals is, of course, a war crime. Add that to the lengthy list which I pray will one day be prosecuted.

Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org is making freedom of information act requests all over the country to chase down defective machines and stolen votes. That's expensive to do, as the
counties charge by the page of information. Documents here could run into the hundreds of thousands.

We need to fight the fraud. Just got an e-mail saying that there is a demonstration in front of Baldwin Beach Park today. Hopefully, this will happen all over the country. Meanwhile, donate at www.blackboxvoting.com.

'Watching tragedy engulf my city'

2004-11-09T14:30:00.000-10:00

From Falluja:

'Watching tragedy engulf my city'

US and Iraqi forces are locked in desperate street battles against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Falluja. The BBC News website spoke by phone to Fadhil Badrani, a journalist in Falluja who reports for the BBC World Service in Arabic.

Translation from Arabic by Jumbe Omari Jumbe of bbcarabic.com

11/09/04 "BBC" -- I am surrounded by thick black smoke and the smell of burning oil. There was a big explosion a few minutes ago and now I can hear gunfire.

A US armoured vehicle has been parked on the street outside my house in the centre of the city.

From my window, I can see

soldiers moving around on foot near it.

They tried to go from house to house but they kept coming under fire.

Now they are firing back at the houses, at anything that moves. It is war on the streets.

The American troops look like they have given up trying to go into buildings for now and are just trying to control the main roads.

I am sitting here on my own, watching tragedy engulf my city.

Looks like Kabul

I was with some of the Falluja fighters earlier. They looked tired - but their spirits were high and they were singing.

Recently, many Iraqis from other parts of the country have been joining the local men against the Americans.

No one has had much sleep in the past two days of heavy fighting and
of course, it is still Ramadan, so no one eats during the day.

I cannot say how many people have been killed but after two days of
bombing, this city looks like Kabul.

Large portions of it have been destroyed but it is so dangerous to leave the house that I have not been able to find out more about casualties.

Mosques silent

A medical dispensary in the city centre was bombed earlier.

I don't know what has happened to the doctors and patients who were there.

It was last place you could get medical attention because the big
hospital on the outskirts of Falluja was captured by the Americans on Monday.

A lot of the mosques have also been bombed. For the first time in Falluja, a city of 150 mosques, I did not hear a single call to prayer this morning.

I broke my Ramadan fast yesterday with the last of our food
- two potatoes and two tomatoes.

The tomatoes were rotten because we have no electricity to run the fridge.

My neighbours - a woman and her children - came to see me yesterday.

They asked me to tell the world what is happening here.

I look at the devastation around me and ask - why?

Translation from Arabic by Jumbe Omari Jumbe of bbcarabic.com

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3996111.stm

Published: 2004/11/09 14:12:13 GMT

Thanks to www.informationclearinghouse.info
http://207.44.245.159/article7256.htm

Baghdad Burning

2004-11-06T13:20:00.000-10:00

On the U.S. Election Outcome:

Baghdad Burning: "Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Thursday, November 04, 2004

Disappointment...
Well, what is there to say? Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe it...

To the red states (and those who voted for Bush): You deserve no better- I couldn't wish worse on you if I tried. He represents you perfectly... and red really is your color. It's the color of the blood of thousands of Iraqis and by the time this four-year catastrophe in the White House is over, tousands of Americans, likely.

To the blue states (and those who were thinking when they voted): Condolences. Good luck- you'll need it. "

Billions for U.S. Corporations, While for Iraqis...

2004-10-26T10:50:00.000-10:00

Increase in War Funding Sought
Jonathan Weisman & Thomas E. Ricks | October 26

WaPo - The Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year, Pentagon and congressional officials said yesterday.

Comments -
By Nick in USA: Military Issues on Tue Oct 26th, 2004 at 08:58:21 AM PDT

Army denies most compensation claims by Iraqis, newspaper reports
Dayton, Ohio | October 25

AP - The Army has denied most of the thousands of compensation claims Iraqis
have made against the U.S. military, determining that combat accounted for most
of the deaths, injuries and property damage, a newspaper reported Sunday.

From Scoop.agonist.org 10/26/04

Bush Administration Preserved Zarqawi to Justify Iraq Invasion

2004-10-25T10:52:00.000-10:00

According to an MSNBC article of March, 2004, the terrorist Zarqawi had then already murdered over 700 people. By now, with the recent slaughter of 50 Iraqi soldier trainees and innumerable other street bombings and beheadings to his credit, Zarqawi has likely trippled that number.

The MSNBC article detailed the fact that prior to the Iraq invasion in March of 2003, the U.S. military had, on three separate occasions, presented detailed plans to the White House for taking out Zarqawi and his camp, located in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, out of the control of the Saddam government and within the U.S./British maintained "no fly" zone. On each occasion, the White House refused to approve the proposed attack on Zarqawi.

In Colin Powell's speech to the UN in February of 2003, providing the so called factual justification for the invasion, Powell went into great detail explaining the grave dangers presented by Zarqawi, claiming that his camp was producing poisons and harboring Al Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan. See www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/17300.htm -

It has recently come to light that the U.S. and Britain were routinely bombing military targets in the No Fly zone in the year prior to the actual invasion of Iraq. Why didn't the White House authorize an attack on Zarqawi and his followers?

Well, if Zarqawi and his followers were already dead, then their presence in Iraq could not be used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Shortly after the invasion, the U.S. bombed the Zaqawi camp, but by that time Zaqawi and his followers had already abandoned it.

Bush made the political decision to keep Zarqawi alive because the presence of Zargawi in Iraq boosted his case for the March 18, 2003 invasion.

See MSNC for more at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/

Bush Allowed Looting of 380 Tons of Iraqi Explosives

2004-10-24T18:48:00.000-10:00

One of Bush's ostensible reasons for invading Iraq was to prevent Saddam from giving weapons to terrorists. Now we learn that Bush left 380 tons of RDX and HMX explosives, the most powerful in the world, unguarded after the invasion. It was looted and has been used ever since to blow up our soldiers.

The explosives had been put under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and carefully monitored by them prior to the invasion. The U.S. was notified of the cache prior to the invasion, but didn't guard it. After the invasion, the U.S. prohibited the IAEA from entering Iraq to supervise its nuclear components. The RDX and HMX can be used to trigger nuclear explosions.

Apparently, the unguarded exposives -- 40 mack trucks of them -- were looted over a year ago, but the U.S. hid the theft from the IAEA and the American public, even prohibiting the provisional government from reporting it. The so-called "sovereign" interim Iraqi government just reported the loss to the IAEA a month ago, which is why the story emerged only now.

This administration's criminal negligence is killing our soldiers. Enough explosives were taken to keep terrorists fully supplied for years.

See Josh Marshall for more.

I'm Taking My Country Back -- Play it Again, Honky-Tonkers!

2004-10-24T13:26:00.000-10:00

This is a tremendous foot-stompin country song from Nashville's top writers and musicians. Wish I knew how to put the audio directly on this site, as this is a wonderfully patriotic run down of why Bush must go.

Here are the lyrics:

TAKIN' MY COUNTRY BACK COUNTRY MUSIC'S GOT MAMAS AND DADDYS WE GOT BAR ROOMS AND OLD HEARTBREAK SONGS BUT I 'M HERE TODAY TO STAND UP AND SAY HOW I FEEL ABOUT MY HOME SWEET HOME WHAT'S LEFT, WHAT'S RIGHT AND WHAT'S WRONG... AND I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK SON, YOU AIN'T BEEN DOIN’ HER RIGHT OH I BEEN WATCHIN’ YOU AND I DON’T LIKE HOW YOU'VE BEEN TREATIN’ MY STARS AND STRIPES YOU TOOK OUR JOBS AND SENT ‘EM OVERSEAS NOW WE OWE BILLIONS TO THE RED CHINESE YOU BLEW THE BUDGET AND YOU BOTCHED IRAQ SO I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK WE HAD A BUNDLE IN THE TREASURY DRAWER MORE THAN THERE HAD EVER BEEN BEFORE BUT EVERY DAY WE'RE DROWNIN' DEEPER IN DEBT MAYBE FOUR YEARS SHOULD BE ALL YOU GET THEN YOU GAVE TAX BREAKS TO THE MILLIONAIRES AND TRIED TO MAKE THE WORKIN’ MAN PAY BUT YOU CAN’T TAX A MAN WHEN HIS JOBS NOT THERE NOW LOOK AT WHERE WE ARE TODAY…HEY I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK SON, YOU AIN'T BEEN DOIN’ HER RIGHT OH I BEEN WATCHIN’ YOU AND I DON’T LIKE HOW YOU'VE BEEN TREATIN’ MY STARS AND STRIPES YOU GOT TOO MANY FANCY FRIENDS FOR ME THE SAUDIS TREAT YOU LIKE YOU'RE ROYALTY YOU BLEW THE BUDGET AND YOU BOTCHED IRAQ NOW I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK NOW I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WERE HOT 'CAUSE BIN LADEN NEVER DID GET CAUGHT SO YOU SAID WE HAD SADDAM TO BLAME TRIED TO TELL US IT WAS ALL THE SAME BUT NOW THE YEARS ROLL BY AND OUR KIDS KEEP DYIN' YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A PLAN TO BRING 'EM HOME AND THOSE W.M.D. YOU PROMISED ON T.V. HEY ADMIT IT, YOU FIGURED IT WRONG... SO I'M TAKIN' MY COUNTRY BACK NOW YOU DON’T KNOW MY NAME, BUT YOU KNOW WHO I AM I'M YOUR EVERYDAY WORK HARD, PLAY HARD RAISE KIDS AND PRAY HARD COMMON MAN.... AND LORD KNOWS I LOVE THIS LAND...THAT'S WHY I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK SON, YOU AIN'T BEEN DOIN’ HER RIGHT OH I BEEN WATCHIN’ YOU AND I DON’T LIKE HOW YOU'VE BEEN TREATIN’ MY STARS AND STRIPES YOU SAY "UNITE" BUT YOU DIVIDE US MORE CUSSIN' EACH OTHER ON THE SENATE FLOOR AIN'T WE SUPPOSED TO BE ABOVE ALL THAT ? HEY I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK I GOT MY FAMILY AND MY CHURCH AND FLAG... NOW I'M TAKIN' MY COUNTRY BACK

Brought to you by
Honky Tonkers for Truth

ownload lyrics
by clicking here
(DOC)

This song needs to be played at all Kerry rallies, baseball games, streetfairs and everyone's pick-up truck for the next two weeks. Download it from :

www.takinmycountryback.com

Stalin, Hitler and Bush

2004-10-24T10:32:00.000-10:00

Reading Stephanie Bond's interview with an American author of women's fiction whose home was raided recently by federal police brings to mind descriptions by Nadia Mandelstam, wife of Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam, whose books, Hope Against Hope, and "Hope Abandoned" details numerous raids by Stalin's secret police searching their home for "counter-revolutionary" poems:

Dilyn: The raid took place last fall, pre-dawn, and it lasted three hours. They banged at my front door first, damaged it coming in, displayed weapons and threatened to kill my dogs. After that, imagine everything you’ve seen on TV, only worse. There were six male agents. One was in the “bad cop” mode the entire time, trying to intimidate me, yelling at me, threatening me. When I had to go to the restroom, he sent an agent along to the bathroom with me. It was a multi-agency raid: Postal Inspectors (for the Web site/email end of it), FBI, and three officers who would only identify themselves as Federal Police. They took so much--computers, photocopier, files, books, discs, computer programs, CDs of the music by which I write, contracts, absolutely everything I had connected to the writing world. They took pictures off my walls, my office television, pens, a case of paper, postage stamps…even now, after all these months, 1 still so to get something only to discover it missing.

Dilyn, a pseudo-name, was writing a book about the theft of antiquities in Cambodia, and did some research on terrorist groups there. The result, thanks to The Patriot Act, was SS-like storm troopers in her bedroom.

Disregard for the constitution and our democratic institutions is rife within this administration:

The NY Times provides a detailed account of the Bush administration's secretive efforts to create "a new system of justice for the new war they had declared on terrorism."

Determined to deal aggressively with the terrorists they expected to capture, the officials bypassed the federal courts and their constitutional guarantees, giving the military the authority to detain foreign suspects indefinitely and prosecute them in tribunals not used since World War II. The plan was considered so sensitive that senior White House officials kept its final details hidden from the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and the secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, officials said. It was so urgent, some of those involved said, that they hardly thought of consulting Congress.

We must loudly and publicly protest the Bush administration's disregard for the United States Constitution.

It remains to be seen whether they will leave office even if Kerry legally wins the election. In that event, we must be prepared to evict them.

Thanks to Talk Left for the link to the Bond interview and NY Times article.

Warning: War is Toxic to Health

2004-10-23T14:15:00.000-10:00

Go see Enjoy the Draft

Something for the Kitchen Disposal

2004-10-23T13:58:00.000-10:00

Bush Is Toast!

A refrigerator magnet courtesy of: corrente: a boldly shrill member of the reality-based community / Leah, Lambert, Tresy, the farmer, Tom, Xan, and RDF: "

Bush Administration Suppresses CIA's 9-11 Report

2004-10-19T15:09:00.000-10:00

It has never ceased to amaze me that Bush and Cheney, who failed to take any steps at all to protect the United States from terrorism pre-9-11, can be running as the "anti-terror" team.

Top security officials in the Clinton administration gave Bush-Cheney extensive warnings about the terrorism dangers when they briefed the in-coming administration. The Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security was tabled in February of 2001. It contained not only warnings about the U.S.'s lack of preparedness to deal with terrorism, but provided numerous recommendations to improve security. Bush ignored these recommendations, preferring to assign Cheney the task of setting up a new commission to consider the problem. Cheney never convened a meeting of that commission between February, 2001 and 9-11.

In February of 2001, Condi Rice specifically downgraded the status of Richard Clerk, the counter-terrorism czar retained from the Clinton administration. His direct access to the president's cabinet was removed. His requests for a cabinet level meeting on the subject were refused. His proposed counter-terrorism plans were virtually ignored.

Between the Spring of 2001 and September 10, 2001,, over twenty foreign governments warned the U.S. of the existence of terrorist plans for an attack on the U.S. Bush did nothing. Attorney General Ashcroft refused even to listen to reports of imminent terrorist activities from his deputy A.G., and reduced the budget for counter-terrorism activities within the F.B.I.

After receiving the CIA's August 6, 2001 memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack the United States", Bush did nothing to alert key government officials or the public to the threats. He remained on vacation in Texas, clearing brush. The counter-terrorism czar had advised alerting the news media to the story. Bush did nothing.. Widespread public awareness alone could have stymied the attacks.

When similar rumors arose at the end of 1999 for millenium attacks on the U.S., President Clinton summoned his cabinet and all key officials and held daily meetings to garner intelligence and beef up security. The public and border guards were alerted. As a result, those planning to blow up the L.A. airport were arrested at the U.S. Canadian border, and their co-conspirators were located in Canada.

Bush so resolutely refused to take any action in response to the threat reports, that it is no surprise that many believe he allowed them to happen. A poll of New Yorkers taken in August of this year, shows that a substantial majority of New Yorkers believe that Bush had foreknowledge of the attacks.

Three years later, Bush is still suppressing information about the lead-up to the 9-11 attacks:

The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket by Robert Sheer,
LA Times via www.commondreams.com

The agency is withholding a damning report that points at senior officials.
It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago. "It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago asking for it to be delivered. "We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."

Draft? Absurd, Of Course We Won't Have a Draft

2004-10-19T01:29:00.000-10:00

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are going around the country this week calling Kerry a liar for suggesting that Bush will re-institute the draft. Ed Gillespie, head of the National Republican Party, had the arrogance to demand that the "Rock the Vote" group "cease and desist"passing baseless rumors about the re-introduction of the draft. This report suggests that the "baseless rumor" is well founded fact.

IN THE MILITARY
Medical workers face military draft
Pentagon plan calls up medics, nurses, doctors in national emergencies

Posted: July 25, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jon Dougherty
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

The Pentagon will draft experienced medical personnel, including medics, nurses and physicians, in the event of a national emergency.

The "health care personnel delivery system" is being readied by the Department of Defense, according to a report published by the Newhouse News Service, to cope with military casualties from a large-scale biological or chemical attack. The plan was authorized by Congress in 1987 to deal with large-scale casualties that outstripped the active-duty military's ability to handle them.

www.worldnetdaily.com

Oh, and other "special skills" persons maybe drafted too, especially those with computer expertise. The Selective Service registration data will become a "skills bank", from which needed personnel can be inducted, " but only in emergencies" of course.

See also www. seattlepi.nwsource.com for info as of 10/19/04.

We Cannot Bomb the World Into Peace

2004-10-19T01:02:00.000-10:00

On 9-11, we were attacked by a relatively small group of terrorists. Their organization was Al Qaeda, and they were based in Afghanistan. We had the leader of Al Qaeda virtually surrounded in Tora Bora, but relied on local war lords to catch him. They didn’t.

The reason we relied on the war lords was because President Bush was focused on invading Iraq, a country which had not attacked us. In the Spring of 2001, both Condi Rice and Colin Powell had acknowledged that Iraq, decimated by the `1991 war and sanctions that followed, did not have a strong army and did not present a threat to us.

But Bush had come in to office already committed to regime change in Iraq, by which he meant effecting U.S. control over Iraqi oil fields and the planting of America military bases there.

Saddam ran a secular dictatorship, he was named as an enemy by Bin Laden, he was not allied with him nor likely to give Bin Laden weapons of mass destructions, even if Saddam had them, which he didn’t. Saddam had actively suppressed the religious fundamentalists like Bin Laden in Iraq. (The now famed terrorist, Zarquawi, had a base in Iraq, but it was in the Kurdish area, outside of Saddam's control. The U.S. had at least three opportunities to bomb that base, but Bush refused to allow our military to do so because he wanted to be able to point to Zarquawi's presence "in Iraq" as a justification for invading it.)

Determined to carry out the long laid plans of the neoconservatives, impelled by the interests of his energy company donors, Bush diverted the majority of our resources from Afghanistan into Iraq. The billions of dollars which were allocated to no bid contracts for Halliburton for Iraq were thus diverted from the fight against Al Qaeda and, even worse, diverted from use to strengthen our anti-terrorist defenses within the United States.

That is why 95 per cent of the cargo coming into the U.S. is uninspected, that is why our chemical and nuclear plants remain unsecured, that is why our first responders do not have radio communication systems capable of handling a major attack, that is why thousands of our first responders are not here protecting us, but off killing and being killed in Iraq.

The billions that were spent bombing Iraq could have been used to defuse the causes of terrorism – by bringing jobs, international educational exchange programs, medical care, working electricity, water and sewage plants to the poor in the Middle East. That money could have been used to assist the democratic movements in the Middle East against the dictatorships we have so often supported, if not put into power in the first place.

The best way to fight terrorism is to stop carrying out policies which cause terrorism, to fight it on the level of ideas and true democratic assistance. The more people we bomb in Iraq, the more Moslems throughout the Middle East will choose to become terrorists.

If we want peace, we must work for justice. It is impossible to bomb the world into peace. I have a 19 year old son, I certainly would not send him to fight in the Middle East when all of his fighting would only raise the level of terrorism for all peoples throughout the world.

Bush and the neo-conservatives who have hi-jacked our government and who are wrecking death and destruction on Iraq, and hoping to carry it on into Iran and Syria, must be stopped. Sanity and democracy must be restored in the United States. For that, I am willing to let my son fight.

Protest Arrests of Iranian Bloggers

2004-10-17T20:17:00.000-10:00

Juan Cole reports that four Iranian journalists were arrested of late for expressing ideas unacceptable to the Iranian government. He suggests we write in protest.'

Omid Memarian, Iranian writer and journalist, weblogger and social activist was arrested on Sunday. According to his brother, who provided a report to ISNA, Omid was arrested in his work place and then taken to his home, where his computer and hand written notes were also confiscated. Omid was mentioned in the editorial by Hossein Shariatmadari published in Keyhan, which accused western governments of supporting a web (or network) of Iranian reformist journalists and webloggers who are working to overthrow the regime. It is worth mentioning that many of those accused of political crimes in recent years have been arrested based on false allegations which first appeared in the ultra conservative daily Kayhan.

Please complain about this to the Iranian government via their interests section in Washington, DC or via the Iranian embassy if you have one in your country. I know it seems hopeless to complain, but I used to write Amnesty International letters to the Communist government of Czechoslovakia complaining about intellectual repression, and maybe that sort of activity wasn't a waste of time in retrospect. I sometimes wonder where the apparatchik is now, who received them . . .

See: www.juancole.com

Looting the Life from Our Soldiers, Our Planet

2004-10-16T23:06:00.000-10:00

Nuclear scientists have long known that the depleted uranium, also called uranium 238 or D.U. used in our weapons and military armor, is radiating through our own soldiers’ bodies, its toxic dust causing, not only serious lung and eye damage but mutations in their DNA that cause deadly cancerous tumors, leukemia and irreversible damage to their genetic material. Their mutated and distorted genes are passed on in their semen to their children, who may be born without limbs, without eyes, without other crucial body parts, and without hope of a normal life for themselves or their families.

Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs said that of the 592,561 discharged veterans from the 1991 war in Iraq, 179,310 are receiving disability compensation, and another 24,763 cases are pending.

More than one out of every three veterans from the first Gulf War is permanently disabled. This in a war where there were only 148 American combat deaths.

Despite such statistics, the U.S. Army still maintains that exposure to D. U. is harmless. To admit its danger might deprive them of a supremely deadly and effective armor-piercing weapon which also serves as a dense barrier to offensive attack.

Ok, you might say, D.U. exposure is just a another danger our soldiers must be prepared for if they join the army; it’s just another danger that our enemies’ soldiers must be prepared for if they fight us. But the weaponized depleted uranium we use burns rapidly in air and then remains there as micro-particles. It’s dust coats the earth where hundreds of thousands of children play, where women farm, where it encrusts their crops with its deadly particulate and is inhaled, ingested and absorbed into their bodies. The micro particles are blown up into the air and carried across borders and thousands of miles where its toxicity will bring more cancerous deaths and more mutated genes to hundreds of thousands of non-combatants.

The half life of depleted uranium is 4.4 billion years. That means that in 4.4 billion years it will have lost only half of its toxic properties. The U.S. reportedly has a stock pile of 100 million tons of depleted uranium available for weapons and armor plating. During the 1991 Gulf War, up to 350 tons of depleted uranium were spread through Iraq. In this war, we have already deposited five times that amount on Iraqi soil, crops and human beings. Its deadly effects will last for 8.8 billion years. According to Dr. Doug Rokk, former director of the U.S Army Project on Depleted Uranium, it cannot be cleaned up, there is no cure for D.U. exposure, and only a slight exposure can be permanently damaging. We are laying the groundwork for generations of monstrous mutant children.

Where are those who, like George Bush, so militantly oppose stem cell research, oppose a women’s right to choose when to have a child, why aren’t they joining the battle to protect human life for myriad generations by stopping the use of this endlessly murderous nuclear weapon?.

The 9-11 terrorists killed three thousand, but we will be killing off billions, and all for relatively momentary control over Middle East oil. The oil will all be gone in a few hundred years, the depleted uranium will continue to kill and maim human life virtually forever.

The world, if it is to survive, desperately needs leaders who will think through the consequences of their acts – the long term consequences. George Bush is not such a leader. If not stopped, he will continue to mindlessly kill off generations of human beings with his “small” nuclear weapons of depleted uranium.. He must be stopped.

What Bush Did Not 4-C.

2004-10-16T18:34:00.000-10:00

Corrente (www.corrente.blogspot.com) quotes from a Knight Ridder Newspaper article on Bush's pre-invasion planning for Iraq in March of 2003:

"Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.

The slide said: "To Be Provided."'

There was no plan for the occupation of Iraq -- none, nada, zip. Given all the disastrous decisions made by the Bush administration after Saddam was ousted, that does not come as a total surprise, but it is still astounding. Incredible incompetence.

I wonder if Power Point slide 4-B was a picture of a ticker-tape parade?

See the whole sorry, horrifying tale about Bush's lack of planning at

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9927782.html

Congressman Ryan Demolishes Bush's Credibility

2004-10-16T14:49:00.000-10:00

Link to monumentally effective congressional speech by Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) answering those who criticize young people for not believing Bush when he says there will be no draft. This demolishes Bush, not only on the draft, but on every other significant issue in this election.

http://matt-stoller.mydd.com/story/2004/10/7/12420/1686

Thank You, Jon Stewart

2004-10-16T13:51:00.000-10:00

Jon Stewart of Daily Show smashes through Crossfire's glib cynicism to demand some truth: See video at:

• Random Foo
• iFilm
• Media Matters
• Indymedia
• BitFlood (need Bit Torrent to view)

###

Out Slips the Truth About the Draft

2004-10-16T13:45:00.000-10:00

Bush's Sub-Conscious Admits the Truth:

"He [Bush] said that, after a debate with Kerry, 'I made it very plain. We will not have an all-volunteer army.' The crowd fell silent. 'WE WILL have an all-volunteer army,' Bush said, quickly catching himself. 'Let me restate that. We will not have a draft.'"

KRT Wire | 10/16/2004 | Bush, Kerry sharpen attacks on the campaign trail:

Freeway Blogger's Great Photos

2004-10-16T13:14:00.000-10:00

The Wave of the Future

See:
Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation

And see: www.freewayblogger.com for more great protest signs:

The Origins of the Quagmire

2004-10-16T01:53:00.000-10:00

I watch as my government drops thousands of tons of bombs on the people of Fallujah, Iraq. Many of those bombs, if not most, are made of depleted uranium which will go on killing Iraqis for thousands of years. We now know that Iraqi had no weapons of mass destruction, had no connection with Al Qaeda and the 9-11 attacks, had no nuclear weapons development programs. How did this come about?

According to Bill Moyer’s documentary, “Secret Government”, it started in 1947, when Truman signed the National Security Act which set up the CIA and the National Security Council, two bodies which took decisions about war and peace out of the hands of Congress and rested them in the secret meetings of un-elected officials whose provenance was undercover spying.

They first turned their hand to over-throwing the elected government of Iran in 1953. Yes, that’s where our troubles with Iran started. Because the then democratically elected prime minister of Iran had dared to wrest control over Iranian oil fields from private ownership by British oil companies, President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to effect a coup and install the Shah Pavlavi back into power. With the Shah, came the CIA created secret police, SAVAK, which killed and tortured thousands of Iranians to keep him in power.

Following the 1953 Iranian coup, our CIA engineered similar coups in South Vietnam, Guatemala, Chile and a number of African countries, all without Congressional approval. There has been no official declaration of war by Congress since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.

In 1979, mass revulsion at the Shah’s bloody reign was channeled by the Iranian religious leaders, the mullahs, into a revolution which not only ousted the Shah and brought religious fundamentalists to power, but brought with it virulent anti-American animosity, culminating in the take over of the American embassy and holding of American hostages.

Thereafter, to counteract the Iranians, the U.S. and its CIA, who had assisted the installation of Saddam Hussein into power in Iraq, supported his eight year war against Iran and, with the assistance of Donald Rumsfeld, sold him the biological and chemical weapons for use against Iran, the same weapons we were later to use to justify our invasion of his country and the installation of yet another CIA groomed leader, Ahmed Allawi.

When Saddam turned his attention to claims to oil fields in Kuwait and invaded that country in 1990, the first President Bush, seeing danger to the control of Kuwaiti oil fields and those of Saudi Arabia, organized a grand coalition to stop Saddam and did so in 1991. Bush I wisely chose not to chase Saddam to Baghdad, fearing the quagmire that might ensue if we attempted to depose him and occupy Iraq. That wisdom was not passed down to the second President Bush, who now has engulfed us in the very quagmire foreseen by his father.

But the first president Bush’s wisdom did not extend to events in Afghanistan, where he used the CIA to arm Islamic resistance to the Russian occupation of that country. The CIA trained and armed those who were to become the Taliban and Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. The objective was stop Russian hegemony over the oil fields and oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea area. Our energy companies wanted access to that oil and gas.

(After successfully obstructing Saddam’s thrust into Kuwait, the first President Bush negotiated the basing of American troops in Saudi Arabia.. That is what grossly offended Osama Bin Laden and fomented his anger against the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. That is where his terrorism against the U.S. had its roots.)

In 1992, those in the first President Bush’s administration who disagreed with his decision to stop at the Iraqi border began developing a strategy for world dominance, directed to obtaining control, either direct or through surrogates, of the world’s major energy sources. Control over Iraq was a key piece in their plan, to be followed by control of Iran and Syria. Their aim was to protect Israel, with which some of them were closely allied, to put domination of the Middle Eastern oil fields into the hands of American energy companies, and to remove our troops from Saudi Arabia into Iraqi bases.

With their installation of puppet, President George W. Bush, in office, these relatively few individuals, all members of the Project for a New American Century, took positions of critical power in his administration: Rumsfeld, Cheney, Libby, Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, and Perle, among others, the so-called neo-conservatives, began to implement their plans.

Their first objective was to take over Iraq, privatize and control its oil fields and then to place military bases there for the future control of Iran and Syria. Twelve military bases are being built in Iraq as I write. Their secret machinations fabricated the notion that Saddam was a threat, from the false allegations of Saddam's collusion with Al Qaeda to the phony evidence of a nuclear weapons program (the aluminium tubes and the Niger yellow cake documets).

To do this, they created their own miniature intelligence agency within the Defense Department. That was the original office of misinformation.

These neo-conservatives, driven by a radical commitment to the most extreme form of corporate capitalist power, cloaked in the guise of bringing “democracy” to the world, in fact eschew representative government, believing that they are the intellectual elite with the duty and right to control the American government and its world wide empire.

Like Bush, who believes he channels the words of God, these neo-conservatives are also fantasists who believe that they can substitute their will and their ideology for the reality on the ground. At present, the reality on the ground has confounded them in Iraq. They truly expected Iraq to submit to their will, and accept their putative puppet Ahmed Chalabi as their leader. That did not work. Their back-up surrogate, Allawi, is not working either. To distract from the disaster they’ve caused there, they are pointing to Iran as the culprit, with a view to destabilizing that country as well. But that was also part of their original plan.

Bush keeps telling us that his “war on terrorism” will be a long, long war. In fact, it will be a series of wars, not focused on the real terrorism of the Bin Ladins , but focused on extending American hegemony worldwide, until “the sun never sets on the American empire”.

Bush and this small group of ideologues who brought us to the quagmire in Iraq are both arrogant and incompetent, and those qualities may foil their plan, but in the meantime they are secretly destroying the fundamental structures of American democracy.

They have replaced our constitutional rights with their repressive Patriot Act, ignored international treaties giving rights to prisoners of war and occupied civilians, officially instituted policies allowing torture and secret detentions, and filled our regulatory agencies with corporate officials from the putatively regulated industries.

At this very moment, they are in the process of suppressing the voting rights of those who oppose them in the United States.

We must restore control to the American people, re-establish a representative, working Congress, and make sure that never again will the American government be run by secret cabal which perverts our values and democratic institution.

Correction from Juan Cole:

Yes, this is the basic narrative.  The

only thing that leapt out at me to change was that it was Reagan who arranged

for the Mujahidin in Afghanistan to be given billions (Carter started it, but

only gave $50 mn. for 1981).  By the time Bush senior got in, the war had

wound down and Bush made a deal with the Soviets that he would cut off the

Mujahidin if they would butt out permanently.  So Bush turned his back on

Afghanistan in 1991 altogether, setting policy that was continued by

Clinton.  Leaving Afghanistan to fall into chaos and then the hands of the

Pakistani-organized Taliban maybe wasn't a good idea.



Thanks, Juan at www.juancole.com

Stop Sinclair Broadcasting Anti-Kerry Programming

2004-10-10T13:43:00.000-10:00

Sinclair Boardcasting, which owns 62 TV stations in the U.S. (and has plans for acquiring more), has ordered its local stations to run a 90 minute anti-Kerry film within a week of the election.

This violates FCC regulations, and could have a tremendous impact on the election. They must be forced to either withdraw the film from the air ways or commit to giving equal publicity and time to the recently released Kerry biography. If they refuse to do so, we should all join in filing FCC and FEC complaints against them and in organizing a boycott of their advertiser's products.

It should be noted that Sinclair's CEO, David Smith, was arrested in 1996 while in the process of consorting, in flagrante delicto, with an orally expertised street hooker. So much for family values. Here follows contact information for Sinclair and a letter I wrote to them demanding that they change their plans.

Here are contact addresses for Sinclair Broadcasting:

Corporate Headquarters
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
10706 Beaver Dam Road
Hunt Valley, Maryland 21030
410-568-1500 (Main Telephone)
410-568-1533 (Main Fax)

Investor Relations Contact
Lucy A. Rutishauser
VP Corporate Finance and
Corporate Treasurer
investor@sbgi.net

Sales Questions
Darren Shapiro
VP Sales
410-568-1500

-or-

Jeff Sleete
VP Marketing
410-568-1500

Web Site Concerns
Mike O'Malley
Corporate Webmaster
webmaster@sbgi.net
___________

When I called today, David Shapiro's mail box was fill, so I left a message on Jeff Sleete's and that of Jessica Sleete, whoever she may be.

I also e-mailed their investor section. Here's the e-mail I wrote:

"Your plan to mandate individual stations to show an anti-Kerry film within 60 days of the election is violative of FCC regulations and an affront to the democratic process. Unless the anti-Kerry film is withdrawn or equal time is given to publicizing and showing the recently released Kerry biography, I will join in the filing of an FCC complaint and help in the organization of a boycott of your advertisers.

I believe that your advertisers would not continue to support a company which is not only seeking to undermine the election process, but whose CEO's has been arrested, in flagrante delicto while having sex with a street hooker. His conduct certainly undermines the improvement of family values."

Write/call Sinclair's advertisers:

_National
Arby's
1-800-487-2729 http://www.arbys.com. tholtz@ARBYS.COM

_National Circuit City
804-418-8298 curtis_george@circuitcity.com

Tallahassee Folmar Gun & Pawn
850-224-6836, 850-224-3335
mfolmar@aol.com

_National General Mills
(763) 764-7600 612-540-7092, http://www.generalmills.com/corporate/contact_us/contact_us.aspx
kirstie.foster@genmills.com

Portland Hannaford Supermarkets
800-213-9040 http://www.hannaford.com/contact.htm
wtgilliatt@foodlion.com

Des Moines Homemakers Furniture - Rick
515-309-4673, 888-818-7283, 515-265-3481
http://www.homemakersfurn.com/contact_us/index.html
rick@homemakersfurn.com

Dayton IAMS Pet Food
1-800-675-3849 http://www.iams.com
customer.service@iams.com

Minneapolis Once Upon A Child / Winmark
(763) 520-8500, (800) 567-6600
http://www.ouac.com/
ouac-corporate-operations@ouac.com

Portland Pineworks Furniture
207-777-7009, 207-786-4849, 1-866-876-746
http://www.pineworksofmaine.com
pineworks@pineworksofmaine.com

Milwaukee Rank & Son Buick Pontiac GMC
414-372-4000 http://www.rankandson.com
Jimhayes@rankandson.com

Flint Rightway
810-239-4392, 989-779-8900, 989-835-8143
http://www.rightwaytogo.com/
customerservice@rightwaytogo.com

_National U.S. Cellular
773-399-8873
http://www.uscc.com/uscellular/SilverStream/Pages/c_custserv.html
corporate@uscellular.com

Kansas City Watson's
913-888-SPAS, (513) 326-1100
http://www.watsons.com
webmaster@watsons.com