DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES

Howard Dean

ARCHIVES The Progressive Case for Dean

I passionately supported the Greens in 2000 and 2002. I traveled 125 miles to see Dennis Kucinich speak when he came to Los Angeles in May, and had the pleasure of introducing him to a crowd of several hundred when he visited Santa Barbara recently. Kucinich is a guiding light in Congress and, of the nine Democratic presidential contenders, his views most closely mirror my own.
Yet I won't be voting for Kucinich in the Democratic primaries, nor will I vote Green in the general elections. My support will go to Howard Dean. READ

ARCHIVES Election 2004: Why Dean Can Win, September 2003

The conventional wisdom that has some Republicans giddy about a potential Dean candidacy is not only misguided, it is counterproductive. Writing off a candidate like Dean by selectively sorting statistical gobble-de-gook and mixing it into a broth of “empirical” sociological evidence ignores the political realities of our time.
Howard Dean’s appeal is closer to Ronald Reagan’s than any other Democrat running today. Granted, that’s not saying much with this field, but there are similarities here. The Democrat party used to chuckle about Reagan and his gaffes which they believed would marginalize him to the far right dustbin of history. But when his opponents tried to attack him for some of his more outlandish statements, the folks in the middle simply ignored them. Voters in the middle looked to the bigger picture where they saw a man of conviction who cared about them and had solutions for their problems. Howard Dean has the potential to offer a similar type candidacy. READ

ARCHIVES How Dean Could Win . . .

...Underdogs do sometimes win. Howard Dean could beat President Bush. Saying you're not overconfident (as the OU players repeatedly did) is no substitute for really not being overconfident. And if Bush loses next November, it's over. There's no BCS computer to give him another shot at the national championship in the Sugar Bowl.
Could Dean really win? Unfortunately, yes. The Democratic presidential candidate has, alas, won the popular presidential vote three times in a row--twice, admittedly, under the guidance of the skilled Bill Clinton, but most recently with the hapless Al Gore at the helm. And demographic trends (particularly the growth in Hispanic voters) tend to favor the Democrats going into 2004. READ

Dean and the Power That Lives On

It was a strange juxtaposition that showed how important Howard Dean's campaign really was.
While Dean was in Vermont announcing the end of his presidential quest, the Federal Election Commission in Washington was voting to regulate political committees set up -- mostly by Democrats -- to raise lots of money from big donors and get around the new campaign finance rules.
So what will it be, Democrats, big bucks or small donors? Broad-based fundraising -- Dean had 318,884 contributors -- or rounding up the usual wealthy suspects?
How these political committees should be regulated is a legal question the FEC put off until later. By converting his campaign into a political movement, Dean has guaranteed that his moral challenge to the party won't fade away. Good for him. READ

A Dean Staffer Speaks: the story of NH

...We took on a siege mentality, and understood what the media wanted to do. after helping build us up, they wanted a part in tearing us down, and were doing what they could to give play to negative Dean stories. after Iowa was the crecendo, with the overhyping of the Scream speech. And even now the media is back on our side, playing us as the scrappy underdog again after poor showings in NH and Iowa.
We should have expected this, the media's treacherous turning of the tables. and we should have dealt with it better. instead of doing the honorable thing and getting our back up when the media decided to screw us, the campaign (not the supporters who wrote letters to the editors about the most egregious "picklerizations" of the media, but we in the campaign headquarters) should have taken the neccesary steps to pander to the media. instead of talking bravely about breaking up media conglomerates, which is the right thing to do but suicidal to say so, we should have pandered to the talking heads and pundits and projected "cuddly Dean" everywhere we could, a non-threatening guy who the media can get along with. but alas, we had drunk the kool aid of inevitability and teflon, and believed that the negative media wouldn't defeat us, and that they too would come to a reckoning after we toppled King George. it didn't happen. we were mistaken, and i learned a lesson. READ

Trippi on the dynamics Dem primaries

...If John Kerry wins in Wisconsin he is the nominee." And for the first time since Iowa you're going to have a state where the equation is no longer change verses status quo or momentum and winning, but just like Iowa, if you vote for John Kerry you're saying, "Shut it down, he's it." And at that moment, every time in our history -- in the Democratic party's history -- whether it was Colorado, Iowa, wherever that happened, voters moved away from the frontrunner and said, "No we're no ready yet." I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it can happen and if it does then the fight is there, and in March 2 if this continues. And there's a chance right now for this moment to continue to build within a primary-nomination fight by Dean for America.
Because of the compressed schedule, the time for the dynamic to work hasn't been able to happen since NH & IA. It keeps getting pushed back (the slingshot effect), perhaps even further than 2/17, maybe not again, because of the compressed contest.  But even after 2/17, there's time, with still one dynamic to play itself out. READ

Ghosts Of Landslides Past 

I swear, if I hear one more Democratic honcho say that Howard Dean is not electable, I'm going to do something crazy (maybe that's what happened to Britney in Vegas this weekend).
The contention is nothing short of idiotic.
Consider the source: the folks besmirching the Good Doctor's Election Day viability are the very people who have driven the Democratic Party into irrelevance. Who spearheaded the party's resounding 2002 mid-term defeats? Who kinda, sorta, but not really disagreed with President Bush as he led us down the path of preemptive war with Iraq, irresponsible tax cuts and an unprecedented deficit?
Dean is electable precisely because he's making a decisive break with the spinelessness and pussyfooting that have become the hallmark of the Democratic Party. READ

Dean's Rough Ride

In forty years of observing presidential contests, I cannot remember another major candidate brutalized so intensely by the media, with the possible exception of George Wallace. Howard Dean contributed some fatal errors of his own, to be sure, but he also brought fresh air and new ideas, a crisp call to revitalize the Democratic Party and at least the outlines of deeper political and economic reforms. The reporters, as surrogate agents for Washington's insider sensibilities, blew him off. Dean's big mistake was in not recognizing, up front, that the media are very much part of the existing order and were bound to be hostile to his provocative kind of politics. To be heard, clearly and accurately, he would have had to find another channel.
For the record, reporters and editors deny that this occurred. Privately, they chortle over their accomplishment. At the Washington airport I ran into a bunch of them, including some old friends from long-ago campaigns, on their way to the next contest after Iowa. So, I remarked, you guys saved the Republic from the doctor. Yes, they assented with giggly pleasure, Dean was finished--though one newsmagazine correspondent confided the coverage would become more balanced once they went after Senator Kerry. Only Paul Begala of CNN demurred. "I don't know what you're talking about," Begala said, blank-faced. Nobody here but us gunslingers. READ

THE SCREAM

On December 1, 2003, Howard Dean was ahead by twenty points in the polls when he appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and said, “We're going to break up the giant media enterprises.” This pronouncement went far beyond the governor’s previous public musings about possibly re-regulating the communications industry, and amounted to a declaration of war on the corporations that administer the flow of information in the United States.
It was an extraordinarily noble and dangerous thing to do: when he advocated a truly free press, Dr. Dean was provoking the corrupt media conglomerates that control what most Americans see and hear and read, and thereby control what most Americans think.
The media giants quickly responded by crushing his high-flying campaign with the greatest of ease. This time, they didn’t even have to invent a scandal in order to achieve the desired result; merely by chanting the word “unelectable” at maximum volume, the mainstream media maneuvered Democratic voters into switching their support to someone who poses no threat to the status quo. READ

Dean and the Corporate Media Machine

On Dec. 1, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination went where few national politicians have dared to go -- directly challenging the media conglomerates.
... Dean went well beyond the hold-the-line stance adopted last summer by large majorities in Congress, who voted to prevent more media deregulation by the Federal Communications Commission. He declared that maintaining the media status quo isn’t good enough. READ

Humpty-Dumpty, Off the Wall

...The once-unified multitude that powered the Dean campaign may be devolving into an association of many minds headed off to points unknown. There are still things they share, including disappointment and an acute sense of injury. The national media, the Democratic leadership, or just the American political system conspired, the thinking goes, to keep their candidate down, and then showed him the door.
"The man didn't lose on his merits," said Maslin. "The Democratic Party has become insipid and mealy-mouthed. And I think the media is lazy. It's like they shoved humpty-dumpty off the wall and said 'Oops.' READ

Report Agrees Media Unfair to Dean

Howard Dean's supporters think he has gotten a raw deal from the media. And their candidate does not disagree.
Even before the former front-runner stumbled in primary and caucus states, Dean says he started taking hits from media insiders who he says feared handing the Democratic presidential nomination to an outsider.
... But, after what he refers to as a "pep talk" to backers after his defeat in the Iowa caucuses began airing around-the-clock on cable news programs as the "I Have a Scream" speech, Dean says he began to fully understand how events can be warped by the media.
" ABC actually did a fairly sound retraction on that one," Dean says of a report by ABC News that showed the "scream" in Des Moines was dramatically amplified in television and cable reports. "But that's one network, and one report. Most of the networks failed to offer any perspective."
Dean does not suggest that he has run an error-free campaign. He admits to plenty of mistakes. But his complaint that he has not gotten fair coverage is echoed in a report from the Center for Media and Public Affairs. The center's study of 187 CBS, NBC and ABC evening news reports found that only 49 percent of all on-air evaluations of Dean in 2003 were positive. The other Democratic contenders collectively received 78 percent favorable coverage during the period.
In the week after the Iowa caucuses, the center found that only 39 percent of the coverage of Dean on network evening news programs was positive; in contrast, 86 percent of the coverage of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was positive, as was 71 percent of the coverage of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the new front-runner. READ

DUNNING DEAN -- Did the Doctor Get Gored?

From the beginning of Howard Dean's insurgent rise to the top of the Dem pack in the summer, through the other candidates' and DLC's harsh critiques, through Dean's fearless off the cuff "gaffes"; the lurking question was: was the media going to destroy Howard Dean like they destroyed Al Gore -- that is, seize on some simple negative dishonest story line (that Boy Scout Al Gore is a liar), and repeat it wildly until almost every story had to "prove" it (a Balt Sun commentary accused Gore of lying because he claimed a rally "was the biggest"), instead of reporting the facts. Al Gore's reluctance to cozy up to the press wasn't seen in light of his exposure to the 6 year Clinton witchhunt and the radioactive right-wing hatreds that fueled it. No, mild-mannered dryly witty Al was cold. Also known as the echo chamber, the pack phenomenon had top paper reporters changing Gore quotes on the front page just to prove he was a liar. Let's call it the THEME LIE. READ

Something for Dean to Scream About

It's official. After bleating on about how objective and fair they all are, the media big boys are openly admitting they smeared Howard Dean by playing his "Scream" Iowa speech 633 times. "It was a big story, but the challenge in a 24-hour news network is that you try to keep all of your different viewers throughout the day informed without overdoing it," Princell Hair, CNN's general manager, told the AP.
Joe Trippi, Dean's former campaign manager, said, "It shouldn't be an anvil that you keep hammering to destroy his candidacy. I don't think there was a big conspiracy to do that, but that's what was going on." READ

The "Dean Scream" -- The Version of Reality You Didn't See.. or Hear on TV By Diane Sawyer

It was the scream Howard Dean says became famous after the media played it nearly 700 times in a few days. Not only that, his camp adds, what we heard on the air was not a reflection of the way it sounded in the room.
After my interview with Dean and his wife in which I played the tape again -- in fact played it to them -- I noticed that on that tape he's holding a hand-held microphone. One designed to filter out the background noise. It isolates your voice, just like it does to Charlie Gibson and me when we have big crowds in the morning. The crowds are deafening to us standing there
So, we collected some other tapes from Dean's speech including one from a documentary filmmaker, tapes that do carry the sound of the crowd, not just the microphone he held on stage. We also asked the reporters who were there to help us replicate what they experienced in the room.
Reena Singh, ABC News Dean campaign reporter: "What the cameras didn't capture was the crowd." READ

Media 'Disapeared' Howard Dean

Has anybody else noticed the disappearance of Howard Dean from U.S. presidential politics? Maybe someone caught it on a surveillance camera in a mall. The figures who hustled him away were wearing media badges.
Why did they have to get him out of there? Because he was being disruptive. Not wrong exactly, but too loud, spoke out of turn, the sorts of things one doesn't say in mainstream politics. The equivalent of belching or farting in public. The media are the ushers and security guards of politics. They maintain decorum. READ

Dean Donors Paid for Some Anti-Dean Ads
Group that ran spots in early-voting states also took funds from a former senator.

Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values ran at least three ads in December against Dean in early-voting states, a finance report the group provided Tuesday showed.
The group spent $15,000 on an ad aired in South Carolina and New Hampshire that showed a picture of Bin Laden and said that Dean lacked the experience to take on terrorists.
The group aired two anti-Dean ads in Iowa, the first state to hold a delegate contest. One criticized Dean's history of endorsements by the National Rifle Assn.; the other blasted his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement and said he supported cuts to Medicare.
In all, the group raised $663,000 last year and spent $626,840 of it, the finance report showed. It spent $500,000 on ads.
" We did more with $600,000 than Howard Dean did with $41 million," said David Jones, the group's treasurer and a Democratic fundraising consultant, referring to funds Dean raised and largely spent last year.
...Torricelli, who is raising money for front-runner Kerry, donated $50,000 from his Senate campaign fund to Jones' group. READ
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-antidean11feb11,1,7315028.story

Upset at Iowa ads, Dean questions Kerry's electability

Howard Dean fired a broadside at front-runner John F. Kerry yesterday, questioning the Democratic front-runner's ethics and his electability, while saying that Senator John Edwards of North Carolina would make a better presidential nominee than the senator from Massachusetts.

The comments came little more than a week after Dean vowed not to criticize rivals to rejuvenate his campaign -- a strategy Democratic leaders fear could weaken Kerry, who has won 12 out of 14 primaries and caucuses, while Dean, once the leader in the polls, has failed to post a victory.
The trigger was a report that one of Kerry's campaign fund-raisers, former senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey, donated $50,000 to a secretive group that aired anti-Dean ads before the Iowa caucuses. The former Vermont governor ended up finishing third, behind Kerry and Edwards. READ

Give Us Barrabas

Not since 2000 have I been so loath to read, listen or watch the corporate media – the weapon of assassination not just of Howard Dean but also of the message he embodies. An insurgent populist who did an end run around the media that guard and hold hostage the popular consciousness, he was to be stopped. Anyone who speaks boldly with intelligence and vision and who can galvanize a large section of the population will be destroyed. Is it conspiratorial or an unconscious reflex? To be debated. But the fact is the distance between Palm Sunday and the crucifixion is a handful of days. The crowd is now yelling - Give us Barrabas. Kerry is both Barrabas - and Judas.
The message the media is sending to America and to any prospective future candidates is that they are to say nothing important – stand for nothing important. The more homogenized, the more passable. The botox for Kerry is not just cosmetic – it speaks volumes. The sash on Ms. Heinz-Kerry also speaks – it says royalty. The cool detached and queenly benevolent deference to the people is a favor more than a civic duty or passion. Kerry has appropriated and sanitized much of Dean’s original message. He has reduced it to something that sounds like a battle cry but is really an echo. READ

John Kerry

Who is robo-calling against Dean?

It's no secret that Dean has faced some nasty robo-calling and push-polling in Iowa and NH, as well as NM and elsewhere. This exerpt from an upcoming GQ article gives a glimpse of what Dean has faced over the last few weeks:
Fast forward to the days before IA: Trippi's "cell phone rings. It's his pollster, Paul Maslin, who not only has bleak news out of Iowa -- but bleak news out of New Hampshire. Trippi hangs up and stares out the window. His phone rings again. "WHAT? Aw, fuck. I hate this business. This fucking sucks. Okay, thanks." He hangs up. "They're robocalling our ones," he moans. "He has just gotten a report from the field that Dean "ones" are getting bombarded with computer-generated phone calls telling them to make sure to caucus for Dean-then giving them the wrong address." Who would do such a thing? "Kerry," Trippi snaps. "They're the only asshole snake campaign that would do it. Every frickin' day now, I'm reminded of why I got out of this in the first place."
The Dean campaign keeps fingering the Kerry camp, and it's hard to see who else might be responsible.
The calls were targeted at Dean in Iowa and NH -- the two states that were must-wins for both Dean and Kerry. Gephardt might've been behind a robo-calling effort in Iowa, but he'd have no reason to do the same in NH. READ

BEWARE:  Kerry may be Push Polling in NH.  

If Zogby's trends are correct you can surely bet that they are reengaging in Push Polling.
It was brought to my attention yesterday that Kerry engaged in the most Vile Push Polling in IA.  Smears that would embarass Lee Atwater and  Joseph Goebbels.
That Dean was an Abortionist
That Dean beat his wife (leveraging the ABCnews Trooper story)
That Judy "was a Jew."  Yes, not just jewish but "a Jew."
See, it wasn't just Wilgoren's and Dowd's pieces got Judy out on the Trail, it was bigger than that. READ

Dated Dean, Married Kerry, Woke Up with Bush

Exit polls and my informal polls agree: Kerry's supporters overwhelmingly give "electability" as the reason they favor him. Kerry has the best chance of beating Bush, says the prevailing opinion, and beating Bush is what's really important. The tragically misguided naiveté of this belief is making me crazy (and I don't normally get so riled up about US politics). Because it's my people, from my party, with my values who are supporting a position that is strategically suicidal not only for this election but for the direction of the Democratic party. My indignation is shaped by what I hope is a reasonably astute critical perspective on how media influence on politics operates (as a grad student in Modern Culture and Media). So, from this perspective, let me tell you why there is NO WAY Kerry can beat Bush: READ

The Kerry Cascade: How a '50s psychology experiment can explain the Democratic primaries.

...Princeton social psychologist Solomon Asch showed a room of participants a series of slides displaying sets of vertical lines. Two of these lines were clearly the same length, while the others were obviously very different. The subjects were then given the seemingly trivial task of identifying which pair of lines were the same. But there was a trick: Everyone in the room except for one person had been instructed beforehand to give the same incorrect answer. The real subject of the experiment was the lone unwitting participant, and the real test was of an individual's ability to disagree with his or her peers.
Asch demonstrated a stunning effect: Faced with a decision that, in isolation, no one would ever get wrong, the unwitting subjects went against the evidence of their own eyes about one-third of the time. READ

Defining moment for Kerry: Reunion with vet fired up campaign

In a packed Des Moines community center, the frenzy of a presidential campaign was stopped cold by an unassuming Republican who quietly came forward to speak.
Jim Rassmann, a former Green Beret, hadn't seen his buddy, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, since the Vietnam War. But unbidden, Rassmann took the audience back to the Bay Hap River there, to March 13, 1969 -- when Kerry saved his life.

...If Rassmann's unexpected public testimony of salvation -- which brought tears to Kerry's eyes and those of many in the audience -- marked a moment of profound human drama, it also was a moment that reshaped the presidential campaign of the Massachusetts senator. READ

Bush Still Not Done Confronting Confederate Flag
read down to Annenburg Election Survey about Kerry's and Bush's Viet Nam war records

...In their questionnaire, Annenberg pollsters noted that after returning from Vietnam, Kerry "demonstrated against the war, he testified in Congress against it, and he threw his campaign ribbons away in protest." When asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of Kerry's anti-war activities?" 44 percent expressed disapproval, and 40 percent said they approved.
Bush fared better in questioning about his Vietnam-era military service. "Some people say that when George W. Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard in the '70s, he often did not show up for duty," the pollsters told respondents. "Bush says he did fulfill his obligations and has presented records which he says prove that he did. From what you have heard or read, do you think he fulfilled his military obligations, or do you think he did not fulfill them?" Sixty-two percent of the public said he had fulfilled his obligations, and 38 percent said he had not. READ

ARCHIVES JOHN KERRY'S TURNING POINT

Kerry burst onto the national political scene in 1971 when, as an organizer of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he led an anti-war demonstration on the National Mall and made a show of throwing away the ribbons from his war medals.
That protest and his testimony, in green fatigues, before the Senate Foreign Services Committee earned him a national reputation. ``How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?'' he asked the senators.
Critics have said he tried to have it both ways by tossing his ribbons but not his medals during the 1971 protest. Kerry has said tossing the ribbons represented his rejection of the war, but that he is nonetheless proud of his military service and, thus, retains his medals. READ

Archives: Don’t Use Vietnam as a Campaign Issue By Sen. John Kerry
Excerpted from the Congressional Record -- February 27, 1992

"We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it. Are we now, 20 years or 30 years later, to forget the difficulties of that time, of families that were literally torn apart, of brothers who ceased to talk to brothers, of fathers who disowned their sons, of people who felt compelled to leave the country and forget their own future and turn against the will of their own aspirations?
...We are a nation looking for someone who will lift our spirits and give us confidence that together we can grow out of this recession and conquer the myriad of social ills we have at home.
We do not need more division. We certainly do not need something as complex and emotional as Vietnam reduced to simple campaign rhetoric. What has been said has been said, Mr. President, but I hope and pray we will put it behind us and go forward in a constructive spirit for the good of our party and the good of our country.Sen. John Kerry, a new contributor, is the junior senator from Massachusetts. READ

Senate years are grist for Kerry's opponents

The moment John Kerry began to seem like the candidate to watch in the Iowa caucuses, the campaigns of his Democratic rivals Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt swiftly used a handful of Kerry's decade-old Senate votes and statements against ethanol and agricultural subsidies to attack him as not supportive of Iowa's essential industry.
Now that his opponents are moving even more aggressively to slow Kerry's rise, his 19-year voting record as the junior senator from Massachusetts could loom as his greatest political vulnerability, among Democrats and Republicans alike. The sheer length of Kerry's service means that he has built a paper trail of positions on education, the military, intelligence and other issues — stands that might have looked one way when he took them but that resonate differently now. READ

How the Bush team will try to paint Kerry

...The faceoff between Bush and Kerry has begun extraordinarily early in volleys of press releases and Web videos. It will continue for eight months and signals a long, nasty campaign. Decisions being made now will define the territory on which the campaign is fought and establish competing portraits of the two men.
...Full-force GOP criticism began as soon as Kerry won the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 19. Four days later, Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie declared him "out of sync" with most Americans and one of the "most liberal members" of the Senate. READ

Kerry, Too, Needs to Clear the Air By Scott Ritter

...Almost 30 years after his appearance before the Senate, Sen. Kerry was given the opportunity to make good on his promises that he had learned the lessons of Vietnam. During a visit to Washington in April 2000, when I lobbied senators and representatives for a full review of American policy regarding Iraq, I spoke with John Kerry about what I held to be the hyped-up intelligence regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD. "Put it in writing," Kerry told me, "and send it to me so I can review what you're saying in detail."
I did just that, penning a comprehensive article for Arms Control Today, the journal of the Arms Control Association, on the "Case for the Qualitative Disarmament of Iraq." This article, published in June 2000, provided a detailed breakdown of Iraq's WMD capability and made a comprehensive case that Iraq did not pose an imminent threat. I asked the Arms Control Association to send several copies to Sen. Kerry's office but, just to make sure, I sent him one myself. I never heard back from the senator.
...But John Kerry seems to share in this culpability, and if he wants to be the next president of the United States, he must first convince the American people that his actions somehow differ from those of the man he seeks to replace.
" Where is the leadership?" John Kerry asked more than 30 years ago, questioning a war that consumed life, money and national honor. Today this question still hangs in the air, haunting a former Navy combat veteran who needs to convince a skeptical nation that he not only has a plan to get America out of Iraq, but also possesses the leadership skills needed to avoid future ill-advised adventures. READ

The Many Faces of John Kerry

...Kerry has taken several liberal positions during his career, only to take them back years later. Since 1984, when he won his first campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts, Kerry backed canceling weapons systems, such as the B-1 bomber, B-2 stealth bomber, the Apache helicopter and the Patriot missile. Kerry now calls those positions "ill-advised, and I think some of them are stupid in the context of the world we find ourselves in right now, and the things that I’ve learned since then."
In the 1980s, Kerry harshly criticized Ronald Reagan’s order to invade the tiny island nation of Grenada in 1983. Today, he says: "I was dismissive of the majesty of the invasion of Grenada. But I basically was supportive. I never publicly opposed it."
Kerry voted against the congressional resolution authorizing military force in Iraq in 1990. But after Washington’s quick victory, Kerry did a quick turnaround and became a supporter of the war. Kerry’s own office could hardly keep up with the changes. READ

The Two John Kerrys: Will We Get the Populist or the Lord of Special Interests?

John Kerry is a man with two faces. There’s the fire-breathing populist whose thundering stump speeches against special interests made him Comeback Kerry, who won in Iowa and New Hampshire and became the Democrats’ indisputable front-runner. And then there’s Corporate Kerry, who has taken more money from lobbyists in the last 15 years than any other senator, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) — and who has repeatedly carried water for the special interests that smothered him in campaign cash.
...Example: Kerry’s “largest campaign contributor lobbies on behalf of telecommunication interests,” and Kerry “pushed the legislative priorities of its clients in the wireless industry,” according to research for the CPI’s 2004 book (available on its Web site). That contributor, the powerhouse Boston law firm and lobbying shop Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, is where Kerry’s brother Cameron — a major Kerry-campaign insider — works, and where Kerry’s former chief of staff, David Leiter, is a lobbyist. Mintz, Levin has given at least $231,000 to Kerry. READ

Papers link Kerry, special interests

A Senate colleague was trying to close a loophole that allowed a major insurer to divert millions of federal dollars from the nation's most expensive construction project.
Sen. John Kerry stepped in and blocked the legislation.
Over the next two years, the insurer, American International Group, paid Kerry's way on a trip to Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group that the Democrat used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns.
Were the two connected? Kerry says not. READ

A Closer Look at a Possible Bush-Kerry Matchup
Kerry has edge on economy, Bush viewed as better leader

The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows Massachusetts senator and potential Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry leading President George W. Bush by a 53% to 46% margin in a trial-heat matchup among likely voters. The poll also probed deeper into Americans' views of Kerry and Bush, and finds both candidates have relative strengths and weaknesses. Americans are slightly more likely to see Kerry's political views, rather Bush's views, as acceptable. Neither candidate has a decided advantage on war issues, but Kerry appears to have an edge on the economy. In terms of personality characteristics, Americans tend to think of Kerry as a champion of the average American, while they view Bush as the stronger leader. READ

Kerry leads Bush in new poll: Bush's approval numbers dip

Sen. John Kerry, the front-runner among Democrats vying for their party's presidential nomination, leads President Bush in a head-to-head matchup, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and retired Gen. Wesley Clark also emerge as formidable opponents, according to hypothetical matchups in the poll, which found a decline in Bush's approval numbers.
...And,on the question of Iraq, more Americans trusted Bush than Kerry, 50 percent to 44 percent. READ

For Kerry, Wins Could Spell Trouble

...As the sitting vice president, Gore effectively secured the nomination after New Hampshire's contest. But this left him facing a constant drip of Republican attacks and media scrutiny that devolved into nitpicking. Gore wound up being seen in the public eye not as the innovator he once was in the Senate, but as a lying weasel who couldn't figure out whether to wear blue suits or brown blazers.
Kerry now faces this onslaught, fueled with as much as $200 million the president is raising for a "primary" season in which he has no opponent. Already, Republicans blast out daily e-mails and other communications promoting attacks on Kerry as a faux populist, eager as any Washington insider to use his office for the benefit of contributors. They salivate about his record in opposing Reagan-era defense programs - how can you be secure with a guy who went against the Gipper? READ

Democratic Primary: General

Study: Democratic Coverage 40% More Positive than 2000

Less than one of every five network evening news stories about the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination examines the candidates’ stances or voting records, according to research conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA). The study also found that the current Democratic Presidential field has received 40 percent more favorable coverage than Al Gore and Bill Bradley in 2000.
... Senator John Edwards received the most favorable press in the week between Iowa and New Hampshire, with 86 percent positive on-air assessments, followed by 71 percent positive ratings for both Senator John Kerry and General Wesley Clark.* Dean Loses Steam After Scream-Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean’s coverage fell from 58 percent positive prior to Iowa to only 39 percent positive in the week between Iowa and New Hampshire primary. READ

Unintended Consequence: How Terry McAuliffe and James Carville created Howard Dean.

A year ago Democratic leaders were convinced a key to winning the White House was to minimize internal bickering and settle early on a nominee. That candidate could then speak for a united party against President Bush. The party has gotten its wish--a jammed early primary schedule virtually guarantees the Democratic candidate will be known by early March--but party leaders now seem to be having buyer's remorse. The nominee will be either the mercurial and error-prone Howard Dean or someone who may have a hard time exciting fanatic Dean supporters.
James Carville, the razor-tongued Democratic strategist, was among many party leaders who were certain of a cure for the Democrats' blues: "We've really got to get a presidential nominee," he said in February. "And the quicker the better." Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe listened to this siren song and helped engineer a change in the party's 20-year-old rule that no state other than Iowa and New Hampshire could vote for delegates before March. READ

Lost publicity high price for Democrats' unity

... Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe openly advocated for a "front-loaded" primary process, arguing that a brisk run-through of primaries would quickly yield a nominee who could then turn his guns on Bush. Presumably, this would also limit the ritual blood-shedding that has stained some Democratic contests in the past.
... Throughout the summer and fall, every gun in American politics was aimed at Dean. His support for a reduction in the rate of growth of Medicare at a long-ago governor's conference dominated several debates; by contrast, Kerry's long-ago willingness to consider increasing the age of eligibility for Social Security got barely any attention. The attacks on Dean's record and demeanor spawned magazine covers questioning his fitness. And when the voting started, a frazzled Dean tripped with a thud.
Now, with the nomination increasingly in his cross hairs, Kerry awaits his own baptism of fire. It will be performed by Bishop Karl Rove.
Thanks in part to Kerry's own party chairman, there will be no purging of sins during the nominating process. READ

Democratic leaders hope for unity sooner rather than later

John Kerry's string of wins is leading party leaders and seasoned advisers to look for ways to bring the primary season to a quick close.
" I think it is obvious from the results of these primaries as to what the handwriting on the wall is," said Leon Panetta, who served 16 years in Congress before his tenure as budget director and chief of staff in the Clinton White House.
... Some Democratic strategists suggest the time is ripe to rally behind a single candidate, with polls showing the president's support is slipping and some surveys put Kerry ahead of him in a general election matchup.
There is also a risk that if the contest turns more personal, that could provide more ammunition for Republicans in the fall to use against Kerry. READ

Who's No. 2? Clark, Dean, and Edwards are going in circles.

A race that had political journalists salivating over its unpredictability in the days before the Iowa caucuses has instead unfolded exactly as it was designed. Terry McAuliffe drew this one up on the chalkboard during the pregame. The condensed primary schedule has worked just as intended, by anointing an early front-runner who is rolling through the nominating process without being forced to undergo a long, drawn-out fight with another candidate. (Howard Dean's boom and bust weren't in the McAuliffe plan, but since Dean's rise occurred before a single primary or caucus was held, it's not relevant to this analysis—except to the extent that the compressed schedule speeded his fall.) READ

Rash of primaries could spur voters' remorse
Tactic: A truncated campaign season clears the way to battle Bush. But can Democrats live with their hasty decision?

When Maine holds its Democratic presidential caucuses today, it will be the 12th state in the past 21 days to express its choice for the party's 2004 nomination. In the next 23 days, 17 more states will do the same, by which time the nominee is likely to be known.
This rush to judgment results from the determination of the party's political insiders like Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe that the 2004 Democratic standard-bearer be identified as soon as possible. The rationale is that an early start is imperative in the effort to unseat President Bush in November.
...There's always a danger now that in the rush, some damaging information may surface about the prospective nominee that will make the party wish it had taken a longer, less-frenetic look at the product of front-loading.
As long as the get-it-over-with mentality prevails, the prospect for 2008 is for another pell-mell dash to decision by frazzled candidates and campaign staffs, often at the expense of less-informed, turned-off voters. READ

Brisk Primary Season Leaves Voters Out in the Cold

Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry may well prove the Democrats' strongest nominee against President Bush. But there's no way to tell from the hurried and shallow primary campaign that the Democrats have fallen into.
...Because the schedule is so condensed, voters in each new state are being denied the time to make independent judgments on the candidates. Because the leading contenders have failed to effectively engage Kerry, voters are being denied even a clear sense of the choices available to them.
...Without much genuine debate between the candidates, or more than a few days to evaluate them, voters with approaching primaries or caucuses appear to be influenced most by the results in the states that preceded them. READ

Archives: Can Clinton Save his Candidacy?
(Note: Clinton didn't win a primary until halfway through the primary season)

This is a year of turmoil and terror in the Democratic Party: Their likely presidential nominee battered, bloodied, and ridiculed even before the general election has begun; angry, unforgiving voters appear ready to wreak punishment on the scandal-ridden Democratic-controlled Congress; and a fiery anti-incumbent mood may be sweeping the nation.
Rarely, in contemporary American politics, has a prospective Democratic presidential standard-bearer emerged successfully from his early primaries burdened by so many deep public doubts about his character within his own party. This is the astonishing situation that now faces the Democrats and Bill Clinton as he moves to lock up the nomination and convince a doubting nation that he is not the "slick Willie" portrayed by his political enemies, depicted by the new media, and lampooned by late-night comedians.
The Arkansas governor's candidacy has need deeply weakened by allegations that he committed adultery during his marriage; that he personally took steps to avoid being drafted during the height of the Vietnam War; that he and his wife, Hillary, an influential lawyer with a prominent law firm that does business with the state, were insensitive to the appearance of conflict of interest throughout his governorship; and that he has been slippery and evasive in answering questions from the news media about his personal and professional conduct. READ

Other News

Dean Urges Supporters Not to Leave the Party

In his first public appearance since dropping out of the presidential race last week, Howard Dean thanked his supporters here on Thursday night and urged them to stay with the Democratic Party and "not to be tempted by independent or third-party candidates."
Dr. Dean spoke in a packed hotel ballroom to an audience of whooping, clapping supporters who often acted as though their candidate were still in the race.
He did not mention Ralph Nader, who entered the presidential race a few days ago, but a number of those in the audience said they considered his remark about third-party candidates to be a clear reference to Mr. Nader.
Dr. Dean also did not say anything about endorsing another Democrat for president, but he did say, in a characteristic aside, "My staff is absolutely terrified about what I might announce tonight."
Instead, he urged his supporters to back the eventual Democratic nominee, and described his plans to continue influencing the race from the outside. READ

Gore Burns Bush on Environment
Speech by Al Gore Hosted by MoveOn.org

I have made a series of speeches about the policies of the Bush / Cheney Administration towards the major challenges that confront our nation: national security, economic policy, civil liberties, and today: the environment.For me, this issue is in a special category because of what I believe is at stake. I am particularly concerned because the vast majority of the most respected environmental scientists from all over the world have sounded a clear and urgent alarm. The international community - including the United States - began a massive effort several years ago to assemble the most accurate scientific assessment of the growing evidence that the earth's environment is sustaining severe and potentially irreparable damage from the unprecedented accumulation of pollution in the global atmosphere.
... These and other activities make it abundantly clear that the Bush White House represents a new departure in the history of the Presidency. He is so eager to accommodate his supporters and contributors that there seems to be very little that he is not willing to do for them at the expense of the public interest. To mention only one example, we’ve seen him work tirelessly to allow his friends to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Indeed, it seems at times as if the Bush-Cheney Administration is wholly owned by the coal, oil, utility and mining companies.
While President Bush likes to project an image of strength and courage, the truth is that in the presence of his large financial contributors he is a moral coward – so weak that he seldom if ever says “No” to them on anything – no matter what the public interest might mandate.
The problem is that our world is now confronting a five-alarm fire that calls for bold moral and political leadership from the United States of America. READ

Transcript: The Poltics of Fear by Al Gore

...The fear campaign aimed at Iraq was precisely timed for the kickoff of the midterm election campaign of 2002. You remember that one, the one where Max Cleland, who lost three limbs fighting for America in Vietnam, was accused of being unpatriotic?
The curious timing was explained by the President’s Chief of Staff as a marketing decision. It was timed, he said, for the post Labor Day advertising period because that’s when advertising campaigns for new “products” - - as he referred to it - - are normally launched. The implication of his metaphor was that the old product - - the war against Osama bin Laden and al Quaeda - - had lost some of its pizzazz. And in the immediate run up to the election campaign of 2002 a new product - - the war against Iraq - - was being launched. For everything, there is a season, particularly for the politics of fear. READ

America's liberals to 'bash Bush' with talk-radio network

After a decade of battering from the right on the airwaves, America's liberals will finally have their first ever talk radio network later this month, featuring an array of celebrated and less celebrated Bush-bashers, spearheaded by the comedian Al Franken.
Air America Radio, owned by Progress Media, will launch on 31 March on stations covering four of the biggest US media markets, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. By the end of the year the project's backers plan to be on the air in a dozen markets across the country, offering an ideological alternative to conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage, who have long had the field to themselves.
" We are going to stick it to Bush," Mr Franken said as final plans for the network were announced this week. "Bush is going down in November, and then we're putting it to the rest of the right-wing media." READ

For 'gutter politics,' look to the Bush camp

Readers can decide for themselves whether the Democrats are engaging in "gutter politics" by pushing hard on President Bush's Vietnam-era service, or lack thereof, in the National Guard. The story about Bush peeves me a little; I enlisted in the Army and did my time in Vietnam, not carrying an M-16 but not safely in Saigon either. Almost four years of my life were devoted to service, and Bush apparently couldn't be bothered to show up for some of the weekends he promised to serve.
But what really gets my goat is political operatives in Bush's White House making the "gutter" charge. Whether or not you think the accusation is true, it takes a lot of gall for this group to make it. READ

Interview with Bruce Miller, Editor of "Take Them At Their Words: Shocking, Amusing and Baffling Quotations from the G.O.P. and Their Friends, 1994-2004"

...Over more than 350 pages, Bruce Miller, brother of Mark Crispin Miller, has assembled the bitter, spiteful and downright bizarre ranting and ravings of the people who now rule America, along with their supporters.
Who could forget Barbara Bush on "Good Morning America"? "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many...It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" Babs declared in all seriousness.
Or Ann Coulter, opining: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
Or George W. Bush to the Palestinian Prime Minister: "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you can help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." READ

White House Intimidation: A Brief History of Threats and Defamation

A look at the historical record shows that the Bush Administration has summarily fired, threatened, intimidated and defamed anyone who has had the courage to tell the truth about major policies facing America.
MEDICARE ACTUARY THREATENED WITH FIRING IF HE TOLD TRUTH TO CONGRESS: "The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan. Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told colleagues last June that he would be fired if he revealed numbers relating to the higher estimate to lawmakers."
FMR. TREASURY SECRETARY THREATENED WITH INVESTIGATION AFTER TELLING TRUTH: Three days after Paul O'Neill criticized the Bush Administration's Iraq policy, the Administration "began an investigation into whether any laws or regulations had been violated by O'Neill." The probe came despite O'Neill having specifically "cleared all of the documents with the Treasury general counsel's office." The probe ended up fully absolving O'Neill.
LINDSEY FIRED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT COSTS: "Top White House adviser Larry Lindsey [was fired] when he told a newspaper that an Iraq war could cost $200 billion." READ

On a Mission From God': The Religious Right and the Emerging American Theocracy

In Dec. 2002, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman reported that House Majority Leader Tom Delay had openly admitted he was "on a mission from God to promote a 'biblical worldview' in American politics." On Monday, the Washington Times revealed that DeLay "is about to announce his own legislative agenda."
" One goal, [Delay] said, will be to re-establish what he sees as the rightful role of religion in public places. . ." [Washington Times]
In other words, look out.
The warning signs have been in place for quite some time, but went largely unnoticed until the walls started closing in on shock jock Howard Stern. When Project Censored listed "FCC Moves to Privatize Airwaves" as its top censored news story for 2001-2002 and shed its suspicious spotlight on FCC chairman Michael Powell, for example, few noticed. "[T]he mainstream press has raised few warnings about the FCC's squashing of the public interest," Project Censored's Brendan Koerner wrote, while co-author Dorothy Kidd explained that "things have just gotten worse for the US public with regards to media democracy. Mergers are up and the number of dominant players controlling media production and distribution has shrunk to a handful." [ProjectCensored.org] Or, as Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) put it, "The bottom line is that fewer and fewer huge conglomerates are controlling virtually everything that the ordinary American sees, hears and reads." READ

White House 'distorted' Iraq threat

Bush administration officials "systematically misrepresented" the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to war, according to a new report to be published on Thursday by a respected Washington think-tank.
These distortions, combined with intelligence failures, exaggerated the risks posed by a country that presented no immediate threat to the US, Middle East or global security, the report says.
The study from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concludes that, though the long-term threat from Iraq could not be ignored, it was being effectively contained by a combination of UN weapons inspections, international sanctions and limited US-led military action. READ

'Drawing their own picture'
US, UK dismissed facts that didn't fit, critics charge

In the run-up to the war in Iraq, Washington and London worked in unison to present with terrifying specificity the intelligence underpinning their case for an invasion.
The Bush administration asserted that Iraq had unmanned drones capable of spreading biological weapons to US cities, and it displayed grainy black-and-white aerial photographs of new construction at the Al Qaim nuclear site as evidence that Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon within a few years, if not months. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell highlighted some of those alarms in his dramatic Feb. 5 presentation to the UN Security Council.
In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair trotted out an intelligence dossier on the threat -- including an assertion that Iraq could unleash a chemical or biological weapon within 45 minutes of an order from Saddam Hussein.
One year later, these claims have not just come under question, but in many cases now appear to have been false. On many of the most pivotal intelligence claims, David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons inspector, said last week, "We were almost all wrong."
..." Kay says we all got it wrong. Well, that's not the case," said Greg Thielmann, who before the war was director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. "The White House was not interested in information other than that which substantiated its case." READ

Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction: Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense? By JOHN W. DEAN

President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless, perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation. READ

Two Loud Words

There have always been 'third-rail' issues in American politics, subjects that, if touched upon, will lead to certain political death. For a long while, and until very recently, Social Security was one of these issues.
A new one, surrounding the attacks of September 11, has been born in this political season. If September 11 is discussed, the only allowable sub-topic to be broached is whether or not the Bush administration is capable of keeping us safe from another onslaught.
...Thus, the 'preparedness-gap' becomes the whittled-down talking point du jour. This is a whiff of colossal proportions, the implications of which will echo down the halls of history unless someone develops enough spine to speak the truth into a large microphone. The talking point is not difficult to manage. It was splashed in gaudy multi-point font across the front page of the New York Post in May of 2002.
Two words: 'Bush Knew.' READ

The Lies for War Unravel

...Back in August of 2003, Kwiatkowski wrote, "What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam (Hussein) occupation (in Iraq) has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense." She described the work of the OSP in particular as, "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress". Kwiatkowski claims, in short, that a decision to go to war had been made long before, and that these men at the OSP were fashioning justifications for that decision on the fly, and despite overwhelming evidence to suggest that war was not necessary. READ

Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq?

...In the book, O’Neill says that the president did not make decisions in a methodical way: there was no free-flow of ideas or open debate.
At cabinet meetings, he says the president was "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection," forcing top officials to act "on little more than hunches about what the president might think." READ

O'Neill's claims supported by 1998 Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz 'war' letters

Anyone who doubts former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's recent claims that George W. Bush mislead the public and secretly planned the Iraq war eight months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks needs to read the letters sent in 1998 to President Bill Clinton, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott by current members of the Bush administration, among others, urging Clinton to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq.
Back then, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz and other pro-war hawks lobbied Clinton, Gingrich and Lott to remove former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power using military force and indict him as a "war criminal." Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, both of whom were working in the private sector at the time, were affiliated with the right-wing think tank Project for a New American Century, which was co-founded by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol in 1997 to promote America's foreign and defense policies. READ

Rumsfeld: Iraq Weapons May Still Be Found. 

Bush administration officials said Sunday they do not regret that America went to war against Iraq even though banned weapons have not been found one year after the U.S.-led invasion.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he believes weapons of mass destruction could still turn up. Secretary of State Colin Powell said even if they don't, that doesn't mean prewar intelligence was distorted to make the case for ousting Saddam Hussein, as some Democrats charge.
" We may not find the stockpiles. They may not exist any longer. But let's not suggest that somehow we knew this" before the war, Powell said on ABC's "This Week." "We went to the United Nations, we went to the world with the best information we had. Nothing that was cooked."
Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the war. READ

US tried to plant WMDs, failed: whistleblower

According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration’s assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to “plant” WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by “friendly fire”, the Environmentalists Against War report.
Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq. According to Al Martin Raw.com, “Ms Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense.”
The information that is being leaked out is information “obtained while she was in Germany heading up the debriefing of returning service personnel, involved in intelligence work in Iraq for the DoD and/or the CIA. “According to Ms Rogers, there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during the hostilities in Iraq,” reports Al Martin Raw.com, an online subscriber-based news/analysis service which provides “Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence”. READ

U.S. Unloading WMD in Iraq

Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution, there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq.
A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions.
He added that the cargo was unloaded during the night as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the deadly bombings in Karbala and the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution.
The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s.
He mentioned the fact that the United States had facilitated Iraq’s WMD program during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq and said that some of the weapons being downloaded are similar to those weapons, although international inspectors had announced Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime had destroyed all its WMD. READ

Cheney under pressure to quit over false war evidence. Anger grows on both sides of Atlantic at misleading claims on eve of Iraq conflict.

DICK CHENEY, the US Vice-President and the administration's most outspoken hawk over Iraq, faced demands for his resignation last night as he was accused of using false evidence to build the case for war.
He was accused of using his office to insist that a false claim about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Africa be included in George Bush's State of the Union address - overriding the concerns of the CIA director, George Tenet.
Mr Cheney was also accused of knowingly misleading Congress when the administration sought its authorisation for the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein. READ

Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.
According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.
The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said. READ

President Wavers on Pledge to Help Find Leaker

When it was first reported that a "senior Bush Administration official" had leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame, President Bush dutifully pledged his full cooperation and assistance with the investigation. He said, "I'd like to know who leaked, and if anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find out the leaker. I have told my staff, I want full cooperation with the Justice Department." READ

A NOC at Bush's Door By William Rivers Pitt

Her name was Valerie Plame, and she was a NOC.
 NOC is a designation within the Central Intelligence Agency which means "non-official cover." It denotes an agent working under such deep cover that said agent cannot be officially associated with the American intelligence community in any way, shape or form. In order to keep covered, a NOC will work for the CIA out of a front company, which provides the illusion that the agent is just an ordinary accountant, lawyer or businessperson.
 Between the CIA and the agent, a process is created to construct an identity which obscures completely the reality of the agent's true employment. The training of these NOC agents, along with the creation of the cover stories which are known as "legends" within the agency, requires millions of dollars and delicate work. It is, quite literally, a life and death issue. Little or no protection is given to an exposed NOC agent by the American government, an arrangement that is understood by all parties involved. A blown NOC can wind up dead very easily. Because of this, the cadre of NOC agents is small and elite.
 Valerie Plame was a NOC working out of a front company named Brewster-Jennings & Associates. To any and all uninformed observers, she was an energy analyst who spent a good deal of time working overseas. In fact, she ran a covert international network dedicated to tracking any person, group or nation that would put weapons of mass destruction into the hands of terrorists.
 That is, until the Bush administration got in the way. READ

Agency initiates steps for selective draft
Congress shows little support for effort to draw skilled Americans

The government is taking the first steps toward a targeted military draft of Americans with special skills in computers and foreign languages.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is adamant that he will not ask Congress to authorize a draft, and officials at the Selective Service System, the independent federal agency that would organize any conscription, stress that the possibility of a so-called "special skills draft" is remote.
Nonetheless, the agency has begun the process of creating the procedures and policies to conduct such a targeted draft in case military officials ask Congress to authorize it and the lawmakers agree to such a request. READ

FIRE FIGHTERS GIVE BUSH FAILING GRADE ON ANNIVERSARY OF CREATION OF DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY

The General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO (IAFF), Harold Schaitberger, issued the following statement today on the ability of fire and rescue workers to respond to the emergency needs of communities across America one year after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.
“ The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was a step in the right direction. But one year after its creation, our nation’s fire fighters and emergency medical personnel are still operating with too few staff, outdated equipment and the need for training to appropriately and safely respond to all of the emergencies, disasters and possible acts of terrorism we need to be prepared for today.
The result is that our communities are more vulnerable because of Bush’s failure in Homeland Security. READ

Conspiracy Theory: Charges Placed In WTC: Towers When Built?: The downing of the Twin Towers and other buildings of the complex where done by (Planned Implosions).

I was working at Kirkwood Commutator in Cleveland, Ohio from 1974 to September 30th, 1998. We had an Industrial/Refill Department that large commutators from 1 foot in diameter to 20 feet in diameter were made. A commutator is the circular switching device on an armature shaft that (commutates), switches the electrical current that flows thru the windings of the armature coils of an electrical motor. It is the thing that the brushes ride on that the current flows into an electric motor that energizes the field coils that causes the motor to rotate. The commutator switches the current from coil winding to coil winding that causes the motor to rotate.
So, you see, Jeff, no one had to sneak into the buildings of the WTC in New York and plant charges during a terror drill or a practice fire drill. They were already there...built into the buildings when they were constructed, just waiting for the call to detonate; waiting for the day when the buildings were no longer profitable to keep and maintain for whatever economic reasons of their owners and controllers.
The jet airliners crashed into each one on the Twin Towers and, thirty minutes later, the phone call was made and the first tower was taken down...and then the second tower was taken down. By the way, the other buildings of the complex were going to be a liability and no longer of use. So a phone call was made and they went down as well. READ

IMF steps up warning over Bush tax cuts

Tax cuts passed in the US last year will do little to improve economic efficiency as President George W. Bush has claimed, according to an International Monetary Fund study released on Wednesday.
The report - which adds that the long-term effects of the tax cuts will be to push the federal government deeper into the red - steps up the fund's repeated warning to the US to put its fiscal house in order, with some combination of tax increases and spending cuts needed to return the budget to a sustainable position. READ

George Bush and the Gilded Age

Something really strange has happened to the U.S. under the Bush Administration. With her ever bulging budget deficits and foreign debts, America's skewed income distribution is rapidly making the U.S. resemble Argentina or Mexico. The "Jobless Recovery" is not a political mirage, but a serious problem. America's GDP is increasing at an annual rate of about 4.0% this year. But, only those Wall Street "money gamers" and self-dealing "management aristocrats" of Corporate America are dizzy with their huge bonuses, padded salaries, and self-dealt stock options. The remaining hard working Americans cannot eat "GDP." The U.S. has widening income gap between a few "haves" and many "have-nots."
During the last economic recovery period of March 1991 to April 1993, a 10% increase in GDP increased manufacturing jobs and service jobs 3% and 5.9% respectively. However, for the present economic recovery since November 2001, a 10% increase in GDP is increasing manufacturing and service jobs only 0.7% and 0.9% respectively.... READ

BUSH PROMISED MILLIONS OF NEW JOBS

Bush promised his 2001 tax cut would create 800,000 new jobs. Then he said his 2003 tax cut would create 1 million new jobs. This year he said he would create 2.6 million jobs by the end of this year, but took it back after his economic advisors said that was an impossible claim. Instead, under Bush:
Nationally, 2.9 Million Jobs Lost; Unemployment Rate Up 33 Percent. The national unemployment rate in January 2004 was 5.6 percent, up from 4.2 percent when Bush took office in January 2001 - a 33 percent increase. Nationally, the economy has lost 2.9 million private sector jobs under Bush. READ

The Unlocked Box: How Bush is plundering Social Security to close the deficit.

The International Monetary Fund, which usually frets about runaway fiscal policies in developing countries, yesterday released a report that warned of the dangers to the global economy posed by the United States' lack of spending discipline, its reliance on foreign creditors, and its failure to plan adequately for future government liabilities. READ

Bush Twice Tries to Mislead America About the Economy in 24 Hours

Within a span of 24 hours, President Bush twice attempted to mislead the American people about the economy and his tax policies. On Friday, the president said, "Unemployment dropped today to 5.7% [which] is a positive sign that the economy is getting better."1
But the president didn't add that the unemployment drop occurred not because the economy was getting better, but because continued weak job growth led 309,000 people to stop looking for work. READ

Study: Bush proposals wouldn't stir economy

The tax cuts and other policies President George W. Bush proposed in his $2.4-trillion budget would probably have a minimal impact on the economy, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday.
In its annual report on the president's budget, the agency that provides fiscal analysis for lawmakers said Bush's proposals could either increase or reduce economic output through 2009, and improve it in the following five years.
" However, the differences are likely to be small, affecting output by less than one-half of one percentage point on average," the study said. READ

Leak staffer ousted: Frist aide forced out in an effort to assuage Dems

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) top aide on judicial nominees is expected to announce his resignation at the end of this week — a sacrifice offered by the GOP leadership in hope of persuading the Democrats to wind down the fight over leaked Judiciary Committee memos.
The aide, Manuel Miranda, had spearheaded the Republican effort to push President Bush’s judicial nominees through the Senate in the face of fierce Democratic opposition.
Miranda declined a request for comment. But The Hill has learned that he agreed to resign under pressure from Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). The Democrats have not agreed to scale back their demands for wide-ranging punishments following a full-blown leak inquiry. READ

Senate mulls same-sex marriage

Saying same-sex marriages are likely to spread across America like a "wildfire," Republican senators, including Majority Leader Bill Frist, exhorted Congress Wednesday to embrace a constitutional amendment banning them.
" We simply will not let activist judges redefine that definition of marriage," the Tennessee Republican said a gathering of anti-gay marriage activists. "We will not let activist judges redefine -- I would say radically redefine -- what marriage is, and that is a union between a man and a woman."
But in an unlikely alliance, some "limited government" conservatives, gay rights and civil rights supporters all plan to fight an amendment, even though they may not agree on the gay marriage question.
" This is not to say that conservatives such as myself necessarily favor gay marriages, but that we strongly oppose the notion of addressing this issue of social policy in our nation's governing document," said Chuck Muth, president of Citizen Outreach. READ

Rehnquist questioned on Cheney-Scalia trip

Two leading Democratic senators asked Chief Justice William Rehnquist on Thursday about the propriety of a hunting trip Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took with Vice President Dick Cheney while Cheney has a case pending before the high court.
In a letter to Rehnquist, Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut asked the chief justice to tell them what "canons, procedures and rules" are in place to determine when justices should recuse themselves from cases. READ

Cheney Target of Criminal Investigation

Though neglected by major media in the United States, international news sources report that French law enforcement authorities have made Vice President Dick Cheney the target of a criminal investigation for his role in a massive bribery scandal during his time as CEO of Halliburton.
Le Figaro, one of France's biggest (and most conservative) newspapers, reports "an investigative judge is looking into allegations of corruption during construction of a natural gas complex in Nigeria by Halliburton and" a French oil company. READ

How America Doesn't Vote

One outcome of this year's presidential election is already certain: people will show up to vote and find they have been wrongly taken off the rolls. The lists of eligible voters kept by localities around the country are the gateway to democracy, and they are also a national scandal. In 2000, the American public saw, in Katherine Harris's massive purge of eligible voters in Florida, how easy it is for registered voters to lose their rights by bureaucratic fiat. Missouri's voting-list problems received far less attention, but may have disenfranchised more eligible voters.
It's hard to judge where voting lists are being mishandled, since the procedures by which they are kept and corrected are shrouded in secrecy. That's the beginning of the problem. The public has a right to know that the rolls are being properly maintained — and to know it before the election. As became clear in 2000, after the fact is too late. READ

How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election

ES&S, Diebold and Sequoia may not be household names like Enron or Arthur Andersen, but these three companies will decide America's next president. In the 2004 presidential election, the full effect of electronic voting will be felt for the first time and these are the companies that will report the majority of the results.
Despite assurances from the corporations that own these machines, the reliability of electronic voting is under intense criticism. One of the most comprehensive examinations of electronic voting fraud came from brothers James and Kenneth Collier. In their 1992 book Votescam: The Stealing of America, the brothers detailed the long history of voting fraud over the past twenty-five years with a special focus on voting machines. American politicians and large media outlets have ignored their book, and their charges remain unanswered. READ

Waking Up the Vote By Doris "Granny D" Haddock

I am on a long trek across our beautiful country to see what one person and a few friends might do to engage more citizens in this democracy and to have them participate in the coming election in a way that will provide us with leadership that we will all have had a hand in selecting. That may seem like boring old politics, but it is much more than that, at least to me. And my journey is a great joy.On the farms where I have stayed, and in the poorest corners of our poorest neighborhoods, I have met so many people who are kind and generous and full of dreams for their lives and for their community and for their country. It is heartbreaking sometimes to see how far their reality is from their dreams. Can I do anything to be of assistance? It is a simple question.I am not an expert. I have no special university degrees or training that might suggest I have a role to play. And yet I do have a role to play, and so do we all. To be a citizen of the United States of America is a very big job but it takes no special qualifications other than a capacity for love and a determination to take your part.In my travels, I have found communities waiting for ideas and leadership and hope. In the poorest communities of Tampa and Fort Myers and Miami I have met people who are alienated from our democracy. They live in another nation, almost. They long for respect, inclusion, prosperity, dignity. They search for it in their own way.