Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Waste, Fraud and Abuse By KBR:
...at the expense of the American taxpayer. Thanks again, Mr. Cheney, for your service to such a model corporate citizen! They couldn't have done it without your help in privatizing so much of what the Pentagon does...
NY Times: Ex-Halliburton Unit Named in Massive Profiteering Scheme
"Federal investigators have uncovered what they describe as a sweeping network of kickbacks, bribes and fraud involving at least eight employees and subcontractors of KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary, in a scheme to inflate charges for flying freight into Iraq in support of the war, according to court papers unsealed yesterday.
The latest conviction in the cases related to the scheme came yesterday, when a former Houston-based executive for an air-freight carrier hired by KBR pleaded guilty in federal district court to dispensing bribes and then lying to federal investigators. The executive, Kevin Andre Smoot, 43, of The Woodlands, Tex., served as a managing director for Eagle Global Logistics Incorporated, a carrier that received a subcontract from KBR to ship the freight.
The guilty plea by Mr. Smoot is the second by an Eagle executive in the case. But the papers describing his plea indicate that investigators believe at least one more Eagle employee and five KBR employees, all so far unnamed, were also involved. Mr. Smoot alone admitted to delivering bribes, called gratuities in the legalistic language of the court papers, to the employees of KBR on some 90 occasions between 2002 and 2005.
At the core of the case is a contract that KBR, previously known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, won before the war to supply the American military with food, fuel, housing and other necessities. The value of the contract soared with the Iraq invasion, and has so far paid KBR some $20 billion.
The company hired Eagle in a subcontract to fulfill part of that mission, carrying military goods from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Baghdad. But the scheme by the Eagle executives began in November 2003 when a plane operated by a rival carrier, DHL, was struck by a missile and landed in Baghdad with its left wing in flames. The Eagle executives used that incident to charge a fraudulent 'war-risk surcharge' of 50 cents for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of freight on its own flights, the papers say.
Between November 2003 and July 2004, Eagle made 379 flights as part of the subcontract, charging some $13.3 million — an amount that included $1.1 million in overcharges. It is not clear whether KBR knew of the overcharging scheme, but the papers say that Mr. Smoot and an Eagle subordinate delivered nearly $34,000 in gratuities to KBR employees 'to obtain or reward favorable treatment' in connection with the contract.
According to the papers, the gratuities included 'meals, drinks, golf outings, tickets to rodeo events, baseball and football games and other entertainment items,'..."
The (Infallable?) Market:
Scott Thill: The Crash of 1929: Are We on the Verge of a Repeat?
"...'There are a lot of us who think we are living on the edge of 1929,' Byrne continued. 'When you consider what's happened with mortgage-backed securities, you get the feeling these might be the first rumblings. There may be more IOUs in the system than there is liquidity, in which case the entire thing is going to vapor lock as soon as it is exposed. One of the healthiest indications of the vibrancy of an economy is capital formation. Seven years ago, America was responsible for 57 percent of IPO capital raised around the world. Now it's down to 16 percent. A national disaster.'
So what is the remedy for this historical collusion among money, markets and the managed realities of naked shorting and hedge fund buyouts? A political solution may be on the way, according to Shapiro.
'The SEC has just very recently finally agreed that this is a very serious problem that is destroying some companies and undermining the integrity of the markets,' he explained. 'They came out with regulations in 2005, which we criticized for having huge loopholes. But this year, the SEC finally said their attempts to address the problem have failed, so they are seriously tightening the regulations. Now we'll see if they enforce them.'
But history, as always, likely will teach a different lesson. Consider two events in that regard. The first happened after - and because of - the 1929 Crash: The Glass Steagall Act of 1933 mandated the separation of bank types according to their business, after the Senate-led Pecora Commission investigation of the crash found that collusion between commercial and investment banks played a major role in it. That act stood for 66 years, until none other than Bill Clinton repealed it in 1999, and here we are again.
Here's the other lesson: According to a recent Financial Times story, 'Barack Obama received more donations from employees of investment banks and hedge funds than from any other sector, with Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase among his biggest sources of support.' While Obama has already promised to increase regulation on hedge funds and the tax burden on private equity groups (or today's 'pools,' as Byrne explained them), if he becomes president, one can imagine he'll be singing quite a different tune if he becomes the first black man in history to run the White House.
Throw in the fact that Rupert Murdoch is set to take over the Wall Street Journal, the paper of record for these subjects and scams, and you have more of the same reality programming..."
Politization of the DoJ:
Jason Leopold: Gonzales Memo: White House Granted Extraordinary Access to DOJ Files
"A new wrinkle over the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) emerged on Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing when a freshman Democratic lawmaker revealed the contents of a May 2006 memo. The memo, signed by embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, granted Vice President Dick Cheney extraordinary authority to review active federal civil and criminal investigations at the DOJ.
At the time the memo was signed by Gonzales, Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, was preparing his defense on obstruction of justice and perjury charges involving the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's name. Also, the special prosecutor who secured an indictment in the case on behalf of the government was reportedly trying to determine whether Cheney and numerous other White House officials also unmasked Plame's identity to reporters and lied about it to a grand jury and FBI investigators. Cheney had been interviewed about his role in the leak in 2004..."
...at the expense of the American taxpayer. Thanks again, Mr. Cheney, for your service to such a model corporate citizen! They couldn't have done it without your help in privatizing so much of what the Pentagon does...
NY Times: Ex-Halliburton Unit Named in Massive Profiteering Scheme
"Federal investigators have uncovered what they describe as a sweeping network of kickbacks, bribes and fraud involving at least eight employees and subcontractors of KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary, in a scheme to inflate charges for flying freight into Iraq in support of the war, according to court papers unsealed yesterday.
The latest conviction in the cases related to the scheme came yesterday, when a former Houston-based executive for an air-freight carrier hired by KBR pleaded guilty in federal district court to dispensing bribes and then lying to federal investigators. The executive, Kevin Andre Smoot, 43, of The Woodlands, Tex., served as a managing director for Eagle Global Logistics Incorporated, a carrier that received a subcontract from KBR to ship the freight.
The guilty plea by Mr. Smoot is the second by an Eagle executive in the case. But the papers describing his plea indicate that investigators believe at least one more Eagle employee and five KBR employees, all so far unnamed, were also involved. Mr. Smoot alone admitted to delivering bribes, called gratuities in the legalistic language of the court papers, to the employees of KBR on some 90 occasions between 2002 and 2005.
At the core of the case is a contract that KBR, previously known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, won before the war to supply the American military with food, fuel, housing and other necessities. The value of the contract soared with the Iraq invasion, and has so far paid KBR some $20 billion.
The company hired Eagle in a subcontract to fulfill part of that mission, carrying military goods from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Baghdad. But the scheme by the Eagle executives began in November 2003 when a plane operated by a rival carrier, DHL, was struck by a missile and landed in Baghdad with its left wing in flames. The Eagle executives used that incident to charge a fraudulent 'war-risk surcharge' of 50 cents for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of freight on its own flights, the papers say.
Between November 2003 and July 2004, Eagle made 379 flights as part of the subcontract, charging some $13.3 million — an amount that included $1.1 million in overcharges. It is not clear whether KBR knew of the overcharging scheme, but the papers say that Mr. Smoot and an Eagle subordinate delivered nearly $34,000 in gratuities to KBR employees 'to obtain or reward favorable treatment' in connection with the contract.
According to the papers, the gratuities included 'meals, drinks, golf outings, tickets to rodeo events, baseball and football games and other entertainment items,'..."
The (Infallable?) Market:
Scott Thill: The Crash of 1929: Are We on the Verge of a Repeat?
"...'There are a lot of us who think we are living on the edge of 1929,' Byrne continued. 'When you consider what's happened with mortgage-backed securities, you get the feeling these might be the first rumblings. There may be more IOUs in the system than there is liquidity, in which case the entire thing is going to vapor lock as soon as it is exposed. One of the healthiest indications of the vibrancy of an economy is capital formation. Seven years ago, America was responsible for 57 percent of IPO capital raised around the world. Now it's down to 16 percent. A national disaster.'
So what is the remedy for this historical collusion among money, markets and the managed realities of naked shorting and hedge fund buyouts? A political solution may be on the way, according to Shapiro.
'The SEC has just very recently finally agreed that this is a very serious problem that is destroying some companies and undermining the integrity of the markets,' he explained. 'They came out with regulations in 2005, which we criticized for having huge loopholes. But this year, the SEC finally said their attempts to address the problem have failed, so they are seriously tightening the regulations. Now we'll see if they enforce them.'
But history, as always, likely will teach a different lesson. Consider two events in that regard. The first happened after - and because of - the 1929 Crash: The Glass Steagall Act of 1933 mandated the separation of bank types according to their business, after the Senate-led Pecora Commission investigation of the crash found that collusion between commercial and investment banks played a major role in it. That act stood for 66 years, until none other than Bill Clinton repealed it in 1999, and here we are again.
Here's the other lesson: According to a recent Financial Times story, 'Barack Obama received more donations from employees of investment banks and hedge funds than from any other sector, with Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase among his biggest sources of support.' While Obama has already promised to increase regulation on hedge funds and the tax burden on private equity groups (or today's 'pools,' as Byrne explained them), if he becomes president, one can imagine he'll be singing quite a different tune if he becomes the first black man in history to run the White House.
Throw in the fact that Rupert Murdoch is set to take over the Wall Street Journal, the paper of record for these subjects and scams, and you have more of the same reality programming..."
Politization of the DoJ:
Jason Leopold: Gonzales Memo: White House Granted Extraordinary Access to DOJ Files
"A new wrinkle over the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) emerged on Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing when a freshman Democratic lawmaker revealed the contents of a May 2006 memo. The memo, signed by embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, granted Vice President Dick Cheney extraordinary authority to review active federal civil and criminal investigations at the DOJ.
At the time the memo was signed by Gonzales, Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, was preparing his defense on obstruction of justice and perjury charges involving the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's name. Also, the special prosecutor who secured an indictment in the case on behalf of the government was reportedly trying to determine whether Cheney and numerous other White House officials also unmasked Plame's identity to reporters and lied about it to a grand jury and FBI investigators. Cheney had been interviewed about his role in the leak in 2004..."
Monday, July 30, 2007
Electronic Voting:
NY Times: Scientists Hack Voting Machines to Prove Tech Weaknesses
"Computer scientists from California universities have hacked into three electronic voting systems used in California and elsewhere in the nation and found several ways in which vote totals could potentially be altered, according to reports released yesterday by the state.
The reports, the latest to raise questions about electronic voting machines, came to light on a day when House leaders announced in Washington that they had reached an agreement on measures to revamp voting systems and increase their security.
The House bill would require every state to use paper records that would let voters verify that their ballots had been correctly cast and that would be available for recounts.
The House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, and the original sponsor of the bill, Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, said it would require hundreds of counties with paperless machines to install backup paper trails by the presidential election next year while giving most states until 2012 to upgrade their machines further.
Critics of the machines said that some of the measures would be just stopgaps and that the California reports showed that security problems needed to be addressed more urgently.
The California reports said the scientists, acting at the state's request, had hacked into systems from three of the four largest companies in the business: Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems..."
Arming The Middle East...
...is the surest way to create more conflict. Billions for arms sales to opposing sides, profits for the right defense contractors, all while the U.S. says it cannot afford to make single payer health care, or the best education a reality for its citizens. It chooses not to make those things a priority. Would the campaign cash dry up from supporting such an agenda? This arms story fits perfectly with Sy Hersh's recent story on The Redirection. Counter Iran's influence in Iraq by supporting Sunis elsewhere. If Bush had not insisted in sticking the U.S. military's toe in this hornets nest, would things be as they are? Or would he have just started a war, or cicked in the door elsewhere (Venezuela)?
NY Times: US Set to Offer Huge Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia
"The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.
The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.
But administration officials remained concerned that the size of the package and the advanced weaponry it contains, as well as broader concerns about Saudi Arabia's role in Iraq, could prompt Saudi critics in Congress to oppose the package when Congress is formally notified about the deal this fall.
In talks about the package, the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package, the officials said.
The officials said the plan to bolster the militaries of Persian Gulf countries is part of an American strategy to contain the growing power of Iran in the region and to demonstrate that, no matter what happens in Iraq, Washington remains committed to its longtime Arab allies..."
NY Times: Scientists Hack Voting Machines to Prove Tech Weaknesses
"Computer scientists from California universities have hacked into three electronic voting systems used in California and elsewhere in the nation and found several ways in which vote totals could potentially be altered, according to reports released yesterday by the state.
The reports, the latest to raise questions about electronic voting machines, came to light on a day when House leaders announced in Washington that they had reached an agreement on measures to revamp voting systems and increase their security.
The House bill would require every state to use paper records that would let voters verify that their ballots had been correctly cast and that would be available for recounts.
The House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, and the original sponsor of the bill, Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, said it would require hundreds of counties with paperless machines to install backup paper trails by the presidential election next year while giving most states until 2012 to upgrade their machines further.
Critics of the machines said that some of the measures would be just stopgaps and that the California reports showed that security problems needed to be addressed more urgently.
The California reports said the scientists, acting at the state's request, had hacked into systems from three of the four largest companies in the business: Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems..."
Arming The Middle East...
...is the surest way to create more conflict. Billions for arms sales to opposing sides, profits for the right defense contractors, all while the U.S. says it cannot afford to make single payer health care, or the best education a reality for its citizens. It chooses not to make those things a priority. Would the campaign cash dry up from supporting such an agenda? This arms story fits perfectly with Sy Hersh's recent story on The Redirection. Counter Iran's influence in Iraq by supporting Sunis elsewhere. If Bush had not insisted in sticking the U.S. military's toe in this hornets nest, would things be as they are? Or would he have just started a war, or cicked in the door elsewhere (Venezuela)?
NY Times: US Set to Offer Huge Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia
"The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.
The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.
But administration officials remained concerned that the size of the package and the advanced weaponry it contains, as well as broader concerns about Saudi Arabia's role in Iraq, could prompt Saudi critics in Congress to oppose the package when Congress is formally notified about the deal this fall.
In talks about the package, the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package, the officials said.
The officials said the plan to bolster the militaries of Persian Gulf countries is part of an American strategy to contain the growing power of Iran in the region and to demonstrate that, no matter what happens in Iraq, Washington remains committed to its longtime Arab allies..."
On (Illegal) Domestic Surveillance:
NY Times: Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over U.S. Spying
"A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.
It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues.
The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.
The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.
Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program 'confirmed' by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining.
If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct.
But members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who have been briefed on the program, called the testimony deceptive..."
NY Times: Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over U.S. Spying
"A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.
It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues.
The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.
The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.
Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program 'confirmed' by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining.
If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct.
But members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who have been briefed on the program, called the testimony deceptive..."
Friday, July 27, 2007
The Rule Of Law:
Truthout.org Bush Executive Order Targets Domestic Assets
"Posted below is the recently dispatched Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq, and notice to Congress of its issuance. It is a remarkably broad assumption of power taken unto the executive branch by George W. Bush.
While there are references to making persons that '... pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence ...' specific targets of this action, the order also names a far broader spectrum of individuals and actions that may be subject to punitive measures as well. Mr. Bush's order names persons that 'have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.'
Further, while this order empowers/instructs '... officers and agencies of the United States Government ...' to assist in its enforcement, ultimately judgment is rendered to members of the executive branch, each of whom serves at the pleasure of Mr. Bush. Since the order seeks to circumvent both judicial and Congressional oversight, it renders unto the executive branch, and ultimately Mr. Bush, absolute power of law.
Congress has moved in recent weeks to confront Mr. Bush, his cabinet and staff. At the center of each Congressional action against the White House is what Congressional leaders view as misuse of executive privilege..."
Some interesting commentary on the matter is also here.
New York Times Editorial: Defying the Imperial Presidency
"The House Judiciary Committee did its duty yesterday, voting to cite Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff, for contempt. The Bush administration has been acting lawlessly in refusing to hand over information that Congress needs to carry out its responsibility to oversee the executive branch and investigate its actions when needed. If the White House continues its obstruction, Congress should use all of the contempt powers at its disposal.
The committee really had no choice but to hold Ms. Miers in contempt. When she was subpoenaed to testify about the administration’s possibly illegal purge of nine United States attorneys, she simply refused to show up, citing executive privilege. Invoking privilege in response to particular questions might have been warranted — the courts could have decided that later. But simply flouting a Congressional subpoena is not an option.
Mr. Bolten has refused to provide Congress with documents it requested in the attorney purge investigation, also citing privilege, and he has been equally unforthcoming about why he thinks it applies. Together, Ms. Miers’s and Mr. Bolten’s response to Congress has simply been: 'Go away' — a position that finds no support in the Constitution..."
Adam Cohen: Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War
"The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war. Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, but President Bush insists Congress doesn’t have the power to do it. 'I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war,' he said at a recent press conference. 'I think they ought to be funding the troops.' He added magnanimously: 'I’m certainly interested in their opinion.'
The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side.
Given how intent the president is on expanding his authority, it is startling to recall how the Constitution’s framers viewed presidential power. They were revolutionaries who detested kings, and their great concern when they established the United States was that they not accidentally create a kingdom. To guard against it, they sharply limited presidential authority, which Edmund Randolph, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the first attorney general, called 'the foetus of monarchy.'
The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe’s history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings. John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, noted in Federalist No. 4 that 'absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal,'..."
...and how the rule of law means nothing to Team Bush. Only staying in power matters...
Jason Leopold and Matt Renner: Emails Detail RNC Voter Supression in 5 States
"Previously undisclosed documents detail how Republican operatives, with the knowledge of several White House officials, engaged in an illegal, racially-motivated effort to suppress tens of thousands of votes during the 2004 presidential campaign in a state where George W. Bush was trailing his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry.
The documents also contain details describing how Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign officials, and at least one individual who worked for White House political adviser Karl Rove, planned to stop minorities residing in Cuyahoga County from voting on election day.
The efforts to purge voters from registration rolls was spearheaded by Tim Griffin, a former Republican National Committee opposition researcher. Griffin recently resigned from his post as interim US attorney for Little Rock Arkansas. His predecessor, Bud Cummins, was forced out to make way for Griffin.
Another set of documents, 43 pages of emails, provided to Truthout by the PBS news program 'NOW,' contains blueprints for a massive effort undertaken by RNC operatives in 2004, to challenge the eligibility of voters expected to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in states such as Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Pennsylvania.
One email, dated September 30, 2004, and sent to a dozen or so staffers on the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC, under the subject line 'voter fraud strategy conference call,' describes how campaign staffers planned to challenge the veracity of votes in a handful of battleground states in the event of a Democratic victory.
Furthermore, the emails show the Bush-Cheney campaign and RNC staffers compiled voter-challenge lists that targeted probable Democratic voters in at least five states: New Mexico, Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Voting rights lawyers have made allegations of so called 'vote caging,' against Republicans previously. These emails provide more evidence..."
Judges Rebuke The Notion Of Secret Evidence:
NY Times: Federal Appeals Court Denies Gitmo Evidence Secrecy
"A federal appeals court ordered the government yesterday to turn over virtually all its information on Guantánamo detainees who are challenging their detention, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to limit disclosures and setting the stage for new legal battles over the government's reasons for holding the men indefinitely.
The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants.
It was the latest of a series of stinging legal challenges to the administration's detention policies that have amplified pressure on the Bush administration to find some alternative to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where about 360 men are now being held at the United States naval base.
A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington unanimously rejected a government effort to limit the information it must turn over to the court and lawyers for the detainees.
The court said meaningful review of the military tribunals would not be possible 'without seeing all the evidence, any more than one can tell whether a fraction is more or less than half by looking only at the numerator and not the denominator,'..."
Above The Law?
Glenn Greenwald: Bush's magical shield from criminal prosecution
"The Bush administration decided to announce to Washington Post reporters Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein its view that it has the power to block the Justice Department, and its U.S. Attorneys, from criminally prosecuting Executive Branch employees who refuse to comply with Congressional subpoenas, notwithstanding a statute enacted by the American people through their Congress requiring such prosecution where Congress issues a contempt citation. We do not know who specifically in the administration announced this obviously radical position because the Post courteously granted them a shield of anonymity to hide behind.
The adminsitration's position is grounded in a 1984 Reagan administration memo (.pdf) written by then-OLC official Ted Olson which made the same claim. Back then, the EPA refused to turn over to Congress subpoenaed documents as part of a Congressional investigation into Superfund enforcement, causing Congress to cite the EPA officials for criminal contempt. The conflict was never resolved because the EPA ultimately agreed to turn over the demanded documents..."
Targeting Social Security:
Rep. John Dingell: A new threat to Social Security
"President George W. Bush has not given up his fight to privatize Social Security; he is simply doing it much more quietly. If you don't believe me, consider whom the president has appointed deputy commissioner of Social Security: Dr. Andrew Biggs, a man who has dedicated his career to killing one of the federal government's most successful programs.
Biggs was slipped into this new job with a recess appointment in April. This was after Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, announced the committee would not take up the Biggs nomination because 'his support for the failed idea of privatization would reopen a settled debate about the future of Social Security reform.'
I applauded Sen. Baucus' announcement and breathed a sigh of relief. This most successful program, of which my father, Congressman John D. Dingell Sr., was a primary architect, would be safe -- for the time being.
But because of the recess appointment, Biggs can serve until the end of the 110th Congress without proper confirmation by the Senate.
'Social Security reform featuring personal retirement accounts doesn't just send one liberal sacred cow to the slaughterhouse. It sends the whole herd,' Biggs wrote in a 1999 paper titled "Social Security Reform and the New Deal Paradigm.' In this paper, his thesis is that the dismantling of Social Security would ideally lead to the dismantling of all or many New Deal-era social welfare programs..."
Truthout.org Bush Executive Order Targets Domestic Assets
"Posted below is the recently dispatched Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq, and notice to Congress of its issuance. It is a remarkably broad assumption of power taken unto the executive branch by George W. Bush.
While there are references to making persons that '... pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence ...' specific targets of this action, the order also names a far broader spectrum of individuals and actions that may be subject to punitive measures as well. Mr. Bush's order names persons that 'have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.'
Further, while this order empowers/instructs '... officers and agencies of the United States Government ...' to assist in its enforcement, ultimately judgment is rendered to members of the executive branch, each of whom serves at the pleasure of Mr. Bush. Since the order seeks to circumvent both judicial and Congressional oversight, it renders unto the executive branch, and ultimately Mr. Bush, absolute power of law.
Congress has moved in recent weeks to confront Mr. Bush, his cabinet and staff. At the center of each Congressional action against the White House is what Congressional leaders view as misuse of executive privilege..."
Some interesting commentary on the matter is also here.
New York Times Editorial: Defying the Imperial Presidency
"The House Judiciary Committee did its duty yesterday, voting to cite Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff, for contempt. The Bush administration has been acting lawlessly in refusing to hand over information that Congress needs to carry out its responsibility to oversee the executive branch and investigate its actions when needed. If the White House continues its obstruction, Congress should use all of the contempt powers at its disposal.
The committee really had no choice but to hold Ms. Miers in contempt. When she was subpoenaed to testify about the administration’s possibly illegal purge of nine United States attorneys, she simply refused to show up, citing executive privilege. Invoking privilege in response to particular questions might have been warranted — the courts could have decided that later. But simply flouting a Congressional subpoena is not an option.
Mr. Bolten has refused to provide Congress with documents it requested in the attorney purge investigation, also citing privilege, and he has been equally unforthcoming about why he thinks it applies. Together, Ms. Miers’s and Mr. Bolten’s response to Congress has simply been: 'Go away' — a position that finds no support in the Constitution..."
Adam Cohen: Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War
"The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war. Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, but President Bush insists Congress doesn’t have the power to do it. 'I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war,' he said at a recent press conference. 'I think they ought to be funding the troops.' He added magnanimously: 'I’m certainly interested in their opinion.'
The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side.
Given how intent the president is on expanding his authority, it is startling to recall how the Constitution’s framers viewed presidential power. They were revolutionaries who detested kings, and their great concern when they established the United States was that they not accidentally create a kingdom. To guard against it, they sharply limited presidential authority, which Edmund Randolph, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the first attorney general, called 'the foetus of monarchy.'
The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe’s history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings. John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, noted in Federalist No. 4 that 'absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal,'..."
...and how the rule of law means nothing to Team Bush. Only staying in power matters...
Jason Leopold and Matt Renner: Emails Detail RNC Voter Supression in 5 States
"Previously undisclosed documents detail how Republican operatives, with the knowledge of several White House officials, engaged in an illegal, racially-motivated effort to suppress tens of thousands of votes during the 2004 presidential campaign in a state where George W. Bush was trailing his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry.
The documents also contain details describing how Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign officials, and at least one individual who worked for White House political adviser Karl Rove, planned to stop minorities residing in Cuyahoga County from voting on election day.
The efforts to purge voters from registration rolls was spearheaded by Tim Griffin, a former Republican National Committee opposition researcher. Griffin recently resigned from his post as interim US attorney for Little Rock Arkansas. His predecessor, Bud Cummins, was forced out to make way for Griffin.
Another set of documents, 43 pages of emails, provided to Truthout by the PBS news program 'NOW,' contains blueprints for a massive effort undertaken by RNC operatives in 2004, to challenge the eligibility of voters expected to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in states such as Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Pennsylvania.
One email, dated September 30, 2004, and sent to a dozen or so staffers on the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC, under the subject line 'voter fraud strategy conference call,' describes how campaign staffers planned to challenge the veracity of votes in a handful of battleground states in the event of a Democratic victory.
Furthermore, the emails show the Bush-Cheney campaign and RNC staffers compiled voter-challenge lists that targeted probable Democratic voters in at least five states: New Mexico, Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Voting rights lawyers have made allegations of so called 'vote caging,' against Republicans previously. These emails provide more evidence..."
Judges Rebuke The Notion Of Secret Evidence:
NY Times: Federal Appeals Court Denies Gitmo Evidence Secrecy
"A federal appeals court ordered the government yesterday to turn over virtually all its information on Guantánamo detainees who are challenging their detention, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to limit disclosures and setting the stage for new legal battles over the government's reasons for holding the men indefinitely.
The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants.
It was the latest of a series of stinging legal challenges to the administration's detention policies that have amplified pressure on the Bush administration to find some alternative to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where about 360 men are now being held at the United States naval base.
A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington unanimously rejected a government effort to limit the information it must turn over to the court and lawyers for the detainees.
The court said meaningful review of the military tribunals would not be possible 'without seeing all the evidence, any more than one can tell whether a fraction is more or less than half by looking only at the numerator and not the denominator,'..."
Above The Law?
Glenn Greenwald: Bush's magical shield from criminal prosecution
"The Bush administration decided to announce to Washington Post reporters Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein its view that it has the power to block the Justice Department, and its U.S. Attorneys, from criminally prosecuting Executive Branch employees who refuse to comply with Congressional subpoenas, notwithstanding a statute enacted by the American people through their Congress requiring such prosecution where Congress issues a contempt citation. We do not know who specifically in the administration announced this obviously radical position because the Post courteously granted them a shield of anonymity to hide behind.
The adminsitration's position is grounded in a 1984 Reagan administration memo (.pdf) written by then-OLC official Ted Olson which made the same claim. Back then, the EPA refused to turn over to Congress subpoenaed documents as part of a Congressional investigation into Superfund enforcement, causing Congress to cite the EPA officials for criminal contempt. The conflict was never resolved because the EPA ultimately agreed to turn over the demanded documents..."
Targeting Social Security:
Rep. John Dingell: A new threat to Social Security
"President George W. Bush has not given up his fight to privatize Social Security; he is simply doing it much more quietly. If you don't believe me, consider whom the president has appointed deputy commissioner of Social Security: Dr. Andrew Biggs, a man who has dedicated his career to killing one of the federal government's most successful programs.
Biggs was slipped into this new job with a recess appointment in April. This was after Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, announced the committee would not take up the Biggs nomination because 'his support for the failed idea of privatization would reopen a settled debate about the future of Social Security reform.'
I applauded Sen. Baucus' announcement and breathed a sigh of relief. This most successful program, of which my father, Congressman John D. Dingell Sr., was a primary architect, would be safe -- for the time being.
But because of the recess appointment, Biggs can serve until the end of the 110th Congress without proper confirmation by the Senate.
'Social Security reform featuring personal retirement accounts doesn't just send one liberal sacred cow to the slaughterhouse. It sends the whole herd,' Biggs wrote in a 1999 paper titled "Social Security Reform and the New Deal Paradigm.' In this paper, his thesis is that the dismantling of Social Security would ideally lead to the dismantling of all or many New Deal-era social welfare programs..."
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The Politics of Fear:
Mr. Pitt chronicles the impecable political timing of Bush Administration announcements designed to inspire fear, during times of scandal.
William Rivers Pitt: We're All Gonna Die
...and the NY Times echoes the sentiment: The Politics of Fear
"It had to happen. President Bush’s bungling of the war in Iraq has been the talk of the summer. On Capitol Hill, some of the more reliable Republicans are writing proposals to force Mr. Bush to change course. A showdown vote is looming in the Senate.
Enter, stage right, the fear of terrorism.
Yesterday, the director of national intelligence released a report with the politically helpful title of 'The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,' and Fran Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, held a news conference to trumpet its findings. The message, as always: Be very afraid. And don’t question the president..."
On Impeachment:
Ray McGovern: Unimpeachably Impeachable
"Last week’s four-part Washington Post feature on Vice President Dick Cheney removed any doubt in my mind as to whether he and President George W. Bush have committed the kinds of high crimes and misdemeanors that warrant impeachment.
While President George W. Bush bears the ultimate responsibility, the nature of the evidence against Cheney and his closest associates is so specific and overwhelming that it makes sense to impeach and bring him to trial first.
Subpoenas from Capitol Hill are flying downtown into executive office buildings like paper airplanes, but the potential for obfuscation and delay is immense, and the danger to the Republic speaks for a more urgent, simpler approach.
As hundreds are killed each day in the misbegotten war in Iraq with no end in sight, the same officials who brought us Iraq—with the vice president in the lead— are salivating for war on Iran..."
Energy Policy:
Harvey Wasserman: The Sham Of Nuclear Power & Patrick Moore
"Vermont, like too many other places with nuke reactors, was recently disgraced by an industry-sponsored visit from Patrick Moore, who claims to be a 'founder' of Greenpeace, and who is out selling nuclear power as a 'green' technology.
The two claims are roughly equal in the baldness of their falsehood.
But the impacts of the lies about Vermont Yankee - like so many other reactors - are far more serious. Vermont is now at a crossroads in its energy and environmental future. The reactor is old and infirm. Every day it operates heightens the odds on a major accident.
In a world beset by terror, there is no more vulnerable target than an aged reactor like Vermont Yankee. Its core is laden with builtup radiation accumulated over the decades. Its environs are stacked with supremely radioactive spent fuel. Its elderly core and containment are among the most fragile that exist.
Despite industry claims, VY's high-level nuke waste is going nowhere. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Edward McGaffigan has told the New York Times he believes the Yucca Mountain waste repository cannot open for at least another 17-20 years, if ever. At current production levels, it will by then require yet another repository at least that size to handle the spent fuel that will by then be stacked at reactors like VY. In short: the dry casks stacked at Vermont Yankee comprise what amounts to a permanent high level nuke dump, on the shores of the Connecticut River..."
Washington Post: Papers Detail Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Report
"...A confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides had already held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. By the time of the meeting with environmental groups, according to a former White House official who provided the list to The Washington Post, the initial draft of the task force was substantially complete and President Bush had been briefed on its progress.
In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001. For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. Some names have leaked out over the years, but most have remained hidden because of a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that agreed that the administration's internal deliberations ought to be shielded from outside scrutiny.
One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, was James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; a week later, longtime Bush supporter Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp., came by for the first of two meetings. On March 5, some of the country's biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, had an audience with the task force staff.
British Petroleum representatives dropped by on March 22, one of about 20 oil and drilling companies to get meetings. The National Mining Association, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and the American Petroleum Institute were among three dozen trade associations that met with Cheney's staff, the document shows.
The list of participants' names and when they met with administration officials provides a clearer picture of the task force's priorities and bolsters previous reports that the review leaned heavily on oil and gas companies and on trade groups -- many of them big contributors to the Bush campaign and the Republican Party. But while it clears up much of the lingering uncertainty about who was granted access to present energy policy views to Cheney's staff, it does not entirely explain why the Bush administration fought so hard to keep it and other as-yet-unreleased internal memos secret..."
Inside The Mind of Neocons:
The Independent (UK): Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons
"The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans..."
On Torture:
Without the actions of a few people of conscience, this would still be in the shadows, where the Vice President and AG Gonzales appear to like it...
Reuters: CIA Dissenters Aided Secret Prisons Report
"Dissident U.S. intelligence officers angry at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped a European probe uncover details of secret CIA prisons in Europe, the top investigator said on Tuesday.
Swiss Senator Dick Marty, author of a Council of Europe report on the jails, said senior CIA officials disapproved of Rumsfeld's methods in hunting down terrorist suspects, and had agreed to talk to him on condition of anonymity.
'There were huge conflicts between the CIA and Rumsfeld. Many leading figures in the CIA did not accept these methods at all,' Marty told European Parliament committees, defending his work against complaints it was based on unnamed sources.
The report issued last month said the Central Intelligence Agency ran secret jails in Poland and Romania, with the complicity of those governments, and transported terrorist suspects across Europe in secret flights..."
Technology:
WIRED Magazine: FBI's Secret Spyware Tracks Down Teen Who Made Bomb Threats
"FBI agents trying to track the source of e-mailed bomb threats against a Washington high school last month sent the suspect a secret surveillance program designed to surreptitiously monitor him and report back to a government server, according to an FBI affidavit obtained by Wired News..."
Medicine:
Paul Armentano: New Studies Expose Government Lies About Medical Pot
"When Connecticut's Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed legislation last month that would have allowed citizens with debilitating medical conditions to use medical cannabis under their doctor's supervision, she alleged that there was no proof of pot's therapeutic effectiveness and that legal alternatives are available by prescription. Now, a just-released clinical trial by researchers at Columbia University in New York is making the governor's statements ring hollow.
On June 21, just 24 hours after Gov. Rell's veto, the online database for the National Library of Medicine posted an a forthcoming study from the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes that reports, 'Smoked marijuana … has a clear medical benefit in HIV-positive [patients] by increasing food intake and improving mood and objective and subjective sleep measures.'
But that's not all investigators found. In a 'first' for HIV/AIDS clinical research, scientists not only compared the efficacy of inhaled cannabis to a placebo (in this case, marijuana lacking the primary therapeutic and psychoactive compound THC), but they also tested pot against doses of the so-called 'legal marijuana pill' known as dronabinol (aka Marinol). For those unfamiliar with dronabinol, it's a gelatin capsule containing synthetic THC in sesame oil that was approved by the FDA in 1992 specifically to treat HIV/AIDS-related cachexia (weight and appetite loss)..."
Mr. Pitt chronicles the impecable political timing of Bush Administration announcements designed to inspire fear, during times of scandal.
William Rivers Pitt: We're All Gonna Die
...and the NY Times echoes the sentiment: The Politics of Fear
"It had to happen. President Bush’s bungling of the war in Iraq has been the talk of the summer. On Capitol Hill, some of the more reliable Republicans are writing proposals to force Mr. Bush to change course. A showdown vote is looming in the Senate.
Enter, stage right, the fear of terrorism.
Yesterday, the director of national intelligence released a report with the politically helpful title of 'The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,' and Fran Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, held a news conference to trumpet its findings. The message, as always: Be very afraid. And don’t question the president..."
On Impeachment:
Ray McGovern: Unimpeachably Impeachable
"Last week’s four-part Washington Post feature on Vice President Dick Cheney removed any doubt in my mind as to whether he and President George W. Bush have committed the kinds of high crimes and misdemeanors that warrant impeachment.
While President George W. Bush bears the ultimate responsibility, the nature of the evidence against Cheney and his closest associates is so specific and overwhelming that it makes sense to impeach and bring him to trial first.
Subpoenas from Capitol Hill are flying downtown into executive office buildings like paper airplanes, but the potential for obfuscation and delay is immense, and the danger to the Republic speaks for a more urgent, simpler approach.
As hundreds are killed each day in the misbegotten war in Iraq with no end in sight, the same officials who brought us Iraq—with the vice president in the lead— are salivating for war on Iran..."
Energy Policy:
Harvey Wasserman: The Sham Of Nuclear Power & Patrick Moore
"Vermont, like too many other places with nuke reactors, was recently disgraced by an industry-sponsored visit from Patrick Moore, who claims to be a 'founder' of Greenpeace, and who is out selling nuclear power as a 'green' technology.
The two claims are roughly equal in the baldness of their falsehood.
But the impacts of the lies about Vermont Yankee - like so many other reactors - are far more serious. Vermont is now at a crossroads in its energy and environmental future. The reactor is old and infirm. Every day it operates heightens the odds on a major accident.
In a world beset by terror, there is no more vulnerable target than an aged reactor like Vermont Yankee. Its core is laden with builtup radiation accumulated over the decades. Its environs are stacked with supremely radioactive spent fuel. Its elderly core and containment are among the most fragile that exist.
Despite industry claims, VY's high-level nuke waste is going nowhere. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Edward McGaffigan has told the New York Times he believes the Yucca Mountain waste repository cannot open for at least another 17-20 years, if ever. At current production levels, it will by then require yet another repository at least that size to handle the spent fuel that will by then be stacked at reactors like VY. In short: the dry casks stacked at Vermont Yankee comprise what amounts to a permanent high level nuke dump, on the shores of the Connecticut River..."
Washington Post: Papers Detail Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Report
"...A confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides had already held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. By the time of the meeting with environmental groups, according to a former White House official who provided the list to The Washington Post, the initial draft of the task force was substantially complete and President Bush had been briefed on its progress.
In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001. For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. Some names have leaked out over the years, but most have remained hidden because of a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that agreed that the administration's internal deliberations ought to be shielded from outside scrutiny.
One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, was James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; a week later, longtime Bush supporter Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp., came by for the first of two meetings. On March 5, some of the country's biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, had an audience with the task force staff.
British Petroleum representatives dropped by on March 22, one of about 20 oil and drilling companies to get meetings. The National Mining Association, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and the American Petroleum Institute were among three dozen trade associations that met with Cheney's staff, the document shows.
The list of participants' names and when they met with administration officials provides a clearer picture of the task force's priorities and bolsters previous reports that the review leaned heavily on oil and gas companies and on trade groups -- many of them big contributors to the Bush campaign and the Republican Party. But while it clears up much of the lingering uncertainty about who was granted access to present energy policy views to Cheney's staff, it does not entirely explain why the Bush administration fought so hard to keep it and other as-yet-unreleased internal memos secret..."
Inside The Mind of Neocons:
The Independent (UK): Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons
"The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans..."
On Torture:
Without the actions of a few people of conscience, this would still be in the shadows, where the Vice President and AG Gonzales appear to like it...
Reuters: CIA Dissenters Aided Secret Prisons Report
"Dissident U.S. intelligence officers angry at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped a European probe uncover details of secret CIA prisons in Europe, the top investigator said on Tuesday.
Swiss Senator Dick Marty, author of a Council of Europe report on the jails, said senior CIA officials disapproved of Rumsfeld's methods in hunting down terrorist suspects, and had agreed to talk to him on condition of anonymity.
'There were huge conflicts between the CIA and Rumsfeld. Many leading figures in the CIA did not accept these methods at all,' Marty told European Parliament committees, defending his work against complaints it was based on unnamed sources.
The report issued last month said the Central Intelligence Agency ran secret jails in Poland and Romania, with the complicity of those governments, and transported terrorist suspects across Europe in secret flights..."
Technology:
WIRED Magazine: FBI's Secret Spyware Tracks Down Teen Who Made Bomb Threats
"FBI agents trying to track the source of e-mailed bomb threats against a Washington high school last month sent the suspect a secret surveillance program designed to surreptitiously monitor him and report back to a government server, according to an FBI affidavit obtained by Wired News..."
Medicine:
Paul Armentano: New Studies Expose Government Lies About Medical Pot
"When Connecticut's Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed legislation last month that would have allowed citizens with debilitating medical conditions to use medical cannabis under their doctor's supervision, she alleged that there was no proof of pot's therapeutic effectiveness and that legal alternatives are available by prescription. Now, a just-released clinical trial by researchers at Columbia University in New York is making the governor's statements ring hollow.
On June 21, just 24 hours after Gov. Rell's veto, the online database for the National Library of Medicine posted an a forthcoming study from the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes that reports, 'Smoked marijuana … has a clear medical benefit in HIV-positive [patients] by increasing food intake and improving mood and objective and subjective sleep measures.'
But that's not all investigators found. In a 'first' for HIV/AIDS clinical research, scientists not only compared the efficacy of inhaled cannabis to a placebo (in this case, marijuana lacking the primary therapeutic and psychoactive compound THC), but they also tested pot against doses of the so-called 'legal marijuana pill' known as dronabinol (aka Marinol). For those unfamiliar with dronabinol, it's a gelatin capsule containing synthetic THC in sesame oil that was approved by the FDA in 1992 specifically to treat HIV/AIDS-related cachexia (weight and appetite loss)..."
Monday, July 16, 2007
On Impeachment:
There is a very good reason the Founders of this nation mention impeachment in the U.S. Constitution six times (God, by the way, is never mentioned).
Moyers' guests, including Bruce Fein, who drafted articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton, discuss the case against Bush & Co.
Bill Moyers: On Impeachment
"Bruce Fein: ...[Bush] has claimed the authority to tell Congress they don't have any right to know what he's doing with relation to spying on American citizens, using that information in any way that he wants in contradiction to a federal statute called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He's claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law..."
Targeting Iran:
The Guardian (UK) - Cheney Pushes Bush to Attack Iran
"The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: 'Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.'
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. 'The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,' the source said this week..."
Our (Fleeting) Civil Rights:
The Washington Post: Bush's Intel Watchdog Did Not Report Legal Abuses to DOJ
"An independent oversight board created to identify intelligence abuses after the CIA scandals of the 1970s did not send any reports to the attorney general of legal violations during the first 5 1/2 years of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort, the Justice Department has told Congress.
Although the FBI told the board of a few hundred legal or rules violations by its agents after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the board did not identify which of them were indeed legal violations. This spring, it forwarded reports of violations in 2006, officials said.
The President's Intelligence Oversight Board - the principal civilian watchdog of the intelligence community - is obligated under a 26-year-old executive order to tell the attorney general and the president about any intelligence activities it believes 'may be unlawful.' The board was vacant for the first two years of the Bush administration.
The FBI sent copies of its violation reports directly to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. But the board's mandate is to provide independent oversight, so the absence of such communications has prompted critics to question whether the board was doing its job..."
The S.F. Chronicle: Judges OK warrantless monitoring of Web use / Privacy rules don't apply to Internet messages, court says
"Federal agents do not need a search warrant to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses and Web pages the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
In a drug case from San Diego County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco likened computer surveillance to the 'pen register' devices that officers use to pinpoint the phone numbers a suspect dials, without listening to the phone calls themselves.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of pen registers in 1979, saying callers have no right to conceal from the government the numbers they communicate electronically to the phone companies that carry their calls.
Federal law requires court approval for a pen register. But because it is not considered a search, authorities do not need a search warrant, which would require them to show that the surveillance is likely to produce evidence of a crime.
They also do not need a wiretap order, which would require them to show that less intrusive methods of surveillance have failed or would be futile.
In Friday's ruling, the court said computer users should know that they lose privacy protections with e-mail and Web site addresses when they are communicated to the company whose equipment carries the messages..."
The National Security State:
Washington Post: Who Runs the CIA? Outsiders for Hire
"Red alert: Our national security is being outsourced.
The most intriguing secrets of the 'war on terror' have nothing to do with al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. They're about the mammoth private spying industry that all but runs U.S. intelligence operations today.
Surprised? No wonder. In April, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was poised to publicize a year-long examination of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies. But the report was inexplicably delayed -- and suddenly classified a national secret. What McConnell doesn't want you to know is that the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show.
Over the past five years (some say almost a decade), there has been a revolution in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing. Private companies now perform key intelligence-agency functions, to the tune, I'm told, of more than $42 billion a year. Intelligence professionals tell me that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) -- the heart, brains and soul of the CIA -- has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
These firms recruit spies, create non-official cover identities and control the movements of CIA case officers. They also provide case officers and watch officers at crisis centers and regional desk officers who control clandestine operations worldwide. As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism -- Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan -- is made up of industrial contractors, or 'green badgers,' in CIA parlance..."
Electronic Voting:
EFF.org - HR 811: Separating Truth From Fiction in E-voting Reform
"After years of painstaking lobbying, e-mail and phone campaigns, congressional hearings, and committee markups and amendments, Rep. Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act finally appears poised for a floor vote in the House of Representatives. With an impressive 216 bipartisan co-sponsors, the bill has a real chance of passing. If signed into law, HR 811 would dramatically improve the electoral process in both the short and long term. While it would not solve the immense shortcomings in the current system, HR 811 would take a giant step towards returning much-needed transparency and accountability to the process.
Not unexpectedly, now that the bill has gained traction in the 110th Congress, critics have descended onto the bill with a fury, complaining that it is too weak or too strong, that its deadlines are too ambitious or too distant, that it takes too much autonomy away from the states or not enough.
HR 811 is not perfect. Few bills are. And honest debate about a matter as important as election integrity is always helpful to the process. However, much of the ostensibly pro-transparency criticism of HR 811 has sadly taken a detour away from being useful and descended into hyperbole, fear-mongering, and uninformed posturing. Returning to the substance of the bill and its actual consequences is long overdue.
What would HR 811 do?..."
Nuclear (Un)safety:
Combine this, and the reactor damaged by and earthquake in Japan, and one wonders who in their right mind, without financial ties to the industry, would think more U.S. nuclear power plants are a good idea?
NY Times: A Nuclear Ruse Uncovers Holes in U.S. Security
"Undercover Congressional investigators set up a bogus company and obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March that would have allowed them to buy the radioactive materials needed for a so-called dirty bomb.
The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, demonstrated once again that the security measures put in place since the 2001 terrorist attacks to prevent radioactive materials from getting into the wrong hands are insufficient, according to a G.A.O. report, which is scheduled to be released at a Senate hearing Thursday..."
The '08 Election:
We all know the Presidential race is won primarily by a large campaign chest, but we also know how important it is for candidates to actually have their message heard on TV. The election of Gov. Jesse Ventura (his politics aside) is a case in point: before he appeared on a TV debate, he was polling in the single digits. After people heard what he had to say, he won the election.
Democracy Now! - Clinton, Edwards Plot Excluding Candidates From Debates
"In campaign news, Senator Hillary Clinton and former Senator John Edwards have been caught discussing an apparent plan to exclude other Democratic candidates from future debates. On Thursday, Edwards and Clinton were speaking privately after an NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit. Unaware their microphones were still on, Edwards is overheard saying: 'We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group.' Clinton agreed, responding: 'We’ve got to cut the number...They’re not serious.' Clinton also indicated the two had discussed the plan before, telling Edwards 'we’ve got to get back to it.' In response, Ohio congressmember and Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich said: 'No matter how important or influential they perceive themselves to be, [candidates] do not have and should not have the power to determine who is allowed to speak to the American public and who is not. Imperial candidates are as repugnant to the American people and to our Democracy as an imperial President,'...”
There is a very good reason the Founders of this nation mention impeachment in the U.S. Constitution six times (God, by the way, is never mentioned).
Moyers' guests, including Bruce Fein, who drafted articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton, discuss the case against Bush & Co.
Bill Moyers: On Impeachment
"Bruce Fein: ...[Bush] has claimed the authority to tell Congress they don't have any right to know what he's doing with relation to spying on American citizens, using that information in any way that he wants in contradiction to a federal statute called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He's claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law..."
Targeting Iran:
The Guardian (UK) - Cheney Pushes Bush to Attack Iran
"The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: 'Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.'
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. 'The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,' the source said this week..."
Our (Fleeting) Civil Rights:
The Washington Post: Bush's Intel Watchdog Did Not Report Legal Abuses to DOJ
"An independent oversight board created to identify intelligence abuses after the CIA scandals of the 1970s did not send any reports to the attorney general of legal violations during the first 5 1/2 years of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort, the Justice Department has told Congress.
Although the FBI told the board of a few hundred legal or rules violations by its agents after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the board did not identify which of them were indeed legal violations. This spring, it forwarded reports of violations in 2006, officials said.
The President's Intelligence Oversight Board - the principal civilian watchdog of the intelligence community - is obligated under a 26-year-old executive order to tell the attorney general and the president about any intelligence activities it believes 'may be unlawful.' The board was vacant for the first two years of the Bush administration.
The FBI sent copies of its violation reports directly to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. But the board's mandate is to provide independent oversight, so the absence of such communications has prompted critics to question whether the board was doing its job..."
The S.F. Chronicle: Judges OK warrantless monitoring of Web use / Privacy rules don't apply to Internet messages, court says
"Federal agents do not need a search warrant to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses and Web pages the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
In a drug case from San Diego County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco likened computer surveillance to the 'pen register' devices that officers use to pinpoint the phone numbers a suspect dials, without listening to the phone calls themselves.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of pen registers in 1979, saying callers have no right to conceal from the government the numbers they communicate electronically to the phone companies that carry their calls.
Federal law requires court approval for a pen register. But because it is not considered a search, authorities do not need a search warrant, which would require them to show that the surveillance is likely to produce evidence of a crime.
They also do not need a wiretap order, which would require them to show that less intrusive methods of surveillance have failed or would be futile.
In Friday's ruling, the court said computer users should know that they lose privacy protections with e-mail and Web site addresses when they are communicated to the company whose equipment carries the messages..."
The National Security State:
Washington Post: Who Runs the CIA? Outsiders for Hire
"Red alert: Our national security is being outsourced.
The most intriguing secrets of the 'war on terror' have nothing to do with al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. They're about the mammoth private spying industry that all but runs U.S. intelligence operations today.
Surprised? No wonder. In April, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was poised to publicize a year-long examination of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies. But the report was inexplicably delayed -- and suddenly classified a national secret. What McConnell doesn't want you to know is that the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show.
Over the past five years (some say almost a decade), there has been a revolution in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing. Private companies now perform key intelligence-agency functions, to the tune, I'm told, of more than $42 billion a year. Intelligence professionals tell me that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) -- the heart, brains and soul of the CIA -- has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
These firms recruit spies, create non-official cover identities and control the movements of CIA case officers. They also provide case officers and watch officers at crisis centers and regional desk officers who control clandestine operations worldwide. As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism -- Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan -- is made up of industrial contractors, or 'green badgers,' in CIA parlance..."
Electronic Voting:
EFF.org - HR 811: Separating Truth From Fiction in E-voting Reform
"After years of painstaking lobbying, e-mail and phone campaigns, congressional hearings, and committee markups and amendments, Rep. Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act finally appears poised for a floor vote in the House of Representatives. With an impressive 216 bipartisan co-sponsors, the bill has a real chance of passing. If signed into law, HR 811 would dramatically improve the electoral process in both the short and long term. While it would not solve the immense shortcomings in the current system, HR 811 would take a giant step towards returning much-needed transparency and accountability to the process.
Not unexpectedly, now that the bill has gained traction in the 110th Congress, critics have descended onto the bill with a fury, complaining that it is too weak or too strong, that its deadlines are too ambitious or too distant, that it takes too much autonomy away from the states or not enough.
HR 811 is not perfect. Few bills are. And honest debate about a matter as important as election integrity is always helpful to the process. However, much of the ostensibly pro-transparency criticism of HR 811 has sadly taken a detour away from being useful and descended into hyperbole, fear-mongering, and uninformed posturing. Returning to the substance of the bill and its actual consequences is long overdue.
What would HR 811 do?..."
Nuclear (Un)safety:
Combine this, and the reactor damaged by and earthquake in Japan, and one wonders who in their right mind, without financial ties to the industry, would think more U.S. nuclear power plants are a good idea?
NY Times: A Nuclear Ruse Uncovers Holes in U.S. Security
"Undercover Congressional investigators set up a bogus company and obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March that would have allowed them to buy the radioactive materials needed for a so-called dirty bomb.
The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, demonstrated once again that the security measures put in place since the 2001 terrorist attacks to prevent radioactive materials from getting into the wrong hands are insufficient, according to a G.A.O. report, which is scheduled to be released at a Senate hearing Thursday..."
The '08 Election:
We all know the Presidential race is won primarily by a large campaign chest, but we also know how important it is for candidates to actually have their message heard on TV. The election of Gov. Jesse Ventura (his politics aside) is a case in point: before he appeared on a TV debate, he was polling in the single digits. After people heard what he had to say, he won the election.
Democracy Now! - Clinton, Edwards Plot Excluding Candidates From Debates
"In campaign news, Senator Hillary Clinton and former Senator John Edwards have been caught discussing an apparent plan to exclude other Democratic candidates from future debates. On Thursday, Edwards and Clinton were speaking privately after an NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit. Unaware their microphones were still on, Edwards is overheard saying: 'We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group.' Clinton agreed, responding: 'We’ve got to cut the number...They’re not serious.' Clinton also indicated the two had discussed the plan before, telling Edwards 'we’ve got to get back to it.' In response, Ohio congressmember and Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich said: 'No matter how important or influential they perceive themselves to be, [candidates] do not have and should not have the power to determine who is allowed to speak to the American public and who is not. Imperial candidates are as repugnant to the American people and to our Democracy as an imperial President,'...”
The Environment vs. Jobs:
Chicago Tribune: BP gets break on dumping in lake
"The massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, running counter to years of efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.
Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs.
Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals..."
Chicago Tribune: BP gets break on dumping in lake
"The massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, running counter to years of efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.
Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs.
Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals..."
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Very Expensive So-Called War On Terror
No infrastructure improvements, renewable energy research, or health care funding in the U.S. could possibly have been a better target for these hundreds of billions since 2001?
One needs to remember that this is all part of a twisted plan to redirect taxpayer dollars to their 'rightful' recipients: thanks to Dick Cheney's arrangements while he was SecDef under Bush #41, much of this funding flows directly to Pentagon contractors. It's been a wonderful 6 years for the Military Industrial Complex.
AP: Report: Wars Costing $12 Billion a Month
"The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollars, congressional analysts say.
All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion. The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.
For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006.
The Vietnam War, after accounting for inflation, cost taxpayers $650 billion, according to separate CRS estimates.
The $12 billion a month 'burn rate' includes $10 billion for Iraq and almost $2 billion for Afghanistan, plus other minor costs. That's higher than Pentagon estimates earlier this year of $10 billion a month for both operations. Two years ago, the average monthly cost was about $8 billion..."
No infrastructure improvements, renewable energy research, or health care funding in the U.S. could possibly have been a better target for these hundreds of billions since 2001?
One needs to remember that this is all part of a twisted plan to redirect taxpayer dollars to their 'rightful' recipients: thanks to Dick Cheney's arrangements while he was SecDef under Bush #41, much of this funding flows directly to Pentagon contractors. It's been a wonderful 6 years for the Military Industrial Complex.
AP: Report: Wars Costing $12 Billion a Month
"The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollars, congressional analysts say.
All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion. The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.
For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006.
The Vietnam War, after accounting for inflation, cost taxpayers $650 billion, according to separate CRS estimates.
The $12 billion a month 'burn rate' includes $10 billion for Iraq and almost $2 billion for Afghanistan, plus other minor costs. That's higher than Pentagon estimates earlier this year of $10 billion a month for both operations. Two years ago, the average monthly cost was about $8 billion..."
Monday, July 09, 2007
The 'Unitary' Executive:
Sydney Blumenthal: The Imperial Vice Presidency
"New details about his secret mission to expand the power of the president show that Cheney, at the end of his career, refuses to loosen his grip..."
GOP Presidential Hopeful Fred Thompson:
Raw Story Ex-Watergate prober: Thompson 'was mole for the White House'
"According to an article in Wednesday's Boston Globe, GOP presidential hopeful, and one-time Republican Senator from Tennessee, Fred Thompson leaked information to the Nixon white house during the height of the Watergate investigation. In his capacity as the Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel, Thompson tipped off Nixon's attorney that the committee was aware of the president's secret tapping device, and would be making the information public.
In his Watergate memoir, 'At That Point in Time,' Thompson recalls that he acted with 'no authority' in disclosing this information to Nixon. Former investigator for the Democratic majority on the Watergate committee, Scott Armstrong, claims this was just one of many leaks Thompson provided to the Nixon administration.
'Thompson was a mole for the White House,' Armstrong claims..."
CA's Not-So-Green Governor
The San Francisco Examiner: Governor Accused of Playing Politics on Warming Rules
"Democratic state lawmakers are questioning Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's commitment to fight global warming after the governor's top deputies thwarted an attempt by the state's air quality regulators to enact their own measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The executive director of the California Air Resources Board, Catherine Witherspoon, resigned Monday - three days after Schwarzenegger fired the board's chairman, Robert Sawyer, who had said he wanted to be more aggressive in curbing pollution that causes global warming than does the Republican governor, who signed the state's landmark bill last year.
Sawyer, a 72-year-old engineer, made public on Monday a transcript of a voice mail, left on his phone by one of Schwarzenegger's aides before the air board's meeting last month, urging the chairman to adopt only the three rules acceptable to the governor.
'The governor has made his name across the world as the jolly green governor, and now we have the regulators saying his inner circle has pressured them to go slow because the big industries don't want us to go too quickly,' said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights, a consumer watchdog group..."
Washington:
AP: House Balks at Bush Order for New Powers
"President Bush this month is giving an obscure White House office new powers over regulations affecting health, worker safety and the environment. Calling it a power grab, Democrats running Congress are intent on stopping him.
The House voted last week to prohibit the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from spending federal money on Executive Order 13422, signed by Bush last January and due to take effect July 24.
The order requires federal officials to show that private companies, people or institutions failed to address a problem before agencies can write regulations to tackle it. It also gives political appointees greater authority over how the regulations are written.
The House measure 'stops this president or any president from seizing the power to rewrite almost every law that Congress passes, laws that protect public health, the environment, safety, civil rights, privacy and on and on,' said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., its sponsor..."
Health Care:
Ralph Nader: Michael Moore and Health Care Reform
"...Certainly the giant HMOs, hospital chains and drug companies are firmly entrenched with all the sinews of power that have left this country, alone among western nations, without health care for all. They have endured easily many mainstream print and television exposés (see the New York Times, AP, 60 Minutes and the nightly evening news, for example) year after year.
Authoritative reports documenting over $200 billion a year in computerized billing fraud and abuse or the loss of 18,000 American lives yearly due to the unaffordability of health care (The Institute of Medicine) bounce off this two trillion dollar industry like marshmallows.
Having been a taught community organizer in Michigan, (see the new book, Citizen Moore by Roger Rapaport) Moore has prepared with all this in mind. He allied himself with the great California Nurses Association and their nationwide colleagues to demonstrate in favor of the film, contact legislators and other large unions.
The anticipatory media for the movie have been generous; citing the U.S. government’s move against Moore for what it claims was an unauthorized trip to Cuba. Right wing think tanks, funded by this hyper-profitable, subsidized industry, pour out inane rebuttals and offer quotes against Moore for reporters.
Unlike for other social justice movies, there is even a bill in Congress, H.R. 676 with 74 cosponsoring legislators, led by Cong. John Conyers (Dem. Mich.), to establish full Medicare for all..."
Iraq:
Gen. William Odom: ‘Supporting the Troops’ Means Withdrawing Them
The Swamp: Who calls shots in Iraq, U.S. or insurgents?
"Do the insurgents have the initiative in Iraq or does the U.S. military?
That important question came up at today's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing which was examining whether the military surge in Iraq was working.
Major Gen. John Batiste (ret.) who commanded the Army's First Infantry Division in Iraq, and is a respected critic of the war, said the insurgents have the initiative since they can pick where and when to explode a truck bomb for instance.
But Frederick Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, rejected that view, saying that under the new strategy being executed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, the initiative was on the U.S. military's side.
Kagan also said because of the surge, if U.S. forces were playing whack-a-mole, they were playing it everywhere.
Batiste disagreed with Kagan on this.
It was one of those strange Washington moments where the military expert with real experience as a combatant commander in the battlespace at issue was being told he was wrong by an Inside-the-Beltway expert who likely never fired a weapon at anyone in anger..."
War Profiteering:
Robert Scheer: The Banality of Greed
"As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American—and many more Iraqi—lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush’s running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich.
This week’s evidence of the continuing corruption of Halliburton and its subsidiaries profiteering from contracts costing American taxpayers an unbelievable $22 billion stems from a report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The report, only one of many about Halliburton’s recently severed subsidiary KBR, focuses on work done in Baghdad’s super-secure Green Zone. While parent company Halliburton insults U.S. taxpayers by relocating its headquarters to the tax shelter of Dubai, subsidiary KBR has been spun off to focus more directly on the American military contracts that form the core of its operations..."
Scott Ritter: A Farewell to Arms Control
"The organization that was at the center of the maelstrom of the Iraqi weapons-of-mass-destruction fiasco, responsible for bringing the world to the brink of war on no fewer than a half-dozen occasions during the 1990s, and then unable to prevent a war in March 2003, has departed the global scene. It left not with a dramatic flair befitting its former status, but rather with barely a whimper, reduced to nothing more than a historical footnote in the grand tragedy that has become Iraq. The United Nations Monitoring and Verification Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), successor to its more accomplished parent, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), was found to be redundant by an act of the United Nations Security Council, which created its disarmament mandate over 16 years ago when it passed Security Council Resolution 1687 in April 1991. The United States and Great Britain had been trying to close down the weapons inspection operation since the invasion of Iraq, citing the demise of Saddam Hussein and the occupation of Iraq by coalition forces as evidence that the U.N.-mandated inspection process was now moot..."
What Was Done In The Name Of We The People:
David Corn: Where’s the CIA’s Missing Jewel?
"...Hayden, the CIA chief, deserves some credit for releasing the “Family Jewels,” and he wants the public to believe that his CIA is not your father’s CIA, which plotted assassinations, illegally opened mail, and spied on American political dissidents. But the CIA in recent days has run secret prisons and used interrogation methods that either involve torture or border on torture. (The details are sketchy.) And the National Security Agency has used warrantless wiretaps to eavesdrop on American citizens and residents. Moreover, as the release of the “Family Jewels” demonstrates, there still are secrets from the past the CIA will not disclose. Are these legitimate secrets that ought to be kept from the public to protect national security, or are they embarrassments the Agency is not willing to face? Only the secret-keepers of the CIA know which jewels remain buried."
On Speaking To Journalists:
Daniel Ellsberg: Libby and Vanunu
"On the day that Scooter Libby’s prison sentence was lifted by President Bush, Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced to prison, again, in Israel. In both cases, the underlying offense was the same: speaking to journalists. In each case, the nominal charges were otherwise. For Libby, lying under oath about the circumstances, thereby obstructing justice. For Vanunu, it was breaking a restriction laid upon him when he emerged from prison three years ago, after serving an earlier full sentence of eighteen years, also for speaking to journalists: he was ordered not to speak, at all, to journalists or foreigners. Like a free man, he did both, openly and repeatedly.
But whereas Libby had passed classified information, and Vanunu had served his earlier sentence for doing the same, in this instance Vanunu was not charged with revealing any secrets. The transcripts or published accounts of his conversations being available, it was open knowledge that what he had mainly talked about was the truth of his personal convictions about nuclear weapons: that they should universally be abolished, Israel’s among them..."
Not News, But A Good Reminder...
...of what sort of people our current President comes from.
Madalyn O'Hair: George H. W. Bush: "Atheists Neither Citizens Nor Patriots"
"When George [Herbert Walker] Bush was campaigning for the presidency, as incumbent vice-president, one of his stops was in Chicago, Illinois, on August 27, 1987. At O'Hare Airport he held a formal outdoor news conference. There Robert I. Sherman, a reporter for the American Atheist news journal, fully accredited by the state of Illinois and by invitation a participating member of the press corps covering the national candidates, had the following exchange with then-Vice-President Bush.
Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?
Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.
Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?
Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?
Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists..."
Still Unanswered Questions:
The Jones Report: Norman Mineta Confirms His Testimony with Members of 911TruthSeattle.org
"Former Transportation Secretary Mineta says Vice President Cheney was 'absolutely' already there when he arrived at approximately 9:25 a.m. in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) bunker on the morning of 9/11. Mineta seemed shocked to learn that the 9/11 Commission Report claimed Cheney had not arrived there until 9:58-- after the Pentagon had been hit, a report that Mineta definitively contradicted.
Norman Mineta revealed that Lynn Cheney was also in the PEOC bunker already at the time of his arrival, along with a number of other staff.
Mineta is on video testifying before the 9/11 Commission, though it was omitted in their final report. He told Lee Hamilton:
'During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president 'do the orders still stand?' And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said 'Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?'
Mineta confirmed his statements with reporters, saying 'When I overheard something about 'the orders still stand' and so, what I thought of was that they had already made the decision to shoot something down.'
Norman Mineta made it clear to reporters-- who verified his quotes in written text alongside him-- that Mineta was indeed talking about a stand down order not to shoot down hijacked aircraft headed for the Pentagon.
After no shoot down took place, it became clear that Cheney intended to keep NORAD fighter jets from responding -- evidence that Cheney is guilty of treason, not negligence for allowing the Pentagon to be hit..."
Sydney Blumenthal: The Imperial Vice Presidency
"New details about his secret mission to expand the power of the president show that Cheney, at the end of his career, refuses to loosen his grip..."
GOP Presidential Hopeful Fred Thompson:
Raw Story Ex-Watergate prober: Thompson 'was mole for the White House'
"According to an article in Wednesday's Boston Globe, GOP presidential hopeful, and one-time Republican Senator from Tennessee, Fred Thompson leaked information to the Nixon white house during the height of the Watergate investigation. In his capacity as the Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel, Thompson tipped off Nixon's attorney that the committee was aware of the president's secret tapping device, and would be making the information public.
In his Watergate memoir, 'At That Point in Time,' Thompson recalls that he acted with 'no authority' in disclosing this information to Nixon. Former investigator for the Democratic majority on the Watergate committee, Scott Armstrong, claims this was just one of many leaks Thompson provided to the Nixon administration.
'Thompson was a mole for the White House,' Armstrong claims..."
CA's Not-So-Green Governor
The San Francisco Examiner: Governor Accused of Playing Politics on Warming Rules
"Democratic state lawmakers are questioning Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's commitment to fight global warming after the governor's top deputies thwarted an attempt by the state's air quality regulators to enact their own measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The executive director of the California Air Resources Board, Catherine Witherspoon, resigned Monday - three days after Schwarzenegger fired the board's chairman, Robert Sawyer, who had said he wanted to be more aggressive in curbing pollution that causes global warming than does the Republican governor, who signed the state's landmark bill last year.
Sawyer, a 72-year-old engineer, made public on Monday a transcript of a voice mail, left on his phone by one of Schwarzenegger's aides before the air board's meeting last month, urging the chairman to adopt only the three rules acceptable to the governor.
'The governor has made his name across the world as the jolly green governor, and now we have the regulators saying his inner circle has pressured them to go slow because the big industries don't want us to go too quickly,' said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights, a consumer watchdog group..."
Washington:
AP: House Balks at Bush Order for New Powers
"President Bush this month is giving an obscure White House office new powers over regulations affecting health, worker safety and the environment. Calling it a power grab, Democrats running Congress are intent on stopping him.
The House voted last week to prohibit the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from spending federal money on Executive Order 13422, signed by Bush last January and due to take effect July 24.
The order requires federal officials to show that private companies, people or institutions failed to address a problem before agencies can write regulations to tackle it. It also gives political appointees greater authority over how the regulations are written.
The House measure 'stops this president or any president from seizing the power to rewrite almost every law that Congress passes, laws that protect public health, the environment, safety, civil rights, privacy and on and on,' said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., its sponsor..."
Health Care:
Ralph Nader: Michael Moore and Health Care Reform
"...Certainly the giant HMOs, hospital chains and drug companies are firmly entrenched with all the sinews of power that have left this country, alone among western nations, without health care for all. They have endured easily many mainstream print and television exposés (see the New York Times, AP, 60 Minutes and the nightly evening news, for example) year after year.
Authoritative reports documenting over $200 billion a year in computerized billing fraud and abuse or the loss of 18,000 American lives yearly due to the unaffordability of health care (The Institute of Medicine) bounce off this two trillion dollar industry like marshmallows.
Having been a taught community organizer in Michigan, (see the new book, Citizen Moore by Roger Rapaport) Moore has prepared with all this in mind. He allied himself with the great California Nurses Association and their nationwide colleagues to demonstrate in favor of the film, contact legislators and other large unions.
The anticipatory media for the movie have been generous; citing the U.S. government’s move against Moore for what it claims was an unauthorized trip to Cuba. Right wing think tanks, funded by this hyper-profitable, subsidized industry, pour out inane rebuttals and offer quotes against Moore for reporters.
Unlike for other social justice movies, there is even a bill in Congress, H.R. 676 with 74 cosponsoring legislators, led by Cong. John Conyers (Dem. Mich.), to establish full Medicare for all..."
Iraq:
Gen. William Odom: ‘Supporting the Troops’ Means Withdrawing Them
The Swamp: Who calls shots in Iraq, U.S. or insurgents?
"Do the insurgents have the initiative in Iraq or does the U.S. military?
That important question came up at today's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing which was examining whether the military surge in Iraq was working.
Major Gen. John Batiste (ret.) who commanded the Army's First Infantry Division in Iraq, and is a respected critic of the war, said the insurgents have the initiative since they can pick where and when to explode a truck bomb for instance.
But Frederick Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, rejected that view, saying that under the new strategy being executed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, the initiative was on the U.S. military's side.
Kagan also said because of the surge, if U.S. forces were playing whack-a-mole, they were playing it everywhere.
Batiste disagreed with Kagan on this.
It was one of those strange Washington moments where the military expert with real experience as a combatant commander in the battlespace at issue was being told he was wrong by an Inside-the-Beltway expert who likely never fired a weapon at anyone in anger..."
War Profiteering:
Robert Scheer: The Banality of Greed
"As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American—and many more Iraqi—lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush’s running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich.
This week’s evidence of the continuing corruption of Halliburton and its subsidiaries profiteering from contracts costing American taxpayers an unbelievable $22 billion stems from a report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The report, only one of many about Halliburton’s recently severed subsidiary KBR, focuses on work done in Baghdad’s super-secure Green Zone. While parent company Halliburton insults U.S. taxpayers by relocating its headquarters to the tax shelter of Dubai, subsidiary KBR has been spun off to focus more directly on the American military contracts that form the core of its operations..."
Scott Ritter: A Farewell to Arms Control
"The organization that was at the center of the maelstrom of the Iraqi weapons-of-mass-destruction fiasco, responsible for bringing the world to the brink of war on no fewer than a half-dozen occasions during the 1990s, and then unable to prevent a war in March 2003, has departed the global scene. It left not with a dramatic flair befitting its former status, but rather with barely a whimper, reduced to nothing more than a historical footnote in the grand tragedy that has become Iraq. The United Nations Monitoring and Verification Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), successor to its more accomplished parent, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), was found to be redundant by an act of the United Nations Security Council, which created its disarmament mandate over 16 years ago when it passed Security Council Resolution 1687 in April 1991. The United States and Great Britain had been trying to close down the weapons inspection operation since the invasion of Iraq, citing the demise of Saddam Hussein and the occupation of Iraq by coalition forces as evidence that the U.N.-mandated inspection process was now moot..."
What Was Done In The Name Of We The People:
David Corn: Where’s the CIA’s Missing Jewel?
"...Hayden, the CIA chief, deserves some credit for releasing the “Family Jewels,” and he wants the public to believe that his CIA is not your father’s CIA, which plotted assassinations, illegally opened mail, and spied on American political dissidents. But the CIA in recent days has run secret prisons and used interrogation methods that either involve torture or border on torture. (The details are sketchy.) And the National Security Agency has used warrantless wiretaps to eavesdrop on American citizens and residents. Moreover, as the release of the “Family Jewels” demonstrates, there still are secrets from the past the CIA will not disclose. Are these legitimate secrets that ought to be kept from the public to protect national security, or are they embarrassments the Agency is not willing to face? Only the secret-keepers of the CIA know which jewels remain buried."
On Speaking To Journalists:
Daniel Ellsberg: Libby and Vanunu
"On the day that Scooter Libby’s prison sentence was lifted by President Bush, Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced to prison, again, in Israel. In both cases, the underlying offense was the same: speaking to journalists. In each case, the nominal charges were otherwise. For Libby, lying under oath about the circumstances, thereby obstructing justice. For Vanunu, it was breaking a restriction laid upon him when he emerged from prison three years ago, after serving an earlier full sentence of eighteen years, also for speaking to journalists: he was ordered not to speak, at all, to journalists or foreigners. Like a free man, he did both, openly and repeatedly.
But whereas Libby had passed classified information, and Vanunu had served his earlier sentence for doing the same, in this instance Vanunu was not charged with revealing any secrets. The transcripts or published accounts of his conversations being available, it was open knowledge that what he had mainly talked about was the truth of his personal convictions about nuclear weapons: that they should universally be abolished, Israel’s among them..."
Not News, But A Good Reminder...
...of what sort of people our current President comes from.
Madalyn O'Hair: George H. W. Bush: "Atheists Neither Citizens Nor Patriots"
"When George [Herbert Walker] Bush was campaigning for the presidency, as incumbent vice-president, one of his stops was in Chicago, Illinois, on August 27, 1987. At O'Hare Airport he held a formal outdoor news conference. There Robert I. Sherman, a reporter for the American Atheist news journal, fully accredited by the state of Illinois and by invitation a participating member of the press corps covering the national candidates, had the following exchange with then-Vice-President Bush.
Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?
Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.
Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?
Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?
Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists..."
Still Unanswered Questions:
The Jones Report: Norman Mineta Confirms His Testimony with Members of 911TruthSeattle.org
"Former Transportation Secretary Mineta says Vice President Cheney was 'absolutely' already there when he arrived at approximately 9:25 a.m. in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) bunker on the morning of 9/11. Mineta seemed shocked to learn that the 9/11 Commission Report claimed Cheney had not arrived there until 9:58-- after the Pentagon had been hit, a report that Mineta definitively contradicted.
Norman Mineta revealed that Lynn Cheney was also in the PEOC bunker already at the time of his arrival, along with a number of other staff.
Mineta is on video testifying before the 9/11 Commission, though it was omitted in their final report. He told Lee Hamilton:
'During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president 'do the orders still stand?' And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said 'Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?'
Mineta confirmed his statements with reporters, saying 'When I overheard something about 'the orders still stand' and so, what I thought of was that they had already made the decision to shoot something down.'
Norman Mineta made it clear to reporters-- who verified his quotes in written text alongside him-- that Mineta was indeed talking about a stand down order not to shoot down hijacked aircraft headed for the Pentagon.
After no shoot down took place, it became clear that Cheney intended to keep NORAD fighter jets from responding -- evidence that Cheney is guilty of treason, not negligence for allowing the Pentagon to be hit..."
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
W's Commutation Of Libby's Prison Sentence:
Had Libby had been pardoned outright by Bush, he could not plead the Fifth when asked about his involvement in the criminal behavior of Cheney's office by Congress.
Commuting the sentence while Libby continues to contest his conviction allows the former aide to the VP to continue to lie to protect his bosses. These people value 'loyalty' above all else, very much like the Mafia. Lie, cheat, steal, and then shut up or lie/misdirect if you are caught. The only their ends matter. The law clearly does not. And Congress still waits to do anything at all about these criminals and their conduct...
Had Libby had been pardoned outright by Bush, he could not plead the Fifth when asked about his involvement in the criminal behavior of Cheney's office by Congress.
Commuting the sentence while Libby continues to contest his conviction allows the former aide to the VP to continue to lie to protect his bosses. These people value 'loyalty' above all else, very much like the Mafia. Lie, cheat, steal, and then shut up or lie/misdirect if you are caught. The only their ends matter. The law clearly does not. And Congress still waits to do anything at all about these criminals and their conduct...
