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| Neo-Cons Are Thrilled:-- Two (2) Million To Lose Unemployment Benefits ... |
| 01.31.04 (4:39 pm) [edit] |
[b]Is this really the kind of society that "We the People" want to leave to future generations??? ... A callous, barbaric, neo-feudal slave state resulting in the largest Gap between the [i]Hyper-Rich-Haves [/i]and the [i]Impoverished-Slavish-H ave-Nots [/i] since the Great Depression ... and a return to [i]SLAVERY[/i] in the American 3rd World Country of Tomorrow ... [/b]
Of course, the neo-con, neo-fascist thugs & goons in the Corporate-[i]Bought-and-P aid-for [/i]Bush regime must be thrilled, as they continue to [i]celebrate in a drunken riotous rage of ecstasy [/i]over their diminishing GDP-- that[i] isn't [/i]helping most Americans [i](the so-called growth is generating profits funnelled into the pockets of gluttonous corporate robber-barons who are raping our working people and society, senseless ...)[/i] while over 3.3 million citizens are homeless, over 9-15 million citizens are without jobs [i](Dubya's economic fiasco destroyed 3.3 million jobs ... Clinton's economy created over 22 million jobs ...)[/i], over 25 million families live below the poverty line, over 45 million citizens are without health care ... the crime rate is skyrocketing ... and the misery and suffering continues ...
[b]Two (2) Million To Lose Unemployment Benefits[/b]:
The [i][b]Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [/b][/i]is calculating that a record high 375,000 jobless workers will exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits this month. An estimated 2 million workers will lose benefits over the first six months of the year.
[b]Source[/b]:
DemocracyNOW, 01/30/04 on http://www.democracynow.org/a...
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| Secrecy as Policy ... And "Secretive Regimes That Want To Deceive" ... |
| 01.31.04 (12:27 pm) [edit] |
"[i]When you are dealing with secretive regimes that want to deceive, you’re never going to be able to be positive [/i]..." - Condi Rice, 01/29/04, http://news.scotsman.com/uk.c...
"[i]George W. Bush's presidency has been characterized by a zeal for secrecy, an unrelenting push to stem the free flow of information[/i]." - Charles Lewis, http://www.alternet.org/story...
[b]It is any wonder that the entire planet is terrified of the neo-con terrorists in the Bush regime, the big bullies [i]on the block [/i]who are terrorizing the world community? ... [/b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc [i]junta[/i] is the most dangerous terrorist threat to the world today because they have under their control the largest stockpiles of WMDs known to mankind and they [i]lust[/i] to use their massive weaponry again, following Iraq, in their insane plans to invade Pakistan, Syria, Iran, North Korea and anyone else they unilaterally choose to subdue in order to flex their muscles ([i]instead of their miniscule brains[/i]) and in their grab for global power & vast wealth ... Bush has the world's largest stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons at his disposal and his neo-fascist side-kicks including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice & Rove have made it clear that they'll [i]use 'em [/i]... They can hardly wait to [i]use 'em [/i] ([i]'cause diplomacy takes brains ... whereas brute force is easy when you're not terribly bright & are safe-and-sound in the bosom of armed-guards far from the action![/i] ...) ... Oh, won't that make Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Lockheed-Martin, the Defense Contractors, Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex [i]thrilled [/i]and [i]tickled-pink[/i]!
The neo-imperial Bush regime has betrayed our nation by ignorning warnings prior to 9/11 that may well have prevented that tragedy, and subsequently launching their neo-con pre-emptive invasion of Iraq that was illegal and immoral, given that Iraq didn't threaten us and was co-operating with the U.N. Inspections ([i]by the way, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 either, nor did they have those neo-orwellian fabrications:-- WMDs [/i]...) ... Now Bush refuses to handover papers revealing what he was told about security threats in the days leading-up to 9/11 ... Moreover, he is refusing to support an independent probe into the lies, deceptions and falsehoods that were propagated upon us regarding the non-existent WMDs in Iraq, supposedly posing an imminent threat to our national security, the Bush regime's [i]casus belli [/i]for their insane neo-fascist war. Instead, Bush simply continues to [i]smirk and simper [/i]his [i]imbecilic smile [/i]that makes any intelligent person [i]sick at heart [/i]and [i]sick to the stomach[/i]!
Bush's refusal to co-operate with the 9/11 investigative committee [i]and[/i] his refusal to demand an independent probe into the Iraqi WMDs [i]cock-up, [/i]both demonstrate his corruption and his negligence, and are sufficient grounds to demand that Congress http://www.congress.org finally do its duty and call for impeachment hearings to remove Bush and his corrupt cabal of neo-con thugs & goons from office.
Consider also "[b]Secrecy as Policy[/b]" by [i]Charles Lewis[/i], The Center for Public Integrity http://www.publicintegrity.or... , in an excerpt from his book "[i]The Buying of the President 2004[/i]" on http://www.alternet.org/story... :
George W. Bush's presidency has been characterized by a zeal for secrecy, an unrelenting push to stem the free flow of information.
One particularly notable example has been the Administration's effort to undermine the Freedom of Information Act, the 1966 law that grants citizens access – although with some exceptions – to federal agency records. By statute, government FOIA officers may withhold records dealing with classified national security information, trade secrets, personnel or medical issues, and a handful of other matters – decisions that in each case are left to an official's own discretion (although those denied the requested information may appeal). In October 1993, to better standardize the process and create more openness in government, Attorney General Janet Reno dispatched a memorandum revamping the way the Act would be administered; from now on, the memo directed, FOIA officers should "apply a presumption of disclosure." To drive home the point, Reno decreed that, in the event of FOIA-related litigation, the Justice Department would no longer defend an agency's withholding of information merely because there was a "substantial legal basis" for doing so. "Where an item of information might technically or arguably fall within an exemption," she added, "it ought not to be withheld from a FOIA requester unless it need be."
But eight years later, in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Reno's successor renounced that presumption of disclosure. In a memo to the heads of federal departments and agencies, Attorney General John Ashcroft decreed that a well-informed citizenry may be vital to government oversight, but not at the expense of undermining national security. "Any discretionary decision by your agency to disclose information protected under the FOIA should be made only after full and deliberate consideration of the institutional, commercial, and personal privacy interests that could be implicated by disclosure of the information," he wrote. And unlike Reno, whose policies engendered more government in the sunshine, Ashcroft promised legal cover for agencies coming down on the side of non-disclosure. "When you carefully consider FOIA requests and decide to withhold records, in whole or in part, you can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies to protect other important records," his memo added. In other words, Justice would bow out of litigation only if its participation might subsequently imperil the government's ability to withhold other information.
While 9/11 was the presumed catalyst for the revamped FOIA guidelines, the policy change was actually in keeping with Bush's historical aversion to the release of government papers. In 1997, for example, Bush successfully championed legislation that allowed the governor of Texas to designate an in-state university or alternate institution, in lieu of the Texas State Library and Archives, as the repository for his or her papers. And he later exploited the law by ordering that his own gubernatorial papers be deposited in the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, at Texas A&M University, which is home to his father's executive records.
At the time, the shipment of Bush's documents received scant attention. But the relocation effort later generated consternation among reporters, historians, researchers, and others seeking access to the eighteen hundred boxes of not-yet-cataloged papers. The reason: because records at the presidential library are under the jurisdiction of the National Archives and Records Administration, which is a federal agency, there was confusion whether release of the younger Bush's papers was bound by the federal Freedom of Information Act or the Texas Public Information Act, which mandates a much speedier response time for requested records.
Bush's attorney denied that the move reflected a desire to restrict public access to the papers. And in an interview with the Center, Chris LaPlante, the state archivist, also dismissed the conspiratorial claims of open-government activists: He and his colleagues, he said, knew that the governor's papers were destined for an alternate repository, and they assumed that the Bush library staff were equipped to deal with the documents. But Bush's action nonetheless imposed weeks-long, even months-long delays on the release of documents. And it left consumer advocacy organizations such as Public Citizen grumbling that the departed Texas governor lacked the legal authority to give away state records or place them beyond the reach of the state's open-records law. In May 2002, following protracted legal wrangling, Texas Attorney General John Cornyn agreed. He ruled that the disputed papers were indeed state property, and therefore subject to the Texas open-records law.
But while Texans earned easier access to some historical records, the public at large was being saddled with a variety of new impediments to an open federal government. To wit:
On November 1, 2001, President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, not-so-aptly titled "Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act." In truth, the executive order actually overrides the 1978 Presidential Records Act, the Watergate-inspired edict which stipulated that the papers of presidents and vice-presidents would be made available to the public twelve years after their leaving office. Under Bush's plan, however, former presidents or their heirs may veto the release of their presidential papers, as may the sitting president – a decision that vested George W. Bush with the authority to block release of his father's papers, for example, or even those of Bill Clinton. Bush's order drew fervent bipartisan condemnation on Capitol Hill (although not enough to force reinstatement of the '78 Act), and it particularly rankled librarians and historians. The comments of Steven Hensen, president of the Society of American Archivists, were typical. Writing in the Washington Post, he asked: "How can a democratic people have confidence in elected officials who hide the records of their actions from public view?"
Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration encouraged federal agencies to purge a wide array of potentially sensitive data from their Web sites – a decree that, for a time, removed the entire online presence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and which ultimately resulted in hundreds of thousands of pages being deleted from sites maintained by the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, and other federal entities. "It is no longer possible for families and communities to get data critical to protecting themselves – information such as pipeline maps (that show where they are and whether they have been inspected), airport safety data, environmental data, and even documents that are widely available on private sites today were removed from government sites and have not reappeared," OMB Watch, which for two decades has been chronicling the activities of the Office of Management and Budget, noted in a paper released in October 2002.
On March 25, 2003, President Bush signed an order that postponed, by three years, the release of millions of twenty-five-year-old documents slated for automatic declassification the following month. What's more, Executive Order 13292, which amended a Clinton Administration order, granted FOIA officers wider latitude to reclassify information that had already been declassified, and further eliminated a provision that instructed them not to classify information if there was "significant doubt" about the need to do so. While President Bush maintained that the order balanced national security with open government, some were not convinced. For example, the Washington Post quoted Thomas Blanton, executive director of the nonprofit National Security Archive, as saying that the order sends "one more signal from on high to the bureaucracy to slow down, stall, withhold, stonewall."
When the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press surveyed the post-September 11th landscape, the First Amendment watchdog concluded that the government had embarked on "an unprecedented path of secrecy" that stifled the press' and the public's right to know. Among the reporters ensnared by the government's flight from the traditional culture of openness is John Solomon, deputy bureau chief of the Associated Press. Solomon, who works out of the Washington, D.C. bureau, was twice victimized. In one incident, a package sent by Federal Express to Solomon from another AP bureau was intercepted by the U.S. Customs Service and forwarded to the FBI, where its contents – an eight-year-old, unclassified Bureau lab report previously made public in a court case – were seized and withheld for seven months. In a previous incident, the Justice Department subpoenaed Solomon's home phone records in an attempt to unearth his confidential source for a wire service story. Solomon, who only learned about the subpoena months later, told the Center it's his understanding that the traditional practice of subpoenaing reporters as an absolute last resort in a "leaks" investigation is no longer the department's modus operandi. "I'm not quite sure it's gotten the public attention it deserves," Solomon told the Center. "I don't think the profession has realized the importance of the change of standards that has occurred as a result of my case."
[b]Other Sources[/b]:
"The Mirror Has Two Faces" by Maureen Dowd on http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
"Blair's case for war built on sand - now it's shifting" on http://news.scotsman.com/uk.c...
"White House Holding Notes Taken by 9/11 Commission:-- Panel May Subpoena Its Summaries of Bush Briefings" on http://www.washingtonpost.com...
"A 9/11 COVER UP? WHY WON'T BUSH COOPERATE WITH INVESTIGATORS?" on http://www.philly.com/mld/dai...
"Bush 'No' to WMD intelligence probe call" on http://icwales.icnetwork.co.u...
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| Paying For Politics:-- Corporate Fascism ... |
| 01.31.04 (10:22 am) [edit] |
"[i]The Presidency of the United States was an office neither to be sought nor declined. To pay money for securing it directly or indirectly, was in my opinion incorrect in principle[/i]." --John Quincy Adams, 1828
[b]"We the People" should be very, very, very concerned and be prepared to take action [i]now[/i]: Corporations and big monied interests have established a vast infrastructure of powerful lobbyists, corporate propagandists, and immoral ([i]and possibly illegal[/i]) funds transfer mechanisms & companies, all used in order to [i]buy-n-pay-for [/i]our government in the most arrogant abuse of power and theft of our country for private interests, not seen in this nation, since the 1920s just prior to the Great Depression.[/b]
The Age of Corporate Fascism is upon us, and we are tragically witness to the most obsene prostitution of corrupt and criminal political whores, particulary the Bush regime, who are prepared to[i] sell [/i]our nation out to the [i]highest bidder[/i]. This used to be called TREASON. It still is TREASON under the U.S. Constitution-- however, these Corporate Fascists have installed their traitorous sluts in all three arms of our government: In the Supreme Court, we have Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas-- who betray our nation in return for jobs for their [i]not-too-bright [/i]and[i] criminal [/i]off-spring ... In Congress, particuarly among the GOP, we have many incumbents including DeLay, Lott, Hastert, and other political hacks willing to bribe, intimidate and punish anyone who[i] stands-up [/i]for the American people-- these traitors let Corporations write the legislative bills that harm and embezzle Americans in their heinous grab for infinite power and vast riches ... In the White House, we've been saddled with the most corrupt regime in our nation's history, the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who have massacred tens of thousands of human beings in their illegal & immoral neo-nazi grab for OIL and moreover they've let their corporate pimps [i]define our foreign, domestic and economic policies [/i]...
We are embroiled in fiascos abroad [i]and[/i] at home resulting in the largest swindle & scam in the history of our nation, whereby the U.S. Treasury's Taxpayer Dollars are being re-distributed to Corporations, Corporate Looters & Thieves, the Filthy Rich Oligarchs & Plutocrats, who have [i]hijacked[/i] our nation ... It is time to contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that Bush be impeached for his horrendous [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]... It [i]can be accomplished [/i]because his lies, deceptions and falsehoods perpetrated upon our nation to lead us into war, is a[i] crime of treason [/i]under the U.S. Constitution!
Let us take our nation back from these [i]corporate-take-all[/i] fascists and fulfill the promise of our Founding Fathers to promote the [i]General Welfare of All [/i]and to provide [i]Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for All [/i]([i]and not just for the gluttonous rich and the corrupt powerful corporate robber-barons [/i]...)!
Visit the[i] NOW With Bill Moyers [/i]web-site topic entitled "[i][b]Paying for Politics[/b][/i]" on http://www.pbs.org/now/politi... and peruse some of the facts and figures regarding the fascism that is corrupting our nation:
"[i]The Presidency of the United States was an office neither to be sought nor declined. To pay money for securing it directly or indirectly, was in my opinion incorrect in principle[/i]." --John Quincy Adams, 1828
Fine sentiments from the sixth president of the United States, a man not without significant familiar and financial influence going in to his own race for the White House. According to federal government historians money has played a role in since the earliest days of the nation. However, it has been in since 1960 that money spent on campaigns has begun to increase dramatically. Find out more about how much money is flowing into the system below.
[b]The ECONOMIST estimates that in the national election cycle of 2000 over $3 billion was spent on presidential and congressional races. Totals for the 2004 cycle are expected to rise significantly[/b].
[i]More on [/i] http://www.pbs.org/now/politi...
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| TAKE ACTION NOW:-- Vote To Impeach George W. Bush!!! |
| 01.30.04 (4:17 pm) [edit] |
[b]IT IS TIME TO TAKE ACTION NOW:--
Vote To Impeach George W. Bush on http://www.votetoimpeach.org/... !!![/b]
The situation [i]in Iraq is dire [/i]with 520 US Soldiers and Tens of Thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians massacred on the basis of a false pretext including a series of despicable lies, deceptions and falsehoods propagated by the corrupt Bush regime warning us of WMDs in Iraq posing an imminent threat to our national security-- [i]that all proved to be bold-faced LIES.[/i]
The situation [i]here at home is dire [/i]with an arrogant and callous[i] out-of-control [/i]Bush regime that is ruthlessly and recklessly [i]squandering[/i] our nation's wealth, as they funnel our taxpayer dollars into the bulging pockets of gluttonous corporations, their sordid & squalid corporate cronies and the filthy richest-of-the-rich oligarchs & plutocrats ... resulting in the largest deficits and debts in our nation's history-- [i]that is turning us into a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.[/i]
[b]Question:[/b] "Question Authority"'s excellent TBlog entitled "[i][b]National Impeach George W. Bush Day[/b][/i]" on http://www.tblog.com/template... , proposes that we call for a [u]National Impeach George W. Bush Day[/u] ... and we need your help to get the message out and to organize a day in which we will propose that Americans demand that Congress perform their duty and call for impeachment hearings for George W. Bush.
Please assist us in making our voices heard by the White House and Congress http://www.congress.org !!!
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| "Imminent" Semantics ... The Meaning Of The Word "Imminent" IS >>> |
| 01.30.04 (1:25 pm) [edit] |
[b]The Bush regime is desperate in their [i]panic-stricken modus operandi [/i]to rehabilitate their many, many, many lies, deceptions and falsehoods regarding [i]their own statements on record [/i]in justification of their [i]casus belli [/i]for their neo-con, neo-fascist incursion into Iraq:--[/b]
For months, Dubya, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rove and the rest of this squalid gang of neo-orwellian thugs & goons propagated a false story that the U.S.A. was in imminent danger of attack from Saddam Hussein whom we were told possessed massive stockpiles of WMDs including chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Yes, Dubya even smirked in a State-of-the-Union screed that Saddam Hussein had purchased uranium yellow cake from Niger: [i]a boldfaced LIE[/i] ... Yes, Cheney even stated that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons facilities ([i]in those days, he didn't say "programs" or "activities" [/i]...): [i]more boldfaced LIES [/i]...
Moreover, we were told by Condi Rice that unless we invaded Iraq and changed its regime, that "[i]mushroom clouds[/i]" would rise-up from our cities killing millions of us within 45 minutes of the "terrorists" decision to attack us: [i]another boldfaced LIE [/i]... Many of us considered this[i] ludicrous drum-beating [/i]and could see through the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] treasonous [i]fear-mongering [/i]to obtain their[i] war-mongerings [/i]on behalf of their [i]war-profiteers[/i]: Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, etc.
Conscientious Americans are demanding that Congress http://www.congress.org conduct open-door investigations and hearings into the lies, deceptions and falsehoods perpetrated by the Bush regime, that has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of 519 US Soldiers, Tens of Thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians, and countless others ... Moreover, instead of addressing the [i]dire needs [/i]of our nation's poor, homeless, jobless, those without health care, those families living below the poverty line, a crumbling national infrastructure, etc.-- nearly $100 Billion has been [i]squandered[/i] thus far in an insane, immoral and illegal re-distribution of our U.S. Treasury's Taxpayer Dollars into the pockets of Dubya and his corporate cronies, leaving us with historical record-level deficits and debts ... and a wanton, callous, ruthless and reckess[i] Gap [/i]between the [i]Hyper-Rich-Haves [/i]and the[i] Impoverished-Slavish-Have -Nots [/i]unseen since the Great Depression.
Consider [b]"[i]'Imminent'[/i] Semantics"[/b] on http://www.americanprogress.o...%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A52 1-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/040129.HTM#1 :
[i][b]AP[/b][/i] reports, "since he resigned as the top weapons hunter in Iraq, David Kay's public statements have sparked widespread questioning of the Bush administration's main justification for war: to remove an imminent threat posed by Saddam and his supposed weapons." However, instead of explaining why it [i]ignored repeated warnings from the intelligence community [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o... that the White House's WMD case was weak, [i]newswires[/i] http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... report the Administration responded by "denying it ever warned that Saddam Hussein posed an 'imminent' threat to the United States." But a closer look at the record shows the Administration not only used exact phrase "imminent threat," but also buttressed it with claims that Iraq was a "mortal threat," "urgent threat," "immediate threat," "serious and mounting threat," "unique threat," and a threat that was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction" – all just months after Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that Iraq was "[i]contained[/i]" http://www.state.gov/secretar... and "[i]threatens not the United States[/i]." http://usinfo.state.gov/topic... See [i]a long list of the Administration's "threat" rhetoric [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o... in this new American Progress backgrounder.
[b][u]"IMMINENT THREAT," PART I[/u][/b]: White House spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday lashed out at reporters yesterday saying "some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. [i]Those were not words we used[/i]." http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... But almost exactly a year ago, it was McClellan who said the reason NATO should go along with the Administration's Iraq war plan was because "[i]this is about imminent threat[/i]." http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... Similarly, when White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked whether America went to war in Iraq because of an imminent threat, he replied "[i]Absolutely[/i]." http://www.whitehouse.gov/new...
[b][u]"IMMINENT THREAT," PART II[/u][/b]: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked whether Iraq was an imminent threat and replied affirmatively, citing 9/11 as justification: "Go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?" And despite the Administration's efforts to pass the blame for failure to find WMD onto the intelligence community, Rumsfeld essentially admitted that[i] the intelligence community had, in fact warned the White House [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o... of the weakness of its WMD case – yet still raised the "imminent threat" specter. On 9/18/02, he said "Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain."
[u][b]"GATHERING" THREAT[/b][/u]: McClellan told reporters that the White House only "used the phrase 'grave and gathering threat.' We made it very clear that it was a gathering threat." http://thesaurus.reference.co... According to the Roget's Thesaurus, "[i]gathering" is a direct synonym of "imminent[/i]". A synonym, we might recall, is defined as "[i]a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word[/i]" http://dictionary.reference.c... – meaning the White House's continued attempts to differentiate between the use of "imminent threat" and "gathering threat" are hollow and silly semantics. It was President Bush who said in October 2002 that Iraq was a "[i]gathering threat[/i]" http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-... – and has continued to repeat this phrase for the next two years.
[u][b]"IMMEDIATE" THREAT[/b][/u]: Once again, Roget's Thesaurus [i]defines "immediate" as a direct synonym of "imminent[/i]" http://thesaurus.reference.co... – and the Administration also repeatedly used this phrase to describe Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Congress on 9/19/02 that "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
[u][b]"URGENT," "UNIQUE," "TERRIBLE, " "MOUNTING" THREAT[/b][/u]: Other phrases of similar hue to "imminent" were also repeatedly invoked by the Administration to play on America's post-9/11 fears. The phrases "urgent" and "unique" threat were also repeatedly invoked. As President Bush said on 11/23/02, "The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq." He said on 10/2/02 that "the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." Vice President Dick Cheney said on 1/30/03 that Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on 1/29/03 that "Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country."
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]The Center for American Progress [/i]on http://www.americanprogress.o...%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A52 1-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/040129.HTM#1
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| Bush's Economic Optimism Belied by Deficits, Unemployed ... |
| 01.30.04 (11:18 am) [edit] |
[b]NOW IS THE TIME for "We the People" to focus on issues that are crucial to our lives including our health & well-being, jobs [i]vs[/i]. joblessness, poverty [i]vs[/i]. prosperity, food safety, retirement in dignity, crime here at home, deficits & debts ... as well as [i]our standing in the world[/i] ...[/b]
[i]An example [/i]...
"[b]Bush's Economic Optimism Belied by Deficits, Unemployed ...[/b]" on http://www.misleader.org/dail... :
Visiting New Hampshire yesterday, President Bush argued on behalf of making his tax cuts permanent, saying, "government has got plenty of money."1 But in Washington, the White House announced that the Medicare law signed six weeks ago would cost 35% more than indicated.2 White House officials have maintained the $134 billion increased estimate was "understandable and relatively close."3
The president also said yesterday that the government needs "needs to stay focused and principled."4 But the administration's budget, to be unveiled next week, is expected to produce a $520 billion deficit, about $150 billion more than the deficit for 2003.
President Bush hasn't yet articulated how he'll successfully "cut the deficit in half over the next five years,"5 other than being "wise with the people's money," as announced in his State of the Union. The White House has already announced an increase in spending for homeland security by 9.7%6, a 7% increase for defense spending7, and is stumping hard to make his tax cuts permanent, an additional cost of $2 trillion over ten years, according to the non-partisan Brookings Institution.8
The president spent much time yesterday claiming his tax cuts were successful and fair, "as opposed to trying to pick or choose winners in the political debate."9 All analyses, however, show that the top 1% received almost half of the president's tax cuts, even though that group pays only 21 percent of federal taxes.10
The [i]Washington Post [/i]characterized Bush's speech as an "economic pep talk,"11 in which the president devoted a good deal of time lauding the success of his tax cuts. Bush said his tax cuts were "working. People are finding work."12 However, the Post also reported on the facing page of Bush's speech, that a record number of jobless workers, 375,000 will exhaust their unemployment benefits tomorrow, the highest number ever recorded for a single month.13
[b]Sources:[/b]
1. Presidential Speech and Q & A on Economy, 1/29/04.
2. "Bush's Aides Put Higher Price Tag on Medicare Law," New York Times, 1/30/04.
3. "In Bush budget, cost of Medicare bill grows 35%," Associated Press, 1/30/04.
4. Presidential Speech and Q & A on Economy, 1/29/04.
5. 2004 State of the Union, 1/20/04.
6. "Bush Proposes Increase in Homeland Security Funds," 1/22/04.
7. "Bush to Seek 7 Pct Boost in U.S. Military Budget," Reuters, 1/23/04.
8. "Key Points on Making the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent," Brookings Institute, 1/21/04.
9. Presidential Speech and Q & A on Economy, 1/29/04.
10. "Key Points on Making the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent," Brookings Institution, 1/21/04.
11. "Bush Visits N.H. in the Democrats' Wake," Washington Post, 1/30/04.
12. Ibid.
13. "Record Number to Run Out of Unemployment Benefits," Washington Post, 1/30/04.
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| Can A Deserter, A Liar and A Cowardly Arm-Chair Chicken-Hawk Keep Us Safe? |
| 01.30.04 (9:15 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" aren't[i] all [/i]fooled ... not [i]all [/i]of the time, anyway![/b]
[b]Can a deserter, a liar and a cowardly arm-chair chicken-hawk who bombastically pretends to play Top Gun while hiding behind his security guards and his neo-con thugs & neo-fascist goons, keep us [i]safe[/i]?[/b]
[b]I don't think so. We are [i]not safer abroad [/i]as terrorism is increasing due to Dubya's illegal and immoral neo-con war-mongerings on behalf of his greedy & traitorous corporate war-profiteers. No one in the entire world ([i]with an iota of brain matter[/i]) will believe Dubya in the future, as it has become evident he lied about non-existent WMDs in Iraq and non-existent threats to our national security.
And, we are[i] not safer here at home [/i]as Dubya has squandered our economy in an economic rape, plunder and looting on behalf of his neo-fascist corporate paymasters. The dire problems of skyrocketing poverty, homelessness, joblessness, lack of health care, a crumbling infrastructure-- are all being ignored while the corporations and the richest among us are enjoying their gluttonous neo-Belle Epoque.
REVIEW THE CORRUPT BUSH REGIME'S SORDID AND SQUALID TRACK-RECORD:--[/b]
[b]Bush has cynically and mendaciously used 9/11 ... 9/11 ... 9/11 as a mind-numbing mantra in order to justify a long list of criminal activities ([i]Meanwhile, 9/11 had nothing to do with his foreign war-mongerings abroad, nor his economic swindle and fraud here at home ... [/i]) ... In so doing, Dubya has used 9/11 to exploit our fears against ourselves, in order to hand over the formation of foreign, domestic and economic policies into the hands of greedy and corrupt corporations and big-monied interests ...[/b]
-4. Bush has created the largest deficits and debts in our nation's history in an insane re-distribution of wealth to corporations and the top 5% awarded immoral tax cuts, tax loopholes and boondoggles.
-3. Bush has reigned over the highest number of jobs lost (3.3 million) since the Great Depression. Clinton's economy created over 22 million jobs. Bush has squandered our U.S. Treasury on his rich corporate cronies while 3.3 million are homeless, 9-15 million are without jobs, 25 million families live below the poverty line, 45 million are without health care, etc.
-2. Bush has lied about non-existent WMDs in Iraq posing an imminent threat to our national security, resulting in an illegal and immoral invasion of a sovereign nation and the unnecessary deaths of U.S. soldiers and innocent civilians. Meanwhile, Bush has ruthlessly exploited us ([i]and our fear of another 9/11 attack[/i]) in order to enrich Hallibuton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, etc.
-1. Bush has used our fear to create unconstitutional Patriot Acts that undermine the checks-and-balances of the three branches of the U.S. Government ([i]Executive, Legislative, Judicial[/i]) giving himself the unlawful extraordinary imperial powers of an Emperor and placing our civil liberties in jeopardy.
0. After the "Great Appointed", he left the Pentagon open to attack by ending a 16 year multi tiered tatical responce team, began by his father, and added to by President Clinton. Then, too late, calls F-15s from Langley Virginia, 120 miles & 20 minutes away. Instead of Andrews Air Force Base only 10 miles away. At the very least, Criminal Negligence.
1. Significantly eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered crops.
2. Cut federal spending on libraries by $39 million.
3. Cut $35 million in funding for doctors to get advanced pediatric raining.
4. Cut by 50% funding for research into renewable energy sources.
5. Revoked rules that reduced the acceptable levels of arsenic in drinking water.
6. Blocked rules that would require federal agencies to offer bilingual assistance to non-English speaking persons. This, from a candidate who would readily fire-up his Spanish-speaking skills in front of would- be Hispanic voters.
7. Proposed to eliminate new marine protections for the Channel Islands and the coral reefs of northwest Hawaii (San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 2001).
8. Cut funding by 28% for research into cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks.
9. Suspended rules that would have strengthened the government's ability to deny contracts to companies that violated workplace safety, environmental and other federal laws.
10. OK'd Interior Department appointee Gale Norton to send out letters to state officials soliciting suggestions for opening up national monuments for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, and logging.
11. Appointed John Negroponte - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure-to the post of United Nations Ambassador.
12. Abandoned a campaign pledge to invest $100 million for rain forest conservation.
13. Reduced by 86% the Community Access Program for public hospitals, clinics and providers of care for people without insurance.
14. Rescinded a proposal to increase public access to information about the potential consequences resulting from chemical plant accidents.
15. Suspended rules that would require hardrock miners to clean up sites on Western public lands.
16. Cut $60 million from a Boy's and Girl's Clubs of America program for public housing.
17. Proposed to eliminate a federal program, designed and successfully used in Seattle, to help communities prepare for natural disasters.
18. Pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty global warming agreement.
19. Cut $200 million of work force training for dislocated workers.
20. Eliminated funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program, which encourages farmers to maintain wetlands habitat on their property.
21. Cut program to provide child care to low-income families as they move from welfare to work.
22. Cut a program that provided prescription contraceptive coverage to federal employees (though it still pays for Viagra).
23. Cut $700 million in capital funds for repairs in public
housing.
24. Appointed Otto Reich - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure - to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.
25. Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million.
26. Proposed to curtail the ability of groups to sue in order to get an animal placed on the Endangered Species List.
27. Rescinded the rule that mandated increased energy-saving efficiency regulations for central air conditioners and heat pumps.
28. Repealed workplace ergonomic rules designed to improve worker health and safety.
29. Abandoned campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide, the waste gas that contributes to global warming.
30. Banned federal aid to international family planning programs that offer abortion counseling with other independent funds.
31. Closed White House Office for Women's Health Initiatives and Outreach.
32. Nominated David Lauriski - ex-mining company executive - to post of Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health.
33. OK'd Interior Secretary Gale Norton to go forth with a
controversial plan to auction oil and gas development tracts off the coast of eastern Florida.
34. Announced intention to open up Montana's Lewis and Clark National Forest to oil and drilling.
35. Proposes to re-draw boundaries of nation's monuments, which would technically allow oil and gas drilling "outside" of national monuments.
36. Gutted White House AIDS Office.
37. Renegotiating free trade agreement with Jordan to eliminate workers's rights and safeguards for the environment.
38. Will no longer seek guidance from The American Bar Association in recommendations for the federal judiciary appointments.
39. Appointed recycling foe Lynn Scarlett as Undersecretary of the Interior.
40. Took steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
41. Cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program.
42. Allowed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to shelve citizen-led grizzly bear re-introduction plan scheduled for Idaho and Montana wilderness.
43. Continues to hold up federal funding for stem cell research projects.
44. Makes sure convicted misdemeanor drug users cannot get financial aid for college, though convicted murderers can.
45. Refused to fund continued cleanup of uranium-slag heap in Utah.
46. Refused to fund continued litigation of the government's tobacco company lawsuit.
47. Proposed a $2 trillion tax cut, of which 43% will go to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
48. Signed a bill making it harder for poor and middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy, even in the case of daunting medical bills.
49. Appointed a Vice President quoted as saying "If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants." (Vice President Dick Cheney on "Meet the Press.")
50. Appointed Diana "There is no gender gap in pay" Roth to the Council of Economic Advisers. (Boston Globe, March 28, 2001.)
51. Appointed Kay Cole James - an opponent of affirmative action - to direct the Office of Personnel Management.
52. Cut $15.7 million earmarked for states to investigate cases of child abuse and neglect.
53. Helped kill a law designed to make it tougher for teenagers to get credit cards.
54. Proposed elimination of the "Reading is Fundamental" program that gives free books to poor children.
55. Is pushing for development of small nuclear arm to attack deeply buried targets and weapons, which would violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
56. Proposes to nominate Jeffrey Sutton - attorney responsible for the recent case weakening the Americans with Disabilities Act- to federal appeals court judgeship.
57. Proposes to reverse regulation protecting 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building.
58. Eliminated funding for the "We the People" education program which taught School children about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and citizenship.
59. Appointed John Bolton - who opposes nonproliferation treaties and the U.N. - to Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
60. Nominated Linda Fisher - an executive with Monsanto - for the number-two job at the Environmental Protection Agency.
61. Nominated Michael McConnell - leading critic of the separation of church and state - to a federal judgeship.
62. Nominated Terrence Boyle - ardent opponent of civil rights - to a federal judgeship.
63. Canceled 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype high mileage cars.
64. Nominated Harvey Pitts - lawyer for teen sex video distributor - to head SEC.
65. Nominated John Walters - strong opponent of prison drug treatment programs - for Drug Czar. (Washington Post, May 16, 2001.)
66. Nominated J. Steven Giles - an oil and coal lobbyist - for Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
67. Nominated Bennett Raley - who advocates repealing the Endangered Species Act - for Assistant Secretary for Water and Science
68. Is seeking the dismissal of class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. against Japan by Asian women forced to work as sex slaves during WWII.
69. Earmarked $4 million in new federal grant money for HIV and drug abuse prevention programs to go only to religious groups and not secular equivalents.
70. Reduced by 40% the Low Income Home Assistance Program for low-income individuals who need assistance paying energy bills.
71. Nominated Ted Olson- who has repeatedly lied about his involvement with the Scaiffe-funded "Arkansas Project" to bring down Bill Clinton - for Solicitor General.
72. Proposes to ease permit process - including environmental considerations - for refinery, nuclear and hydroelectric dam construction. (Washington Post, May 18, 2001.)
73. Proposes to give government the authority to take private property through eminent domain for power lines and gas pipelines.
74. Proposes that $1.2 billion in funding for alternative renewable energy come from selling oil and gas lease tracts in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve.
75. Plans on serving genetically engineered foods at all official government functions.
76. Forced out Forest Service chief Mike Dombeck and appointed a timber industry lobbyist as his replacement.
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| Is Ignorance Bliss? ... |
| 01.29.04 (6:12 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should use our voice to demand that Congress http://www.congress.org conduct an independent investigation into the obvious intelligence failures that have led to 9/11 and the corrupt Bush regime's illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq, that has cost us so heavily in the precious lives of 519 U.S. Soldiers and Tens of Thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians, as well as, costing nearly $100 Billion in U.S. Taxpayer Dollars thus far that are diverted into the bulging pockets of Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, etc., instead of addressing the dire problems here at home: including skyrocketing poverty, joblessness, lack of health care, homelessness, etc. etc. etc. ... There is no end in sight to the carnage and cost until we discover the truth and bring about justice for the [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]that have been committed by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i]![/b]
To-date the 9/11 commission is being thwarted and stonewalled by Dubya. Moreover the Bush regime refuses to consider a probe into the intelligence failures regarding the phony WMDs, their [i]casus belli [/i]for their insane pre-emptive neo-con, neo-fascist war in Iraq ... Why doesn't Bush want to know the truth? ... Hmmm ... Ignorance Is[i] NEVER [/i]Bliss!
Consider "[b]Think Again: 9/11 and the Bush Administration: [i]Is Ignorance Bliss[/i]?[/b]" by [i]Eric Alterman[/i] on http://www.americanprogress.o... :
Flying under the political radar of a media obsessed with New Hampshire voters and missing weapons of mass destruction is the story of the White House’s nearly successful campaign to quiet all criticism of its handling of the terrorist threat, pre-9/11. Every time a political figure raises the question of whether Bush and company might have been able to prevent the attacks if only they had been a little bit more on the ball, the Republican attack machine goes into hyperdrive to shut them down. Now the president and his allies in Congress are seeking to ensure that the 9/11 investigatory commission — whose work they have sought to undermine at every turn — will not have sufficient time to complete a thorough investigation. One wonders just what frightens them so much.
The commission has been given only three months to complete its review of 200 interviews and 2 million documents, many of which had to be pried loose from an uncooperative executive branch that has done nearly everything it could to frustrate the commission’s purpose. As former Commissioner Max Cleland, a former Democratic senator from Georgia, told Eric Boehlert of Salon last November: "I think the White House has made it darn near impossible to get full access to the documents by May, much less get a full report out analyzing those documents by May." The commission has requested a 60-day extension, which would place the report date uncomfortably close to the 9/11-anniversary-timed Republican convention in September 2004. Obviously, the administration will do everything it can to avoid that, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has already announced that he "can't imagine a situation where they get an extension."
In the meantime, the right-wing spin machine is doing its darndest to ensure that any criticism of the president and his administration’s lack of action to defend the country before 9/11 are ruled out of political bounds. And much of the media seems willing to cooperate. When retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark opined that “I think the record's going to show he [President Bush] could have done a lot more to have prevented 9/11 than he did,” and that as president, Clark would do more, Fox’s Sean Hannity termed the general’s statement "reckless and irresponsible." Tim Russert of "Meet the Press" tried to shift the blame to the Clinton administration. And Ann Coulter — who oughta know — called Clark "crazier than a March hare."
But anyone who studies the record with any care will know that there were any number of moments when it would have been possible for a more alert administration to intervene in such a fashion as to interfere and quite possibly thwart the hijackers’ purposes. Here are just a few:
* What if Bush's National Security Agency had translated on Sept. 10, 2001 - instead of Sept. 12 - disturbing Arabic intercepts that referred to phrases "tomorrow is the zero hour" and "the match is about to begin"?
* What if the FBI had acted on the Phoenix memo and aggressively investigated — and arrested potential terrorists and illegal aliens who were taking flight lessons for the purpose of hijacking?
* What if the CIA had received and acted upon the Minneapolis memo, and combined with the FBI to apply its vast knowledge of al Qaeda operations to break up the U.S.-based network of fliers?
* What if the FBI and CIA had not mysteriously decided to drop their investigations of the whereabouts of hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar who, following their return from an al Qaeda planning meeting, continued live and work under their own names in San Diego?
* What if Bush and Cheney had seized upon the recommendations of the Hart/Rudman Commission rather ignoring - and pretending to review - them?
* What if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had agreed to the Senate and House Armed Services committee’s request to reprogram $800 million from missile defense to terrorism protection?
* What if Bush’s National Security Council had carefully studied the evolution of terrorist threats: to hide bombs on 12 U.S.-bound airliners and crash an explosive-laden airline into the CIA; to crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, CIA or the White House; and crash a plane into the Eiffel Tower or to the Genoan castle where Western leaders met in spring 2001?
* What if the same NSC had taken seriously the recommendations of Clinton counterterrorism chief Richard C. Clarke to institute an aggressive program in order to: attack the financial network that supported the terrorists, freezing its assets and exposing its phony charities, and arrest their personnel; offer help to such disparate nations as Uzbekistan, the Philippines and Yemen to combat al Qaeda forces; increase U.S. support for the Northern Alliance in their fight to overthrow the Taliban’s repressive regime; and institute special operations inside Afghanistan and bombing strikes against terrorist training camps?
* What if the Bush Treasury Department had taken a less indulgent view of the kind of money-laundering operations that support terrorist networks and worked with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to try to curb it?
* What if Secretary Rumsfeld had green-lighted the use of the CIA’s Predator surveillance plane over Osama bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan, armed with Hellfire missiles?
* What if Attorney General John Ashcroft had taken the initiative in speeding up the FBI request to add 149 field agents, 200 analysts and 54 translators to its counterterrorism effort, instead of vetoing it entirely to focus on his higher priorities?
* What if Attorney General Ashcroft, instead of simply deciding not to fly commercial like the rest of us, persuaded the administration to institute an emergency program to improve airport security to prevent hijackers from reaching their targeted weapons?’
The administration and its allies rule all such questions out of order, going to extraordinary lengths to ensure they don’t enjoy any political traction. When the issue was first raised, back in 2002, Vice President Cheney termed all suggestions "incendiary," and "thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war," Even the usually apolitical Laura Bush got into the act by calling the questions about what the administration might have done as an attempt to “prey upon the emotions of people." But Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), former chairman of the Senate intelligence panel and co-chairman of the inquiry, had a different answer. "The attacks of Sept. 11 could have been prevented if the right combination of skill, cooperation, creativity and some good luck had been brought to task."
And because of the success of the administration’s efforts to keep the commission from getting at truth—as well as a decided incuriosity on the part of the mass media, it’s likely we will never know. Apparently, that would suit the Bush administration just fine.
[i]Eric Alterman is a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress and the co-author of The Book on Bush: How George W (Mis)Leads America[/i].
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| BBC AT WAR ... In The Aftermath Of A "Whitewash" ... |
| 01.29.04 (3:45 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" ought to be horrified at the appalling assessment by Lord Hutton who remains [i]in the pocket [/i]of the powerful oligarchy that runs the U.K.-- [/b]They are indeed threatening one of the fundamental institutions of a democracy which is a [i]Free Press [/i]... Methinks you will see more and more outrage expressed by British patriots in the weeks to come, as many will refuse to remain silent in the face of the new Corporate Fascism that is overtaking our Global Community!
We should be concerned in the U.S.A. because a more insidious destruction of our Media & Press is well underway as a consequence of the corporate take-over and ownership of our news outlets by the very same [i]corporate pimps [/i]who have hijacked our nation and installed their [i]corporate whores [/i]like Bush & Cheney in office, to represent their greedy, ruthless and reckless grab for infinite power and vast riches.
Hutton's Report was indeed a "[i]Whitewash[/i]" of the corrupt Bush/Blair lies, deceptions and falsehoods regarding phony WMDs used to wage an illegal and immoral incursion into a sovereign nation that posed no threat to anyone ... Their war has cost the lives of hundreds of American & British soldiers, far too many journalists, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians ... It has also cost the U.S.A. nearly $100 Billion that could have otherwise been used to address the dire problems of skyrocketing poverty, obscene deficits & debts ([i]due to Dubya's giveaway to corporations & the rich[/i]), joblessness, homelessness, lack of health care, a crumbling infrastructure, etc. etc. etc. ...
Consider "[i][b]BBC at War[/b][/i]" by [i]Greg Palast[/i] on http://www.guerrillanews.com/... :
He did not say, "hello," or even his name, just left a one-word message: "Whitewash." It came from an embattled journalist whispering from inside the bowels of a television and radio station under siege, on a small island off the coast of Ireland: from BBC London.
And another call, from a colleague at the Guardian: "The future of British journalism is very bleak." However, the future for fake and farcical war propaganda is quite bright indeed. Today, Lord Hutton issued his report that followed an inquiry revealing the Blair government's manipulation of intelligence to claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass murder threatening immanent attack on London
Based on the Blair government's claim, headlines pumped the war hysteria: SADDAM COULD HAVE NUCLEAR BOMB IN YEAR, screeched the London Times. BRITS 45 MINS FROM DOOM, shrieked the Sun newspaper.
Given these facts only a sissy pacifist, a lunatic or a Saddam fellow traveler would fail to see that Prime Minister "Winston" Blair had no choice but to re-conquer it's former Mesopotamian colony.
But these headline were, in fact, false, and deadly so. Unlike America's press puppies, BBC reporters thought it their duty to check out these life or death claims. Reporters Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts contacted a crucial source, Britain's and the United Nation's top weapons inspector. He told reporter Watts that the Weapons of Mass Destruction claims by Blair and our own President Bush were, "all spin." Gilligan went further, reporting that this spin, this "sexed up" version of intelligence, was the result of interventions by Blair's PR henchman, Alistair Campbell.
Whatever reading of the source's statements, it was clear that intelligence experts had deep misgivings about the strength of the evidence for war.
The source? Dr. David Kelly. To save itself after the reports by Gilligan and Watts, the government, including the Prime Minister himself, went on an internal crusade to out the name of its own intelligence operative so it could then discredit the news items.
Publishing the name of an intelligence advisor is serious stuff. In the USA, a special criminal prosecutor is now scouring the White House to find the person who publicly named a CIA agent. If found, the Bushite leaker faces jail time.
Blair's government was not so crude as to give out Dr. Kelly's name. Rather, they hit on a subterfuge of dropping clues then allowing reporters to play '20 questions' - if Kelly's name were guessed, they'd confirm it. Only the thickest reporters (I name none here) failed after more than a couple tries.
Dr. Kelly, who had been proposed for knighthood was named, harangued and his career destroyed by the outing. He then took his own life.
But today is not a day of mourning at 10 Downing Street, rather a day of self-congratulations.
There were no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear warhead just short of completion, no "45 minutes to doom" bombs auguring a new London blitz. The exile group which supplied this raw claim now calls the 45 minute story, "a crock of shit."
Yet Blair's minions are proclaiming their vindication.
This is not just a story about what is happening "over there" in the United Kingdom. This we must remember: David Kelly was not only advisor to the British but to the UN and, by extension, the expert for George W. Bush. Our commander-in-chief leaped to adopt the Boogey Man WMD stories from the Blair government when our own CIA was reticent.
So M'Lord Hutton has killed the messenger: the BBC. Should the reporter Gilligan have used more cautious terms? Some criticism is fair. But the extraordinary import of his and Watts' story is forgotten: our two governments bent the information then hunted down the questioners.
And now the second invasion of the Iraq war proceeds: the conquest of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Until now, this quasi-governmental outlet has refused to play Izvestia to any prime minister, Labour or Tory.
As of today, the independence of the most independent major network on this planet is under attack. Blair's government is "cleared" and now arrogantly sport their kill, the head of Gavyn Davies, BBC's chief, who resigned today.
"The bleak future for British journalism" portends darkness for journalists everywhere - the threat to the last great open platform for hard investigative reporting. And frankly, it's a worrisome day for me. I'm not a disinterested by-stander. My most important investigations, all but banned from U.S. airwaves, were developed and broadcast by BBC Newsnight, reporter Watts' program.
Will an iron curtain descend on the news? Before dawn today, I was reading Churchill's words to the French command in the hours before as the Panzers breached the defenses of Paris. Churchill told those preparing to surrender, "Whatever you may do, we shall fight on forever and ever and ever."
This may yet be British journalism's Finest Hour.
[i]Greg Palast is the author of The New York Times bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." His reports for BBC Newsnight and The Guardian papers and other writings may be viewed at www.GregPalast.com. [/i]
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| Even Some Republicans Condemn The GOP Energy Bill Swindle of America! |
| 01.29.04 (12:51 pm) [edit] |
[b]Even some Republicans condemn the [i]GOP Energy Bill [/i]swindle of America![/b]
It is truly outrageous that at a time of Dubya's illegal and immoral neo-con, neo-fascist wars in the Middle East, primarily waged for global hegemony, control of the oil rich nations of the world, and to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big OIL, etc. ... that the [i]bought-and-paid-for corporate whores [/i]in the White House and Congress should have the audacity, ruthlesslness and corruption to even propose this reckless and foolhardy rape of America on behalf of their [i]corporate pimps of the first water[/i]: [i]Big OIL[/i].
Consider[i] Matt Bivens' [/i]excellent [i]The Daily Outrage [/i]entitled "[i][b]Sucking Wind[/b][/i]" in [i]The Nation[/i] on http://www.thenation.com/outr... :
"[i]I'm going to resist with all that I can muster the disassembling of this [energy] bill in a manner that does not assure us of getting most of the bill passed[/i]."
So says http://www.alertnet.org/thene... Republican Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico. And with good reason: The 1,200-page mystery http://www.knoxstudio.com/shn... concoction known as the Energy Bill is at heart an indefensible project. Consider just that it would gift-wrap at last count http://www.uspirg.org/energy/... about $37 billion -- billions! -- for the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries.
No one wants to stand there, red-faced, and try to explain why they want to borrow against the credit of the American people -- just so they can give away billions of dollars on the sly to the oil, gas, coal and nuclear polluters. Therefore, the core budget-looting project has been hidden behind a few far more modest, far more popular proposals -- like upgrading the electric grid system, investing in energy efficiency, and extending a tiny, routine tax credit for wind power.
Unhitch those sensible-sounding projects from the $37 billion for the polluters, and you're left there openly shilling for a bizarre sort of Marxist- style income redistribution -- only in favor of Big Oil and King Coal http://www.ucsusa.org/CoalvsW... .
The Energy Bill seems to have collapsed http://www.oregonlive.com/edi... , at least for now, [i]under the weight of its own greed and excess[/i] http://www.citizen.org/cmep/e... . One consequence: that tiny wind tax credit was allowed to expire http://www.awea.org/news/news... on December 31. All of the major Democratic candidates for president save Joseph Lieberman are on record here http://www.awea.org/news/news... supporting an extension of the wind credit, and other smart investments http://www.apolloalliance.org... in wind and solar power -- smart because, despite some lofty Apollo Project-type rhetoric, the ideas put forward represent reasonably-scaled pump-priming for new and desirable technologies -- exactly what government subsidies should be -- as opposed to the status quo of command-economy-scale welfare for undesirable dinosaur technologies. (Consider that federal subsidies to solar power have historically amounted to 1/32nd of those to nuclear power. See "[i]Federal Energy Subsidies: Not All Technologies Are Created Equal[/i]," found here http://www.crest.org/repp_pub... as a PDF file.)
But the Republicans are damned http://www.alertnet.org/thene... if they're going to let the boom http://www.worldwatch.org/pre... in wind power continue unless their oil and coal and nuclear buddies get paid some tribute first. Such has been their stance for years now. As I wrote not so long ago http://www.thenation.com/doc.... in [i]The Nation[/i], the remarkably successful wind production tax credit over a decade has cost every American about 19 cents. The latest version of the Energy Bill (the pork keeps getting salted in) would now cost every American about $126.50. That's $506 for a family of four. As if you aren't paying enough already for gas and heating.
[b]Another useful historical reference[/b]:
"U.S.A. HYPOCRISY: REAGAN/BUSH PAID BRIBES OF WMDs TO IRAQ FOR OIL!!!", http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| What Just One Company Can Do To the World ... |
| 01.29.04 (7:44 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" have entered the Age of Corporate Fascism ... The Global Corporate Empire has installed their corrupt puppets at the Supreme Court ([i]Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist[/i]), in Congress ([i]the GOP[/i]) and in the White House ([i]Dubya, Cheney, Rice & Rove[/i]) ...[/b] This corrupt[i] corporate-owned cabal [/i]have allowed corporations to define our foreign, domestic & economic policies and to ravage our planet in their dangerously [i]unsound plunderings [/i]on behalf of the selfish interests of a few hyper-rich & greedy criminals ...
The results of the Corporate Fascist's hijacking of our nation have been a disaster ... a catastrophe -- as war-mongerings abroad for war-profiteers have made the world less safe and indeed, far, far more dangerous -- as the economic rape, swindling & looting here at home have created the largest re-distribution of wealth from the middle-and-working classes to corporations & the wealthiest plutocrats & oligarches ... leaving in their wake skyrocketing poverty, misery, bloodshed and desperation for many millions of Americans and other human beings who are being unconscionably massacred or mercilessly exploited.
Instead of enlightened leaders who fulfill the promise of promoting the General Welfare of our People and a properous Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, in the richest nation in the history of the world:-- we have been saddled with neo-con, neo-fascist traitors who have abused our U.S. Military as their [i]'cannon-fodder' [/i]in their obscene warfare to expand their own infinite grab for brute power and vast, obese riches ... Moreover, they have treated us with contempt: having lied, deceived and falsified intelligence information in order to lead us into an illegal and immoral war. Furthermore, in the richest nation in the history of our planet, they have callously and wantonly awarded massive tax cuts, tax loopholes & boondoggles to their rich corporate cronies-- while ignoring the 3.5 million homeless, the 9-15 million jobless, the 25 million families living below the poverty line, the 45 million without health care, etc. -- Instead, they have placed a back-breaking burden of the largest deficits & reckless debts in our nation's history upon us and future generations, while they ruthlessly "[i]take the money and run[/i]", with the largest Gap between the [i]Hyper-Rich-Haves [/i]and the [i]Impoverished-&-Enslave d-Have-Nots [/i]since the Great Depression.
We deserve better than this corrupt cabal of neo-con, neo-fascist thugs and goons who are trampling upon our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and destroying our great nation before our very eyes ... Please contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that impeachement hearings be called for Dubya, Cheney and this traitorous and criminal administration who have betrayed our people, other nations, and our planet.
Consider also "[i][b]What Just One Company Can Do To the World[/b][/i]" by [i]Sanjay Suri [/i]on http://www.commondreams.org/h... :
LONDON - Just one oil company has thrown three times as much carbon dioxide into the air as the current annual emissions from fossil fuels, a new study by Friends of the Earth claims.
The study by the leading global environment watchdog says Exxon Mobil has produced 20.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in its 120 years of existence. This it says is about three times the annual global emissions now and 13 times the annual emissions from the United States.
The [i]Friends of the Earth International [/i] http://www.foei.org/ (F0EI) report says that the oil giant and its predecessors since the foundation of the Standard Oil Trust in 1882 have caused between 4.7 and 5.3 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions across the globe.
ExxonMobil has strongly denied the charge made in the report. The company trades as Esso, Mobil, Imperial Oil, Tonen General and Exxon in different countries.
The report [i]'Exxon's Climate Footprint'[/i] http://www.foei.org/media/200... is based on two studies commissioned by FoEI. The group says the studies were carried out by independent experts in the United States and New Zealand.
”The research involved adding up data on fuel used and sold, calculating the emissions generated and feeding the results into an internationally recognized computer model,” FoEI said in a statement Thursday.
”The research, based on data Exxon published in its annual reports, and on other sources, also shows the impact Exxon-related emissions have had on global temperatures and the rise in sea level.”
FoEI says this is the first time a company's contribution to global climate change has ever been calculated ”and could prove vital in paving the way for compensation claims against companies by victims of global warming caused by man-made pollution.”
The FoEI report shows that about 70 percent of the company's emissions have come after 1967 ”when scientists produced the first reasonably solid evidence that global warming could really happen.”
Climate change as a result of global warming produced largely by carbon dioxide emissions means that hundreds of millions of people could lose their livelihoods because of changing rainfall patterns and severe storms, the report says.
A million species face extinction as a result of global warming, FoEI says, citing scientists.
The report says that United Nations scientists had warned in 1996 that man- made pollution was having a discernible effect on the global climate. ”Seven out of the ten worst years for ExxonMobil's emissions have occurred since this warning,” the report says.
This is the ”best estimate so far of ExxonMobil's contribution to climate change,” says Peter Roderick, director of the FoEI climate justice program.”It shows how the company's emissions have significantly increased over the years as climate science strengthened. This is essential reading for those current and future victims of climate change who wish to seek compensation from the company.”
The report points out that institutional shareholders have already expressed concern about business risks associated with climate change. The Carbon Disclosure Project, which represents 87 institutional investors with assets of more than 9 trillion dollars under management, has written to the 500 largest quoted companies in the world asking for the disclosure of investment-relevant information concerning their greenhouse gas emissions.
Challenging the report, a spokeswoman for ExxonMobil told IPS that ”it seems to us that Friends of the Earth is suggesting that it is illegal to be in the business of supplying energy for the world's needs”.
She said the company needs to examine the ”basis, methodology and therefore the accuracy of the data” but said that in the past the environment group's reports about the company have been ”high on sensation and low on substance.”
The statement that ExxonMobil is not taking a constructive approach to the issue of climate change is ”completely unfounded,” she said. The company has taken to conserving energy in refineries and chemical plants, resulting in 37 percent more efficiency than 25 years ago, she said. ”This equates to a decrease in carbon emissions of over 200 million metric tons.”
The company is also ”researching new energy systems with much lower carbon emissions and increased fuel efficiency,” she said. The company is the ”world's leader” in expanding the use of natural gas which is ”an attractive way to meet the world's growing demand for energy while emitting less carbon than other fossil fuels.” The company claims to be investing ”significant amounts in research of climate issues.”
The spokeswoman said it is ”ridiculous” to suggest that ExxonMobil's approach to climate change could affect shareholder value.
FoEI vice-chair Tony Juniper told IPS that ExxonMobil is indeed doing a lot on climate change ”but it is doing so by funding lobbyists who are pushing the Bush administration against signing the Kyoto Protocol to limit emissions.”
Most of the scientific studies being promoted by ExxonMobil ”are not giving the correct picture” on climate change, he said, ”and so the company is active at many levels in many ways.”
Juniper said it is important that shareholders are given the correct picture now. ”If the company is held responsible by courts over emissions, it is bound to have consequences for share value.”
ExxonMobil was meanwhile ordered to pay nearly 7 billion dollars Wednesday to thousands of Alaskans affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. A district court judge ordered the company to pay 4.5 billion dollars in punitive damages and around 2.25 billion dollars in interest.
The judge ordered distribution of the money among the 32,000 Alaskans affected by the 37,000-tonne spillage in the Prince William Sound area. Exxon Mobil says it will appeal against the ruling.
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| NEWSFLASH:-- Bush May Finally Do ONE GOOD THING!!! ... |
| 01.28.04 (8:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]NEWFLASH:-- Bush may finally do[i] ONE GOOD THING[/i]!!! Let us hope so ... If the following report is true and not simply another cynical [i]publicity stunt that "mysteriously [sic]" evaporates [/i]([i]like Dubya's promise to help AIDS victims-- and that quietly disappeared [/i]... ), then ... well, while Bush still remains a War Criminal who deserves to be impeached from office for lying us into an illegal & immoral invasion of a sovereign nation that posed no threat ... then, the following action while just a [i]drop of water in the desert [/i]... it indeed, remains a positive action that deserves some credit ...
Who would have thought that Bush would support funding for the NEA??? ... The NEA is still under-funded in this country, but it is a step in the right direction, [i]if true [/i]...[/b]
"[b]Bush Is Said to Seek More Money for Arts[/b]" by [i]Robert Pear [/i] of the N.Y. Times on http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... :
WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — President Bush will seek a big increase in the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts, the largest single source of support for the arts in the United States, administration officials said on Wednesday.
The proposal is part of a turnaround for the agency, which was once fighting for its life, attacked by some Republicans as a threat to the nation's moral standards.
Laura Bush plans to announce the request on Thursday, in remarks intended to show the administration's commitment to the arts, aides said.
Administration officials, including White House budget experts, said that Mr. Bush would propose an increase of $15 million to $20 million for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. That would be the largest rise in two decades and far more than the most recent increases, about $500,000 for 2003 and $5 million for this year.
The agency has a budget of $121 million this year, 31 percent lower than its peak of $176 million in 1992. After Republicans gained control of Congress in 1995, they cut the agency's budget to slightly less than $100 million, and the budget was essentially flat for five years.
In an e-mail message inviting arts advocates to a news briefing with Mrs. Bush, Dana Gioia, the poet who is chairman of the endowment, says, "You will be present for an important day in N.E.A. history."
Mr. Gioia (pronounced JOY-uh) has tried to move beyond the culture wars that swirled around the agency for years. He has nurtured support among influential members of Congress, including conservative Republicans like Representatives Charles H. Taylor and Sue Myrick of North Carolina. He has held workshops around the country to explain how local arts organizations can apply for assistance.
Public support for the arts was hotly debated in the 1990's. Conservatives complained that the agency was financing obscene or sacrilegious works by artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. Former Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, repeatedly tried to eliminate the agency.
Some new money sought by Mr. Bush would expand initiatives with broad bipartisan support, like performances of Shakespeare's plays and "Jazz Masters" concert tours.
Mrs. Bush also plans to introduce a new initiative, "American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius." This would combine art presentations — from painting and literature to music and dance — with education programs. The program would give large numbers of students around the country a chance to see exhibitions and performances.
New York receives a large share of the endowment's grants. But under federal law, the agency also gives priority to projects that cater to "underserved populations," including members of minority groups in urban neighborhoods with high poverty rates.
The president's proposal faces an uncertain future at a time of large budget deficits.
Melissa Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, an advocacy group, said, "We'll be fighting tooth and nail for the increase."
Some conservatives, like Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, vowed to oppose the increase. Even without support from the government, he said, "art would thrive in America."
Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a New York Democrat who is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Arts Caucus, said she was delighted to learn of Mr. Bush's proposal.
"There's nothing in the world that helps economic development more than arts programs," Ms. Slaughter said. "It was foolish for Congress to choke them and starve them. We should cherish the people who can tell us who we are, where we came from and where we hope to go."
Mr. Tancredo expressed dismay. "We are looking at record deficit and potential cuts in all kinds of programs," he said. "How can I tell constituents that I'll take money away from them to pay for somebody else's idea of good art? I have no more right to do that than to finance somebody else's ideas about religion."
The agency has long had support from some Republicans, like Representatives Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Jim Leach of Iowa.
"Government involvement is designed to take the arts from the grand citadel of the privileged and bring them to the public at large," Mr. Leach said. "This democratization of the arts ennobles the American experience."
[i]Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting for this article[/i].
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| The U.K. "Economist" Cites The Carnegie Endowment For International Peace WMD Report |
| 01.28.04 (5:18 pm) [edit] |
"[b]We the People" are being misled by the neo-con propaganda machine that is out to attack anyone who exposes the [i]truth [/i]regarding the lies, deceptions and falsehoods perpetrated upon us by the corrupt Bush regime ... The [i]Carnegie Endowment for International Peace WMD Report [/i]is highly respected, well-researched and is also being cited by many news outlets including the Conservative U.K. "Economist" ... because the [i]Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [/i]has an outstanding reputation for impeccable credentials and publishing solid, factual and reputable research.[/b]
It is highly recommended that you read for yourself the [i]Carnegie Endowment for International Peace WMD Report [/i]entitled "[b]WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications[/b]" on http://www.ceip.org/files/pro... ...
Refer to the U.K. "Economist"'s "[i][b]Bush and Blair Under Fire[/b][/i]" on http://www.economist.com/agen... :
[b]The American and British leaders are under renewed attack over their case for war and how they handled officials who questioned it ...[/b]
TEN months after America and Britain led the invasion of Iraq which successfully toppled Saddam Hussein, President George Bush and the British prime minister, Tony Blair, might have hoped that the rows over the case they made for war would have died down. Far from it. A report due on Wednesday January 28th from Lord Hutton, a senior British judge, may criticise Mr Blair’s claims over Saddam’s elusive weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It may also say the Blair government contributed to the suicide of an official who was the source of a BBC report accusing the government of exaggerating the case for war. Mr Bush’s Democratic opponents are demanding an official inquiry after America’s chief WMD-hunter resigned, saying Saddam did not appear to have had any. And an investigation is under way into claims that Mr Bush’s officials disclosed the identity of an American undercover agent, whose husband, a diplomat, had contradicted Mr Bush’s claims about Saddam’s weapons.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair built their case for war principally on the argument that Saddam was a menace to world security because he had chemical and biological weapons, and was seeking nuclear arms. Mr Blair published a dossier in the run-up to the war claiming that Iraq had some WMD ready to be fired within 45 minutes of an order from Saddam. And Mr Bush, in his state-of-the-union speech last January, claimed that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa for its nuclear-arms programme. Neither of these claims is now thought to be true and, despite months of searching in postwar Iraq by American inspectors, no banned arms have been found. Last Friday, David Kay, the head of the WMD-hunting team, resigned after concluding that Saddam’s regime had all but abandoned making chemical and biological weapons after the 1991 Gulf war.
Mr Kay said in Monday’s [i]New York Times [/i]that Iraq had tried to revive its nuclear-arms programme as recently as 2001 and had been trying, shortly before the war, to make a bomb containing ricin, a deadly poison. Nevertheless, his conclusion that Saddam had no large stocks of banned weapons—and therefore was not an immediate threat to the world—has damaged Mr Bush and Mr Blair.
America’s secretary of state, Colin Powell, admits that it is now an “open question” as to whether Saddam had possessed banned weapons. He insists, however, that the war was still justified, on the grounds of upholding international law. But with Mr Bush facing re-election in November, his opponents have seized on what they believe is powerful ammunition against him. Senator John Kerry, currently the leading Democratic contender to run against the president, has demanded a congressional inquiry into the White House’s claims over Iraqi weapons.
Mr Kay’s bombshell follows two damning reports on the Iraq war, published this month by influential American research bodies. An analysis by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the US Army War College, concluded that it was “an unnecessary war of choice” and that it has “created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism”. [i]An extensive study of the evidence for Iraqi WMD by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a left-of-centre think-tank, concluded that Mr Bush’s officials had exaggerated intelligence agencies’ findings on the extent of Saddam’s weapons, which in turn had exaggerated the real picture[/i].
Lord Hutton’s inquiry was not, strictly speaking, into Mr Blair’s justification for the war: it was an investigation into the suicide last July of David Kelly, an expert on Iraqi weapons in Britain's defence ministry. However, Kelly was the source of reports by Andrew Gilligan, a correspondent for BBC radio, which accused Mr Blair’s officials of ignoring British intelligence chiefs’ doubts about the “45 minutes to launch” claim. Among the many questions it is hoped Lord Hutton will answer on Wednesday are: did the prime minister or his officials ignore spy chiefs’ concerns and publish a misleading dossier on the case for war? Or did Mr Gilligan exaggerate Kelly’s words? And, in the furious row between the government and the BBC that followed the journalist’s reports, did Mr Blair or his officials authorise the leaking of Kelly’s name to the press, contributing to the pressures that led to his suicide?
Mr Blair has emphatically denied authorising the leaking of Kelly’s name and has said he would resign if Lord Hutton blamed him personally for this. Mr Blair received an advance copy of the Hutton report on Tuesday, hours before he narrowly avoided an embarrassing defeat in Parliament over his proposal to increase university tuition fees. The rebellion by parliamentarians from Mr Blair's Labour Party was smaller than some had expected. But that Mr Blair's notional majority of 161 in the 659-seat House of Commons shrank to just five votes was a sign of the disquiet on the Labour benches over the direction of government policy under Mr Blair—including his decision to back Mr Bush over Iraq. If Mr Blair is criticised in Lord Hutton's report, the prime minister's authority, already dented, may be damaged irreparably.
Mr Bush faces a potentially damaging official inquiry with similar overtones to the Kelly affair. The Department of Justice has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a newspaper columnist. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former American ambassador, has accused Bush administration officials of leaking her name in retaliation for his contradicting Mr Bush’s claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium. The prosecutor in the inquiry has reportedly begun presenting evidence to a grand jury, a step towards a possible criminal investigation in which Mr Bush’s officials would be forced to give testimony under oath.
A worst-case scenario is just about imaginable: both Mr Bush and Mr Blair are forced to step down, over either the case they made for war or the treatment of those officials who questioned it. This is unlikely, though it is quite possible that the British and American inquiries, added to the failure to find Saddam’s fabled WMD, will damage the two leaders’ reputations sufficiently to cut short their political careers (Mr Blair must decide whether to seek a third term as prime minister in the next 18 months or so). [b]There may have been other good reasons for toppling Saddam, but having rested their case mainly on his supposed arsenal of banned weapons, they will find it hard to complain if it is this issue on which the American and British public judge the two leaders' conduct in their Iraqi venture[/b].
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| Why the Bush/Cheney Regime's BIG LIE Over WMDs in Iraq Won't Go Away ... |
| 01.28.04 (3:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" will not forget the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] BIG LIE over non-existent WMDs in Iraq ... Their neo-orwellian propaganda & mendacious spin won't make it go away ... [/b]The United Nations and over 145 nations out of 191 (U.N.) on this planet http://paxhumana.info/article... opposed Dubya's insane neo-con rush to war ... They begged the U.S. to permit the U.N. inspections to continue ... But instead, Dubya, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. and all of the rest of their neo-con, neo-fascist ideologues, liars, thugs & goons spread their massive lies, deceptions and falsehoods regarding the imminent threat posed to the U.S.A. if WMDs were not destroyed in Iraq.
Subsequently, we have learnt that no WMDs existed since they were destroyed in the early 1990's U.N. inspection process -- we have learnt that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to our national security -- we have learnt that Saddam Hussein had no links with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaida -- nor were there any connections between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein or Iraq.
One example of the[i] back-peddling [/i]by the immoral, incompetent and corrupt Bush regime is:
[b]CLAIM[/b]:
"[i]I think some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent[/i].' [i]Those were not words we used[/i]." - White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 1/27/04 [Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... ]
[b]FACT[/b]:
"[i]This is about imminent threat[/i]." - White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03 [Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... ]
Moreover, Dubya told us in a [i]State-of-the-Union [/i]address prior to his illegal & immoral invasion that Iraq had obtained uranium yellow-cake from Niger, that proved to be a lie -- Cheney told us that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons facilities, that proved to be a lie -- Rice told us that "mushroom clouds" would[i] rise-up [/i]from our cities any day now if we did not invade Iraq, when in fact, Iraq had no capability to strike us and no WMDs ... [b]Lies, Lies and More Lies ...[/b]
Apparently, now Dubya is planning to attack Pakistan in the Spring? http://www.commondreams.org/h... ... Surely, we have sufficient evidence to demonstrate the solid reasons why this corrupt cabal of neo-con, neo-fascist "[i]crazies[/i]" should be ousted from office ... Call for Congress http://www.congress.org to conduct impeachment hearings for Dubya, Cheney and the rest of this disgraceful administration.
[b]IT IS TIME FOR A REGIME CHANGE IN THE U.S.A.[/b]
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| Bush's War Record: Missing, Inaction ... |
| 01.28.04 (1:22 pm) [edit] |
[b]It is tragic to watch the right-wing corporate-owned neo-fascist media & press [i]Go Silent & MIA [/i]regarding Dubya's humiliating and despicable war record ... Dubya was a 'deserter', missing-[i]from[/i]-actio n and by all accounts, swilling booze and partying his way through the War in Vietnam, while better men were sent to fight & die ...[/b]
"We the People" are faced with a stark choice in the November 2000 election, which will probably be between Kerry, a man who is bright & honorable and was a true War Hero ([i]who didn't flee from danger, and indeed saved his injured comrades[/i]) and Bush, a cowardly party-boy & [i]ne'er-do-well [/i]([i]who has been bailed-out of his life-long failures by his Poppy[/i]) and is a [i]not-too-bright [/i]liar, war criminal, puppet & useful idiot of the corrupt corporate robber-barons, filthy oligarchs and gluttonous plutocrats who have hijacked our nation.
It is not a difficult choice for those of us who are true patriots!
Consider "[b]Operation Desert Guard: Bush's War Record: Missing, Inaction[/b]" by [i]James Ridgeway[/i] on http://villagevoice.com/issue... :
The moral dictates of the Christian right are nothing compared with the concerns of the protectors of public morality in the press corps. Ever vigilant in our behalf, they recently condemned Michael Jackson (Who needs a trial with the people's advocate Nancy Grace and CNN judge Larry King on the job?). But even Jackson didn't have the audacity to say what Michael Moore said—that the president of the United States is a deserter. Yes, indeed. He said that. Not only did Moore say it, but he said it in public on a stage in the midst of a political campaign. In the midst of a war, no less. The press corps blushed in shame for all of us and promptly condemned Moore as an ignorant fool who ought to stick with his disgusting comedy shows.
Fortunately for us, Michael Moore is crazy like a fox. By calling Bush a "deserter," he got the big-time journalists—horrified David Broder, incredulous Peter Jennings, outraged Robert Novak, nonplussed Tim Russert—to openly raise the deserter issue before millions. It is now a political topic once again. As the journalists damn Moore, the populace is once again wondering, well, maybe Bush is a deserter after all. And the idea of a deserter running this war makes it even more sick than it already is. Consider that this weekend warrior is already responsible for the following toll in Iraq: 513 GIs sent to their death; 8,000 medevacked out of Iraq; 2,919 wounded (missing arms or legs, or blinded, or psycho); and at least 22 GI suicides. God only knows how many Iraqi men, women, and children. And when it was his turn to fight for his country, Bush booked.
What are the facts? The single best rundown on this issue was contained in an article by Walter V. Robinson of The Boston Globe on May 23, 2000. On May 28, 1968, Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard's 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston and was selected for pilot training. In July of that year a board of officers said he should be commissioned as a second lieutenant; he left for six weeks of basic training and was commissioned that September 4. Then he took off for eight weeks to work on a Florida Senate campaign. Next he attended and graduated from flight school (November 25, 1968, to November 28, 1969). He trained full-time to be an F-102 pilot at Ellington, where from July 7, 1970, to April 16, 1972, he attended frequent drills and alerts.
From this point on, his record is murky. Bush's records reveal no sign he showed up for duty during his fifth year as a guardsman, according to the Globe. On May 24, 1972, Bush had moved to Alabama to work on a Senate race and received permission to serve with a reserve unit there. Headquarters ordered that he serve with a more active unit, and on September 5, 1972, he got permission to perform his Guard duty at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. But there is no record of his turning up, and the unit commander says he never did. From November 1972 to April 30, 1973, Bush was in Houston but didn't go to his Guard duties. In May 1973, two lieutenant colonels in charge of Bush's Houston unit were unable to rate him for the prior 12 months, claiming he had not been at the unit during that time. From May to July 1973, Bush logged 36 days on duty after special orders for active duty were issued to him. His last day in uniform was July 30, 1973, and that October 1, after beginning Harvard Business School, this weekend warrior was discharged from the Texas Air National Guard. That was eight months before his Guard tour was scheduled to expire.
[b]If the president wasn't a deserter, what was he?[/b]
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| Living In Simulated America |
| 01.28.04 (12:36 pm) [edit] |
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[image]WinstonSmith_32029 1547.gif[/image]
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| Are Parallels To Nazi Germany Crazy? |
| 01.28.04 (7:30 am) [edit] |
[b]As a people, "We the People" are dangerously ignorant of U.S. & World History, which is [i]why[/i] corrupt and traitorous tyrants, corporate rapists and neo-con con-artists are so effective at fooling us ... as these neo-fascists are swindling, plundering & looting our U.S. Treasury in order to enrich themselves, corporations & the richest-of-the-rich ... and as they are waging insane, illegal and immoral neo-con warfare based upon lies, deceptions and falsehoods.[/b]
[i]Some food for thought ...[/i]
Let us not wait until 6,000,000 human beings are massacred before we take action to stop the Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i][i]Crimes Against Humanity[/i] ... Let us not become hapless collaborators pretending not to see ([i]or worse: rationalizing[/i]) atrocities in Iraq and here at home ... Let us not make the same mistake [i]good Germans [/i]made in the 1930s ...
Consider "[i][b]Are Parallels To Nazi Germany Crazy?[/b][/i]" by [i]Harley Sorensen [/i]on http://www.commondreams.org/v... :
The customers always write. I get about 400 e-mails in response to my columns every week, which might explain why I didn't answer yours. Here, slightly edited, is one of the more interesting ones from last week. It's from Herr Moellers in Germany:
"[i]Dear Mr. Sorensen,
"I have many American friends and used to go on business travel to the U.S. a lot (I stopped doing that after even our European governments have given in to Uncle Sam's appetite for information about individuals traveling to God's Own Country), and I am shocked by the deterioration of democracy in a country that I used to love. This administration is a shame and the destabilization they have brought to the world is scaring the s** out of me.
"My father was a Nazi soldier and he realized during the war what he and most of his generation was led into. I have learned from him that a nation can be guilty and that we must stop the arrogance of the powers at the very beginning. To me, America is becoming truly scary and the parallels to the development in Germany of the thirties (although the reason behind it are totally different) are sickening.
"Thank you for writing about this development. The world is waiting for signs of opposition in the Unilateral States of America![/i]"
Herr Moellers' e-mail is typical of a half dozen or so I've received over the past year from people with intimate knowledge of Nazi Germany.
I respect experience, so I'm inclined to believe what these people are telling me. Perhaps their memories help explain the attitude of Germans toward the Bush administration these days.
They've been there, they've done that. They know what a corrupt government smells like.
But are they "over the top"? Are they overreacting to a normal swing of the pendulum in American politics?
To make a comparison between Germany in the 1930s and America now, I relied on a Web site called "A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust." The passages in quotations below are taken from the site.
"With Adolf Hitler's ascendancy to the chancellorship, the Nazi Party quickly consolidated its power. Hitler managed to maintain a posture of legality throughout the Nazification process."
Whether by chance or design, George W. Bush is the most powerful American president in modern history. Not only does he have both houses of Congress beholden to him, but the majority of the Supreme Court is acting like a quintet of Bush lapdogs. And it all appears legal.
"Domestically, during the next six years, Hitler completely transformed Germany into a police state."
Civil libertarians insist that this is happening here now, with the USA Patriot Act in force and Patriot II on the table.
"Hitler engaged in a 'diplomatic revolution' by negotiating with other European countries and publicly expressing his strong desire for peace."
Nobody can accuse Bush of being overly diplomatic, but, like all political leaders, he is an apostle for peace, even while starting two wars during his brief tenure.
In 1933, the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, was burned to the ground. Nobody knows for sure who set the fire. The Nazis blamed communists. "This incident prompted Hitler[,then Germany's chancellor,] to convince [German President Paul von] Hindenburg to issue a Decree for the Protection of People and State that granted Nazis sweeping power to deal with the so-called emergency."
The Reichstag fire parallels the Sept. 11 attacks here, and Hindenburg's decree parallels our USA Patriot Act.
Soon after Hitler took power, the concentration camp at Dachau was created and "the Nazis began arresting Communists, Socialists and labor leaders ... . Parliamentary democracy ended with the Reichstag passage of the Enabling Act, which allowed the government to issue laws without the Reichstag."
With Bush leading all branches of government around by the nose, there's a question whether parliamentary democracy still exists here. Certainly, concentration camps exist, if we're willing to call the lockup at Guanténamo Bay what it really is. And the USA Patriot Act allows the president to effectively take citizenship rights from any American-born criminal suspect.
"Nazi anti-Semitic legislation and propaganda against 'Non-Aryans' was a thinly disguised attack against anyone who had Jewish parents or grandparents. Jews felt increasingly isolated from the rest of German society."
How comfortable do American-born Arabs feel in the United States today?
While the German concentration camps were being built and Jews were being persecuted, in 1936 Nazi Germany hosted the Olympic Games and put its best face forward to the world. We have the Super Bowl.
In the mid- to late 1930s, Germany was able to annex nearby territories without firing a shot. That was because of the threat of the German military, the strongest in the world at the time. That might be compared with the sudden flexibility of Iran, Pakistan, Syria and Libya, all of whom are aware that Bush will do more than just threaten; he'll do it.
When one is comparing then and now, I think the most interesting factor is that most German Jews remained in Germany until it was too late. They just couldn't believe Hitler was as dangerous as some people said he was. The more prescient Jews (most often those who could afford to do so) got out, however.
Hitler came to power in 1933, but the killing of Jews (and others) didn't begin until five years later, in 1938, with the historic Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") on Nov. 9. On that day, "nearly 1,000 synagogues were set on fire and 76 were destroyed. More than 7,000 Jewish businesses and homes were looted, about 100 Jews were killed, and as many as 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps to be tormented ... ."
We haven't seen anything like that here, nor does it appear to be one the horizon, yet one must wonder about the hundreds shut away in Guanténamo Bay and in other lockups in the United States and throughout the world.
I haven't space here to list all of the apparent comparisons between then and now, but you can see them for yourself by reading the teacher's guide mentioned earlier.
My conclusion is that some comparisons between modern times and Nazi Germany are valid, and some are not. Enough are valid, in my opinion, however, for us to be wary, and as vigilant as humanly possible.
Whatever happens in this year's election, I would hope that Congress, the Supreme Court and the president himself start reeling in the power of the presidency. It has been expanding ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt, if not before, and now it is way out of proportion to what the Founding Fathers had in mind for our system of checks and balances.
Our current president has the power to turn the world into turmoil with a mere stroke of the pen. No man should have that much power, no matter who he is.
[i]Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist. His column appears Mondays. E-mail him at harleysorensen@yahoo.com [/i]
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| Red Ink Realities ... |
| 01.27.04 (6:30 pm) [edit] |
[b]As the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] plunge, squander and swindle us [i]deeper, deeper and deeper [/i]into the largest deficits and debts in our nation's history [/b]-- on insane neo-con warfare to enrich their war-profiteers -- on immoral tax cuts, tax loopholes & boondoggles for corporations and the richest-of-the-rich -- and, callously ignore the needs of over 3.5 million homeless, 9-15 million jobless ([i]Dubya destroyed 3.3 million jobs/Clinton created 22 million jobs[/i]), 25 million families living below the poverty line, 45 million without health care-- and skyrocketing poverty and misery ... the neo-con, neo-fascists are using diversionary tactis and neo-orwellian propaganda to divert our attention away from their many, many crimes.
"We the People" would do well to heed the dire warnings of experts including Nobel Prize Economist George Akerlof, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates Sr., Professor Paul Krugman, etc. ... Consider today's article entitled "[i][b]Red Ink Realities[/b][/i]" by [i]Paul Krugman [/i]on http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... :
Even conservatives are starting to admit that George Bush isn't serious when he claims to be doing something about the exploding budget deficit. At best — to borrow the already classic language of the State of the Union address — his administration is engaged in deficit reduction-related program activities.
But these admissions have been accompanied by an urban legend about what went wrong. According to cleverly misleading reports from the Heritage Foundation and other like-minded sources, the deficit is growing because Mr. Bush isn't sufficiently conservative: he's allowing runaway growth in domestic spending. This myth is intended to divert attention from the real culprit: sharply reduced tax collections, mainly from corporations and the wealthy.
Is domestic spending really exploding? Think about it: farm subsidies aside, which domestic programs have received lavish budget increases over the last three years? Education? Don't be silly: No Child Left Behind is rapidly turning into a sick joke.
In fact, many government agencies are severely underfinanced. For example, last month the head of the National Park Service's police admitted to reporters that her force faced serious budget and staff shortages, and was promptly suspended.
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