Poll finds Bush's job approval at 50% (11/17/03)

... As the war in Iraq drags on, the country is nearly split over the president's leadership: 50% approve of the job he is doing, and 47% disapprove.
That equals the lowest approval and highest disapproval of his presidency, which occurred in late September, when the post-combat phase of the Iraq operation took a turn for the worse. READ

Poll: Majority of voters would not re-elect Bush (11/08/03)

A poll released Saturday finds that more registered voters want to see President Bush voted out than kept in office in the next election, but his job approval rating has remained constant.
In the Newsweek poll, 50 percent of registered voters who were queried said they do not want to see Bush re-elected, while 44 percent said they do.
...The president's overall approval rating in the survey was 52 percent -- the same it has been in previous polls by the magazine during the past two months. READ

Gore to Endorse Dean, Remaking Democratic Race

Al Gore has decided to endorse Howard Dean for president, aides to the men said Monday, a move that rocked the Democratic presidential field and hastened Dr. Dean's evolution from a long-shot maverick to a leading candidate of the Democratic establishment.
...The decision by Mr. Gore, the former vice president who opened the floodgates to this crowded Democratic nomination contest by declaring last December that he would not run again, stunned Democrats and emboldened the Dean campaign, which chartered three jets to carry Dr. Dean, Mr. Gore and dozens of reporters to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. READ

Gore Accuses Bush of 'Big Brother' Policy

Former Vice President Al Gore accused President Bush on Sunday of failing to make the country safer after the Sept. 11 attacks and using the war against terrorism as a pretext to consolidate power.
``They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, 'big brother'-style government - toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book '1984' - than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America,'' Gore charged in a speech. READ

UC Berkeley Sociologist Arlie Hochschild answers the question, "Why are 50% of Blue Collar White Males Planning to Vote for Bush in 2004, Even When He is Picking Their Pockets and Stealing the Futures of Their Children?"

" George W. Bush is sinking in the polls, but a few beats on the war drum could reverse that trend and re-elect him in 2004. Ironically, the sector of American society now poised to keep him in the White House is the one which stands to lose the most from virtually all of his policies -- blue-collar men. A full 49 percent of them and 38 percent percent of blue-collar women told a January 2003 Roper poll they would vote for Bush in 2004." -- Arlie Hochschild
Perhaps the central paradox for a Democratic presidential candidate is figuring out how to attract some of the 50% of blue collar workers who might vote for Bush. Howard Dean awkwardly addressed the issue when he referred to the need to attract guys with "Confederate flag bumper stickers." Dean used the wrong metaphor, but he was correct in identifying a key election challenge for the Democrats.
Recently, we read a TomDispatch.Com article by Arlie Hochschild, "Let Them Eat War," and were impressed by her understanding of the issue. Hochschild doesn't mince words: Bush's "policy -- and this his political advisor Karl Rove has carefully calibrated -- is something like the old bait-and-switch. He continues to take the steaks out of the blue-collar refrigerator and to declare instead, 'let them eat war.' He has been, in effect, strip-mining the emotional responses of blue-collar men to the problems his own administration is so intent on causing." READ

Liberals finding their voice -- and it's angry Bush is target: 'We have been too nice'

President Bush a ''liar?'' Donald Rumsfeld a Defense secretary who ''betrayed'' his troops? Republican leaders in Congress part of a ''concerted effort to erase the 20th century?''
Not since Richard Nixon left the White House have liberals felt so free to be feisty. After decades of being shushed and shooed aside by centrist Democrats who feared the party's left-wing image was turning off voters, liberals have kicked their way out of the political closet. They are loud. They are angry. And they've got a whole new attitude.
''We have been too nice. We have been too polite,'' says Ann Lewis, a veteran strategist with the Democratic National Committee, where the official party weblog is called ''Kicking Ass.'' READ

Soros, groups target Bush: President's campaign cites 'liberal special interests'

President Bush's most-feared political opponents for now may not be Democratic presidential candidates, but a billionaire financier and anti-Bush advocacy groups with big-spending plans.
" Liberal special interests, led by billionaire currency trader George Soros, are raising millions in soft, unregulated money to defeat President Bush," the Bush campaign says in an Internet posting. READ

Door by Door: Progressives hit the streets in massive voter outreach

Election Day is a year away and the Democrats don’t yet have a presidential nominee, but for labor activists, environmentalists, pro-choice advocates and other progressives, the battle for the White House is well under way.
About a dozen groups—backed by the likes of Emily’s List, the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club and MoveOn.org—are quietly building an infrastructure to undertake the most extensive door-to-door grassroots voter contact operation in U.S. history. Its potential to turn the election already is well understood on both sides: Longtime activists say they haven’t felt this energized in decades—and Republicans are using congressional hearings to shut down the operation or steal directly from its playbook.
“ It’s never been done before on this level,” says Steve Rosenthal, the former political director of the AFL-CIO and current president of America Coming Together, a voter outreach group funded by Emily’s List, organized labor and private donors such as George Soros. “It’s something that the parties should have been doing but were neglecting.” READ

James Carville's 'Had Enough'

President Bush's critics say he's taken the country from boom to bust, but now one of those political opponents is actually offering some constructive criticism. Democratic political strategist James Carville’s new book, "Had Enough? A Handbook For Fighting Back," lays out a plan for turning the country around.
...Stop apologizing for Everything. He says, “Every time I turn on the TV, some Democrat saying, ‘Gee, I don’t know why we did this.’ I point out the Democratic party won two world wars and beat the depression, cut out the poverty by two thirds and was responsible for the same sustained prosperity that we’ve had had in the United States. What the hell do we have to apologize for?” READ

100 Reasons to Dump Bush: How do we loathe him? Let us count the ways...

From the Democrats of Oklahoma Community Forum READ

124 reasons to bump Bush and his Conquestadors

1. Cut the Veteran’s Administration budget by $25 billion as he began his war in Iraq.
2. Reneged on a promise to increase funding for education and failed to fund the so-called “No Child Left Behind” Act.
3. Promised $15 billion in AIDS funding for Africa in 2003 State of the Union Address then – oops – left it out of the budget submitted a few weeks later.
4. In May 2001, Bush gave $43 Million to the Taliban.
5. Repealed the Alternative Minimum Tax for corporations, which was enacted in 1987, and REFUNDED all taxes paid,
by corporations under the AMT since its inception.
6. Won’t reveal who participated in Cheney’s energy policy meetings. [Enron, Enron and Enron???]
7. Opposed affirmative action at Michigan State in the Supreme Court case.
8. Charles Pickering, Pricilla Owens, Miguel Estrada. Packing the courts with extremists.
9. Appointed Elliott Abrams, who was convicted during Reagan administration in Iran-Contra, to the National Security Council.
10. Sealed documents from the Reagan and Bush administrations that would have revealed illegal dealings in Iran-Contra. READ

Psychological Study Links Hitler to Reagan, Limbaugh

What do Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh have in common?
According to an analysis of research literature on the psychology of conservatism, they all "preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form."
Four researchers concluded that while agendas may differ among conservatives, at its core, political conservatism is the resistance to change and a greater tolerance for inequality relative to liberals.
Published in the May 2003 edition of the Psychological Bulletin, a bi-monthly research journal, the study titled "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition" examined over 50 years of conservative thought - including journal articles, books and conference papers - involving 22,818 participants from 12 countries.
...According to the study, "common psychological factors linked to political conservatism" include fear and aggression; dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity; uncertainty avoidance; need for cognitive closure; and terror management. READ

Is the President a Pathological Liar? Bush’s unhealthy relationship with reality

...Conservative radio talk-show host Michael Medved was trying to bait me, to push me into saying something so out of whack about the commander in chief that I would destroy my own credibility before the audience of his nationally syndicated show. It was a ruse I’ve become quite familiar with in recent weeks, since I published a book demurely titled The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. In scores of media interviews, right-wing hosts have pressed me to pronounce Bush the all-time biggest SOB-of-a-liar in the White House and essentially accuse him of being a psycho. I have resisted the invitations, choosing to stick to my just-the-facts case that Bush has misled the public on a host of issues — the war in Iraq, his tax cuts, global warming, Social Security, his own past and more. The goal of these interlocutors is to dismiss any harsh critique of Bush as nothing more than angry-left name-calling. I obviously believe Bush has lied often and consistently about grave matters, but I have shied away from labeling Bush “pathological” and the like.
Now I wonder about that. READ

The Incredible Lying BushCo
This just in: More irrefutable proof that Dubya's is the slimiest administration in 100 years

...There is no doubt left. Zero. None. Even many high-ranking Republicans are deeply worried over the increasingly embittered national timbre regarding BushCo's lies, as reflected in his ever-slipping ratings and declining reelectability quotient and his smug little smirky emptiness.
Do you need to be reminded? Do you need to see it again?
Very good, then. Let us recap: No WMDs. Biggest joke on the American public in the past 50 years. Saddam doesn't have 'em, and probably never did. Over 1,400 of BushCo's own investigators and specialists and scientists -- affectionately known as the Iraq Survey Group -- canvassing postwar Iraq for six months, not to mention the teams of original U.N. investigators, and finding not a trace of anything resembling huge stockpiles of massive scary weaponry. READ

WHY CONSERVATIVES HATE AMERICA (a satire by David Podvin)

Not a day passes without conservatives condemning our beloved United States of America. For decades, they have constantly claimed that this great nation is morally weak, or militarily inadequate, or deficient in one way or another. Such a tidal wave of right wing anti-Americanism is enough to make patriotic liberals shed a tear as we pledge allegiance to the Stars and Stripes we so dearly love.
What is it about personal liberty and free enterprise and a nation built on the divine principles of Jesus Christ that provokes Republicans to spew such disparaging venom? How do right wingers feel justified in forever badmouthing the finest country the world has ever known? Why do conservatives hate America?
There is an answer, but attaining that answer requires summoning the strength to deal with a subject that has long been taboo in our society. It is finally time for us to address a forbidden yet well-documented truth: all conservatives are gay. READ

On 23 Sept 2003, the Defense Department Website called "Defend America" posted a notice for people to join local draft boards.

"If a military draft becomes necessary," the notice explained, "approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on Federal guidelines."
In early November, that notice started to receive media attention, with articles from the Associated Press, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer , the Oregonian, the Toronto Star, the BBC, and London Guardian (unsurprisingly, none of the major papers or networks in the US covered it).
In a familiar turn of events, the notice suddenly disappeared from the Website. ... We've mirrored the page and posted the text below. READ

White House Web Scrubbing

...It's not quite Soviet-style airbrushing, but the Bush administration has been using cyberspace to make some of its own cosmetic touch-ups to history.
White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq -- which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend.
Recently, however, the government has purged the offending comments by Natsios from the agency's Web site Relevant Products/Services from Interland. The transcript, and links to it, have vanished. READ

White House Covers Tracks by Removing Information

In a high-tech cover-up, the Washington Post this morning reports the White House is actively scrubbing government websites clean of any of its own previous statements that have now proven to be untrue.1 Specifically, on April 23, 2003, the president sent his top international aid official on national television to reassure the public that the cost of war and reconstruction in Iraq would be modest. USAID Director Andrew Natsios, echoing other Administration officials, told Nightline that, "In terms of the American taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the US. The American part of this will be $1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this." READ

White House Puts Limits on Queries From Democrats

The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.
...The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A. Campen, sent an e-mail titled "congressional questions" to majority and minority staff on the House and Senate Appropriations panels. Expressing "the need to add a bit of structure to the Q&A process," he wrote: "Given the increase in the number and types of requests we are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in writing from the committee."
He said this would limit "duplicate requests" and help answer questions "in a timely fashion."
It would also do another thing: prevent Democrats from getting questions answered without the blessing of the GOP committee chairmen. READ

How the White House deletes the truth

PRESIDENT BUSH blames the media for filtering out good news on Iraq. He says he does not even read newspapers. "The best way to get the news is from objective sources," Bush said in a Fox News interview. "And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."
This is the same president who erases history itself.
Bush's desire for us to become ostriches over the deaths and wounding of American soldiers in Iraq -- 379 dead and 2,155 hurt at last count -- is but one more pathological act in sticking all of America into the sand. Bush severely limited access to the presidential papers of his father. Vice President Dick Cheney erected an iron curtain around his energy task force. Hundreds of Muslim immigrants were detained without due process and with no evidence they were involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The administration wiped out parts of an Environmental Protection Agency report that specifically tied human activities to global warming.
Bush has his eraser out again. The Justice Department recently released a commissioned report on diversity among its attorneys. Half of its 186 pages were blacked out. READ

Bush orders officials to stop the leaks

Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush - living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge - told his top officials to "stop the leaks" to the media, or else.
News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately.
Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any stories" quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.
An escalating turf war involving Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has generated an unusually bountiful crop of leaks in recent months, and one result is a criminal investigation of anonymous officials in the White House who are alleged to have leaked the name of a CIA covert officer. READ

Executive privilege seen as leak-case option Shielding material is not ruled out; Democrats protest

Despite President Bush's repeated pledges of full cooperation, administration officials yesterday refused to rule out invoking executive privilege to shield some documents from Justice Department investigators looking into whether someone in the White House illegally leaked the name of a CIA operative.
Democrats who have complained that the investigation should be handled by a special counsel instead of the Justice Department because of its connections to the White House said the prospect of executive privilege being used shows that more independence is needed.
" Asserting executive privilege would make a farce of the investigation," said US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. "That's why we need a special prosecutor, so that we can challenge any coverup." READ

Naming of Agent 'Was Aimed at Discrediting CIA'

The Bush administration's exposure of a clandestine Central Intelligence Agency operative was part of a campaign aimed at discrediting US intelligence agencies for not supporting White House claims that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons programme, former agency officials said yesterday.
In a rare hearing called by Senate Democratic leaders, the officials said the White House engaged in pressure and intimidation aimed at generating intelligence evidence to support the decision to make war on Iraq.
Senior administration officials in July revealed the name of Valerie Plame, a former clandestine CIA officer and the wife of Joseph Wilson, who was sent by the CIA in 2002 to assess claims that Iraq was trying to buy enriched uranium from Niger. READ

Ashcroft Recuses Self From CIA Leak Probe

Attorney General John Ashcroft on Tuesday recused himself from the politically sensitive investigation of who leaked the name of a CIA operative. The Justice Department quickly named a special prosecutor. READ

The Bird Was Perfect But Not For Dinner: In Iraq Picture, Bush Is Holding the Centerpiece

In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge platter laden with a golden-brown turkey.
The bird is so perfect it looks as if it came from a food magazine, with bunches of grapes and other trimmings completing a Norman Rockwell image that evokes bounty and security in one of the most dangerous parts of the world.
But as a small sign of the many ways the White House maximized the impact of the 21/2-hour stop at the Baghdad airport, administration officials said yesterday that Bush picked up a decoration, not a serving plate. READ

A Baghdad Thanksgiving's Lingering Aftertaste

Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon-authorized newspaper of the U.S. military, is bucking for a court-martial.
When last we checked in on Stripes, it was reporting on a survey it did of troops in Iraq, finding that half of those questioned described their units' moral as low and their training as insufficient and said they did not plan to reenlist.
With the Pentagon just recovering from that, Stars and Stripes is blowing the whistle on President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad, saying the cheering soldiers who met him were pre-screened and others showing up for a turkey dinner were turned away. READ

Saddam was captured by Kurds, not US

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured by Kurdish forces, then drugged and handed over to the American forces as a revenge against the rape of a tribal chief's daughter by the tyrant's psychopathic eldest son Uday, a media report said today. READ

And the Saddam-Capture Conspiracy Theories Begin

The whole Saddam saga dribbles out in bits and pieces. It now appears that Bush claimed Saddam possessed not only weapons of mass destruction but the means to lob them into U.S. cities. In a conference call with reporters on Monday, Florida's Democratic senator Bill Nelson said 75 senators got this bit of information as part of a classified briefing before last October's vote to authorize the attack on Iraq. According to a report in Florida Today, senators learned in the secret briefing that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons—including anthrax—that could be dumped on east coast cities from unmanned drones. "They have not found anything that resembles a UAV [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle] that has that capability," Nelson told the reporters. Nelson voted for the war.
Meanwhile, the inevitable stories suggesting the Saddam capture was a fake are beginning to circulate. One comes from debka.com, posted December 17. Many consider Debka an Israeli intelligence site. Whether that's the case or not, it often turns up inside information about the Middle East and Central Asia that turns out to be true. READ

Indications Saddam Was Not in Hiding But a Captive

A number of questions are raised by the incredibly bedraggled, tired and crushed condition of this once savage, dapper and pampered ruler who was discovered in a hole in the ground on Saturday, December 13:
According to DEBKAfile analysts, these seven anomalies point to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein was not in hiding; he was a prisoner. READ

Poll: More people don't believe Iraq war reduced terror threat

A growing number of Americans, seven in 10, doesn't think the war in Iraq has reduced the threat of terrorism, according to a poll out Wednesday.
Fewer than half felt that way in April, during the war. President Bush and members of his administration frequently say the efforts in Iraq are central to winning the war on terror. READ

Terror alert undermines administration's safety claims

Reuters reports many analysts and lawmakers believe that by putting the nation on high alert for terrorist attacks that could be bigger than those of 9/11, the Bush administration has undermined many of its recent claims of success against Al Qaeda.
" It is tacit admission that al Qaeda remains as capable as it was on Sept. 11th, which means we may not have caused as much damage to the network as our military operation in Afghanistan had led us to believe," said Charles Pena, an analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. READ

Neocons Leak Bad Intelligence

The leak of a secret memorandum written by a senior Pentagon official reveals less about the connection between Saddam and al Qaeda than the growing desperation of neo-conservative hawks in the Bush administration.A Weekly Standard article, titled "Case Closed," published Monday summarized a lengthy memorandum sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 27 by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith. He was responding to a request to provide evidence supporting his assertion during a closed hearing last July that U.S. intelligence agencies had established a long-standing operational links between al Qaeda and Baghdad.The memorandum consists mainly of 50 excerpts culled from raw intelligence reports by four U.S. intelligence agencies about alleged al Qaeda-Iraqi contacts from 1990 to 2003. Some of the reports include brief analysis, but most cite accounts by unnamed sources, such as "a contact with good access," "a well placed source," "a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer," a "regular and reliable source," "sensitive CIA reporting," and "a foreign government service." A few refer to statements made by captured al Qaeda members or Iraqi officials in U.S. custody.Most onlookers agree that the leak was "friendly" or "authorized" by either hawks in the Pentagon or their allies in Vice President Dick Cheney's office. It was clearly intended to rebuff investigative reporters and Iraq war critics who have accused Feith's office of having manipulated or "cherry-picked" the intelligence to build a case for war. READ

Senators were told Iraqi weapons could hit U.S.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last year told him and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities.
Nelson, D-Tallahassee, said about 75 senators got that news during a classified briefing before last October's congressional vote authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Nelson voted in favor of using military force. READ

The Man Who Knew

In the run-up to the war in Iraq, one moment seemed to be a turning point: the day Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations to make the case for the invasion.
Millions of people watched as he laid out the evidence and reached a damning conclusion -- that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Correspondent Scott Pelley has an interview with Greg Thielmann, a former expert on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Thielmann, a foreign-service officer for 25 years, now says that key evidence in the speech was misrepresented and the public was deceived. READ

Cheney ignored war chaos alert

British warnings that America was failing before the war to prepare properly for a crumbling security situation in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was ousted were ignored by Vice President Dick Cheney and the Pentagon.
In some of the first direct evidence of serious divisions between the key allies in the run-up to the conflict, the former British Ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, said the US had failed to focus on what might happen after Saddam had been overthrown.
His admission raises serious questions that a lack of planning by US forces is at least partly to blame for Iraq's present security problems. READ

U.S. casualties from Iraq war top 9,000

The number of U.S. casualties from Operation Iraqi Freedom -- troops killed, wounded or evacuated due to injury or illness -- has passed 9,000, according to new Pentagon data.
In addition to the 397 service members who have died and the 1,967 wounded, 6,861 troops were medically evacuated for non-combat conditions between March 19 and Oct. 30, the Army Surgeon General's office said.
That brings total casualties among all services to more than 9,200, and represents an increase of nearly 3,000 non-combat medical evacuations reported since the first week of October. The Army offered no immediate explanation for the increase. READ

The $87 Billion Money Pit

Helmut Doll waits. And waits. Doll, the German site manager for Babcock Power, a subcontractor of Siemens, is hoping for the arrival of Bechtel engineers at the Daura power plant, Baghdad’s largest. U.S. construction giant Bechtel has the prime contract, now worth about $1 billion, for restoring Iraq’s infrastructure. That includes Daura, which should supply one third of the city’s generating capacity but today, six months into the U.S. occupation, is producing only 10 percent. “Nobody is working on the turbine,” explains Doll. “Bechtel only came and took photos. We can’t judge Bechtel’s work progress because they’re not here.” Questioned, Bechtel spokesman Howard Menaker says Iraq’s power has to be viewed as “a holistic system”—generation doesn’t have to come from a particular plant—and in recent weeks Bechtel has sent engineers to the site. He also blames the delay on more stringent—or finicky, depending on your point of view—American standards. Menaker said the Daura turbine is “covered with friable asbestos and is right now a hazardous work site.” The company says it has just completed “a protocol for asbestos abatement.” READ

SCHAKOWSKY REFUSES TO GIVE PRESIDENT BUSH ANOTHER  $87 BILLION BLANK CHECK FOR FAILED POLICY IN IRAQ

U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued the following statement in opposition to the Bush Administration’s request for another $87 billion for Iraq.
“ I am proud to join my colleagues, patriots all, to say no to another blank check for President Bush so he can continue his failed policy in Iraq.  I am joining the growing number of Democrats and the majority of Americans who say that without accountability, without a plan, and without a guarantee that the troops will finally get what they need, we will not hand over $87 billion to the Bush Administration. READ

Anatomy of a Rumor: Jessica Lynch and the Untimely Deaths of Her Rescuers

A few days ago, I posted some thoughts on my blog pertaining to the untimely demise of four of Pfc. Jessica Lynch’s rescuers and colleague. Within the next few days, a few people entered the words “Jessica Lynch rescuers dead” and “Sok Khak Ung Lynch” into some search engines and eventually came to my site. READ

Rumsfeld Backed Saddam Even After Chemical Attacks

Fresh controversy about Donald Rumsfeld's personal dealings with Saddam Hussein was provoked yesterday by new documents that reveal he went to Iraq to show America's support for the regime despite its use of chemical weapons.
The formerly secret documents reveal the Defense Secretary traveled to Baghdad 20 years ago to assure Iraq that America's condemnation of its use of chemical weapons was made "strictly" in principle.
...Senior officials presented the attacks against the Kurds - particularly the notorious attack in Halabja in 1988 - as a justification for the invasion and the ousting of Saddam.
But the newly declassified documents reveal that 20 years ago America's position was different and that the administration of President Ronald Reagan was concerned about maintaining good relations with Iraq despite evidence of Saddam's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels. READ

New Developments in Case of U.S. Spying on U.N. Security Council:
Former British Cabinet Minister Decries Prosecution of Whistleblower

Former British cabinet minister Tony Benn has criticized the prosecution of a woman charged with violating his country’s Official Secrets Act in connection with the leaking of a secret memorandum from the U.S. National Security Agency. The memo described wiretaps of home and office telephones along with surveillance of emails of six “swing vote” delegations from nations with votes on the U.N. Security Council early this year as the U.S. and British governments unsuccessfully sought a resolution authorizing war on Iraq.
Referring to Katharine Gun, who worked as a translator at Britain’s super-secret Government Communications Headquarters and now faces up to two years in prison, Benn said Tuesday in a live interview: “When somebody on the basis of moral principle puts their conscience before official secrets, they do society a -- well, they perform an essential function. And I think it does raise the question as to whether if that woman is imprisoned it doesn’t throw doubt on the whole idea of the law being concerned with justice.” READ

Huge Afghan Opium Harvest Brings Fears Of New Terrorism

Afghanistan produces three quarters of the world's illicit opium - the raw material for heroin - and two thirds of all opiate users take drugs of Afghan origin, according to a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Afghanistan has re-established itself as the world's biggest opium producer after the fall of the Taliban regime, which banned cultivation. Drug agencies in Britain and other western European countries are alarmed at the quantities of heroin from Afghanistan, which is thought to produce 90 per cent of heroin sold in Britain.
..."Out of this drug chest, some provincial administrators and military commanders take a considerable share. The more they get used to this, the less likely it becomes that they will respect the law, be loyal to Kabul and support the legal economy. Terrorists take a cut as well: the longer this happens, the greater the threat to security." READ

Bush's Short-Sighted 9/11 Cover-Up

Rather than embrace efforts to find out what went wrong on 9/11/01 to prevent another devastating terror attack, right wingers in the White House adopted Watergate cover-up tactics, stone-walling, lying, and of course attacking Americans who want to know the truth. READ

9/11 conspiracy theories abound, and inquiry takes note

One theory has it that the Bush administration was warned about the Sept. 11 attacks but did nothing to stop them. Another says a missile fired by the U.S. military, not a hijacked jetliner, struck the Pentagon. Yet another: The Israelis orchestrated the attacks to force the United States into a war against the Arabs.
More than two years after terrorists hijacked four airliners and killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, conspiracy theories abound about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. READ

9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable

For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
" This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.
" As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen." READ

White House Admits Pre-9/11 Warnings; Bush Still Denies It

At his press conference yesterday, President Bush was asked about charges that he had received warnings prior to the September 11th attacks that a terrorist incident was imminent. He answered that even asking such a question was "an absurd insinuation."1 It was the same sentiment expressed by Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who said in May of 2002 that "[no one predicted] that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane."2
The problem for the president and the administration is that the White House has previously admitted that the president had personally received such specific warnings.... READ

EIGHT of the alleged September 11th Hijackers are Alive

The FBI STILL lists these men as the terrorists who crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania on September 11th. But eight of them are ALIVE.
The FBI press release of September 27th, 2001 contained names, photographs, aliases and other information. Places of birth, date of birth and other personal details were presented in news media throughout the world. Eight men accused were NOT on those planes.
...Saeed Al-Ghamdi, Mohand Al-Shehri, Abdul Aziz Al-Omari and Salem Al-Hazmi " are not dead and had nothing to do with the heinous terror attacks in New York and Washington." The Saudi Arabian embassy told The Orlando Sentinel. READ

Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 ... 

THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al-Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis – and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA. READ

The Enron Model:: A Preamble for the Constitution of the Corporations of the United States

We the corporations of The United States, in order to make more money, establish our profits with campaign contributions and lobbying, insure a revolving door of greedy executives, provide pink slips for our employees and steal their retirement, promote theft from our shareholders, and secure the hatred of the people of the world through economic exploitation, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Corporations of the United States.READ

Winning Contractors: U.S. Contractors Reap the Windfalls of Post-war Reconstruction

More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush—a little over $500,000—than to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found. READ

Special deals in rebuilding Iraq? Watchdog questions whether Bechtel had inside information

We’ve been zeroing in on some of the line items that American taxpayers are buying with the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq. Now, a look at an American company that got one of the biggest, most lucrative contracts to rebuild the country.
One of the biggest beneficiaries has been Bechtel, with contracts to rebuild the port of Umm Qasar, including the water supply, 12 electric power stations and 1,200 schools. The contracts are worth more than a billion dollars.
How did Bechtel do it? It won its contracts from the State Department’s Agency for International Development, AID. Now that agency’s inspector general is questioning whether Bechtel had insider information before it got the business.READ

2 Bills Would Benefit Top Bush Fundraisers Executives' Companies Could Get Billions

More than three dozen of President Bush's major fundraisers are affiliated with companies that stand to benefit from the passage of two central pieces of the administration's legislative agenda: the energy and Medicare bills.
The energy bill provides billions of dollars in benefits to companies run by at least 22 executives and their spouses who have qualified as either "Pioneers" or "Rangers," as well as to the clients of at least 15 lobbyists and their spouses who have achieved similar status as fundraisers. At least 24 Rangers and Pioneers could benefit from the Medicare bill as executives of companies or lobbyists working for them, including eight who have clients affected by both bills. READ

AARP faces revolt over Medicare bill

Senior citizens angry over the AARP's endorsement of the Medicare bill are ripping up or burning their AARP membership cards and flooding the lobbying group's Internet message board with complaints in what could be the biggest revolt in its ranks since the 1980s.
Many fear the Republican-backed bill approved by Congress on Tuesday will harm senior citizens, and they say the AARP - the nation's most influential retiree lobby, with 35 million members - sold them out.
The bill "destroys one of the most successful programs in the history of this country," Isaac Ben Ezra, president of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, said as he led a demonstration of about 40 people here against the bill Monday. "Shame, AARP." READ

Schwarzenegger Asked To Explain Ken Lay Meeting

California governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger must explain the substance of his private May 2001 meeting with Enron chief Ken Lay, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights wrote in a letter to Schwarzenegger Tuesday.
FTCR, which was the state's most vocal critic of Governor Gray Davis' handling of the energy crisis, said that if the governor-elect did not recount the meeting by the time of his inauguration, the group would ask state lawmakers to open an investigation to uncover the substance of the meeting, including any information that might further the state's efforts to return billions of dollars that taxpayers and consumers overpaid for electricity during the energy crisis.
"A meeting with the biggest corporate crook in recent memory, while he and his firm were in the midst of ripping off the state, should not be taken lightly," FTCR wrote. "As Governor, you must explain to Californians what you were doing at that meeting, what information Ken Lay shared with you and how the meeting has influenced your thinking on energy issues." READ

Number of hungry families in U.S. rising

About 12 million American families last year worried that they couldn't afford to buy food, and 32 percent of them actually experienced someone going hungry at one time or another, the Agriculture Department said Friday.
It was the third year in a row that the department has seen an increase in the number of households experiencing hunger and those worried about having enough money to pay for food.
Based on a Census Bureau survey of 50,000 households, the department estimated that 3.8 million families were hungry last year to the point where someone in the household skipped meals because they couldn't afford them. That's an 8.6 percent increase from 2001, when 3.5 million families were hungry, and a 13 percent increase from 2000. READ

GOP Does Not Extend Jobless Benefits

Citing the improving economy, Republicans decided Monday against extending federal unemployment benefits before Congress leaves for the year. Democrats said it would mean a joyless Christmas for tens of thousands of jobless Americans.
``It's almost inconceivable to me that Republican leaders are poised to play the Grinch again,'' said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
... there are 8.7 million unemployed Americans today, and some 2 million have been jobless for more than 26 weeks, the highest percentage of long-term unemployment since 1983.
...after the federal program begins to be phased out, some 80,000 to 90,000 jobless workers a week will be cut off after exhausting state benefits. READ

Job-cut announcements jump

U.S. job-cut announcements rose in October to their highest level in a year, according to a report Tuesday by an outplacement firm that keeps track of job cuts.
U.S. businesses announced 171,874 job cuts in October, up 125 percent from September's level of 76,506, according to Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas. It was the greatest number of job cuts since 176,010 in October 2002. READ

Jobless Count Skips Millions

...The nation's official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial — and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market.
To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are 4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be working full time — the highest number in a decade.READ

Fewer Polluters Punished under Bush Administration, Records Show

The Bush administration is catching and punishing far fewer polluters than the two previous administrations, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of 15 years of environmental-enforcement records.
...Those pollution citations dropped 12 percent from 2001 to 2002, and another 35 percent from 2002 through the first 10 months of 2003.
...Some current EPA enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from their bosses, say they're getting the signal to slow down enforcement cases. READ

Cheney's bird hunt draws critics' fire

When Dick Cheney and a hunting party that included several Texas Republicans, among them U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, bagged hundreds of ring-necked pheasants at a private hunting club in Pennsylvania last week, animal-rights activists denounced it as a slaughter.
They were especially outraged that the vice president shot more than 70 himself. But Cornyn said Wednesday that the birds had a sporting chance, even if they were farm-raised and released from nets for the hunters.
" It was a good shoot," said Cornyn, who figures he shot dozens of pheasants himself. He conceded that bagging the birds was so easy, at times it seemed "kind of like how Tyson's and Pilgrim's Pride and other people do it. I must tell you that people don't necessarily hunt the same way in Texas that they hunt in Ligonier, Pa., but it was enjoyable," he said. READ

DeLay Subpoenaed in Texas Redistrict Case

Texas Democrats have subpoenaed House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as a witness in a lawsuit to overturn a congressional district map DeLay helped push through the Texas Legislature.
Democrats want to depose DeLay and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, but are expecting the Texas Republican to fight the subpoena, said Tom Eisenhauer, an aide to Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas. Eisenhauer said DeLay should respond to the subpoena because he openly pushed for the new map.
" Tom Delay is happy to brag about his new map until he has to take an oath to tell the truth. What does he have to hide now?" Eisenhauer said. "He was the instigator, facilitator and author of the new map, that's why they want to depose him about it." READ

Diebold Memos Disclose Florida 2000 E-Voting Fraud

Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters." -- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; READ

Calif. Halts E-Vote Certification 

Uncertified software may have been installed on electronic voting machines used in one California county, according to the secretary of state's office.
Marc Carrel, assistant secretary of state for policy and planning, told attendees Thursday at a panel on voting systems that California was halting the certification process for new voting machines manufactured by Diebold Election Systems.
The reason, Carrel said, was that his office had recently received "disconcerting information" that Diebold may have installed uncertified software on its touch-screen machines used in one county. READ

Statewide electronic voting delayed

Ohio's sweeping review of electronic voting machines turned up so many potential security flaws in the systems that the state's top elections offi cial has called off deploying them in March.
The detailed findings confirmed what academics, computer scientists and voter advocates across the country have said for months: Electronic voting systems are prime targets for manipulation by anyone from expert computer hackers to poll workers to individual voters. READ

Groups Question Voting Machines' Accuracy

Doubts about the trustworthiness of electronic voting machines are growing among election officials and computer scientists, complicating efforts to safeguard elections after the presidential stalemate of 2000.
With just over a year to go before the next presidential race, touchscreen voting machines don't seem like the cure-all some thought they would be. Skeptics fear they'll only produce more problems, from making recounts less reliable to giving computer hackers a chance to sabotage results. READ

Md. Democrats Want Outside Voting Machine Audit

Democratic legislative leaders called yesterday for independent auditors to study problems with Maryland's voting machines, saying they do not trust Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to resolve the matter on his own.
In a letter to the director of the Maryland Department of Legislative Services, Sen. Paula C. Hollinger (D-Baltimore County) and Del. Sheila Ellis Hixson (D-Montgomery) asked that the agency examine a report issued in September by Science Application International Corp. on security weaknesses in a new computerized voting system the state is prepared to purchase for $55.6 million.
The SAIC report on the system, developed by Diebold Elections Systems Inc., found serious flaws that could allow tampering with election results. The study was a response to a July report by Johns Hopkins University computer scientist Aviel Rubin and colleagues who said the voting system was vulnerable to manipulation. READ