Observations on current events

Iraq:

It is important to remember that we have Mr. Cheney (as SecDef for Pres. Bush Sr.) to thank for the vastly expanded role of private contractors. Acting as mercenaries, unaccountable to the civilian authorities in Iraq, Blackwater's policy seems to be to shoot first, and ask questions later. Aegis Defense Services, a UK firm, seems to act much the same way.

AP: Waxman, Committee Blame Blackwater in Fallujah Uprising
"Blackwater USA triggered a major battle in the Iraq war in 2004 by sending an unprepared team of guards into an insurgent stronghold, a move that led to their horrific deaths and a violent response by U.S. forces, says a congressional investigation released Thursday.
The private security company, one of the largest working in Iraq and under scrutiny for how it operates, also is faulted for initially insisting its guards were properly prepared and equipped. It is also accused of impeding the inquiry by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The results of the staff inquiry come less than a week before Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and Blackwater's founder, is scheduled to testify before the committee, which is chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a longtime critic of Blackwater.
The March 2004 incident involving Blackwater was widely viewed as a turning point in the Iraq war after images of the mutilated bodies of the four guards were seen around the world. Four days after the Blackwater guards were killed, a major military offensive, known as the Battle of Fallujah, began.
The combat lasted almost a month in Fallujah, which is 40 miles west of Baghdad. At least 36 U.S. military personnel were killed along with 200 insurgents and an estimated 600 civilians, the congressional investigation found..."

WP: Senior Military Official: "It May Be Worse Than Abu Ghraib"
"A confrontation between the U.S. military and the State Department is unfolding over the involvement of Blackwater USA in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square Sept. 16, bringing to the surface long-simmering tensions between the military and private security companies in Iraq, according to U.S. military and government officials..."

Ray McGovern: Bush, Oil - and Moral Bankruptcy
"It is an exceedingly dangerous time. Vice President Dick Cheney and his hard-core 'neo-conservative' protégés in the administration and Congress are pushing harder and harder for President George W. Bush, isolated from reality, to honor the promise he made to Israel to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
On Sept. 23, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned pointedly:
'If we escalate tensions, if we succumb to hysteria, if we start making threats, we are likely to stampede ourselves into a war [with Iran], which most reasonable people agree would be a disaster for us...I think the administration, the president and the vice president particularly, are trying to hype the atmosphere, and that is reminiscent of what preceded the war in Iraq.'
So why the pressure for a wider war in which any victory will be Pyrrhic - for Israel and for the U.S.? The short answer is arrogant stupidity; the longer answer - what the Chinese used to call 'great power chauvinism' - and oil..."

Dilip Hiro:How Bush's Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry


The Fourth Estate:

William Rivers Pitt: Dan Rather's Magnum Opus
"His face was once a totem, a comforting TV-screen touchstone. His voice and inflection lent suppertime credence to the myth of American permanence, safety and dependability, night after night, for a quarter of a century. It is surpassingly strange, therefore, to encompass Dan Rather's recent and abrupt metamorphosis. The former 'CBS Nightly News' anchor, previously a study in constancy and predictability, has suddenly become a genuine threat to the entire mainstream news industry.
Last week, Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS, its chief executive Leslie Moonves, former network president Andrew Heyward, CBS's parent company Viacom and Viacom's Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone.
The suit stems from a sensational September 2004 CBS report detailing documentary evidence of George W. Bush's poor performance during and constant absence from service in the Texas Air National Guard during the early 1970s. The report was met with an immediate chorus of scornful dismissals from Bush administration officials, Bush campaign spokespeople and right-wing bloggers that eventually cast doubt upon the authenticity of the documents. Within two weeks, CBS retreated in humiliation from the story. Rather staggered on as the 'CBS Nightly News' anchor for a few more excruciating months, but finally departed on March 9, 2005..."

Health Care:

Russell Mokhiber: AARP To Kucinich: Drop Dead
"AARP President Bill Novelli is a company man. No, the company is not AARP.
Novelli doesn’t give a damn about AARP or its 38 million members.
If he did, he wouldn’t be selling down them down river by opposing a single payer system that would benefit not just AARP members, but everyone in the country...
...Kucinich would put out of business Novelli’s corporate support system - including United Healthcare and Aetna.
Earlier this year, both these health care industry giants signed a contract with AARP that will net AARP a cool $4.4 billion over seven years.
Kucinich said that AARP sponsorship of the Presidential forum 'is like having Haliburton or Blackwater sponsor a Presidential forum on doing away with no-bid government contracts to private contractors - or an oil company sponsoring a forum on reducing the world’s dependence on oil.'
'Millions of trusting AARP members have bought Medicare-supplemental and prescription drug insurance plans from AARP, believing that they were getting a good deal,' Kucinich said. 'It turns out, however, that AARP is taking a $4 billion cut by steering its members to profiteering private insurance companies trying to capitalize on fear and confusion.'
'The fact that Senators Clinton, Obama, and former Senator Edwards are pushing plans to keep the for-profit private insurers in business and in control may explain why they are willing to participate in this fake and tainted debate,' Kucinich said..."


The Rule Of Law:

Newsday: Activist silenced for fear of surveillance
"Jennifer Flynn is not a rabble-rouser. She's not an aspiring suicide bomber. She doesn't advocate the overthrow of the government. Instead, she pushes for funding and better treatment for people with HIV and AIDS. Better keep an eye on her. Wait! Somebody already did..."

Targeting Iran:

The Sunday Times (UK) - Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike
"The United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with 'fighting the next war' as tensions rise with Iran. Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June. It reports directly to General Michael Moseley, the US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years by Centcom (US central command), according to defence sources.
Checkmate’s job is to add a dash of brilliance to Air Force thinking by countering the military’s tendency to 'fight the last war' and by providing innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare.
It is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence 'Stutz' Stutzriem, who is considered one of the brightest air force generals. He is assisted by Dr Lani Kass, a former Israeli military officer and expert on cyberwarfare.
The failure of United Nations sanctions to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Tehran claims are peaceful, is giving rise to an intense debate about the likelihood of military strikes.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said last week that it was 'necessary to prepare for the worst...and the worst is war'. He later qualified his remarks, saying he wanted to avoid that outcome.
France has joined America in pushing for a tough third sanctions resolution against Iran at the UN security council but is meeting strong resistance from China and Russia...
...The US president faces strong opposition to military action, however, within his own joint chiefs of staff. 'None of them think it is a good idea, but they will do it if they are told to,' said a senior defence source.
General John Abizaid, the former Centcom commander, said last week: 'Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran,'..."



Energy:

IndustryWeek: New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production
"Colorado State University's method for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production. AVA Solar Inc. will start production by the end of next year on the technology developed by mechanical engineering Professor W.S. Sampath at Colorado State. The new 200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the average household usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes.
Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated electricity.
Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because the process produces high efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to 13%) at a very high rate and yield, it can be done much more cheaply than with existing technologies. The cost to the consumer could be as low as $2 per watt, about half the current cost of solar panels. In addition, this solar technology need not be tied to a grid, so it can be affordably installed and operated in nearly any location.
The process is a low waste process with less than 2% of the materials used in production needing to be recycled. It also makes better use of raw materials since the process converts solar energy into electricity more efficiently. Cadmium telluride solar panels require 100 times less semiconductor material than high-cost crystalline silicon panels..."


Iraq:

Yet another blank check from Congress to be forthcoming for Bush's Middle East war of choice...

LA Times: Iraq War budget Jumps for 2008
"After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure - totaling nearly $200 billion - to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said.
If Bush's spending request is approved, 2008 will be the most expensive year of the Iraq war.
U.S. war costs have continued to grow because of the additional combat forces sent to Iraq this year and because of efforts to quickly ramp up production of new technology, such as mine-resistant trucks designed to protect troops from roadside bombs. The new trucks can cost three to six times as much as an armored Humvee.
The Bush administration said earlier this year that it probably would need $147.5 billion for 2008, but Pentagon officials now say that and $47 billion more will be required. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and other officials are to formally present the full request at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday..."

...which ensures we will get much more of this:

NY Times: $6 Billion in Government Contracts Under Criminal Review
"Military officials said Thursday that contracts worth $6 billion to provide essential supplies to American troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan - including food, water and shelter - were under review by criminal investigators, double the amount the Pentagon had previously disclosed.
In addition, $88 billion in contracts and programs, including those for body armor for American soldiers and material for Iraqi and Afghan security forces, are being audited for financial irregularities, the officials said.
Taken together, the figures, provided by the Pentagon in a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, represent the fullest public accounting of the magnitude of a widening government investigation into bid-rigging, bribery and kickbacks by members of the military and civilians linked to the Pentagon's purchasing system.
Until the hearing on Thursday, the Army's most detailed public disclosure about the scale of the problem was that contracts worth $3 billion awarded by the Kuwait office were under review.At the hearing, a panel of high-ranking Defense Department officials described a war-zone procurement system in disarray. They said that the Pentagon failed to provide adequate training for contracting officers for their assignments, offered insufficient oversight of contracting officers' activities and had not put in place early warning systems to catch officers who violated the law..."


Washington Post: War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says
"The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.
The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group's analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.
The estimates made by the group, which opposes the conflict, include not only the immediate costs of war but also ongoing factors such as long-term health care for veterans, interest on debt and replacement of military hardware..."

The Politics Of Fear:

The Raw Story: Republicans pushed 'bogus' terror threat to expand FISA, lawmaker says
"Republicans and the Bush administration used a 'bogus' terror threat that raised specific fears of an attack on the Capitol to scare lawmakers into adopting a dramatic temporary expansion of the government's spy powers last month, a former top intelligence committee Democrat said Wednesday.
Congress agreed to give President Bush and the nation's intelligence agencies extra authority to spy on Americans just hours before lawmakers left for a month-long recess in August. In the legislative session's final week, news emerged of an impending plot by foreign terrorists to attack the US Capitol, and Republicans pointed to the reports as justification to expand the administration's powers.
'That specific intelligence claim, it turned out, was bogus; the intelligence agencies knew that,' Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said at a forum on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act organized by the Center for American Progress in Washington. However, lawmakers did not learn of the claim's unreliability until 'the day' they approved the FISA expansion, she said.
Harman was among Congress's 'Gang of Eight' in 2002 when she served as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. The gang was briefed in 2002 on President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program initiated after 9/11 before the New York Times revealed its existence in December 2005..."


Economics:

Stephen Lendman: The Shock Doctrine
"[Naomi Klein's] newest book is 'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism', that explodes the myth of 'free market' democracy. It shows how neoliberal, Washington consensus fundamentalism dominates the world with America its lead exponent exploiting security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, competing ideologies, tectonic political or economic shifts and natural disasters to impose its will everywhere. Wars are waged, social services cut and freedom sacrificed when people are too distracted, cowed or bludgeoned to object. Klein describes a worldwide process of social and economic engineering she calls 'disaster capitalism' with torture along for the ride to reinforce the message - no 'New World Order' alternatives are tolerated.
'Free market' triumphalism is everywhere - from Canada to Brazil, China to Bulgaria, Russia to South Africa, Vietnam to Iraq. In all cases, the results are the same: People are sacrificed for profits and Margaret Thatcher's dictum applies - 'there is no alternative.'
'The Shock Doctrine' is a powerful tour de force, four years of on-the-ground research in the making and well worth the wait. In an age of corporatism partnered with corrupted political elites, it's must reading by an author now firmly established as a major intellectual figure on the left and champion of social justice..."


Too little, too late, from you, Mr. Greenspan. These analyses could have helped Americans get a grip on the reality of the Bush agenda years ago!

The Independent (UK) - Republicans and Bush condemned by Greenspan
"...In a series of advance releases and interviews ahead of today's publication of a new memoir, Mr Greenspan – a lifelong Republican himself – expressed his deep disappointment with the direction of US economic policy over the past six-and-a-half years, saying he had initially looked forward to working with 'old friends' he had known since the Ford administration in the 1970s, only to see them 'veer off in unexpected directions'. He was referring, in particular, to Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who were key aides to President Ford when Greenspan served on the president's Council of Economic Advisers. His book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, further embarrassed them by insisting on what he called a 'politically inconvenient truth': that the Iraq war 'is largely about oil'. The core criticisms, though, were of the Republican-controlled Congress, which allowed a budget in surplus at the end of the Clinton administration to give way to runaway deficit spending, and of a White House that did not veto a single spending bill in six years. 'The Republicans in Congress lost their way,' he wrote. 'They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither.' Of last November's congressional elections, in which the Republicans lost control of both the House and Senate, Greenspan added: 'They deserved to lose,'..."


Corporate Shill Stossel Spins The Healthcare Crisis:

Stossel never met a corporation he didn't like. In his hatchet-job on health care system critics, he says the for-profit system is not the problem, wasteful consumers with health insurance are.

Media Matters: In health-care special featuring mainly free-market advocates, Stossel endorsed Health Savings Accounts
"During a one-hour report on ABC's 20/20 on 'America's health-care system,' co-host John Stossel interviewed five advocates of free-market approaches to health care but only one advocate of increased government-mandated health coverage..."

The Myth of Al Qaeda in Iraq?

Grag Palast: Bush’s Fake Sheik Whacked: The Surge and the Al Qaeda Bunny
"Did you see George all choked up? In his surreal TV talk on Thursday, he got all emotional over the killing by Al Qaeda of Sheik Abu Risha, the leader of the new Sunni alliance with the US against the insurgents in Anbar Province, Iraq.
Bush shook Abu Risha’s hand two weeks ago for the cameras. Bush can shake his hand again, but not the rest of him: Abu Risha was blown away just hours before Bush was to go on the air to praise his new friend.

Here’s what you need to know that NPR won’t tell you.

1. Sheik Abu Risha wasn’t a sheik.
2. He wasn’t killed by Al Qaeda.
3. The new alliance with former insurgents in Anbar is as fake as the sheik - and a murderous deceit.

How do I know this? You can see the film - of 'Sheik' Abu Risha, of the guys who likely whacked him and of their other victims.
Just in case you think I’ve lost my mind and put my butt in insane danger to get this footage, don’t worry. I was safe and dry in Budapest. It was my brilliant new cameraman, Rick Rowley, who went to Iraq to get the story on his own.
Rick’s 'the future of TV news,' says BBC. He’s also completely out of control. Despite our pleas, Rick and his partner Dave Enders went to Anbar and filmed where no cameraman had dared tread.

Why was 'sheik' Abu Risha so important? As the New York Times put it this morning, 'Abu Risha had become a charismatic symbol of the security gains in Sunni areas that have become a cornerstone of American plans to keep large numbers of troops in Iraq though much of next year.'
In other words, Abu Risha was the PR hook used to sell the 'success' of the surge.
The sheik wasn’t a sheik. He was a fake. While proclaiming to Rick that he was 'the leader of all the Iraqi tribes,' Abu lead no one. But for a reported sum in the millions in cash for so-called, 'reconstruction contracts,' Abu Risha was willing to say he was Napoleon and Julius Caesar and do the hand-shakie thing with Bush on camera.

Notably, Rowley and his camera caught up with Abu Risha on his way to a 'business trip' to Dubai, money laundering capital of the Middle East.
There are some real sheiks in Anbar, like Ali Hathem of the dominant Dulaimi tribe, who told Rick Abu Risha was a con man. Where was his tribe, this tribal leader? 'The Americans like to create characters like Disney cartoon heros.' Then Ali Hathem added, 'Abu Risha is no longer welcome' in Anbar.
'Not welcome' from a sheik in Anbar is roughly the same as a kiss on both cheeks from the capo di capi. Within days, when Abu Risha returned from Dubai to Dulaimi turf in Ramadi, Bush’s hand-sheik was whacked.
On Thursday, Bush said Abu Risha was killed, 'fighting Al Qaeda' - and the White House issued a statement that the sheik was 'killed by al Qaeda.'

Bullshit.

There ain’t no Easter Bunny and 'Al Qaeda' ain’t in Iraq, Mr. Bush. It was very cute, on the week of the September 11 memorials, to tie the death of your Anbar toy-boy to bin Laden’s Saudi hijackers. But it’s a lie. Yes, there is a group of berserkers who call themselves 'Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.' But they have as much to do with the real Qaeda of bin Laden as a Rolling Stones 'tribute' band has to do with Mick Jagger.
Who got Abu Risha? Nothing - NOTHING - moves in Ramadi without the approval of the REAL tribal sheiks. They were none-too-happy, as Hathem, noted, about the millions the US handed to Risha. The sheiks either ordered the hit - or simply gave the bomber free passage to do the deed.

So who are these guys, the sheiks who lead the Sunni tribes of Anbar - the potentates of the Tamimi, Fallaji, Obeidi, Zobal and Jumaili tribes? Think of them as the Sopranos of Arabia. They are also members of the so-called 'Awakening Council' - getting their slice of the millions handed out - which they had no interest in sharing with Risha.
But creepy and deadly or not, these capi of the desert were effective in eliminating 'Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.' Indeed, as US military so proudly pointed out to Rick, the moment the sheiks declared their opposition to Al Qaeda - i.e. got the payments from the US taxpayers - Al Qaeda instantly diappeared.
This miraculous military change, where the enemy just evaporates, has one explanation: the sheiks ARE al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Just like the Sopranos extract 'protection' payments from New Jersey businesses, the mobsters of Anbar joined our side when we laid down the loot..."

Has Blackwater finally overplayed its hand in Iraq?

BBC News: Iraq shootout firm loses licence
"Iraq has cancelled the licence of the private security firm, Blackwater USA, after it was involved in a gunfight in which at least eight civilians died..."


On War For Profit:

Major General Smedley Butler (1881 – 1940) - War Is A Racket
"...It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill...
...To summarize:
Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
We must take the profit out of war.
We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.
We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes."

Iraq/Iran:

The Guardian (UK) - Proxy war could soon turn to direct conflict, analysts warn
"US strikes on Iran predicted as tension rises over arms smuggling and nuclear fears..."


Media As Propaganda:

Media Matters: Wash. Post media critic Kurtz said Fox News is 'entitled' to be a Bush 'cheerleader' and 'misinform our society'
"On Glenn Beck, Howard Kurtz said that Keith Olbermann has described Fox News as a channel that 'poses as a news organization and puts out dangerous misinformation [and] is a cheerleader for the Bush administration, that it is misinforming our society.' Kurtz added: 'But you know what? They're entitled to do that,'..."


Our (Fleeting) Civil Rights:

NY Times Editorial: The Wrong Balance on Civil Liberties
"Instead of care and balance, sadly, the Bush administration immediately lunged to claim extraordinary, and largely unnecessary, new powers. Aided by a compliant Congress, the administration repeatedly tried to shield the resulting intrusions on people’s rights from meaningful scrutiny, even by the courts. Recently, however, a federal district judge in New York declared unconstitutional one notorious outgrowth of the Bush team’s approach: the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s overreliance on informal demands for information, called national security letters, to obtain private records from telephone and Internet companies, banks and other businesses without a court warrant...
...In the absence of oversight, the number of surveillance letters has mushroomed, and so have the abuses. A report issued last March by the Justice Department’s inspector general found that between 2003 and 2005, the F.B.I. issued an astonishing 143,000 requests using the letters, often in violation of the bureau’s own regulations, and sometimes in violation of the law. Three days after Judge Marrero’s ruling, Eric Lichtblau reported in The Times that the F.B.I. used the secret letters to obtain information not only on individuals it viewed as targets but also on people who came in contact with the targets.
Lawmakers in both parties have voiced disapproval of the F.B.I.’s abuse of national security letters. But they have not made a sustained push to fix the law that created this mess. Judge Marrero’s ruling should change that..."


Justice:

The Corporate Crime Reporter: Geoffrey Fieger and the Rise of the Selective Prosecution Defense
"Up until recently, it was an almost unanimous view among prosecutors and former prosecutors - be they liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican - politics has nothing to do with the prosecution of corporate and white-collar crime. That day is now long gone. Former Alabama Governor Donald Siegelman, Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, and Michigan lawyer Geoffrey Fieger - all are now claiming they are victims of what the Justice Department and a long list of former prosecutors say rarely if ever happens - politically motivated criminal prosecutions..."

The Right To Peaceable Assembly:

AP: More Than 190 Arrested at DC Protest
"Washington - Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested...
...The number of arrests by Capitol Police on Saturday was much higher than previous anti-war rallies in Washington this year. Five people were arrested at a protest outside the Pentagon in March when they walked onto a bridge that had been closed off to accommodate the demonstration, then refused to leave. And at a rally in January, about 50 demonstrators blocked a street near the Capitol, but they were dispersed without arrests.
The protesters gathered earlier Saturday near the White House in Lafayette Park with signs saying 'End the war now' and calling for President Bush's impeachment. The rally was organized by the ANSWER Coalition and other groups.
Organizers estimated that nearly 100,000 people attended the rally and march. That number could not be confirmed; police did not give their own estimate. A permit for the march obtained in advance by the ANSWER Coalition had projected 10,000..."

9/11 Oddity:

The Raw Story: CNN: Mystery 9/11 aircraft was military 'doomsday plane'

What government was this plane ensuring the continuity of if neither the President, VP, nor SecDef were on board? Why does the Pentagon deny what it is?

"Shortly before 10 am on the morning of September 11, 2001, amid rumors of a fourth hijacked plane headed for Washington, DC, a mystery aircraft appeared in restricted airspace over the White House. There has never been an official explanation for this incident, which has provided abundant fuel for 9/11 conspiracy theories.
CNN has now learned from two government sources that the mystery plane was a military aircraft and has determined that the blurry image on video appears to match photos of the Air Force's E-4B (discussed here on Wikipedia), a specially modified Boeing 747 with a communications pod behind the cockpit.
'The E-4B is a state of the art flying command post,' CNN explained, 'built and equipped for one reason -- to keep the government running no matter what, even in the event of a nuclear war, the reason it was nicknamed the 'doomsday plane' during the Cold War.'
9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton told CNN he was aware of the incident and that it had simply never seemed important enough to make it into the commission's report. He called conspiracy theories involving government complicity in 9/11 'ludicrous,'..."

Selling Permanent War:

Crooks and Liars: Jon Stewart Tears Apart Petraeus’ Dog and Pony Show

The absurdity of the General's assertion that he did not clear his testimony with the White House is on display...

Billions Wasted In Iraq:

Donald L. Barlett & James B. Steele: Billions over Baghdad
"Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency—much of it belonging to the Iraqi people—was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam's palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled..."


'Unpublished' U.S. Satellites:

What are they for? PNAC's September 2000 document speaks of the desire to achieve 'full-spectrum-dominance' through the deployment of space-based weapons.

Space.com - French Say 'Non' to U.S. Disclosure of Secret Satellites
"A French space-surveillance radar has detected 20-30 satellites in low Earth orbit that do not figure in the U.S. Defense Department's published catalogue, a discovery that French officials say they will use to pressure U.S. authorities to stop publishing the whereabouts of French reconnaissance and military communications satellites...
...Col. Yves Blin, deputy head of the space division at the French joint defense staff, said France would wait until it had acquired, with the help of the German radar, further information about the 20 to 30 secret satellites in question before beginning serious negotiations with the United States on a common approach for publishing satellite orbit information.
'Right now we do not have enough cards in our hand to begin negotiatons,' Blin said here at the Graves radar transmitter site June 7. 'We need more time to be sure of what we are seeing. At that point we can tell our American friends, 'We have seen some things that you might wish to keep out of the public domain. We will agree to do this if you agree to stop publishing the location of our sensitive satellites,'..."


Economics:

Business Week: Five Key Questions for Bernanke
"With the next rate-setting meeting fast approaching, here are some issues that are surely top of mind for the Federal Reserve chairman..."


Inside The DoJ:

NY Times Magazine: Jack Goldsmith - Conscience of a Conservative
"...During his first weeks on the job, Goldsmith had discovered that the Office of Legal Counsel had written two legal opinions — both drafted by Goldsmith’s friend Yoo, who served as a deputy in the office — about the authority of the executive branch to conduct coercive interrogations. Goldsmith considered these opinions, now known as the 'torture memos,' to be tendentious, overly broad and legally flawed, and he fought to change them. He also found himself challenging the White House on a variety of other issues, ranging from surveillance to the trial of suspected terrorists. His efforts succeeded in bringing the Bush administration somewhat closer to what Goldsmith considered the rule of law — although at considerable cost to Goldsmith himself. By the end of his tenure, he was worn out. 'I was disgusted with the whole process and fed up and exhausted,' he told me recently.
After leaving the Office of Legal Counsel, Goldsmith was uncertain about what, if anything, he should say publicly about his resignation. His silence came to be widely misinterpreted. After leaving the Justice Department, he accepted a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School, where he currently teaches. During his first weeks in Cambridge, in the fall of 2004, some of his colleagues denounced him for what they mistakenly assumed was his role in drafting the torture memos. One colleague, Elizabeth Bartholet, complained to a Boston Globe reporter that the faculty was remiss in not investigating any role Goldsmith might have played in 'justifying torture.' 'It was a nightmare,' Goldsmith told me. 'I didn’t say anything to defend myself, except that I didn’t do the things I was accused of.'
Now Goldsmith is speaking out. In a new book, 'The Terror Presidency,' which will be published later this month, and in a series of conversations I had with him this summer, Goldsmith has recounted how, from his first weeks on the job, he fought vigorously against an expansive view of executive power championed by officials in the White House, including Alberto Gonzales, who was then the White House counsel and who recently resigned as attorney general, and David Addington, who was then Vice President Cheney’s legal adviser and is now his chief of staff..."


RFID:

AP: Chip Implants Linked to Animal Tumors
"...A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had 'induced' malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats. 'The transponders were the cause of the tumors,' said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.
Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.
To date, about 2,000 of the so-called radio frequency identification, or RFID, devices have been implanted in humans worldwide, according to VeriChip Corp. The company, which sees a target market of 45 million Americans for its medical monitoring chips, insists the devices are safe, as does its parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, of Delray Beach, Fla.
'We stand by our implantable products,'..."

The Way Forward?

Recently, I read my Colorado Democratic Senator's newsletter requesting comments on "the best ways to find a bipartisan way forward in Iraq and the Middle East."
If so-called bipartisanship is what it takes to end the war in Iraq, I do not believe the U.S. will ever leave. Democratic-majority leadership is required for the U.S. to leave Iraq, and soon. The President has zero credibility remaining, especially in his pronouncements on- and his policy in Iraq, yet the Congress continues to give him a blank check, approving billions upon billions of extra-budget funds.
The dollars we spend overseas will, at this rate, not permit proper funding of domestic needs. Has the Congress considered that Bush is trying to bankrupt the nation and force it to default on the New Deal and Great Society programs the conservatives hate so much, and can't seem to get rid of by other, more honest means?

It is sad to observe how the Democratic majority seems, today, to be more concerned about winning the 2008 Presidential race than putting a stop to the hundreds of billions of tax-dollars being poured into a corrupt Iraqi government and the coffers of seemingly unaccountable Pentagon contractors.

This citizen is highly unappreciative of the Vice President's actions 15 years ago as SecDef toward the end of privatization & outsourcing of many tasks formerly performed by soldiers. If anyone does not think this this change of policy is pivotal in the U.S.'s continued occupying presence in Iraq, think again.

This country needs leadership to put a stop to the insane expenditure of this nation's wealth. Our national wealth ought to be spent on helping people in the U.S., not making war overseas. If the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq were proposed, instead, to be spent as humanitarian aid to the world's poor, the idea would be dead on arrival in the Senate, so why is it acceptable to feed the military-industrial complex that is happy only with permanent war?

And then a deadly serious question: what would my Senator do if Bush bombs Iran's alleged nuclear sites without first asking Congress for a declaration of war, as called for by the U.S. Constitution. Failure to do so represents yet another ground for impeachment to add to the long list the President has been allowed to accumulate without being held to account. What will it take for the Senate to actually hold this power-grabbing Executive to account?

Iraq:

Glenn Greenwald: The DC Establishment vs American Public OpinionBy large majorities, Americans distrust Gen. Petreaus’ report and, in general, claims about Progress in Iraq
"The Washington Establishment has spent the last several months glorifying Gen. David Petraeus, imposing the consensus that The Surge is Succeeding, and most importantly of all, ensuring that President Bush will not be compelled to withdraw troops from Iraq for the remainder of his presidency. The P.R. campaign to persuade the country that the Surge is Succeeding has been as intense and potent as any P.R. campaign since the one that justified the invasion itself. While this campaign has worked wonders with our gullible media stars and Democratic Congressional leadership, it has failed completely with the American people.
Ever since the Surge was announced (and allowed) back in January, Conventional Beltway Media Wisdom continuously insisted that September was going to be the Dramatic Month of Reckoning, when droves of fair-minded and election-fearing Republicans finally abandoned the President and compelled an end to the war. But the opposite has occurred.
Democratic Congressional leaders — due either to illusory fears of political repercussions and/or a desire that the war continue — seem more supportive than ever of the ongoing occupation (or at least more unwilling than ever to stop it). They are going to do nothing to mandate meaningful troop withdrawal. Most Republicans are hiding behind the shiny badges of Gen. Petraeus and his typically sunny claims about Progress in Iraq, and they, too, are as unified as ever that we cannot end our occupation..."


Media:

Michael Copps: Democracy and Media
"An important government meeting was once called but closed to the media. The assembled leaders produced a 5,000-word document, finalized early enough to be manually typeset by the close of the proceedings.
Within weeks, it was reproduced by newspapers in every state. It came to preoccupy the nation’s signed and unsigned editorialists, as well as its political reporters. It prompted conventions across the nation - which we know far more about because they were all open to the media.
The document was ultimately endorsed with some additions, most notably language addressing the role of journalism in a free society.
The document is of course the U.S. Constitution, the string of anonymous op-eds is now known as the Federalist Papers, and the little-debated addition is the First Amendment.
James Madison’s original draft in the House of Representatives spoke of the press as one of the 'great bulwarks of liberty,' echoing language first put forth by the Virginia ratifying convention. But Congress adopted the more economical formulation we know today.
It is enormously revealing that our nation’s popular press literally predates our foundational political document, and played a key role in its formation. After all, in Europe, where the power of government remained solidly in the grasp of elites at the end of the 18th century, there was no obvious need or demand for a popular press covering - let alone criticizing - the acts of government. But in a democracy - where every citizen is allowed and expected to vote - a professional, independent, objective media is fundamental.
Today, the U.S. is vastly more powerful and richer than in the heady days of Madison and the Constitutional Convention. But do we currently have a media system that would make our Founding Fathers proud?
I fear not. We have a system that has been buffeted by an endless cycle of consolidation, budget-cutting, and bureau-closing. We have witnessed the number of statehouse and city hall reporters declining decade after decade, despite an explosion in state and local lobbying. As the number of channels has multiplied, there is far less total local programming and reporting being produced..."

Exploiting Disaster:

Naomi Klein: The shock doctrine
"...The Friedmanite American Enterprise Institute enthused that 'Katrina accomplished in a day ... what Louisiana school reformers couldn't do after years of trying'. Public school teachers, meanwhile, were calling Friedman's plan 'an educational land grab'. I call these orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities, 'disaster capitalism'.
Privatising the school system of a mid-size American city may seem a modest preoccupation for the man hailed as the most influential economist of the past half century. Yet his determination to exploit the crisis in New Orleans to advance a fundamentalist version of capitalism was also an oddly fitting farewell. For more than three decades, Friedman and his powerful followers had been perfecting this very strategy: waiting for a major crisis, then selling off pieces of the state to private players while citizens were still reeling from the shock..."


Iraq:

Ray McGovern: Are Petraeus and Westmoreland Birds of a Feather?
"...recently, Daniel Ellsberg expressed great regret that he did not disclose earlier deceptions, as well as those witnessed during 1967-68 when the administration of Lyndon Johnson worked up plans to expand the ground war into Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam - right up to the Chinese border, perhaps even beyond.
Early in 1967, Westmoreland addressed a joint session of Congress and congratulated himself on the "great progress" being made in the war. What Congress did not know, but Ellsberg did, is that the war was going poorly, and that Westmoreland was on the verge of getting President Johnson to agree to sending 206,000 more troops for a widening of the war that threatened to bring China in as an active combatant.
Leaks to The New York Times put the kibosh on those plans. One patriotic truth teller leaked the 206,000 figure, which the Times published on March 10, 1968. Emboldened by that, Ellsberg himself told the Times about the suppression of the accurate 500,000 count of Vietnamese Communists under arms, the Donnybrook between CIA analysts and their fettered counterparts in Saigon, and other information about the games Westmoreland was playing. The Times used those materials for major stories on March 19, 20 and 21. On March 22, President Johnson announced that Westmoreland would be leaving Vietnam to become chief of staff of the Army, and the general was told there would be no change in strategy to expand the war.
Things like that can happen quickly.
On March 25, 1968, Johnson complained to a small gathering of confidants:
'The leaks to The New York Times hurt us ... We have no support for the war ... I would have given Westy the 206,000 men.'

Moral to the story: patriotic truth telling can prevent wider wars. Please take heed, those of you privy to plans for expanding the war in Iraq into Iran or elsewhere.
There will be lots of spin in Washington these next few weeks, and 'hope' will be the byword. In his August 28 speech on Iraq, the president set the tone:
'All these developments are hopeful - they're hopeful for Iraq, and they're hopeful for the Middle East, and they're hopeful for peace.'
Bush goes on to mention that General Petraeus will be heard from shortly. Indeed, over the past several weeks, the president has been punctuating virtually every other public sentence with 'General Petraeus' or 'David.' It is as though Bush is expecting what might be called a 'Petraeus ex machina' to extricate himself from the deep hole Cheney and he have dug together.
The spinning will only succeed if Congress is blinded by the nine rows of campaign medals and ribbons on Petraeus's chest, forgets about the Shanks in our Army and Marines, and allows itself to be taken in by the new Westmoreland..."


Domestic Surveillance:

NY Times: F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets
"The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.
The documents indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation used secret demands for records to obtain data not only on individuals it saw as targets but also details on their 'community of interest — the network of people that the target was in contact with..."


Nuclear Energy:

Harvey Wasserman: The genius doctor who diagnosed Nuke Power's deadly disease

"The nuke power industry now wants $50 billion and more in loan guarantees to build new atomic reactors. As it strong-arms Congress, the warnings of the great Dr. John Gofman, who passed away last week at 88, loom ever larger. One of history's most respected and revered medical and nuclear pioneers, Gofman's research showed as early as 1969 that 'normal' radioactive reactor emissions could kill 32,000 Americans per year. At the time, Gofman was the chief medical researcher for the Atomic Energy Commission. He told the AEC that reactor emissions must be radically reduced. The AEC demanded he change his findings, then forced him out when he refused..."


LA Times: No Nevada Water for Nuclear Dump
"The Energy Department's controversial plan to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada was trumped by Western water law Tuesday, when a federal judge rejected the agency's demand for 8 million gallons of water that state officials have refused to release.
Energy officials said they needed the water to drill test holes at Yucca Mountain, the site about 90 miles north of Las Vegas where the government wants to store about 70,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste from across the nation.
President Bush and Congress approved the site in 2002, but a series of legal and political setbacks has stalled the project - and raised questions about when and if the dump will open.
In a stinging rebuke Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Roger L. Hunt denied an injunction sought by the Energy Department against Nevada, saying the department had made contradictory arguments that had no merit and were not supported by federal law.
'The validity of Western states' groundwater rights and the right to regulate water in the public interest is not a right to be taken lightly, nor is it a right that can cavalierly be ignored or violated by a federal agency,' Hunt said in his 24-page opinion..."

Authoritarian Republicans:

John Dean: Understanding the Contemporary Republican Party - Authoritarians Have Taken Control
[Dean's book] "...Conservatives Without Conscience ('CWC') sought to understand the modern conservative movement, and in particular it's hard turn to the right during the past two-and-a-half decades. Conservatives have taken control of the Republican Party, and, in turn, the GOP has taken control of the government (all three branches, until 2006).
Who are these people? Of course, we know their names: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush - to mention a few of the obvious. More importantly, what drives them? And, why do their compliant followers seem to never question or criticism them? Here, I am thinking of people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter - to mention a few more of the conspicuous.
In this column, and those that follow, I hope to explain the rather remarkably information I have uncovered...
...To understanding conservatives thinking, it is important to examine not merely what conservatives believe, but also why they believe it. I found the answers to these two key questions in the remarkable body of empirical research work, almost a half-century in the making, undertaken by political and social psychologists who study authoritarian personalities...
...While not all conservatives are authoritarians, all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives. To make the results of my rather lengthy inquiry very short, I found that it was the authoritarians who took control of the conservative movement in the 1980s, and then the Republican Party in the 1990s. Strikingly, these conservative Republicans - though hardly known for their timidity -- have not attempted to refute my report, because that is not possible..."

Not So Profound Words From W:

The man expresses himself like a high-school student with a low IQ, rather than a CIC of a military that has lost over 3,000 troops, has suffered tens of thousands maimed or wounded, and having created a situation that has killed more than half a million Iraqis. How uncaring and intellectually numb do you have to be to have such words leave your lips?

CNN.com Bush on Iraq: 'We're kicking ass'
"...according to the Sydney Morning Herald of Australia, the president gave a more-to-the-point assessment to Australia Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile. 'We're kicking ass,' Bush said to Vaile Tuesday, according the Herald, after the deputy prime minister inquired about his trip to Iraq. On Thursday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino would not confirm or deny the reported comment..."

Food Safety:

Again, how the priorities of shelf life and mass-production outweigh consumer safety...

NY Times: Doctor Links a Man’s Illness to a Microwave Popcorn Habit
"A fondness for microwave buttered popcorn may have led a 53-year-old Colorado man to develop a serious lung condition that until now has been found only in people working in popcorn plants.
Lung specialists and even a top industry official say the case, the first of its kind, raises serious concerns about the safety of microwave butter-flavored popcorn...
...A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said that the agency was considering the case as part of a review of the safety of diacetyl, which adds the buttery taste to many microwave popcorns, including Orville Redenbacher and Act II.
Producers of microwave popcorn said their products were safe..."

Of course they said that. But that doesn't mean it's true.

Our (Fleeting) Constitutional Rights:

AP: Federal court stikes down part of USA Patriot Act
"U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero today stated that a section of the updated USA PATRIOT ACT 'offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers,' and struck down the provision in the law allowing the government to secretly obtain personal records, the Associated Press reports.
Marrero ruled that the National Security Letter provision of the Act, permitting the FBI to demand the private information and then gag those who received the order, violated the the 1st amendment to the Constitution protecting free speech and also threatened separation of powers. 'In light of the seriousness of the potential intrusion into the individual's personal affairs and the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association - particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies - a compelling need exists to ensure that the use of NSLs is subject to the safeguards of public accountability, checks and balances, and separation of powers that our Constitution prescribes,' Marrero wrote.
If the ruling is to be upheld, such NSLs must be subjected to full judicial review.
'As the court recognized, there must be real, meaningful judicial checks on the exercise of executive power,' said Melissa Goodman, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union, the organization that first challenged the law in December 2004. 'Without oversight, there is nothing to stop the government from engaging in broad fishing expeditions, or targeting people for the wrong reasons, and then gagging Americans from ever speaking out against potential abuses of this intrusive surveillance power,'..."

Iraq:

Why should inconvenient facts stand in the way of a long-planned preemptive (illegal) war?

Sydney Blumenthal: Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction
"CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.
Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.
On April 23, 2006, CBS's '60 Minutes' interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. 'We continued to validate him the whole way through,' said Drumheller. 'The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.'
Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert. Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war.
Secretary of State Powell, in preparation for his presentation of evidence of Saddam's WMD to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, spent days at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and had Tenet sit directly behind him as a sign of credibility. But Tenet, according to the sources, never told Powell about existing intelligence that there were no WMD, and Powell's speech was later revealed to be a series of falsehoods..."

Iraq:

Keith Olberman: 'You have no remaining credibility about Iraq, sir.'
"Finally tonight, a Special Comment about Mr. Bush’s trip, and his startling admission of the true motive for this war, which was revealed in his absence.
And so he is back from his annual surprise gratuitous photo-op in Iraq, and what a sorry spectacle it was.
But it was nothing compared to the spectacle of one unfiltered, unguarded, horrifying quotation in the new biography to which Mr. Bush has consented.
As he deceived the troops at Al-Asad Air Base yesterday with the tantalizing prospect that some of them might not have to risk being killed and might get to go home, Mr. Bush probably did not know that, with his own words, he had already proved that he had been lying — is lying… will be lying — about Iraq.
He presumably did not know, that there had already appeared those damning excerpts from Robert Draper’s book 'Dead Certain.'
'I’m playing for October-November,' Mr. Bush said to Draper.
That, evidently, is the time during which, he thinks he can sell us the real plan.
Which is, to quote him: 'To get us in a position where the presidential candidates, will be comfortable about sustaining a presence.'
Comfortable, that is, with saying about Iraq, again quoting the President, 'stay longer.'
And there it is, sir. We’ve caught you.
Your goal is not to bring some troops home — maybe — if we let you have your way now;
Your goal is not to set the stage for eventual withdrawal;
You are, to use your own disrespectful, tone-deaf word, playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this bottomless pit with you, and take us with him, as we stay in Iraq for another year, and another, and another, and anon.
Everything you said about Iraq yesterday, and everything you will say, is a deception, for the purpose of this one cynical, unacceptable, brutal goal — perpetuating this war indefinitely.
War today, war tomorrow, war forever!
And you are playing at it!
Playing!
A man with any self-respect, having inadvertently revealed such an evil secret, would have already resigned and fled the country!
You have no remaining credibility about Iraq, sir..."


Paul Krugman: Snow Job in the Desert
"...Until recently I assumed that the failure to find W.M.D., followed by years of false claims of progress in Iraq, would make a repeat of the snow job that sold the war impossible. But I was wrong. The administration, this time relying on Gen. David Petraeus to play the Colin Powell role, has had remarkable success creating the perception that the 'surge' is succeeding, even though there’s not a shred of verifiable evidence to suggest that it is..."

Ira Chernus: Bush PR Machine Works Myth and Magic on Iraq
"...One of my favorite theories says that a lot of people feel confused and overwhelmed by the uncontrollable changes of life, especially in unsettled economic times when their own fortunes seem so unpredictable. They want some way to find a sense of order amid the seeming chaos of life. So they tell familiar stories about their lives, over and over, and fit the facts of their lives into those stories — even if they have to distort the facts to make them fit. Some of the myths people value most are about their nation. That’s certainly always been true here in the United States. Most Americans have wanted (often desperately) to believe that their nation and its government has profoundly good intentions. Oh, the government often screws up, the myths say. But basically our leaders always mean well — especially in foreign policy. They really want to do the right thing, which means protecting ourselves and the whole world from evil foreigners who want to turn the tranquil order of our lives into brutal chaos. We have a special responsibility to stop those evildoers, the myths tell us, because we are a uniquely blessed nation. Being so blessed, we are bound to win. But evil, like the devil, is fanatical. Defeating it takes the courage to persist in a long war — the kind of courage that proves we are real Americans. For many Americans, believing in this mythic vision is more important than believing the factual truth.
The Bush administration is playing brilliantly upon this need for myth. Its PR experts know that once you start questioning the righteousness of a war, you can very easily start questioning the rightness of the national myths, and many Americans are nervous about taking that risk. That’s especially true of the crucial swing vote, the 8 percent or so who told the Zogby poll that they oppose the war, but only mildly. Once they have some shred of evidence that suggests the war may be winnable, they may quickly turn from antiwar to prowar voters.
And Democratic politicians (whose only job, remember, is to please the voters) don’t even trust all of the 50 percent who say they strongly oppose the war. Nor should they. The pols know how quickly some of those people can change their minds because they are out on a limb, on the edge of challenging the traditional national myths. Once they realize how far out they’ve gone, and how little is left supporting them in the way of nationalistic belief, they may easily get scared and go scampering back to a traditional prowar position. That’s what the White House is betting on and doing their damndest to make happen.
It’s not surprising that they were having notable success even before Bush went for his photo op in Iraq. The amazing thing is not the number of politicians who will not vote against the war. The amazing thing is the number who still say they will. Their stance tell us that millions of our fellow citizens do want to end the war. That’s the good news. Now the job is to convince enough others, so that more Democrats and at least a few Republicans feel safe enough to vote for peace..."

Robert Scheer: Why Is This Man Smiling?
"OK, throw another $50 billion down the rat hole that is the Iraq occupation. It’s only money, if you ignore the lives being destroyed. That’s what the White House is asking for, in addition to the $147 billion in supplementary funds already requested, and Congress will grant it after Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker follow President Bush’s photo op in Iraq’s Anbar province with a dog and pony show of their own. Meanwhile, the Democrats are totally cynical about this continuing waste of taxpayer dollars and of American and Iraqi lives, and, wanting Bush to hang himself with his own rope, they will deny him nothing. In the effort to retaliate against terrorists who hijacked planes six years ago with an arsenal of $3 knives, this year’s overall defense budget has been pushed to $657 billion. We are now spending $3 billion a week in Iraq alone, occupying a country that had nothing to do with the tragedy that sparked this orgy of militarism. The waste is so enormous and irrelevant to our national security that a rational person might embrace the libertarian creed if only for the sake of sanity. Clearly, the federal government no longer cares much about providing for health, education, hurricane reconstruction or even bridge safety, as the military budget now dwarfs all other discretionary spending, despite the lack of a sophisticated enemy in sight..."


Economics:

Ralph Nader: Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act
"This August marks the 60th anniversary of the Taft-Hartley Act, one of the great blows to American democracy, going into effect. The Act, which was drafted by employers, fundamentally infringed on workers’ human rights. Legally, Taft-Hartley: impeded employees’ right to join together in labor unions; undermined the power of unions to represent workers’ interests effectively; and authorized an array of anti-union activities by employers. Among its key provisions, Taft-Hartley:

Authorized states to enact so-called right-to-work laws. These laws undermine the ability to build effective unions by creating a free-rider problem — workers can enjoy the benefits of union membership in a workplace without actually joining the union or paying union dues. Right-to-work laws thus increase employer leverage to resist unions by undermining individual workers’ incentives to join a union; and thereby vastly decrease union membership, thus dramatically diminishing unions’ bargaining power.

Outlawed the closed shop, which required that persons join the union before being eligible for employment with the unionized employer. (Still permitted are provisions that require any member of a bargaining unit to pay a portion of dues to that union, though not to join the union.)

Defined 'employee' for purposes of the Act as excluding supervisors and independent contractors. This diminished the pool of workers eligible to be unionized, and has become an increasingly serious problem as courts and the National Labor Relations Board have authorized ever-expanding employer definitions of what constitutes a supervisor. The exclusion of supervisors from union organizing activity meant they would be used as management’s 'front line' in anti-organizing efforts.

Permitted employers to petition for a union certification election, thus undermining the ability of workers and unions to control the timing of an election during the sensitive organizing stage, forcing an election before the union is ready.

Required that the employer be able to demand hearings on key matters of dispute — such as what constitutes an appropriate bargaining unit — before a union recognition election, thus delaying the election. Delay generally benefits management, giving the employer time to coerce workers.

Established the 'right' of management to campaign against a union organizing drive, thereby scuttling the principle of employer neutrality.

Prohibited secondary boycotts — boycotts directed to encourage neutral employers to pressure the employer with which the union has a dispute. Prior to 1947, secondary boycotts had been one of organized labor’s most potent tools, for organizing, negotiating and dispute settlement..."


W's Imperial Presidency:

Raw Story: Book: Cheney aide said, 'We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court'
"A new book by former Department of Justice lawyer Jack Goldsmith reveals a play-by-play account of White House strategies for expanding executive power following the Sept. 11 attacks. To be published later this month, Goldsmith’s The Terror Presidency, details how Bush administration officials, including then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Vice President Cheney’s current chief of staff David Addington, promoted broad legal justifications for measures including controversial secret surveillance plans and detention procedures for enemy combatants...
...'In Goldsmith’s estimation, the unnecessary unilateralism of the Bush administration reached its apex in the controversy over wiretapping and secret surveillance,' Rosen writes. While he shared President Bush’s worries that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) could halt wiretaps of terrorists’ international calls, Goldsmith strongly disapproved of White House plans fix the problem, many of which held little respect for courts or Congress.
'We’re one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court,' Addington said in 2004, according to the book..."

AG Gonzales' Legacy:

Robert Scheer: A Legacy of Legitimizing Torture
"[Gonzales'] legal advice to the president was that torture is a legitimate option, because Bush’s self-defined 'war on terror' wiped out all prior legal restraint and in particular 'renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners.'
Gonzales’ infamous memo to the president from Jan. 25, 2002, also rendered obsolete, among other constitutional safeguards, the division of powers that provides a congressional check on the executive branch. According to Gonzales’ professional judgment, the president was no longer bound to observe the 1996 War Crimes Act, which allows criminal prosecution of Americans for violating the Geneva Conventions and for 'outrages upon personal dignity.' According to that law, both the president and his attorney general potentially would be subject to severe penalties, including death, for the systematic torture they authorized.
No wonder Bush needed to appoint Gonzales as attorney general, lest some enterprising Justice Department lawyer dare expose the criminality emanating from the White House. Not a fanciful concern, given that we have since learned that the previous attorney general, John Ashcroft, had serious reservations about breaking the laws protecting fundamental human rights. Indeed, the most clarifying moment of Gonzales’ government service was his nighttime visit to Ashcroft’s hospital bed, where the then-White House counsel failed to deceive an ailing Ashcroft into authorizing an extension of government surveillance. Ashcroft refused and was protected from further harassment only by the intervention of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. The problem presented by Ashcroft’s display of legal integrity was eliminated when Bush gave his job to Gonzales..."


Two Years After Katrina:

Mother Jones: Windfall: How Conservatives, Contractors, and Developers Cashed In on Katrina
"...The Bush administration, with the help of its friends in the Washington establishment and elsewhere, turned the disaster in New Orleans from a crisis into an opportunity—a chance to extend, rather than repeal, the conservative revolution that had begun 25 years earlier. The campaign to accomplish this apparent political paradox would operate on many levels and with astonishing success. While the country was absorbed by watching the president try to stuff an uncooperative political rabbit back into his hat, the real tricks were taking place offstage.

The PR campaign. This began with a carefully constructed plan—engineered, to no one's surprise, by Karl Rove—to shift blame away from the White House, accompanied by promises of 'investigations,' and followed by a highly stage-managed expression of conservative compassion by Bush.

The advancement of conservative social policies, including an overhaul of the federal budget. Despite some haggling among conservatives, Bush's pledge to help the victims from Katrina would be used to justify a series of cuts that had always been favored by the right—robbing the poor to give (for a little while) to the poor.

The remaking of New Orleans. A variety of carefully planned 'rebuilding' strategies, along with a selective apportionment of resources, would effectively clear out many of the city's poor African Americans to make way for a richer, whiter simulacrum of the Big Easy.

A free-for-all for corporate contractors. There were billions of dollars to be made on the reconstruction of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast, a good share of it awarded to companies with political connections, and a fair portion of that lost to greed, waste, incompetence, and fraud.

The following timeline tracks developments in these four areas, focusing on the disaster that followed the disaster, when the tragedy and travesty of what happened on the Gulf Coast was turned into an opportunity to advance political and policy goals and increase private profits. In most cases, the groundwork for this was laid within the first hundred days..."

Bush's Next Targer: Iran

Robert Naiman: Slam Dunk: The Bush Administration Is Trying to Provoke Iran
"The Bush Administration is once again escalating its confrontation with Iran. Clearly they have multiple motivations for doing so. They’re trying to 'change the channel' from the failure of the 'surge,' ahead of the September Congressional debate on Iraq. They would dearly love to split off from the Democratic opposition on Iraq Members of Congress who share the AIPAC goal of confronting Iran. And they want to undermine negotiations taking place between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency over Iran’s nuclear program.
But details have emerged from the recent escalation that strongly indicate what many have long suspected: the Bush Administration’s fundamental conflict with Iran is not about its nuclear program or alleged weapons smuggling - so far unproven - into Iraq.
It’s simply a great-power struggle for influence. And while there’s nothing too shocking about that, people in the United States should ask themselves - and be asked by others - what sacrifices we are really willing to bear so that the Bush Administration can try to keep Iran from having the influence in Iraq that they would normally have - and almost certainly will have - if there is a democratic government in Iraq, given that 60% of the Iraqi population is Shiite and has strong cultural and religious ties to their co-religionists in Iran..."


Economics:

Robert Reich: What Happened to Labor Day?
"...What happened? Some say it started in the early 80s after Ronald Reagan fired the nation’s air-traffic controllers for striking - something they had no legal right to do - and thereby legitimized a wave of corporate union busting. Others blame it on a more pervasive 'greed is good' aggressiveness that engulfed corporate suites starting right about then. There’s no question that, ever since, and with ever greater alacrity, companies have fired workers for trying to form unions, even though that’s illegal, and have used or threatened to use permanent replacements if workers go on strike - which is legal but was rare before the 80s. But don’t blame Ronald Reagan or corporate greed. Blame us - you and me. You see, starting about 30 years ago and with increasing efficiency, technologies have given us consumers a world of choice - low priced goods and services that often depend on low wages here and elsewhere. Four-lane federal highways and long-haul trucks linking non-unionized manufacturers in the South to the rest of us. Container ships and cargo planes linking us to foreign producers. Big-box retailers using computers to find the best deals anywhere around the world. And now the Internet letting us find the best deals for ourselves from anywhere, too. In other words, we as a nation have traded off lower priced goods and services, in place of a unionized workforce with the bargaining clout to get higher wages. So now, a lot of us get good consumer deals and lousy paychecks. No one trumpeted this choice. It’s happened gradually. But is it the right choice? That’s what we ought to be asking ourselves - at least once a year, on Labor Day."

David Korten: Living Wealth: Better Than Money
"If there is to be a human future, we must bring ourselves into balanced relationship with one another and the Earth. This requires building economies with heart..."

Sean Gonsalves: ‘Actionable Intel’ in Class War
"Every year around Labor Day, United for a Fair Economy (UFE) issues a report on the excesses of CEO pay.
This year’s report - Executive Excess 2007: The Staggering Social Cost of U.S. Business Leadership - found that 'top executives averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, which is 364 times the pay of the average American worker, a calculation based on data from an Associated Press survey of 386 Fortune 500 companies.' (To read the report go to http://www.faireconomy.org/reports/2007/ExecutiveExcess2007.pdf )
Another key finding: The top 20 equity and hedge fund managers raked in an average of $657.5 million, or 22,255 times the pay of the average worker. Meanwhile, the study notes, workers at the lowest rung of the economic ladder just got their first federal minimum wage hike in a decade. Over that same decade, UFE reports, CEO pay has increased by 45 percent.
None of that is very surprising. What’s interesting is the finding that compensation for U.S. business leaders now 'wildly dwarfs' the big bucks being paid leaders in other sectors.
The top 20 CEOs of publicly traded corporations last year took home, on average, $36.4 million. That’s 38 times more than the top 20 in the nonprofit sector and 204 times more than the 20 highest-paid generals in the military.
Executive Excess aims to dispel the notion that excessive executive pay is a necessary function of modern economies. If that were true, the report’s authors argue, 'business executives that American executives compete against in the global marketplace would be just as excessively compensated as American executives. They aren’t. Top executives of major European corporations…last year earned three times less than their American counterparts.'
Such grotesque pay differentials essentially mean we, as a society, are discouraging needed leadership talent from entering less lucrative fields, such as education, where we could use an infusion of talent..."