GWBush Action Figure (who said being a hero isn't child's play)
Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush - U.S. President and Naval Aviator - 12" Action Figure Price: $39.99

BBI proudly introduces the latest issue in its Elite Force series of authentic military 12- inch figures, President George W. Bush in naval aviator flight uniform. Exacting in detail and fully equipped with authentic gear, this limited-edition action figure is a meticulous 1:6 scale recreation of the Commander-in-Chief's appearance during his historic Aircraft Carrier landing. On May 1, 2003, President Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in the Pacific Ocean, and officially declared the end to major combat in Iraq. While at the controls of an S-3B Viking aircraft from the "Blue Sea Wolves" of Sea Control Squadron Three Five (VS-35), designated "Navy 1," he overflew the carrier before handing it over to the pilot for landing. Attired in full naval aviator flight equipment, the President then took the salute on the deck of the carrier.
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Bush supporters use carrier photo in raising money

The White House said that President Bush's landing on an aircraft carrier to declare the end of war in Iraq was not intended for his political gain. But a conservative group that supports Bush's policies has built a fundraising campaign around an official Navy photo of the president on the ship's deck.
Citizens United for the Bush Agenda is asking up to $1,000 from 30,000 people who were mailed the photo in the past month. For an additional $43, which refers to Bush being the 43d president, donors can also receive an official baseball cap bearing the name and image of the carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln. For $75, they can get two. READ

Former VP attacks president on Iraq war and economic issues

Former vice president Al Gore, in a rousing campaign-style speech yesterday, turned the ''honor and integrity'' issue invoked by President Bush against the Clinton-Gore administration against Bush himself, saying the president has forced an unwanted ideological agenda on the nation.
The 35-minute address was viewed by some political observers as a trial balloon for entry into the presidential race, though Gore's aides touted it as an attempt to breath some fire into the Democratic campaign to take on Bush. Many Democrats have complained that without a front-runner for the party's nomination, there has been no consistent attack on Bush at a time when the president appears vulnerable.
And while he attacked his rival from 2000 with a thoroughness unusual even in a campaign, Gore implicitly criticized leading Democrats, too, saying ''both Congress and the news media have been less vigilant and exacting than they should have been in the way they have tried to hold the administration accountable.'' READ

Howard Dean's: 16 QUESTIONS FOR PRESIDENT BUSH

1. Mr. President, beyond the NSC and CIA officials who have been identified, we need to know who else at the White House was involved in the decision to include the discredited uranium evidence in your speech, and, if they knew it was false, why did they permit it to be included in the speech
...6. Mr. President, we need to know why Secretary Rumsfeld created a secret intelligence unit at the Pentagon that selectively identified questionable intelligence to support the case for war including the supposed link to al-Qaeda while ignoring, burying or rejecting any evidence to the contrary. (New Yorker, Seymour Hersh, 5/12/03)
7. Mr. President, we need to know what the basis was for Secretary Rumsfeld's assertion that the US had bulletproof evidence linking Al Qaeda to Iraq, despite the fact that U.S. intelligence analysts have consistently agreed that Saddam did not have a "meaningful connection" to Al Qaeda. (NY Times, Schmitt, Eric, 9/28/2002, NY Times, Krugman, Paul, 7/15/2003)
8. Mr. President, we need to know why Vice President Cheney claimed last September to have "irrefutable evidence" that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program, an assertion he repeated in March, on the eve of war. (AP, 9/20/2002, NBC 3/16/2003) READ

Democrat Eyes Potential Grounds for Bush Impeachment

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham said on Thursday there were grounds to impeach President Bush if he was found to have led America to war under false pretenses.
While Graham did not call for Bush's impeachment, he said if the president lied about the reasons for going to war with Iraq it would be "more serious" than former President Bill Clinton's lie under oath about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
" If in fact we went to war under false pretenses that is a very serious charge," Graham, the senior U.S. senator from Florida, told reporters in New Hampshire. READ

(AUGUST) Bush's Popularity Wanes in Slow Economy

A new poll show President Bush's popularity dropping and the focus of the public's attention shifting. (Audio)
People want President Bush to focus most of his attention on the struggling economy, says a new poll that indicates his public support has fallen to about the level it was two years ago.
The president's job approval rating fell to 53 percent in a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, close to his level of support before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and down from 58 percent in July. READ

(July) Zogby Poll

Bush Job Performance Slips to 53% Positive, 46% Negative; More Voters (47%) Say It's Time for Someone New Than Say He Deserves Re-election; Two-in-Three Say it Makes No Difference if WMDs Are Never Found, According to Newest Zogby America Poll
President George W. Bush's job performance rating has slipped to 53% positive, his lowest since the terrorist attacks in 2001, according to a poll of 1,004 likely U.S. voters by Zogby International. His negative rating reached 46%, just under his pre-9/11 unfavorable of 49%: READ

(July) Poll: Rising Doubts
President Facing New Challenges of Credibility and Casualties

Americans are expressing rising dismay with U.S. casualties in Iraq, declining confidence in the Bush administration — and growing doubt whether the war was worth fighting.
The administration faces trouble on credibility and casualties alike. Half the public thinks it "intentionally exaggerated" evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And 52 percent, a majority for the first time, call the level of U.S. casualties "unacceptable."
While 57 percent still say the war was worth fighting, that's fallen from 70 percent as the main fighting wound down at the end of April. Eighty percent now express concern about getting "bogged down in a long and costly peacekeeping mission"; 43 percent are "very concerned" about that outcome, up 11 points since last month. READ

(July) Poll Shows Drop in Bush Approval Rating

The American public has growing doubts about President Bush's efforts to improve the nation's economy and improve its health care system, a poll says, but they're not convinced that Democrats have the answers.
Bush's approval rating stood at 60 percent in the survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, a significant drop from his 74 percent rating on April 9, the day the 40-foot statue of Saddam Hussein fell in Baghdad and U.S. commanders said the Iraqi ruler's reign had ended. READ

CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org.
The Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates (UAE) documents likewise feature a map of each country’s oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker terminals. There are supporting charts with details of the major oil and gas development projects in each country that provide information on the projects, costs, capacity, oil company and status or completion date. READ

What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11 

A captured Al Qaida document reveals that US energy companies were secretly negotiating with the Taliban to build a pipeline. The document was obtained by the FBI but was not allowed to be shared with other agencies in order to protect Enron. Multiple sources confirm that American law enforcement agencies were deliberately kept in the dark and systematically prevented from connecting the dots before 9/11 in order to aid Enron’s secret and immoral Taliban negotiations.
...However, in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neill resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal. Loftus has confirmed that it was O’Neill who originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the Embassy bombings in Africa.
...The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse. 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 to restart its nuclear program 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 authorization for the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein.
 The allegations against Mr Cheney have come most vocally from a group of senior former intelligence officials who believe that information from the intelligence community was selectively used to support a war fought for political reasons. In an open letter to President George Bush, the group have asked that he demand Mr Cheney's resignation. READ

Supressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly into the CIA’s Highest Ranks  
CIA Executive Director “Buzzy” Krongard managed firm that handled “PUT” options on United Airline Stock  

Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, there is abundant and clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the case of at least one of these trades -- which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed -- the firm used to place the “put options” on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three Executive Director position at the Central Intelligence Agency.  
...On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance;… Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent “insiders,” they would represent a gain of about $4 million.
-  The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.
-  No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday. READ

Pentagon cancels scheme for wagering on terror The ultimate speculation

The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online futures market.
...Under the discarded plan, traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel, say, or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have had the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The Pentagon called its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the "broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." But two Democratic senators who disclosed the plan on Monday called it morally repugnant and grotesque. The senators said the program fell under the control of Admiral John Poindexter, the national security adviser under former President Ronald Reagan. READ

Poindexter's Gambit What Was Behind the Pentagon's Betting Parlor?

...The announced purpose of the Policy Analysis Market, as it was known, was to harness the "anonymous forces of market capitalism" to predict the likelihood of acts of terrorism - much as commodity-trading speculates on the future price of coffee or pork bellies. The Pentagon's justification was that "markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information."
But critics in the Senate raised moral, as well as tactical concerns, in pointing out the obvious. Not only were markets faulty predictors of the future (witness the last stock market bubble and its collapse), but if anonymous online traders could bet on the probability of various acts of terrorism in the Middle East - assassinations and coups - the setup was an invitation to mischief, including insider-trading by terrorists themselves. This may have been the Pentagon's real intent all along: to use its cyber-surveillance capability to track buyers and sellers. But even as a long-term sting operation, it was ripe for abuse by speculators of every stripe. READ

Poindexter to Quit Pentagon Post Amid Controversy

John Poindexter, the retired Navy admiral who spearheaded two sharply criticized Pentagon projects, intends to resign from his Defense Department post within weeks, a senior U.S. defense official said on Thursday.
 ``It's my understanding that he ... expects to, within a few weeks, offer his resignation," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.
 Poindexter was involved with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's abandoned futures-trading market for predicting assassinations, terrorism and other events in the Middle East, and earlier with the so-called Total Information Awareness program that drew fire from civil rights groups. READ

No More Terrorism - Wanna Bet?

Last week, critics killed the latest brilliant idea to come out of Washington. Some pesky naysayers stopped the Defense Department's plan to allow people to bet on where and when the next terrorist attack might occur.
...This "Windfall for Terrorists" program was the brainchild of the Defense Department's John M. Poindexter. You probably remember him from the Iran-Contra scandal. He was also a proponent of Star Wars-like command bunkers in space to protect us from foreign attacks. But we can't just blame the "Betting On The Bad Guys" plan on Poindexter. Its Web site was already online, they had already spent $600,000 of our money and the Pentagon had requested another $8 million over the next two years. In other words, even though everybody acted like it was somebody else's dog that messed up the carpet, an awful lot of people -- Democrats and Republicans -- must have known about it. READ

THE GW BUSH--OSAMA BIN LADIN CONNECTION

James R. Bath, friend and neighbor of George W. Bush, was used as a cash funnel from Osama bin Laden's rich father, Sheikh bin Laden, to set George W. Bush up in business, according to reputable sources from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The connection between GW Bush, the bin Laden family, and the Bank Commerce Credit International (BCCI) is well documented.
..."Bath--who made his fortune by investing money for Mahfouz and another BCCI-connected Saudi, Sheikh bin-Laden--...was an original investor in George Bush Jr.'s oil exploration company..." from The Outlaw Bank, page 229.
" Bath provided financing to George W. Bush, the future president's eldest son, when he went into the oil business..." from False Profits, page 365. READ

U.S. Clamps Secrecy on Warnings Before 9/11
It's not just the Saudi secret that's being kept.

The recent report of the joint congressional committee that probed intelligence failures before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon reveals what the Bush administration doesn't want Americans to know about the American government.
...The dustup over Saudi secrets is exquisitely convenient. It obscures George W. Bush's relentless hold on U.S. secrets and on information he maintains should be secret, though it has not necessarily been before now.
...The White House refused to provide contents of the president's daily brief. This would clear up questions about how much specific information President Bush received about an impending attack during the spring and summer of 2001 - a period in which the intelligence community was reporting with alarm that a "spectacular" attack against the United States involving "mass casualties" was in the works. READ

White House, CIA Kept Key Portions of Report Classified

President Bush was warned in a more specific way than previously known about intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda terrorists were seeking to attack the United States, a report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks indicated yesterday. Separately, the report cited one CIA memo that concluded there was "incontrovertible evidence" that Saudi individuals provided financial assistance to al Qaeda operatives in the United States.
These revelations are not the subject of the congressional report's narratives or findings, but are among the nuggets embedded in a story focused largely on the mid-level workings of the CIA, FBI and U.S. military.
Two intriguing -- and politically volatile -- questions surrounding the Sept. 11 plot have been how personally engaged Bush and his predecessor were in counterterrorism before the attacks, and what role some Saudi officials may have played in sustaining the 19 terrorists who commandeered four airplanes and flew three of them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. READ

Saudi Government Provided Aid to 9/11 Hijackers, Sources Say

The 27 classified pages of a congressional report about Sept. 11 depict a Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups through suspect charities and other fronts, according to sources familiar with the document.
One U.S. official who has read the classified section said it describes "very direct, very specific links" between Saudi officials, two of the San Diego-based hijackers and other potential co-conspirators "that cannot be passed off as rogue, isolated or coincidental."
Said another official: "It's really damning. What it says is that not only Saudi entities or nationals are implicated in 9/11, but the [Saudi] government" as well. READ

Report on 9-11 to be released this month
Final version, being called "highly explosive," tells of U.S. mistakes, Saudi terrorist funding.

A long-awaited final report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will be released in the next two weeks, containing new information about U.S. government mistakes and Saudi financing of terrorists.
One former House Intelligence Committee member who has read the report, Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., described the findings as "highly explosive."
He said it was "compelling and galvanizing and will refocus the public's attention on Sept. 11." Roemer predicted that "certain mistakes, errors and gaps in the system will be made clear."
...A source familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two "sensitive areas" of the public report are especially likely to make headlines.
One section provides new information on ties between the Saudi royal family, government officials and terrorists. The FBI may have mishandled an investigation into how two of the Sept. 11 hijackers received aid from Saudi groups and individuals....
The other section is a narrative of intelligence warnings, some of them ignored or not shared with other agencies, before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The report will show that top Bush administration officials were warned in the summer of 2001 that the al-Qaida terrorist network had plans to hijack aircraft and launch a "spectacular attack." READ

9/11 report: No Iraq link to al-Qaida

The report of the joint congressional inquiry into the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, to be published Thursday, reveals U.S. intelligence had no evidence that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, or that it had supported al-Qaida, United Press International has learned.
...Asked whether he believed the report will reveal that there was no connection between al-Qaida and Iraq, Cleland replied: "I do ... There's no connection, and that's been confirmed by some of (al-Qaida leader Osama) bin Laden's terrorist followers."
The revelation is likely to embarrass the Bush administration, which made links between Saddam's support for bin Laden -- and the attendant possibility that Iraq might supply al-Qaida with weapons of mass destruction -- a major plank of its case for war. READ

Bush's High Crimes Against the Nation 

George W. Bush has knowingly deceived the American people on the two overriding policy issues of his presidency — the invasion of Iraq and the deep tax cuts.
 Other presidents have lied. Only Bush has repeatedly duped Congress and the public to thwart their exercise of informed consent.
 He is the first president to use propaganda as the main weapon in selling his policies. Bush's unprecedented pattern of deception may constitute an impeachable offense. READ

U.S. Shifts Rhetoric On Its Goals in Iraq: New Emphasis: Middle East Stability

As the search for illegal weapons in Iraq continues without success, the Bush administration has moved to emphasize a different rationale for the war against Saddam Hussein: using Iraq as the "linchpin" to transform the Middle East and thereby reduce the terrorist threat to the United States.
President Bush, who has mostly stopped talking about Iraq's weapons, said at a news conference Wednesday that "the rise of a free and peaceful Iraq is critical to the stability of the Middle East, and a stable Middle East is critical to the security of the American people."
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that "the battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the global war on terror, and those sacrifices are going to make not just the Middle East more stable, but our country safer." READ 

Senate Rebuffs Democrats' Moves to Challenge Bush on Iraq

Senate Republicans yesterday held the line against Democratic efforts to challenge President Bush over Iraq, rejecting initiatives to internationalize postwar operations and to create a commission to probe how intelligence was used -- or misused -- to justify going to war.
 The GOP-controlled Senate also defeated two Democratic proposals to force the administration to spell out the anticipated costs of continuing military operations in Iraq.
 The showdowns came as Democrats stepped up their attacks on prewar intelligence failures and postwar efforts to bring stability to Iraq, prompting a week of controversy that will culminate today with an address by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's closest ally in the war, to a joint meeting of Congress. READ

400,000 Letters to Congress Seek War Evidence Probe

More than 400,000 letters have been sent to members of the U.S. Congress backing a call for an independent investigation into intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war, organizers of an online campaign said on Tuesday.
The campaign, being run by the advocacy group Moveon.org (http://www.moveon.org), is trying to pressure lawmakers to back a bill introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, that would create a nonpartisan commission to probe the intelligence. READ

The Bush administration's Top 40 Lies about war and terrorism

1) The administration was not bent on war with Iraq from 9/11 onward.
2) The invasion of Iraq was based on a reasonable belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the U.S., a belief supported by available intelligence evidence.
3) Saddam tried to buy uranium in Niger.
4) The aluminum tubes were proof of a nuclear program.
5) Iraq's WMDs were sent to Syria for hiding.
6) The CIA was primarily responsible for any prewar intelligence errors or distortions regarding Iraq. READ

24 "Deceptions" In 704 words: Bush's 2003 SOTU
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

1. "We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations." How about the nearly $7 trillion national debt that's increasing by $475 billion or more this year and every year that Bush remains in office.
...10. "In Afghanistan, we helped liberate an oppressed people. And we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society…" Still not liberated outside of Kabul, not secure and not even remotely rebuilt two years after we "won" the war.
11. "We have the terrorists on the run. We're keeping them on the run." Osama and Saddam don't seem out of breath to me. READ

Guide to Official Changes in British Dossier Against Iraq

From the September dossier to yesterday's backtrack: a truth-spotter's guide to how official language has changed 11 July 2003
* "It was important to understand the purpose of the dossier. It was asking two questions: Had the threat increased? If so, did we have to deal with it? The answer to both questions was yes."
Downing Street press briefing, 23 September 2002
* Verdict: Downing Street made the key charge that the threat from Saddam had "increased" on the eve of the publication of the September dossier. Senior figures, including the former cabinet ministers Clare Short and Robin Cook now seriously doubt whether the threat had been maintained since the early 1990s, let alone increased. READ

In Sketchy Data, White House Sought Clues to Gauge Threat

Beginning last summer, Bush administration officials insisted that they had compelling new evidence about Iraq's prohibited weapons programs, and only occasionally acknowledged in public how little they actually knew about the current status of Baghdad's chemical, biological or nuclear arms.
...Now, with the failure so far to find prohibited weapons in Iraq, American intelligence officials and senior members of the administration have acknowledged that there was little new evidence flowing into American intelligence agencies in the five years since United Nations inspectors left Iraq, creating an intelligence vacuum. READ

White House 'lied about Saddam threat'

A former US intelligence official who served under the Bush administration in the build-up to the Iraq war accused the White House yesterday of lying about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
...This was the first time an administration official has put his name to specific claims. The whistleblower, Gregory Thielmann, served as a director in the state department's bureau of intelligence until his retirement in September, and had access to the classified reports which formed the basis for the US case against Saddam, spelled out by President Bush and his aides.
Mr Thielmannn said yesterday: "I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq."
He conceded that part of the problem lay with US intelligence, but added: "Most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided." READ

Bush overstated Iraq links to al-Qaida, former intelligence officials say

As President Bush works to quiet a controversy over his discredited claim of Iraqi uranium shopping in Africa, another of his prewar assertions is coming under fire: the alleged link between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida.
Before the war, Bush and members of his cabinet said Saddam was harboring top al-Qaida operatives and suggested Iraq could slip the terrorist network chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons.
...''There was no significant pattern of cooperation between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist operation,'' former State Department intelligence official Greg Thielmann said this week.
Intelligence agencies agreed on the ''lack of a meaningful connection to al-Qaida'' and said so to the White House and Congress, said Thielmann, who left State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research last September. READ

Ex-Spies: CIA Workers Outraged

Before the bombs fell on Baghdad, there were analysts inside the American intelligence community who were troubled by the U.S. case for war, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Acosta.
Raymond McGovern, a former CIA analyst and supervisor, says, "Never before in my 40 years of experience in this town has intelligence been used in so cynical and so orchestrated a way."
McGovern is one of several retired intelligence analysts who say they are speaking out for those who can't inside the CIA.
" The Agency analysts that we are in touch with are disheartened, dispirited, angry," he says. "They are outraged." READ

White House Striking Back?
Former Ambassador Charges Mudslinging Over Statements

They were just 16 words in the State of the Union address - words that we now know were misleading. And this man, retired career diplomat Joe Wilson tried to warn the administration of just that nearly a year before the speech.
 Now in an NBC News exclusive, Wilson says his family is the subject of a smear campaign. Wilson tells NBC News the White House deliberately leaked his wife's identity as a covert CIA operative, damaging her future career and compromising past missions after he criticized the administration on "Meet the Press" and in the New York Times. READ

Ex-Diplomat Joseph Wilson: Bush May Start Another War in 2004 To Win The Election

Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson predicts the situation in Iraq will deteriorate so much over the next year Bush may resort to start another war in order to win the 2004 election. Wilson is the retired diplomat who visited Niger in a CIA-sponsored trip last year during which he determined the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal was bogus. His conclusion was ignored by the Bush White House. READ

US Government and World Family Needs Crisis Intervention Now

As a psychotherapist, I have been trained to listen, observe, to interpret body language and behaviors. I coach life skills, such as healthy self talk, and in interpersonal skills, such as communication and anger management. These days many clinicians have expanded their lenses to catch more than the inner psyches-we look at an individual's family dynamics, and beyond, to cultural, including gender, influences. We know that each of us is more than our own interior configurations of inherited traits and learned adaptations to our environment-we also influence and are influenced by the communities and nations we live in.
...We have seen such an escalation of violence in our administration's behavior towards, currently, Iraq-the name-calling of heads of states: ("axis of evil", "maniac", "devil"). We have seen control of $ (called economic sanctions), and the heightening of our nuclear and ground force arsenals. We will even use our own children as weapons (soldiers). READ

Conflict 'may have driven Muslims into arms of al-Qa'ida'

The war to topple Saddam Hussein may have damaged the campaign against international terrorism by driving Muslims into the arms of al-Qa'ida, an all-party committee of MPs said yesterday.
The Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee said al-Qa'ida remained a "significant threat" to Britain, after hearing that the terrorist network may still have the loyalty of more than 17,000 militants in up to 60 countries.
In a report that raises questions about an important part of the justification for war, MPs said the campaign in Iraq might have "enhanced the appeal of al-Qa'ida to Muslims living in the Gulf region and elsewhere". READ

Afghans on Edge of Chaos

As opium production and banditry soar, the country is at risk of anarchy, some warn, and could allow a Taliban resurgence.
...Already the signs are there — a boom in opium production, rampant banditry and huge swaths of territory unsafe for Western aid workers. The central government has almost no power over regional warlords who control roads and extort money from truck drivers, choking commerce and trade.
If the country slips into anarchy, it risks becoming a haven for resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. And the point of U.S. military action here could be lost — a major setback in the war against terrorism. READ

The Unreported Cost of War: At Least 827 American Wounded

US military casualties from the occupation of Iraq have been more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely unreported in the media.
 Since May 1, when President George Bush declared the end of major combat operations, 52 American soldiers have been killed by hostile fire, according to Pentagon figures quoted in almost all the war coverage. But the total number of US deaths from all causes is much higher: 112.
 The other unreported cost of the war for the US is the number of American wounded, 827 since Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
 Unofficial figures are in the thousands. About half have been injured since the president's triumphant appearance on board the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln at the beginning of May. Many of the wounded have lost limbs.READ

The cost of war

War affects everyone, not just those directly involved in the fighting. This webpage is a simple attempt to demonstrate one of the more quantifiable effects of war: the financial burden it places on our tax dollars.
To the right you will find a running total of the amount of money spent by the US Government to finance the war in Iraq. This total is based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Below the total are a number of different ways that we could have chosen to use the money. Try clicking on them; you might be surprised to learn what a difference we could have made. READ

The National Priorities Project Interactive: How your tax dollars are spent

The National Priorities Project (NPP) offers citizen and community groups tools and resources to shape federal budget and policy priorities which promote social and economic justice.
...For a number of years, NPP has focused on the trade-offs between military spending and tax breaks with social spending. This has enabled us to build bridges between the peace community and the many groups fighting for social and economic justice, expanding the number of groups who will work on both community needs and peace. READ

Defense and the National Interest: Charts and Data

Welcome to Defense and the National Interest. Our aim is to foster debate on the roles of the U.S. armed forces in the post-Cold War era and on the resources devoted to them. The ultimate purpose is to help create a more effective national defense against the types of threats we will likely face during the first decades of the new millennium.
... Recently, several commentators have called for increasing US defense spending to an arbitrary percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). The charts in this section show the implications relative both to historical US defense budgets and to what the rest of the world spends. For further information, please refer to Comment 381. READ

Committee To Focus On FAA Search For Texas Democrats

A House committee in Washington is expected to meet Tuesday to discuss federal involvement in the search for Texas lawmakers earlier this summer.
The Democratic legislators left the state to kill a Republican-backed redistricting bill.
The focus of Tuesday's meeting will be the Federal Aviation Administration's role in searching for state Representative Pete Laney's plane. The Transportation Department released an investigative report last week. READ

DeLay, FAA Roles in Tex. Redistricting Flap Detailed

A request from the office of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for information about an airplane he suspected was carrying Texas Democrats from the state legislature ultimately led the Federal Aviation Agency to issue a special lookout for the plane in May, U.S. officials said yesterday.
...Calls to the FAA from an unidentified aide to DeLay and from a Texas state police officer prompted 13 FAA officials to join the effort to locate Laney's plane, according to a report released yesterday by Kenneth Mead, the Department of Transportation's inspector general. READ

Texas Democrats hole up in New Mexico GOP: Return and work on redistricting plan

...The Democrats walked out on Monday, forcing the Senate to a standstill amid a second special session over the rancorous redistricting debate. The move came less than three months after House Democrats fled for Oklahoma to protest the redistricting plan.
Republicans are pressing for more seats in the state's 32-member delegation to the U.S. House. The Democrats hold a 17-15 advantage, which Republicans say does not reflect the state's increasingly Republican voting patterns. Most Democrats want to keep the congressional map drawn by a three-judge federal panel in 2001. READ

Texas Lt. Governor Threatens Lawmakers On The Lam

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he might turn to legal action to force 11 Texas Democratic state senators to return home, but he refused to discuss what those legal options might be. READ

Republicans Broke Quorum in 1993

After weeks of Republican claims that they never had broken a quorum, the Associated Press is reporting today that 11 Republican Senators broke a quorum in 1993 to, ironically enough, stop a redistricting bill.
" It seems to me that Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, Tom Craddick and other Republican leaders have some explaining to do," said Molly Beth Malcolm, Texas Democratic Party Chairwoman. "They need to tell the people of Texas why they are attacking the Democratic Senators for something their own Senators did ten years ago." READ

Bald-Faced Lies About Black Box Voting Machines and The Truth About the Rob-Georgia File

...Official stories about voting machine security, acceptance testing and last-minute program changes are beginning to slide around like hot grease on a Georgia griddle.
What was the program patch known as rob-georgia.zip used for? What were they doing with that ftp site, anyway? Hang in for the first part of this article, the finger-pointing and obfuscating part, because it concludes with a straightforward explanation of what went on in Georgia that has never been made public before. READ

More Calls to Vet Voting Machines

A recent report that showed touch-screen voting machines could be vulnerable to hackers spurred the National Association of Secretaries of State, a majority of whose members are in charge of their states' elections, to consider whether the standards for the machines should be beefed up to prevent tampering.
...Computer scientists have raised concerns about the security of computerized voting machines for the past few years, but they haven't been able to gather much support from election officials, who remain confident that the systems are basically secure from tampering and breakdowns. The Johns Hopkins study is the first piece of evidence that current touch-screen technology could be seriously flawed. READ

Study finds computer voting system vulnerable to tampering

An electronic voting system used in some states as an alternative to the troublesome punch-card ballots is highly vulnerable to fraud, computer security experts warned in a study released Thursday.
The study found ``significant security flaws'' with the system designed by Diebold Election Systems. The system was vulnerable to unscrupulous voters as well as ``insiders such as poll workers, software developers and even janitors,'' who could cast multiple votes without a trace, the study said.
...Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, a lead researcher on the study, said there is no quick fix for the software.
``You would have to start over,'' he said. READ

U.S. to test expat cybervoting

As many as 100,000 American military personnel and civilians abroad will have the opportunity to cast their vote via the Internet in elections next year under a new U.S. government plan.
...While the proponents say online voting presents a practical and speedy alternative to paper ballots, critics say that there is a strong possibility of voting fraud and Internet viruses corrupting or derailing the process.
“ If you have a kiosk under lock and key, it would be a secure site,” said John Dunbar, of the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity in Washington, “but if you can vote on the fly with your own laptop, there is no security guarantee.”
Dunbar, who wrote a report reviewing the 2000 Pentagon pilot experiment, said it was badly flawed and enormously expensive. The $6 million project cost taxpayers nearly $74,000 per vote. READ

Thousands to Cast Ballots by Web in 2004

Imagine casting a vote for president from a cybercafe in Thailand, an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf or a laptop computer at home.
Thousands of people serving in the military and Americans living abroad will have that option next year in the nation's most extensive Internet voting experiment, viewed by some as a step toward elections in cyberspace.The Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, which began as a tiny demonstration project in the 2000 general election and involved just 84 voters, could give 100,000 voters the chance to cast absentee ballots online in next year's presidential primaries and general election.
Other computer security experts call the project an open invitation to election tampering.
" We're opening up a whole host of opportunities for voter coercion and voter fraud," said Rebecca Mercuri, a research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government who specializes in studying electronic vote tabulation.Mercuri said even the most secure systems can be cracked, hacked or left vulnerable to Internet viruses, leaving the ballot contents and the identity of the voter open to perusal. READ

Is Bush a Shoo-In for '04? Not Yet

While his popularity seems unassailable now, any of several issues could still turn voters against the President if he isn't very careful
That may not sound profound. But the more I followed politics over the years, the more I came to realize the man was posing the essential judgment most voters make in deciding whether to stick with their Commander-in-Chief. Not "Is he doing a good job?" mind you. "Is he trying to do a good job?" Ever since FDR, U.S. Presidents generally have enjoyed a deep reservoir of good will with the electorate -- even among those who didn't vote for them. Get on the wrong side of this question, however, and it's over. READ

DLC Division

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) has made its way by sowing division in the Democratic party. So it comes as no surprise that on July 2, its founder Al From and new president Bruce Reed ventured yet again into the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal to warn its readers of the perils of a liberal Democratic presidential nominee. Given its location and its platitudes, the article should be viewed more as a fundraising pitch to the DLC’s corporate sponsors than a serious political analysis.
...What From and Reed are doing is assuring corporate sponsors that they will continue the good fight against advocates of expansive government, fair trade, social liberalism and, shudder, anti-war sentiments inside the Democratic Party. It is a sign of their muddle that they seek to send that signal in an article emptied of content. READ

Green Party Taking the Plunge for 2004

For the 2004 presidential race, the Green dye is cast.
" The Green Party emerged from a national meeting ... increasingly certain that it will run a presidential candidate in next year's election, all but settling a debate within the group over how it should approach the 2004 contest," the Washington Post reported on July 21. The Green Party promptly put out a news release declaring that Greens "affirmed the party's intention to run candidates for president and vice president of the United States in 2004."
...Days later, national party co-chair Anita Rios told me that she's "ambivalent" about the prospect of a Green presidential race next year. Another co-chair, Jo Chamberlain, mentioned "mixed feelings about it." Theoretically, delegates to the national convention next June could pull the party out of the '04 presidential race. But the chances of that happening are very slim. The momentum is clear. READ

Florida May Fine GOP Figure for 2000 Recount Actions

As Florida's presidential recount raged in December 2000, a newly created political group spent $150,000 attacking three pro-Democratic state Supreme Court justices who threatened George W. Bush's hopes for victory.
The Florida Elections Commission now says the "Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary" was a front group for unidentified donors trying to ensure Bush's election. The panel is weighing a possible $450,000 fine against the committee's chairwoman, Republican Mary McCarty, a Palm Beach County commissioner.
But the committee's real organizer, the election commission said, was veteran GOP political consultant Roger Stone, who has been involved in major campaigns dating to Richard M. Nixon's administration. The election commission wanted to question Stone, who owns a home in Florida, but it couldn't locate him to serve a subpoena. READ

Bush plan to put gas pipeline in rainforest: Scheme would enrich his backers

PRESIDENT George Bush is seeking funds for a controversial project to drive gas pipelines from pristine rainforests in the Peruvian Amazon to the coast.
The plan will enrich some of Mr Bush's closest corporate campaign contributors while risking the destruction of rainforest, threatening its indigenous peoples and endangering rare species on the coast.
Among the beneficiaries would be two Texas energy companies with close ties to the White House, Hunt Oil and Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Vice-President Dick Cheney's old company, Haliburton, which is rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure. READ

President Bush Receives Cool Reception in South Africa
Policies on Iraq, AIDS, International Court Sources of Criticism

President Bush received a cool reception today in the capital of Africa's largest economic power, as opinion leaders across the continent complained about his policies on Iraq, AIDS and the International Criminal Court.
...Here in South Africa, the country's revered former president Nelson Mandela, who sharply criticized Bush on Iraq and once said he "cannot think properly," arranged to be out of the country for the three nights Bush is here. READ

Senate Votes to Repeal Bush's Overseas Abortion Rule

The Senate on Wednesday voted to overturn President Bush (news - web sites)'s order blocking U.S. assistance to international family planning agencies if they perform or advocate abortions.
Defying Bush's veto threat, the Senate by a 53-43 vote backed an amendment to repeal the president's order as lawmakers debated a bill authorizing State Department operations and foreign aid programs for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.
But Democrats leading the drive to lift the rule face an uphill struggle in the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a bigger majority.
Abortion rights advocates say the order amounts to a "global gag rule" that restricts the free speech of family planning groups and could lead to more risky abortions worldwide by denying crucial counseling. READ

US Anti-war Activists Hit by Secret Airport Ban

After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports.
The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of their fellow passengers.  READ