Observations on current events

The Politics of Intelligence:

The Raw Story: Frist may shelve intelligence bill for second year in row
"Congressional Quarterly reports that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) will not allow a key intelligence bill to be brough to the Senate floor and, according to senior leadership aides, 'may shelve the measure entirely.'
Writer Tim Starks at CQ describes the intelligence authorization bill as 'a potential Pandora’s box for Republicans in the run-up to the November midterm elections,' given the perception that Senate Democrats would use such a bill to hammer President Bush's Iraq war policies. 'Frist does not want to give them the platform to do so,' writes Starks, 'because he considers a rehash of the war to be a waste of the Senate's time,'..."


Energy Politics:

Kelpie Wilson: Gas Is Down - Go Back to Sleep
"Last year at this time, gas prices were on the rise. Katrina and Rita had just rampaged through the Gulf, wasting drilling rigs and shutting down refineries. In the short term at least, the price rise made sense.
It also made sense in the long term, as an increasing number of oil industry insiders and analysts were coming forward with predictions that the world was very near the peak of oil production. Oil is a finite resource. As such, its production must follow the general outline of a bell-shaped curve known as Hubbert's curve. Oil will peak, and then fall. If there were little elves inside the earth making new oil for us all the time, then oil production would follow a different curve. But there aren't, so it doesn't.
We are used to gas prices going up and down in the short term, but in the last six weeks, we've seen a dip of fifty cents or more in the price of a gallon. We haven't seen anything this precipitous in a long time and it has excited a lot of comment.
The commentary itself is interesting. True to form, the TV news reports tend to stick to the 'gee whiz, ain't it grand' type of story, interviewing happy motorists filling up at the pump and bypassing any sort of context or analysis.
But you can also find a strong current of suspicion in the public mind that the price drop has something to do with keeping the electorate quiescent as we head into November. A recent poll found 42 percent thinking this way..."


Trusting Right Of The Franchise To Questionable Technology:

Atlanta Progressive News: Diebold Added Secret Patch to Georgia E-Voting Systems in 2002, Whistleblowers Say
"Top Diebold corporation officials ordered workers to install secret files to Georgia’s electronic voting machines shortly before the 2002 Elections, at least two whistleblowers are now asserting, Atlanta Progressive News has learned..."

Senators, Please Defend The Rule Of Law:

New York Times Editorial:Antiterrorism Bill on Detainees, Geneva Conventions - Rushing Off a Cliff
"Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.
Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.
It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush’s shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.
Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws..."

Iran:

AP: IAEA: U.S. Report on Iran 'Dishonest'
"A recent House of Representatives committee report on Iran's nuclear capability is 'outrageous and dishonest' in trying to make a case that Tehran's program is geared toward making weapons, a senior official of the U.N. nuclear watchdog has said.
The letter, obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday outside a 35-nation board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says the report is false in saying Iran is making weapons-grade uranium at an experimental enrichment site, when it has in fact produced material only in small quantities that is far below the level that can be used in nuclear arms.
The letter, which was first reported on by The Washington Post, also says the report erroneously says that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei removed a senior nuclear inspector from the team investigating Iran's nuclear program 'for concluding that the purpose of Iran's nuclear program is to construct weapons.'
In fact, the inspector was sidelined on Tehran's request, and the Islamic republic had a right to ask for a replacement under agreements that govern all states relationships with the agency, said the letter, calling the report's version 'incorrect and misleading.'
'In addition,' says the letter, 'the report contains an outrageous and dishonest suggestion that such removal might have been for 'not having adhered to an unstated IAEA policy barring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear program.''
Dated Aug. 12, the letter was addressed to Rep. Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It was signed by Vilmos Cserveny, a senior director of the Vienna-based agency..."

Is The Truth Too Controversial For U.S. Readers?

It sure looks that way...

Raw Story: Newsweek features 'Losing Afghanistan' in international edition, celebrity photographer in U.S.
"The United States edition of the October 2, 2006 issue of Newsweek features a radically different cover story from its International counterparts, RAW STORY has learned.
The cover of International editions, aimed at Europe, Asia, and Latin America, displays in large letters the title 'LOSING AFGHANISTAN,' along with an arresting photograph of an armed jihadi.
The cover of the United States edition, in contrast, is dedicated to celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz and is demurely captioned 'My Life in Pictures,'..."

Preemption As Electioneering:

Gary Hart: The October Surprise
"It should come as no surprise if the Bush Administration undertakes a preemptive war against Iran sometime before the November election.
Were these more normal times, this would be a stunning possibility, quickly dismissed by thoughtful people as dangerous, unprovoked, and out of keeping with our national character. But we do not live in normal times. And we do not have a government much concerned with our national character. If anything, our current Administration is out to remake our national character into something it has never been.
The steps will be these: Air Force tankers will be deployed to fuel B-2 bombers, Navy cruise missile ships will be positioned at strategic points in the northern Indian Ocean and perhaps the Persian Gulf, unmanned drones will collect target data, and commando teams will refine those data. The latter two steps are already being taken.
Then the president will speak on national television. He will say this: Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons; if this happens, the entire region will go nuclear; our diplomatic efforts to prevent this have failed; Iran is offering a haven to known al Qaeda leaders; the fate of our ally Israel is at stake; Iran persists in supporting terrorism, including in Iraq; and sanctions will have no affect (and besides they are for sissies). He will not say: ...and besides, we need the oil.
Therefore, he will announce, our own national security and the security of the region requires us to act. 'Tonight, I have ordered the elimination of all facilities in Iran that are dedicated to the production of weapons of mass destruction...' In the narrowest terms this includes perhaps two dozen targets.
But the authors of the war on Iraq have 'regime change' in mind in Iran. According to Colonel Sam Gardiner (author of 'The End of the 'Summer of Diplomacy': Assessing U.S. Military Options in Iran,' The Century Foundation, 2006) to have any hope of success, such a policy would require attacking at least 400 targets, including the Revolutionary Guard. But even this presumes the Iranian people will respond to a massive U.S. attack on their country by overthrowing their government. Only an Administration inspired by pre-Enlightenment fantasy could believe a notion such as this.
Embracing this reverie requires believing in the Iranian Ahmed Chalabi, or perhaps even Mr. Chalabi himself since he has been working both sides of the street in both countries for some time.
It does not involve much imagination to understand the timing. The U.S. is poised to adopt a Congressional regime change of its own in November. A political strategy totally based on fear can offer few other options to prevent this. Besides, occupation by Democrats of even one house of Congress in January would make this scheme more difficult (one would certainly hope)..."

Trusting The Right Of Franchise To Questionable Technology:

NY Times: Officials Wary of Electronic Voting Machines
"A growing number of state and local officials are getting cold feet about electronic voting technology, and many are making last-minute efforts to limit or reverse the rollout of new machines in the November elections.
Less than two months before voters head to the polls, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland this week became the most recent official to raise concerns publicly. Mr. Ehrlich, a Republican, said he lacked confidence in the state’s new $106 million electronic voting system and suggested a return to paper ballots...
...In the primary last week in Maryland, several counties reported machine-related problems, including computers that misidentified the party affiliations of voters, electronic voter registration lists that froze and voting-machine memory cards whose contents could not be electronically transmitted. In Montgomery County, election workers did not receive access cards to voting machines for the county’s 238 precincts on time, forcing as many as 12,000 voters to use provisional paper ballots until they ran out...
...In the April primary in Tarrant County, Tex., machines made by Hart InterCivic counted some ballots as many as six times, recording 100,000 more votes than were cast. The problem was attributed to programming errors, not hacking.
In the past year, the Government Accountability Office, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and the Congressional Research Service have released reports raising concerns about the security of electronic machines...
...A Princeton University study released this month on one of Diebold’s machines — a model that Diebold says it no longer uses [ed. But used in Ohio in 2004? Why would the Times not dig into this?] — found that hackers could easily tamper with electronic voting machines by installing a virus to disable the machines and change the vote totals..."

The Rule Of Law:

Sen. Russ Feingold: The President and the Law
"To the Editor:
John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Bush administration, acknowledges that President Bush’s unique approach to the law, which the president has insisted is necessary to fight terrorism, is motivated by the 'broader' goal of strengthening executive power (Op-Ed, Sept. 17).

Mr. Yoo cites this goal as a reason the administration has fought a 'pre-emptive' war, 'data-mined communications in the United States to root out terrorism,' detained terrorists without 'formal' charges and conducted 'harsh' interrogations.

The agenda includes the reclassification of government information and the withholding of information from Congress and the courts, and has been buttressed by the president’s 'signing statements,' which Mr. Yoo asserts claim the president’s right not to enforce 'unconstitutional' laws.

In our system of government, it is the courts that determine the constitutionality of laws, not the president.

But Mr. Yoo takes his argument further, asserting that the president can ignore laws like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because they have produced 'dysfunction.' Indeed, according to Mr. Yoo, the president can ignore both laws and judicial decisions that he deems 'wrongheaded' or 'obsolete.'

These views are clearly offensive to our constitutional system. It is long past time for Congress to reassert its proper role in checking an executive branch that has so little respect for the principles that have sustained our democracy for more than 200 years."

How Is This Constitutional?

Democracy Now! - Headlines for September 22, 2006
"Judges, House Uphold Warrantless Searches of Welfare Recipients, Students

Back here in the United States, two separate decisions Thursday increased the power of government officials to conduct warrantless searches. In San Diego, a district court upheld a program that allows home searches of welfare recipients without court-approved warrants. Under the program, welfare recipients face the loss of benefits if they do not agree to have their homes searched. Meanwhile on Capital Hill, the House approved a bill that would give teachers and school officials broad authority to search students. The Student Teacher Safety Act would require any school receiving federal funding to approve the new search authority..."

Iraq:

Dahr Jamail: AP Propaganda About Iraq
"On Monday, September 18, Associated Press (AP) ran a story titled, 'Iraqi tribes fight Insurgency.' At first glance, the average reader cannot be blamed for thinking that this is a story about how tribes in Iraq have decided to take up arms against the 'insurgency.'
The reader certainly cannot be blamed for thinking this, because the first paragraph in the AP story reads, 'Tribes in one of Iraq's most volatile provinces have joined together to fight the insurgency there, and they have called on the government and the US-led military coalition for weapons, a prominent tribal leader said Monday.'
Allow me to pause here and address the use of the word 'insurgent.' According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, an insurgent is 'a person who rises in revolt against civil authority or an established government: [a] rebel.' This of course begs the existence of a legitimately elected government that the 'insurgent' rises in revolt against, which in Iraq we do not have. How is it possible to have a legitimate government in a country that was first illegally invaded and today is illegally occupied?
Yet, AP uses the word unquestioningly.
The story continues: 'Tribal leaders and clerics in Ramadi, the capital of violent Anbar province, met last week and have set up a force of about 20,000 men 'ready to purge the city of these infidels,' Sheik Fassal al-Guood, a prominent tribal leader from Ramadi, told the Associated Press, referring to the insurgents. 'People are fed up with the acts of those criminals who take Islam as a cover for their crimes,' he said. 'The situation in the province is unbearable, the city is abandoned, most of the families have fled the city and all services are poor.' Al-Guood said 15 of the 18 tribes in Ramadi 'have sworn to fight those who are killing Sunnis and Shiites and they established an armed force of about 20,000 young men ready to purge the city from those infidels.''
At this point, either the author of this AP story, or the editor, or both, rightly assume that the reader is not aware that Sheik Fassal al-Guood tried to lead the local resistance against the occupation in Ramadi, but turned against the same resistance group when its members rejected him as a leader because they considered him a corrupt thief. Nor is the reader aware that today, Sheikh Fassal al-Guood lives in the 'Green Zone' and happily talks to reporters from behind the concrete blast walls, and that his power in Al-Anbar now equals exactly nothing..."

From The You Have Got To Be Kidding Me Dept.

Holy Historical Distortion, Batman!

Raw Story: Black Republican group's ad accuses Dems of starting KKK, claims MLK was Republican
The audio clip plays when you load the page.

On Torture And The Rule of Law:

The aspect the WP editors gloss over is that another part of this deal stipulates that evidence against defendants at military tribunals can still be heavily redacted or be offered in mere summary form. The administration had wished to distance itself yet further from a bedrock of American jurisprudence: to have the right to use such evidence against defendants without ever disclosing it to them or their counsel. 'Secret' evidence makes a mockery of what the Founding Fathers of this nation codified in law.

Washigton Post; The Abuse Can Continue
"...In effect, the agreement means that U.S. violations of international human rights law can continue as long as Mr. Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent. If they do, America's standing in the world will continue to suffer, as will the fight against terrorism..."


Electronic Voting:

Especially races that are 'Too close to call' should be red-flagged for Rovian vote-rigging this November.

Rocky Mountain News: Colorado Lawsuit Seeks to Ban Computer Voting
"Voting on computer screens is so vulnerable to massive fraud that Colorado's November election is 'headed for a train wreck,' says an attorney who is seeking to have the equipment barred at trial next week.
An expert would need just 2 minutes to reprogram and distort votes on a Diebold, one of four brands of computerized voting systems attacked in the suit, says attorney Paul Hultin. His firm, Wheeler Trigg Kennedy, has taken on the case pro bono for a group of 13 citizens of various political stripes.
And he's not the only one alarmed as details of the case spread this week.
The Colorado Democratic Party on Thursday urged all voters to cast absentee ballots for the November election to avoid potential fraud, after a key state official said in a deposition that he certified the computer voting equipment even though he has no college education in computer science and did little security testing..."


Statesman or Showman?

In the era of modern global corporate media, does it really matter which one a leader is?

NY Times Book Review: The Greatest Story Ever Sold - By Frank Rich
"As a former theater critic, Frank Rich has the perfect credentials for writing an account of the Bush administration, which has done so much to blur the lines between politics and show business. Not that this is a unique phenomenon; think of Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and master of political fictions, or Ronald Reagan, who often appeared to be genuinely confused about the difference between real life and the movies. Show business has always been an essential part of ruling people, and so is the use of fiction, especially when going to war..."

October Surprise On The Way:

(Another) false flag attack, perhaps?
Something ominous to instill another sense of FEAR in the electorate?
Can these charlatans win, if they play fair?

Raw Story: Conservative websites claim Rove has been promising GOP insiders an 'October surprise'
"According to two conservative websites, White House political strategist Karl Rove has been promising GOP insiders that there will be an 'October surprise' before the midterm elections.
'In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an 'October surprise' to help win the November congressional elections,' reports Ronald Kessler for Newsmax..."

It Is Never Unacceptable to Think:

How is it possible that it takes a former ESPN anchor to utter these words on a nationally televised news broadcast?

Keith Olberman: Bush Owes Us an Apology
"The President of the United States owes this country an apology.
It will not be offered, of course.
He does not realize its necessity.
There are now none around him who would tell him or could.
The last of them, it appears, was the very man whose letter provoked the President into the conduct, for which the apology is essential.
An apology is this President's only hope of regaining the slightest measure of confidence, of what has been, for nearly two years, a clear majority of his people.
Not 'confidence' in his policies nor in his designs nor even in something as narrowly focused as which vision of torture shall prevail - his, or that of the man who has sent him into apoplexy, Colin Powell.
In a larger sense, the President needs to regain our confidence, that he has some basic understanding of what this country represents - of what it must maintain if we are to defeat not only terrorists, but if we are also to defeat what is ever more increasingly apparent, as an attempt to re-define the way we live here, and what we mean, when we say the word 'freedom.'
Because it is evident now that, if not its architect, this President intends to be the contractor, for this narrowing of the definition of freedom.
The President revealed this last Friday, as he fairly spat through his teeth, words of unrestrained fury directed at the man who was once the very symbol of his administration, who was once an ambassador from this administration to its critics, as he had once been an ambassador from the military to its critics.
The former Secretary of State, Mr. Powell, had written, simply and candidly and without anger, that 'the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.'
This President's response included not merely what is apparently the Presidential equivalent of threatening to hold one's breath, but within it contained one particularly chilling phrase.
'Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,' he was asked by a reporter. 'If a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state feels this way, don't you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you're following a flawed strategy?'
'If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic,' Bush said. 'It's just - I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.'
Of course it's acceptable to think that there's 'any kind of comparison.'
And in this particular debate, it is not only acceptable, it is obviously necessary, even if Mr. Powell never made the comparison in his letter.
Some will think that our actions at Abu Ghraib, or in Guantanamo, or in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, are all too comparable to the actions of the extremists.
Some will think that there is no similarity, or, if there is one, it is to the slightest and most unavoidable of degrees.
What all of us will agree on, is that we have the right - we have the duty - to think about the comparison.
And, most importantly, that the other guy, whose opinion about this we cannot fathom, has exactly the same right as we do: to think - and say - what his mind and his heart and his conscience tell him, is right.
All of us agree about that.
Except, it seems, this President.
With increasing rage, he and his administration have begun to tell us, we are not permitted to disagree with them, that we cannot be right, that Colin Powell cannot be right.
And then there was that one, most awful phrase.
In four simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp focus what has been only vaguely clear these past five-and-a-half years - the way the terrain at night is perceptible only during an angry flash of lightning, and then, a second later, all again is dark.
'It's unacceptable to think,' he said.
It is never unacceptable to think.
And when a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning of a phrase extracted from its context, he takes us toward a new and fearful path - one heretofore the realm of science fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries.
That flash of lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has become unacceptable to think.
Thus the lightning flash reveals not merely a President we have already seen, the one who believes he has a monopoly on current truth.
It now shows us a President who has decided that of all our commanders-in-chief, ever, he alone has had the knowledge necessary to alter and re-shape our inalienable rights.
This is a frightening, and a dangerous, delusion, Mr. President.
If Mr. Powell's letter - cautionary, concerned, predominantly supportive - can induce from you such wrath and such intolerance, what would you say were this statement to be shouted to you by a reporter, or written to you by a colleague?
'Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.'
Those incendiary thoughts came, of course, from a prior holder of your job, Mr. Bush.
They were the words of Thomas Jefferson.
He put them in the Declaration of Independence.
Mr. Bush, what would you say to something that anti-thetical to the status quo just now?
Would you call it 'unacceptable' for Jefferson to think such things, or to write them?
Between your confidence in your infallibility, sir, and your demonizing of dissent, and now these rages better suited to a thwarted three-year old, you have left the unnerving sense of a White House coming unglued - a chilling suspicion that perhaps we have not seen the peak of the anger; that we can no longer forecast what next will be said to, or about, anyone who disagrees.
Or what will next be done to them.
On this newscast last Friday night, Constitiutional law Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, suggested that at some point in the near future some of the 'detainees' transferred from secret CIA cells to Guantanamo, will finally get to tell the Red Cross that they have indeed been tortured.
Thus the debate over the Geneva Conventions, might not be about further interrogations of detainees, but about those already conducted, and the possible liability of the administration, for them.
That, certainly, could explain Mr. Bush's fury.
That, at this point, is speculative.
But at least it provides an alternative possibility as to why the President's words were at such variance from the entire history of this country.
For, there needs to be some other explanation, Mr. Bush, than that you truly believe we should live in a United States of America in which a thought is unacceptable.
There needs to be a delegation of responsible leaders - Republicans or otherwise - who can sit you down as Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott once sat Richard Nixon down - and explain the reality of the situation you have created.
There needs to be an apology from the President of the United States.
And more than one.
But, Mr. Bush, the others - for warnings unheeded five years ago, for war unjustified four years ago, for battle unprepared three years ago - they are not weighted with the urgency and necessity of this one.
We must know that, to you, thought with which you disagree - and even voice with which you disagree and even action with which you disagree - are still sacrosanct to you.
The philosopher Voltaire once insisted to another author, 'I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.' Since the nation's birth, Mr. Bush, we have misquoted and even embellished that statement, but we have served ourselves well, by subscribing to its essence.
Oddly, there are other words of Voltaire's that are more pertinent still, just now.
'Think for yourselves,' he wrote, 'and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.'
Apologize, sir, for even hinting at an America where a few have that privilege to think and the rest of us get yelled at by the President.
Anything else, Mr. Bush, is truly unacceptable."

At What Point Does PR Become Professional Lying?

The Guardian (UK) - The denial industry
"For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three extracts from his new book, George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new story..."

On Torture:

Would the Founding Father believe how little respect is paid to the rule of law by Team Bush?

AP: 14,000 Held in Secret US Prisons
"In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law..."

Thinking Highly Of One's Own Decisions:

..no matter how disastrous they are for the Republic as an institution founded on the rule of law, or for the people, the least fortunate of whom pay dearly for his policies.

Robert Parry: Bush's Way or the Highway
"George W. Bush's September 15 outburst - threatening to stop interrogating terror suspects if Congress doesn't let him revise the Geneva Conventions to permit coercive techniques - is part of a pattern of petulance that dates back to even before the 9/11 attacks but has resurfaced as Bush faces new challenges to his authority..."

The Corporate Wing Of The Fourth Estate Ignores Major Stories:

MarketWatch: Ten major news stories the media is ignoring
"1. The Feds and the media muddy the debate over Internet freedom

The Supreme Court ruled that giant cable companies aren't required to share their wires with other Internet service providers. The issue was misleadingly framed as an argument over regulation, when it's really a case of the Federal Communications Commission and Congress talking about giving cable and telephone companies the freedom to control supply and content -- a decision that could have them playing favorites and forcing consumers to pay to get information and services that currently are free.
Source: 'Web of Deceit: How Internet Freedom Got the Federal Ax, and Why Corporate News Censored the Story,' Elliot D. Cohen, BuzzFlash.com, July 18, 2005.

2. Halliburton charged with selling nuclear technology to Iran

Halliburton, the notorious U.S. energy company, sold key nuclear-reactor components to a private Iranian oil company called Oriental Oil Kish as recently as 2005, using offshore subsidiaries to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The story is particularly juicy because Vice President Dick Cheney, who now claims to want to stop Iran from getting nukes, was president of Halliburton in the mid-1990s, at which time he may have advocated business dealings with Iran, in violation of U.S. law.

Source: 'Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team,' Jason Leopold, GlobalResearch.ca, Aug. 5, 2005.

3. World oceans in extreme danger

Governments deny global warming is happening as they rush to map the ocean floor in the hopes of claiming rights to oil, gas, gold, diamonds, copper, zinc and the planet's last pristine fishing grounds. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2005 found 'the first clear evidence that the world ocean is growing warmer,' including the discovery 'that the top half-mile of the ocean has warmed dramatically in the past 40 years as the result of human-induced greenhouse gases.'

Source: 'The Fate of the Ocean,' Julia Whitty, Mother Jones, March-April 2006.

4. Hunger and homelessness increasing in the United States

As hunger and homelessness rise in the United States, the Bush administration plans to get rid of a data source that supports this embarrassing reality, a survey that's been used to improve state and federal programs for retired and low-income Americans.
In 2003, the Bush Administration tried to whack the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on mass layoffs and in 2004 and 2005 attempted to drop the bureau's questions on the hiring and firing of women from its employment data.

Sources: 'New Report Shows Increase in Urban Hunger, Homelessness,' Brendan Coyne, New Standard, December 2005; 'U.S. Plan to Eliminate Survey of Needy Families Draws Fire,' Abid Aslam, OneWorld.net, March 2006.

5. High-tech genocide in Congo

If you believe the corporate media, then the ongoing genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is all just a case of ugly tribal warfare. But that is a superficial, simplistic explanation that fails to connect this terrible suffering with the immense fortunes that stand to be made from manufacturing cell phones, laptop computers and other high-tech equipment.
What's really at stake in this bloodbath is control of natural resources such as diamonds, tin, and copper, as well as cobalt -- which is essential for the nuclear, chemical, aerospace, and defense industries -- and coltan and niobium, which is most important for the high-tech industries...

...8. Pentagon exempt from Freedom of Information Act

In 2005, the Department of Defense pushed for and was granted exemption from Freedom of Information Act requests, a crucial law that allows journalists and watchdogs access to federal documents. The ruling could hamper the efforts of groups like the ACLU, which relied on FOIA to uncover more than 30,000 documents on the US military's torture of detainees in Afghanistan Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, including the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

Sources: 'Pentagon Seeks Greater Immunity from Freedom of Information,' Michelle Chen, New Standard, May 6, 2005; 'FOIA Exemption Granted to Federal Agency,' Newspaper Association of America Web site, posted December 2005..."

FCC Ordered Destruction of Report Critical of Media Concentration

Shining the light of day on this sort of disservice of the public interest ought to be headline material on every broadcast network.

Democracy Now! Headlines for September 15, 2006
"In media news, a former lawyer at the Federal Communications Commission has revealed the agency ordered staff members to destroy all copies of a draft study that warned against concentration of media ownership. The lawyer, Adam Candeub, says the destroyed study suggest greater concentration would harm local television news coverage across the country. The report put forward figures showing local ownership adds almost five minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of “on-location” news. Those findings contradicted the FCC’s arguments when it voted to liberalize media ownership rules three years ago. Candeub says FCC commissioners wanted “every last piece” of the report destroyed."

This story was, thankfully, covered by the AP.

Iraq:

Kevin Drum: General: 'Rumsfeld Killed Plans for Post War Iraq'
"Today, via Orin Kerr, comes a remarkable interview with Brigadier General Mark Scheid, chief of the Logistics War Plans Division after 9/11, and one of the people with primary responsibility for war planning. Shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan, he says, Donald Rumsfeld told his team to start planning for war in Iraq, but not to bother planning for a long stay:
'The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave,' Scheid said. 'We won't stay.'
Scheid said the planners continued to try 'to write what was called Phase 4,' or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation.
Even if the troops didn't stay, 'at least we have to plan for it,' Scheid said.
'I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,' Scheid said. 'We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.
'He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war,'..."

CBS News: Rockefeller: Bush Duped Public On Iraq
"When the Senate Intelligence Committee released a declassified version of its findings this past week, the Republican chairman of the committee, Pat Roberts, left town without doing interviews, calling the report a rehash of unfounded partisan allegations.
Its statements like this one, made Feb. 5, 2003, by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell that have become so controversial, implying Iraq was linked to terror attacks.
'Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associated collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants,' Powell said.
But after 2 1/2 years of reviewing pre-war intelligence behind closed doors, the lead Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, who voted for the Iraq War, says the Bush administration pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.
'The absolute cynical manipulation, deliberately cynical manipulation, to shape American public opinion and 69 percent of the people, at that time, it worked, they said 'we want to go to war,'' Rockefeller told CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. 'Including me. The difference is after I began to learn about some of that intelligence I went down to the Senate floor and I said 'my vote was wrong.''
Rockefeller went a step further. He says the world would be better off today if the United States had never invaded Iraq - even if it means Saddam Hussein would still be running Iraq..."


9/11, Five Years On:

Marc Ash: September 11th, Our Report
"...As part of its charter, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission) was prohibited from pursuing a critical examination of the Bush administration's role. We have no such restrictions and, as the Bush administration was the supreme controlling American authority, we have reviewed their actions.
We find that an examination of the creation of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States provides powerful insight into the role played by the Bush administration before and after the attacks of September 11th.
We find that the Bush administration used the power of the executive branch for months after the attacks of 9/11 to block the creation of any official investigation into the action of the US government. Further, such resistance by the Bush administration to an official investigation continued in the face of repeated demands by the families of the victims of the attacks. It was, in fact, that very pressure from the victims' families that forced the Bush administration to reverse their position and negotiate the creation of investigative body. However, during those negotiations, the Bush administration refused - again - to cooperate, until two demands were met: The 9/11 Commission must agree not to investigate the executive branch, and the Bush administration itself must be allowed to appoint - without review - the chairman of the commission.
Clearly the Bush administration used, from the start, the power it had negotiated to protect its own interests. The appointment of former Nixon secretary of state Henry Kissinger as 9/11C chairman drew immediate fire from critics, who charged that Kissinger would be more likely to obscure the truth than reveal it. Kissinger resigned less than two weeks later, after refusing to reveal the names of corporations whose interests he represented. The subsequent appointment of former New Jersey Republican governor Thomas Kean was less controversial but ultimately subject to the final authority, the Bush administration.
We find that the objectivity and impartiality of the 9/11C must have been compromised by being under the direct control of the Bush administration. Further, such direct control of the 9/11C by Bush administration officials renders the conclusions of the actions of the Bush administration before, during, and after the attacks of 9/11 by the 9/11C fatally discredited. In short: We find that there has been no meaningful independent official investigation of the actions of the Bush administration's actions before, during, and after the attacks of 9/11.
We find that many high-ranking Bush administration officials hold personal financial interests in the Middle East region. We find that the attacks and resulting military campaigns did significantly enrich - personally - many high-ranking Bush administration officials. Those officials include, but are not limited to: George W. Bush, through his family's oil and energy holdings in the region and their interest in the international arms trade through the Carlyle group; and Richard Cheney, through an ongoing relationship with the Halliburton Corporation and its subsidiaries. In addition, Condoleezza Rice's free movement back and forth between the job of National Security Adviser to Chevron director and back to National Security Adviser again creates a conflict of interest..."


...and the drive to misinform the public:

Max Blumenthal: The Secret Right-Wing Network Behind ABC's 9/11 Deception
"...In fact, 'The Path to 9/11' is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to 'transform Hollywood' in line with its messianic vision.
Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC contracted David Cunningham as the film's director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found an auxiliary of his father's group called The Film Institute (TFI), which, according to its mission statement, is 'dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Televisionindustry.' As part of TFI's long-term strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth With A Mission's 'global training network' in film industry jobs 'so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out,' according to a YWAM report..."

The Home of the 'Free' Press:

Wayne Madsen Report: Information Visas For Foreign Press
"Aug. 28, 2006 -- SPECIAL REPORT FROM EUROPE. Information visas (I-Visa) -- a Bush administration method for controlling the foreign media's coverage of the United States.
You're a foreign journalist and you want to visit the United States to cover a story. If you think it is as easy as hopping on an airplane, even if you are a citizen or resident of a visa-waiver country, guess again. Journalists wishing to travel to the United States -- whether they are with print, television, radio, or Internet media -- must first obtain an 'I-Visa' from the U.S. embassy or selected consulates responsible for their jurisdictions. Freelance journalists who are not under contract to a U.S.-recognized media organization need not apply.
Journalists must fill out a detailed application in which they are required to outline what story they are writing about and they must personally visit the U.S. embassy and consulate for 'administrative processing, biometric collection and a personal interview.' Biometric processing at the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen entails having one's thumb electronically scanned. Journalists visiting some U.S. diplomatic missions for the interview cannot bring in 'electronic devices (cell phones, PDAs, laptops ) [or] backpacks, suitcases and attaché cases.' At certain missions, U.S. embassy security personnel refuse to store such items during the interview process. Others confiscate cell phones and tag them for pick up after the interview process (needless to say, the interview process might last a bit longer if the local U.S. spooks decide to examine the journalist's cell phone call list and perform certain 'modifications.' At the Madrid embassy, the only bags that are permitted inside the compound are those having medical purposes, such as insulin kits.
Journalists must also provide their addresses in the United States and the names and addresses of people they will be interviewing. So much for freedom of the press and the protection of journalists' sources..."

Politicizing 9/11

Lest we forget how much better fear sells than sex...

Keith Olbermann: This Hole in the Ground
"...History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President - and those around him - did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, 'bi-partisanship' meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, 'validate the strategy of the terrorists.'
They promised protection, and then showed that to them 'protection' meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is 'lying by implication.'
The impolite phrase is 'impeachable offense,'...
...A mini-series, created, influenced - possibly financed by - the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you - or those around you - ever 'spin' 9/11?
Just as the terrorists have succeeded - are still succeeding - as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.
So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans..."

Raw Story: 9/11-themed ad to tell Americans 'life depends' on their vote
"A new ad set to be placed in key markets by a neoconservative think tank will tell Americans that their lives literally depend on their votes in the upcoming midterm election, RAW STORY has learned.
Over images of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, an off-camera narrator will tell voters in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia and Vermont that 'the world is a dangerous place. Islamic terrorists hate us for who we are and what we stand for.'
The Center for Security Policy, an organization linked to a number of well-known neoconservatives, produced the ad. Though it claims to be nonpartisan, it centers around the widely-used Republican 'cut and run' talking point..."

The Fourth Estate As Bushco Propaganda Agent:

Media Matters: ABC and Scholastic release skewed Path to 9/11 "Discussion Guide" for high school teachers to assign to students
"In conjunction with the September 10 premiere of ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11 -- a six-hour 'docudrama' reportedly based on the findings of the 9-11 Commission Report -- ABC has teamed up with Scholastic to create a 'Discussion Guide for the Classroom' to urge high school teachers nationwide to '[e]ncourage your students and their families to watch The Path to 9/11 and use the accompanying' discussion guide as part of their lesson plan. ABC and Scholastic have reportedly sent out letters to 100,000 high school teachers informing them of the miniseries and accompanying discussion guide. A Media Matters for America review of The Path to 9/11 'resource sheets' and 'discussion guide[s]' provided to teachers has found that the material omits critical information regarding the Bush administration's pre-Iraq war weapons of mass destruction claims; falsely suggests a tie between Iraq and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; gives upbeat accounts of reportedly dire conditions on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan; suggests that military responses to Osama bin Laden by the Clinton administration could have 'hinder[ed] the U.S. stance on the war on terror'; and asks students to debate whether the media 'hinder our national security,'..."

The Pot Calling The Kettle Black:

Keith Olbermann: There Is Fascism, Indeed
"The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld's remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis-and the sober contemplation-of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence - indeed, the loyalty - of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants - our employees - with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration's track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life's blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as 'his' troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.
It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.
In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld's speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril-with a growing evil-powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld's, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the 'secret information.' It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld's - questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England's, in the 1930's.
It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.
It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.
It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions - its own omniscience - needed to be dismissed.
The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.
Most relevant of all - it 'knew' that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.
That critic's name was Winston Churchill.
Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.
History - and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England - have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty - and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.
Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.
His government, absolute - and exclusive - in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.
It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.
But back to today's Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.
And, as such, all voices count - not just his.
Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience - about Osama Bin Laden's plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein's weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina's impact one year ago - we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their 'omniscience' as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.
But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.
Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire 'Fog of Fear' which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have - inadvertently or intentionally - profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.
And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer's New Clothes?
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we - as its citizens- must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note - with hope in your heart - that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld's other main assertion, that this country faces a 'new type of fascism.'
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that - though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: 'confused' or 'immoral.'
Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

'We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,' he said, in 1954. 'We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
'We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.'
And so good night, and good luck.'..."


William Rivers Pitt: Fascist Appeasers
"...Taken objectively, the incendiary accusations leveled by Rumsfeld and Bush against a majority of the American people are fairly easy to understand. With a little more than two months to go before the midterm congressional elections, the Bush administration and its GOP allies cannot help but realize that they have lost the trust of the American people. If the midterms become a referendum on Iraq, on Katrina, on the stewardship of this administration, Rumsfeld and Bush will be staring down the barrel of something they have managed thus far to avoid: accountability.
Bush, in a recent interview with NBC's Brian Williams, denied that his administration ever conflated Iraq with al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. This was a desperate lie. On March 9, 2003, less than two weeks before 'Shock and Awe' was unleashed on Baghdad, Condolleezza Rice appeared on CBS's 'Face the Nation.' 'We know from a detainee - the head of training for al Qaeda - that they sought help in developing chemical and biological weapons because they weren't doing very well on their own. They sought it in Iraq. They received the help.' The detainee in question, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was never considered reliable by American intelligence, and by 2004, all data received from him was pulled and discarded by the CIA. Rice's lie was merely an accent in the symphony of deception that led us to our current bleak estate.
I could fill page after page with the lies and misrepresentations proffered by the Bush administration regarding Iraq, but this has been done countless times already. Rumsfeld and Bush are no longer trusted, their lies no longer carry weight, and so they have resorted to denouncing a majority of the citizens they supposedly represent. Worse, they chose to do so by raising the specter of Hitler and Nazism. This is nothing less than a rank attempt at rhetorical intimidation, and it is disgusting...
...I am no appeaser of fascism, for I have fought this administration at every step. Millions have done the same, and will continue to do so. To stand in opposition to this new type of fascism, embodied in the hypocrisies and lies of men like Rumsfeld and Bush, is as much our patriotic duty as the time I spent in that jury room.
The appeasers are the ones who continue to march in lock-step, who swallow the pabulum of official misconduct and spew it back without thought or care. The appeasers would have us forget all the falsehoods, all the death, all the scare tactics, all the failures. The appeasers would have us kneel, submit, acquiesce to a government that cares little for the truth and cares for its own people not at all.
Don Rumsfeld and George W. Bush have insulted the people of this nation. They have sullied our honor, lied to us and given nearly 2,700 American soldiers and countless thousands of civilians over to death. They have used our fears for their own political gain, deliberately and with intent. They are the shame of a generation, and their falsehoods will echo long down the corridors of history."