Star Witness on Iraq Said Weapons Were Destroyed

...Newsweek broke what may be the biggest story of the Iraq crisis. In a revelation that "raises questions about whether the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist," the magazine's issue dated March 3 reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims. READ

Council members warned to vote with U.S. on Iraq

United Nations Senior U.S. officials have been quietly dispatched in recent days to the capitals of key Security Council countries where they are warning leaders to vote with the United States on Iraq or risk "paying a heavy price."
For some of the countries, such as Angola, Guinea and Cameroon -- poor African nations whose concerns drew little attention before they landed seats on the council -- there is the possibility that supporting Washington's drive for a new U.N. resolution authorizing war may reap benefits down the line.
"In Africa, the message is simple: time is running out and we think they should support us," said one U.S. diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. READ

Missing U.S.-Iraq History

Before George W. Bush gives the final order to invade Iraq -- a nation that has not threatened the United States -- the American people might want a few facts about the real history of U.S.-Iraq relations. Missing chapters from 1980 to the present would be crucial in judging Bush’s case for war.
But Americans don’t have those facts because Bush and his predecessors in the White House have kept this history hidden from the American people. When parts of the story have emerged, administrations of both parties have taken steps to suppress or discredit the disclosures. So instead of knowing the truth, Americans have been fed a steady diet of distortions, simplifications and outright lies. READ

Disagree at your own risk

The really frightening stuff began when a television cameraman stopped and asked me why I was there. As soon as the crowd saw the camera pointed at me, they went wild. I was trying to express myself and they screamed at me and over my voice. A man stood behind me making obscene gestures as I spoke.
The reporter tried three times, unsuccessfully, to get a picture without obscenity. One woman spat in my hair. The journalist gave up and moved on. The mob did not. ...
I was in a state of shock. Here I was, a 42-year-old mother of four, born and raised in Cobb County, holding a peace sign, standing on the sidewalk across the street from my church, and I was frightened that my neighbors were going to hurt me because I dared to express my opinion. This could not be happening. Not in America, right? READ

Bush's Wars on Democracy There's Nothing Patriotic About It

George W. Bush says he wants to attack Iraq to install democracy. But as he explained on December 18, 2002: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
Under Bush the Constitutional guarantees that have made America a beacon to the world for two centuries have been shredded in two short years.
In terms of basic legal rights and sanctuary from government spying, Americans may be less free under George W. Bush than as British subjects under George III in 1776. READ

Conservative America is at risk, and this war is a way to enforce the values the Bush camp clings to, writes Norman Mailer.

My guess, though, is that, like it or not or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in our lives. READ

The Mother of All Debates (If Bush and Hussein had a Debate)

GEORGE W. BUSH: You’re a liar, Saddam.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: You’re a cowboy, Georgie-boy.
BUSH: You gassed your own people.
SADDAM: Who do think gave us the gas? Your father and Ronald Reagan.
BUSH: Wait, you were our friends back then — remember? READ

Spain begs President to restrain Rumsfeld

PRESIDENT BUSH has been told to muzzle Donald Rumsfeld, his provocative Defence Secretary, if he wants to ease European misgivings about war with Iraq.
José María Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, spoke for many European diplomats and officials, including the British, when he delivered the message while staying at Mr Bush’s Texas ranch last weekend....
The Spanish leader is thought to have been particularly perturbed by Mr Rumsfeld’s recent comparison of Germany’s “do nothing” approach to Saddam Hussein with that of Libya and Cuba, two countries on the US State Department’s list of sponsors of state terrorism. READ

VETERANS GROUP CALLS FOR  RUMSFELD RESIGNATION 

The American Gulf War Veterans Association (AGWVA) now calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In response to questioning by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, (D-WV), Rumsfeld denied any knowledge that the United States had shipped biological weapons to Iraq during the 1980’s. ...
There is no disputing the evidence that the U.S. provided bacteria and viruses as evidenced by Senate Report 103-900, ...This Senate report was available to all senators and listed among other items, Bacillus Anthracis, (anthrax) Clostridium botulinum, and West Nile Fever Virus as pathogens that were shipped to Iraq in the 1980’s with the full knowledge of the Department of Commerce and the CDC.
If our Secretary of Defense is unaware of the sales of biological materials to a country with which we are about to go to war, or if he is in denial over the fact that these sales occurred, the AGWVA believes that he represents a clear and present danger to the lives of our military, our country, and the American people, and should be considered a very serious threat to the national security. It is for this reason that the AGWVA calls for his resignation and removal from office. READ

Tom DeLay's Gag Order and the Spirit of Repression

Leave it to Tom DeLay to exhume the corpse of Neville Chamberlain and drape it on the Democrats. House Majority Leader DeLay said it was "outrageous" that former Vermont governor Howard Dean is criticizing Bush's war push. Dean is running for the Democratic Presidential nomination and has drawn support for his anti-war stance. DeLay said this is proof that the Democrats "are fast becoming the appeasement party of the future." This kind of over-the-top rhetoric is really a crude attempt to stifle debate. READ

The Unlikely Rise of Howard Dean

Howard Dean is running for president as Jimmy Stewart. The buttoned-down Democrat begins campaign speeches by conceding to his audience, “You don’t know me,” before describing his transformation from medical doctor to Vermont’s five-term governor. Instead of jetting around the country on chartered planes, Dean flies coach on Southwest Airlines and JetBlue. Known for padding around his governor’s office with holes in his socks and plain, well-worn suits, this frugal contender for the highest office in the free world avoids $450 hotel suites on his travels, preferring to bunk at the homes of supporters, even though it often means being shoehorned into kids’ quarters. When he comes to New York, as he does often these days, he stays at his mom’s place. READ

We need to hear from Democrats on Iraq By HELEN THOMAS

The Democratic presidential aspirants have been pussyfooting around the Iraq question, wanting to have it both ways on whether to support President Bush's rush-to-war....
Against this wishy-washy backdrop, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean stands out because of his anti-war message.
In a foreign policy address earlier this week at Drake University in Des Moines, Dean said Bush is too focused on "the wrong war at the wrong time." READ

DUBYA'S ENEMIES LIST Nixonian Attack On Dean Of White House Press Corps
Organized Official Republican Party Smear Campaign Against Helen Thomas

Not since Richard M. Nixon made a little list -- an enemies list -- of those in the press and in politics who disagreed with his policies has a U.S. President launched a public personal attack on a specific American journalist.
Now, the ever-reliable Hotline reports, George W. Bush has mobilized the Republican National Committee to beat up the outspoken truth-teller, venerated senior White House correspondent, and "First Lady of the press," Helen Thomas, because she has DARED to criticize his public policies. READ

A Day After He Was Fired, Phil Donahue Strikes Back at MSNBC

Phil Donahue struck back at MSNBC on Wednesday for his firing, suggesting the network was too quick to pull the trigger and that it might be trying to "out-fox Fox" with conservative voices.
...the Web site www.allyourtv.com posted a commentary... saying that he had been leaked an internal NBC study that described Donahue as "a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace." The report allegedly said Donahue presented a difficult face for NBC at a time of war, saying a nightmare scenario would be one in which his show becomes "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." READ

Voting Software Firm Gets Sued

In a case calling into question the thoroughness of the certification process for touch-screen voting systems, a former engineer for an election software company has filed a lawsuit against his ex-employer, claiming executives ignored his warnings of potential defects. READ

Supervisors fail to stand against election fraud on their own

SANTA Clara County supervisors this week took a half-step to buying a fully trustworthy voting system when they could have taken a whole step. In approving $20 million for touch-screen voting machines, the supervisors deferred to the secretary of state the decision of whether that system must produce a paper copy of the electronic ballots cast. The supervisors could have become the first county in California to demand it on its own.
Instead, their decision was a compromise between county election officials, who have dismissed a paper trail as unnecessary, and computer scientists who say it's a critical security feature to prevent errors and fraud. READ

Read the Bill of Rights Defense Council's summary of the Homeland Security Act

The Homeland Security Act: The Decline of Privacy; the Rise of Government Secrecy (Requires PDF).
Learn how the USA PATRIOT Act and Executive Orders infringe on rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Read AP's one-page Overview of Changes to Legal Rights and BORDC's A Guide to the USA PATRIOT Act and Federal Executive Orders (Requires PDF). READ

GOP threats halted GAO Cheney suit

Threats by Republicans to cut the General Accounting Office (GAO) budget influenced its decision to abandon a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, The Hill has learned.
Sources familiar with high-level discussions at the GAO said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, met with GAO Comptroller General David Walker earlier this year and “unambiguously” pressured him to drop the suit or face cuts in his $440 million budget....
The decision to drop the lawsuit has raised concerns that Congress’s all-purpose auditor has sacrificed its traditional role as an independent arm of Congress. READ

Archives Bush isn't a moron, he's a cunning sociopath

If any of us are to have a future worth having, the world's leaders, the members of Congress, the US corporate media and people of all political persuasions who value freedom and democracy had better start seeing George W. Bush for what he is: a sociopath and a passive serial killer.
Psychiatrists tell us that all serial killers lack the emotions that make us human; that they have to learn to emulate those emotions in order to get by in society. ...
While Bush is no Bundy, when it comes Bundy's education and acquired charm, and to our knowledge has never personally murdered anyone, it has been evident to us that there is something missing in George W. in terms of his lack of compassion and empathy. As governor of Texas, he set a record in signing death warrants—154 in five years. He even made fun of the way convicted killer Karla Faye Tucker begged for her life. READ

Humor (if it weren't so right on the money) Bush and Blair (Blush) sing a lovely Lionel Ritchie Duet

Short video of Bush and Blair's love affair set to music. It may be a slow download if you have a dial-up connection, but worth the wait. VIEW

Conflict and Catchphrases

Faced with obstruction from the French and Germans, ransom demands from the Turks, and opposition from millions of demonstrators around the world, the desired invasion of Iraq has fallen behind schedule. But not to worry. The process of selecting the next candidates for regime change is already under way.
Many of the total war and creative destruction crowd get their ideas across to the public through an agency called Benador Associates, which arranges their TV appearances and speaking engagements, and helps to place their articles in newspapers.Since I last wrote about Ms Benador... her business seems to have expanded remarkably. READ

Unions Unite in War Protest: Support NYC City Council's anti-war resolution

Labor leaders yesterday backed a controversial City Council anti-war resolution, arguing that the Bush administration has not justified a possible attack on Iraq....
Local labor became the latest group to oppose the war, intensifying the mounting domestic and international pressure against the Bush administration, which has maintained that Iraq poses a threat to the United States.
The Council resolution sponsored by Deputy Majority Leader Bill Perkins (D-Harlem) cites concern for global security and the negative effect a war would have on New York City and other localities. READ

The GOP Home Shopping Network

That most lamentable duct tape suggestion last week by a Homeland Security official -- which drove countless panicked citizens out to buy the product -- has been widely derided as useless and pretty crazy.
But maybe not so crazy. Turns out that nearly half -- 46 percent to be precise -- of the duct tape sold in this country is manufactured by a company in Avon, Ohio. And the founder of that company, that would be Jack Kahl, gave how much to the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees in the 2000 election cycle? Would that be more than $100,000?
The plant has "gone to a 24/7 operation, which is about a 40 percent increase" over this time last year, READ

Bush Cited Report That Doesn't Exist

There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion doesn't exist. READ

What Happened in New York

The weekend of February 15 and 16 marks a historic, global uprising for peace. The number of marches is uncounted:  the number of marchers estimated in the range of ten million. ...And most of these hundreds of events took place with, apparently, fairly minimal governmental repression. New York was an exception.
The denial of the march was only one feature in a campaign of harrassment, that included the circulation of a rumor on the day before the rally that the event had been cancelled, a Code Orange terrorist alert that stationed military guards in the subways armed with automatic rifles, the denial of permission to rent portable toilets for the masses expected at the rally, the mysterious rerouting of subways and busses on the morning of the rally, the cut-off of the phones in the United for Peace and Justice office during the rally, and a repressive, heavy-handed and sometimes brutal police presence that penned the official rally behind barricades and prevented thousands from even getting there. READ

Humor Tens of Bush Supporters Take to the Streets

While this nation's pansy assed, love bead wearing liberal media delighted in reporting this weekend's sad spectacle of millions of hippie communists loitering on streets throughout the world to show their support for America-hating terrorists, there is another, more important story that was not reported to the American people. To rectify this intentional oversight, the White House Press office has prepared this "information release" to give heart to all those who love President Bush enough to go along with killing any man, woman and little baby for whom he has a smart-bomb surprise up his sleeve. READ

WEEK of 02/17/03

Here it is, conclusive proof against Iraq: Armando Iannucci offers a collection of Colin Powell's useful facts relating to the proposed actions in the Gulf region.

1. On an audiotape, Osama bin Laden calls Iraq a "stinking cesspit of socialist debauchery". This criticism is much less hostile than the sort of thing he says about America, thus proving al-Qaeda has warm feelings towards Saddam Hussein.
2. Our surveillance has picked up chatter from al-Qaeda operatives talking about organising a "rendezvous". "Rendezvous" is a French word, and France has constantly obstructed American attempts to impose regime change in Iraq. So again, we see a clear connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq.
3. Our spy planes have photographed Saddam's deputy prime minister being driven in a motorcade of Mercedes cars. Mercedes is a German car, and Germany is in league with France to destroy America, like al-Qaeda. MORE... READ

Free Speech Trampled in Standstill

There's a peace march scheduled in New York City today (2/15/03). But it will be more like a peace standstill. Unlike the 602 cities around the globe where protesters plan to march together to protest a war on Iraq, New York authorities won't allow it.
...But there's more to it than that. The Bush administration - which is in the midst of trying to sell the war to the public - filed a brief urging the judges to uphold denial of the permit. And the Bloomberg administration has no intention of forcing a St. Patrick's Day standstill instead of a parade - even though it's bigger and likely more raucous. READ

Mayor, Kelly Share Blame For the Pens

Michael Bloomberg, who is George Bush's mayor in New York, was in Times Square on Saturday, shaking hands with tourists and shoppers. He should have been minding the store for the citizens of the city.
If he had bothered to come across to the East Side and see the disgraceful performance by his police department, he might have been shaken enough to change things. For he could see in person the scope of the mistake he and his police commissioner had made.
They penned in throngs of smiling people as if they were cattle. It wasn't the cops' idea to do it. All they did was carry out orders as poorly as possible. Their only excuse could be that they were practicing for the Republican National Convention. That one is going to be the great one. READ

War Protesters Say They Were Bound for Rally, but Ended Up in Human Traffic Jam

Tens of thousands of people gathered peacefully on Saturday, filling 23 blocks of official, fully permitted, rally-ready blocks on First Avenue beginning near the United Nations headquarters to protest a war against Iraq.
But tens of thousands more never made it, thronging Second and Third Avenues in what some described as a vain and baffling attempt to reach the protest that people had bundled up, ridden buses or skipped brunch to attend. Of about 15 would-be demonstrators interviewed yesterday across the city, only 3 said they had succeeded in reaching First Avenue.
The pedestrian traffic jam led to accusations yesterday that the police were unprepared, aggressive or even threatening, plunging through crowds on horseback or suddenly sealing off sidewalks. READ

Protesters: NYPD Used Violence

Police officers at Saturday's anti-war rally squirted pepper spray into the eyes of penned-in protesters and backed kicking horses into crowds of people, according to video footage aired Tuesday by the rally's organizers.
"That makes you feel good, doesn't it?" one officer yelled during the pepper-spraying, as demonstrators who seemed to be trapped between crowds of people on one side and metal barricades on the other screamed, "I can't breathe" and "My eyes!"
The shaky five-minute video was shown at the midtown office of United for Peace, one of the rally's organizing groups, and set to Frank Sinatra's rendition of New York, New York. It was the latest tool the organizers unleashed in their dispute with police about what took place during the immense demonstration. READ

NY police manhandle demonstrators  PHOTOS

VIEW

Millions worldwide rally for peace Huge turnout at 600 marches from Berlin to Baghdad

Huge waves of demonstrations not seen since the Vietnam war jammed more than 600 towns and cities around the world over the weekend as protesters from Tasmania to Iceland marched against war in Iraq. Up to 30 million people demonstrated worldwide, including around 6 million in Europe, according to figures from organisers and police, although most conceded there were too many people in too many places to count.
Action began on Friday when 150,000 protesters filed into Melbourne, with thousands more gathering across the rest of Australia and in New Zealand. Protests were still swelling yesterday in Sydney, San Francisco and in Oman - where 200 women filled the streets in the sultanate's first all-female demonstration. Smaller demonstrations choked streets from Cape Town, Dhaka and Havana to Bangkok. READ

"WE DECIDED NOT TO RUN IT..." The Media Declines to Cover an Important Anti-War Bill Introduced in Congress

After Colin Powell spoke to the UN Security Council yesterday, a bi-partisan bill was introduced in Congress by Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Ron Paul (R-TX). It wasn't just any bill - this is legislation that looks to repeal the Iraq Use of Force Resolution passed by Congress in October.
Big story. Right? So, where's the media?Yesterday, DeFazio and Paul conducted a press conference that the major media outfits were invited to. Did you see it on C-SPAN? Nope. CNN? Nope. Did you read about it in the New York Times? Nope. They were all invited to attend the news conference. How about the Washington Post? Nope. But the story nearly saw daylight there. Almost. Almost? Almost. READ

DeFAZIO, PAUL INTRODUCE BILL TO REPEAL BUSH’S BLANK CHECK FOR WAR

Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Ron Paul (R-TX) today introduced legislation to repeal the Iraq Use of Force Resolution passed by Congress and signed into law by the President last fall. Following is DeFazio’s statement:
...“Americans want the President to lay a clear case for immediate military action in Iraq, but the Administration’s message keeps changing- six months ago, their case hinged on regime change, three months ago it was Saddam thwarting inspections, three weeks ago it was possible possession of chemical weapons, today its tenuous terrorist links. If the case was clear, it would have been clear from day one. READ

Patriot II: The Sequel Why It's Even Scarier than the First Patriot Act

Soon after the terrorist acts of September 11, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, which conferred broad new powers upon the federal government. Now John Ashcroft and his scribes at the Justice Department have been working secretly to create new, 120-page draft legislation that, if enacted, would expand greatly upon these already sweeping powers. READ

Patriot II Draft Legislation CONFIDENTIAL -- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION
Draft--January 9, 2003
DOMESTIC SECURITY ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2003

Section 101: Individual Terrorists as Foreign Powers.
Under 50 U.S.C. § 1801(a)(4), the definition of "foreign power" includes groups that engage in international terrorism, but does not reach unaffiliated individuals who do so. As a result, investigations of "lone wolf" terrorists or "sleeper cells" may not be authorized under FISA. Such investigations therefore must proceed under the stricter standards and shorter time periods set forth in Title III, potentially resulting in unnecessary and dangerous delays and greater administrative burden. This provision would expand FISA's definition of "foreign power" to include all persons, regardless of whether they are affiliated with an international terrorist group, who engage in international terrorism. READ

Professor Indicted as Terrorist Leader

The Justice Department yesterday accused a former Florida university professor of conspiracy to commit murder via suicide attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories, saying he has secretly been a top leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization for years.
Federal agents have spent a decade developing a case against Al-Arian, who was relieved of his duties as a computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa in 2001. READ

US plays the arms sales game

IN A PARTICULARLY seething rant in December about ''weapons of mass destruction,'' President Bush said: ''We will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten our nation and our friends and allies with the world's most destructive weapons.''... Amid the flaming debate over Iraq, the United States not only continues to seed the world with conventional weapons of mass destruction but arms contractors are increasingly entering into deals that all but give away US technology.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently criticized the ''old Europe'' of France and Germany, which oppose a US invasion of Iraq. One of the countries he smiles upon in his ''new Europe'' is Poland. One of the reasons is because the government and Lockheed bought Poland's support. The White House will plunder the Treasury for a $3.8 billion, below-market-rate loan to help Poland buy 48 F-16s. According to the Times, that loan is more than all direct loans for military aid to the rest of the world combined for the last decade. READ

US plan for new nuclear arsenal: Secret talks may lead to breaking (more) treaties

The Bush administration is planning a secret meeting in August to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including "mini-nukes", "bunker-busters" and neutron bombs designed to destroy chemical or biological agents, according to a leaked Pentagon document. The meeting of senior military officials and US nuclear scientists at the Omaha headquarters of the US Strategic Command would also decide whether to restart nuclear testing and how to convince the American public that the new weapons are necessary.
The leaked preparations for the meeting are the clearest sign yet that the administration is determined to overhaul its nuclear arsenal so that it could be used as part of the new "Bush doctrine" of pre-emption, to strike the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of rogue states. Greg Mello, the head of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear watchdog
organisation that obtained the Pentagon documents, said the meeting would also prepare the ground for a US breakaway from global arms control treaties, and the moratorium on conducting nuclear tests. READ

More Missile-Defense Madness Bush's latest ploy for a system we don't even need. (and they don't actually have to even work before they are deployed)

While the world awaits war in Iraq, little attention has been paid to President Bush's military budget proposal for next year—less still to a line item that would have attracted enormous notice in more placid times. This is the Missile Defense program. ...The program's budget, which was released to no fanfare on Feb. 3, is startling for a couple of reasons.
First, it totals $9.1 billion. That's nearly three times what Reagan managed to spend on the program in any of his years in office and a 20 percent increase over the $7.5 billion that Congress gave Bush last year—completing the transformation... into one of the flushest branches of the U.S. armed forces.
...Rumsfeld has asked Congress to exempt Missile Defense from the law that requires all weapons systems to undergo operational tests before being deployed in the field.
... Bush is serious about Missile Defense. He didn't pull out of the Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty as a symbolic gesture; he means to start deploying anti-missile interceptors and radar systems, on the ground and on ships at sea, by the end of next year (and in the air and outer space a few years from now). His fiscal 2004 budget provides all the money he needs to do that. READ

A Strange Budget Cut

You might think that with the country gearing up for war this would be the wrong time -- absolutely the worst time -- to cut federal school aid for the children of men and women in the armed forces. READ

Midwinter madness

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. Dwight David Eisenhower April 16, 1953
The news is not good. Osama bin Laden wants us to invade Iraq. As of this writing, we're at orange on the alert code. The economy is tanking. We're spending $1.08 billion a day on the military. And the president wants a $674 billion tax cut. READ

This Road to Hell Is Paved With Bush's Bad Choices: Misguided tax cuts hurt the economy, and diplomatic bungling resulted in our foreign policy crisis.

With the Cold War's end, many Americans thought we could close our air raid shelters and take the trillions of dollars that had gone into the military and put them into making our lives better by turning toward the pursuit of happiness rather than the defense of our liberty.
And some of that did happen in the last half of the 1990s, during the Clinton-era boom. But only three years into a new century, the United States finds itself plagued by rising unemployment, soaring budget deficits, constricted civil liberties, the threat of terrorist attack and the prospect of a war with, and occupation of, Iraq. We've gone from the best of times to the worst of times.
The Bush administration tells us that it is entirely because of Al Qaeda and now Saddam Hussein that we face these difficulties, but the dark clouds that hang over our country are largely the result of Bush administration policies. (may require registration w/ LATime.com) READ

Ballot Check: Computerized Voting Comes Under Fire in Georgia and California

In California and Georgia, skepticism is quickly growing over the computer systems used to administer elections. ...The growing concerns arise from two recent developments. Reputable computer-security experts have joined forces in California to insist that the systems have inherent, though simply solved, security flaws. And allegations have surfaced in Georgia, where computers were used by all voters for the first time last November, that sensitive election-software files were on a publicly accessible Internet file server--a situation, computer experts say, that would present an opportunity for code tampering to manipulate election outcomes. READ

"I have no question that somebody who's smart enough with a computer could probably rig it to mistabulate. Whether that has happened yet I don't know. It's going to be virtually undetectable if it's done correctly..." Randal H. Erben, Special Counsel on ballot integrity for President Reagan.

According to Salon.com, Diebold Election Systems, now denies that a program patch was ever applied to the Georgia voting machines: "We have analyzed that situation and have no indication of that happening at all." Well okay. But did everyone in the Georgia Secretary of State's Office imagine this last-minute voting program fix?
According to the Baltimore City Paper, Diebold now claims that the "old Global Elections Systems [FTP] site has been taken down because it contained old, out-of-date material."
Well okay. But at least three files were put on that site as recently as January 16, 2003.
Find out what happened to the files on the FTP — Find out about the lawsuits — Look at the conflicting stories. READ

Dirty politics: Whatever happened to running on ideas? (NEW HAMPSHIRE)

On Friday our senior political reporter John DiStaso reported that Manchester police are saying a Republican telemarketing group in Northern Virginia hired an Idaho telemarketing company to jam opposition phone banks in New Hampshire.
The Republican organization, GOP Marketplace, was itself hired by New Hampshire's Republican State Committee, so it looks like state Republicans paid to have Democratic and union phone banks jammed. READ

Phone bank jamming info goes to feds (NEW HAMPSHIRE)

Investigative information on a potentially illegal Election Day telephone bank jamming operation has been referred to the Justice Department’ Election Fraud Unit, the state Democratic Party’s legal counsel says READ

Election phone jamming may soon be felony (NEW HAMPSHIRE)

Calling an Election Day phone-jamming incident a black mark on the state, one Manchester lawmaker wants to make such actions a felony.
Rep. Raymond Buckley, D-Manchester, asked the House Election Law Committee to make the penalty serious enough that no one will do it again.
On Election Day last November, a telemarketing company subcontracted on behalf of the state Republican Party blocked calls for several hours at the Manchester city Democratic office, the Democratic coordinated campaign office in Manchester, at local Democratic offices in Nashua, Claremont and Rochester, and at the Manchester Professional Firefighters Association, which offers rides to the polls. The action amounted to blocking the door to the polls so people could not vote, Buckley said. READ

WEEK of 02/10/03

Artistic Sign Language: Signs of the Coming Bush Fall

*Powell goes to the United Nations so that the missile attacks on Baghdad and Basra can begin -- and, in the lobby of that grand building, Picasso's "Guernica" painting, which depicts the horrific results of the Nazi bombing of that Spanish town, is covered over prior to Powell's arrival. No use embarrassing the U.S. by reminding folks of what's in store for Iraqi civilians....
*First Lady Laura Bush cancels a poetry workshop at the White House because she suspects that a number of America's high-profile poets, in the sacred grounds of that seat of power, will raise the issue of the coming war with Iraq. 

Did you notice the thread that unites these events? In all three cases, symbolic shrouds are placed over art, so that nobody will notice the bad things that are being done in American citizens' names. READ

The lessons of Guernica 'Profound symbolism' as U.N. hides Picasso's anti-war masterpiece

On the second floor of the United Nations building in Manhattan, just outside the Security Council entrance, hangs a seminal piece of 20th-century artwork that offers a graphic and chilling reminder of the horrors of war. But as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell sat down last week to deliver an historic speech about why America must go to war with Iraq, Pablo Picasso's Guernica was concealed by a large blue drape. READ

Dubious Iraq Dossier

Speaking to the United Nations on Wednesday (2/5/03), in an address that was broadly portrayed as a case for war with Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell argued that, "Iraq today is actively using its considerable intelligence capabilities to hide its illicit activities." To support that claim, Powell said, "I would call my colleagues attention to the fine paper that United Kingdom distributed yesterday, which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities."
It turns out, however, ... Substantial portions of the report that Powell used to support his critique of Iraq were lifted from an article written by a postgraduate student who works not in Baghdad but in Monterey, California, and who based much of his research on materials left in Kuwait more than a dozen years ago by Iraqi security services. READ

Congress Finally Wakes Up

We may have just witnessed the turning of the tide in the battle for control of the nation's legal response to the war on terror. On Tuesday, 17 months to the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the legislative branch finally told the executive branch that it had overreached on a series of programs and policies designed to detect terrorists. READ

CIA 'sabotaged inspections and hid weapons details'

Senior democrats have accused the CIA of sabotaging weapons inspections in Iraq by refusing to co-operate fully with the UN and withholding crucial information about Saddam Hussein's arsenal. READ

False Alarm? Terror Alert Partly Based on Fabricated Information

A key piece of the information leading to recent terror alerts was fabricated, according to two senior law enforcement officials in Washington and New York. The officials said that a claim made by a captured al Qaeda member that Washington, New York or Florida would be hit by a "dirty bomb" sometime this week had proven to be a product of his imagination. READ

We’ll Need More Than Duct Tape

I left the house Thursday morning, meaning to stop at the hardware store for some duct tape.
We’re in Code Orange now. I knew that much. And for the first few days of Code Orange, no one in Washington could say what exactly we were supposed to do here in Code Orange, other than remain vigilant and go about our normal business. Which was precisely what we were supposed to do in Code Yellow, Code Green, Code Blue or any other color you want.
But Tom Ridge, secretary for the Bush administration’s new Department Homeland Defense, finally stepped forward and explained. We must all buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect ourselves from the terrorists. READ

Duct tape makers swing into high gear

Duct tape manufacturers are quintupling production to meet demand from a skittish U.S. public intent on protecting homes from terrorists. Consumers have snapped up the ubiquitous adhesive since Monday, when federal authorities listed it among key products that could provide protection against chemical or biological attack.

"Sales are unbelievable," says Tom Taylor, president of Home Depot's Eastern division, a 650-store network from Maine to Florida. "There's an incredible rush for duct tape in major markets." Home Depot began poaching stores in other markets Tuesday and also boosted orders from vendors. On Wednesday, 26 trucks chocked with duct tape and plastic sheeting began resupplying depleted Washington, D.C., and New York stores. Home Depot outlets in those markets are posting duct tape sales increases of up to 1,000%.

Each year, $300 million worth of duct tape is sold in the USA. How long will demand last? "When it's a hurricane, we can predict how long," Taylor says. "But this? We're in uncharted territory." READ

Osama and the duct tape conspiracy

After seventeen months of bluster, warmongering and global intimidation by our administration, the old bogeyman himself pops out of the sand one day and suddenly we're all reduced to scurrying for rolls of silvery tape to save our hides.
What happened to our just cause? What happened to our solemn vow to defeat terrorism wherever it exists? More importantly, what's happened to 3M shares since the administration triggered this run on duct tape? And what ties does Dick Cheney have to the duct tape lobby? READ

Blair, Hoon and Straw to be investigated for war crimes

If, as appears likely, the UK is involved in the use of force against Iraq the leaders of the UK Government will be investigated by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it breaches international humanitarian law (IHL). So promises a coalition of professors of law and leading NGOs from around the world.[1] The UK, US and Canadian Governments have today been served with letters before action warning them of the consequences of an illegal use of force against Iraq. In the UK , Tony Blair was served at 10 Downing Street during filming for a Channel 4 TV programme on January 31. READ

"IT MAKES ME THINK BACK TO THE AWFUL DAYS WHEN WE WERE STRUGGLING AGAINST APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA":

DESMOND TUTU CONDEMNS A FEDERAL COURT BAN ON THE FEB. 15TH ANTI-WAR MARCH IN NEW YORK An interview from DemocracyNow! LISTEN

Cheap Bureaucrats Ruining Free Speech by Jimmy Breslin

He said he hated gaps in parades. They occur in a big parade when you’re supposed to get cross-town traffic through and the marchers are stopped with gaps between them and then it starts again and people don’t move. They keep the gaps. “You can have them at a red light and it changes and they won’t move,” Chief Rocco Esposito was saying in Manhattan Federal Court on Friday as day turned into evening.

Free speech comes from Madison and Jefferson and Paine and people went to jail over it and were shot in wars to protect it. You can see how precious, how fragile such a blessing is by the way in which it is embroiled and disputed and can be threatened by the most modest of opponents. READ

Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act

The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information.

Section 501, “Expatriation of Terrorists”: This provision, the drafters say, would establish that an American citizen could be expatriated “if, with the intent to relinquish his nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United Stated has designated as a ‘terrorist organization’.” But whereas a citizen formerly had to state his intent to relinquish his citizenship, the new law affirms that his intent can be “inferred from conduct.” Thus, engaging in the lawful activities of a group designated as a “terrorist organization” by the Attorney General could be presumptive grounds for expatriation. READ

Must Read Bait and Switch

The president spoke passionately about bringing "food and medicines and supplies and freedom" to the Iraqi people. But he is leading a hard-right administration here at home that is seriously eroding the economic security, the access to health care, the civil rights and civil liberties and the environmental protections of the American people.
...As the most powerful nation on earth, and the world's only superpower, the United States has a particular obligation to use its might wisely abroad and to distribute its benefits fairly at home.
That is not an easy mission for a hard-right-wing administration, which is why the Bush administration puts such a premium on the rhetoric of compassion.
Behind the veil of rhetoric is a Darwinian political philosophy that, if clearly understood, would repel the majority of Americans. READ

Must Read Bush: Eager for Combat

The compassionate warrior. That's the image Bush offered in his second State of the Union address, as he deftly blended his 2000 campaign schtick (and all of its policy disingenuousness) with his post-9/11 position as the nation's protector. He talked softly about helping drug addicts, at-risk children, and AIDS sufferers at home and in Africa. And he waved one damn big stick at Saddam Hussein, practically promising war. He was, to be polite, less than honest on several fronts. READ

Week of 01/27/03

Shock and Awe: Guernica Revisited
Forget Osama. Forget Saddam. The Pentagon's newest target is the city of Baghdad.

US military strategists have announced a plan to pummel the Iraqi capital with as many as 800 cruise missiles in the space of two days. If George W. Bush gets the war he wants, Baghdad could become the 21st Century's Guernica.
On April 26, 1937, 25 Nazi bombers dropped 100,000 pounds of bombs and incendiaries on the peaceful Basque village. Seventy percent of the town was destroyed and 1,500 people, a third of the population, were killed. The Pentagon now predicts that its Baghdad blitzkrieg could approximate the devastation of a nuclear explosion. "The sheer size of this has never been.. contemplated before," one Pentagon strategist boasted to CBS News. "There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," a city of 5 million people.READ

Shock & Awe: Is Baghdad the Next Hiroshima?

Have your heard of Harlan Ullman? Everyone in the White House and the Pentagon has. They may very well follow his plan for war in Iraq. He wants to do to Baghdad what we did to Hiroshima. Ullman is what they call a “defense intellectual.” He was the Navy's “head of extended planning” and taught at the National War College. One of his students was Secretary of State Colin Powell, who says he “raised my vision several levels.” What Powell and everyone in the Bush administration sees now is Ullman’s vision for high-tech war
He calls it “rapid dominance,” or “shock and awe.” The idea is to scare the enemy to death. To win, you don’t need to inflict physical pain and destruction. Just the fear of pain, and the massive confusion it creates, is enough. Ullman wants the U.S. to (in his words) “deter and overpower an adversary through the adversary’s perception and fear of his vulnerability and our own invincibility.” “This ability to impose massive shock and awe, in essence to be able to 'turn the lights on and off' of an adversary as we choose, will so overload the perception, knowledge and understanding of that adversary that there will be no choice except to cease and desist or risk complete and total destruction." READ

White House Cancels Poetry Symposium

The White House postponed a poetry symposium out of concerns it would be politicized after some poets said they wanted to protest military action against Iraq.
"While Mrs. Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum," Noelia Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the first lady, said Wednesday. READ

UN Orders Wonka to Submit to Chocolate Factory Inspections

Responding to pressure from the international community, the U.N. ordered enigmatic candy maker William "Willy" Wonka to submit to chocolate-factory inspections Monday.
"For years, Wonka has hidden the ominous doings of his research and development facility from the outside world," U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said. "Given the reports of child disappearances, technological advances in glass-elevator transport, and Wonka-run Oompa-Loompa forced-labor camps, the time has come to put an end to three decades of secrecy in the Wonka Empire."
The chocolate-making capabilities of Wonka's heavily fortified compound have long been a source of speculation. Wonka, defying international calls for full disclosure, has maintained his silence regarding his factory's suspected capacity to manufacture confections of mass deliciousness .READ

How 12,200 pages of the Iraqi arms declaration became 3,000 - and why

...when Iraq handed over its 12,200-page report, it knew full well the US would seize it from the United Nations and censor it. Iraq hinted early on that the massive document would list each and every government, private and public firm and/or institution that helped them in their 30-year weapons program.
The US had to remove the document from the hands of the international community because it contained vital information that could undermine the current administration. The other permanent members of the UN Security Council did not object much to this move because they knew their names and their firms would also be mentioned.
And this was Iraq's last desperate strategy to ward off war, or at least delay it as long as possible. It listed names of individuals and organizations that would come under intensive public scrutiny and embarrassment should the contents of the document be made public.
If this list of arms suppliers to Iraq is now spread to the public, scandal will rock the White House. In a timeframe that has seen the Enron scandal and may yet see Vice President Cheney questioned over Halliburton, Bush will likely see his hopes of re-election buried. READ

Top-secret Iraq Report Reveals U.S. Corporations, Gov't Agencies and Nuclear Labs Helped Illegally Arm Iraq

Hewlett Packard, Dupont, Honeywell and other major U.S. corporations, as well as governmental agencies including the Department of Defense and thenation’s nuclear labs, all illegally helped Iraq to build its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.
On Wednesday, December 18, Geneva-based reporter Andreas Zumach broke the story on the US national listener-sponsored radio and television show “Democracy Now!” Zumach’s Berlin-based paper Die Tageszeitung plans to soon publish a full list of companies and nations who have aided Iraq. The paper first reported on Tuesday that German and U.S. companies had extensive ties to Iraq but didn’t list names.
Zumach obtained top-secret portions of Iraq’s 12,000-page weapons declaration that the US had redacted from the version made available to the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. READ

Inspectors Dispute Bush's Iraq Grievances

The top nuclear inspector in Iraq disputed President Bush (news - web sites)'s claims that Iraqi intelligence agents are posing as scientists but conceded Wednesday he would not be surprised if the inspections effort had been infiltrated — not necessarily by the Iraqis.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency also stood by his inspectors' findings that aluminum tubes the Iraqis had tried to import were for rockets and not for a nuclear program, as the president reasserted Tuesday in his State of the Union address. "We believe the tubes were destined for the conventional rocket program," ElBaradei said. He said the tubes could be modified for uranium enrichment, but the process would be expensive, time-consuming and detectable. On the Iraqi scientists, ElBaradei said it was unlikely his inspectors "could be fooled in the nuclear area on who is a scientist and who is not." READ

Episcopalian leader lashes out at Bush for 'reprehensible' policy

The top bishop of the Episcopal Church, in a stinging rebuke of American foreign policy, said the United States is rightly "hated and loathed" around the world for its "reprehensible" rhetoric and blind eye toward poverty and suffering.
"I'd like to be able to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the United States," Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold 3rd said Friday in an interview with Religion News Service. Griswold, head of the 2.3million-member church, blasted the Bush administration for its wartime rhetoric, especially labeling Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil." "Quite apart from the bombs we drop, words are weapons and we have used our language so unwisely, so intemperately, so thoughtlessly ... that I'm not surprised we are hated and loathed everywhere I go," he said.
The increasing likelihood of a U.S.-led attack on Iraq also drew strong criticism yesterday from Pope John Paul II, who argued that military force should be used only as "the very last option" -- and then only under certain conditions. READ

Butler: U.S. Guilty of 'Double Standards' on Iraq

Former U.N. arms inspector Richard Butler said Tuesday that Washington was promoting "shocking double standards" in considering taking unilateral military action to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.
Butler, who led U.N. inspection teams in Iraq until they left in 1998, said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein undoubtedly possessed weapons of mass destruction, and was trying to "cheat" his way again out of the latest U.N. demand to disarm.
But a U.S. attack, without United Nations backing, and without any effort to curb the possession of weapons of mass destruction globally, would be a contravention of international law and sharpen the divide between Arabs and the West. READ

Doubting Thomas offers her press veteran’s take on state of presidency

As veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas signed my program Thursday evening at the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual awards banquet, I said, “First time I ever asked a reporter for an autograph.”
“Thank you, dear,” she said, patting my arm. “Don’t lose heart.” Those are words that should be engraved at the bottom of every journalism degree. That’s because I’m not sure that any business can cause a heart to be lost or broken faster than this. And Thomas probably knows this better than anyone because she began reporting in 1943. As she signed my program, I joked, “You sound worried.” “This is the worst president ever,” she said. “He is the worst president in all of American history.” The woman who has known eight of them wasn’t joking. READ

Hate that Dare Not Speak Its Name

In one of those media moments so rare these days, the lid was lifted ever so slightly on the Bush administration last week, exposing some of the unsavory goings-on at the Dept.of Health and Human Services. A recent appointee to the presidential AIDS panel, Pennsylvania marketing consultant Jerry Thacker, withdrew his name–under pressure from the White House–after the Washington Post reported on page one that he had in the past called AIDS the "gay plague," had attacked the gay "death style" and had promoted the idea of "rescuing" homosexuals from their sin.
Those statements, and lots of other extremist blather, had for some time been sitting on Thacker’s website and on the site of the notorious Bob Jones University–where alumnus Thacker gave an antigay rant in 2001, equating homosexuality with bestiality. The websites were expunged of the comments just as news of Thacker joining the AIDS panel came out–a mysterious action that had the whiff of a White House cleansing. Nonetheless, the president, we were told, was shocked upon learning of Thacker’s comments. READ

GOP seeks conservative blacks
Black leaders provide House officials with 2 dozen resumes

With almost two dozen resumes from black Republicans in hand, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said his party's members will focus on hiring more minorities for their staffs. "One of our problems was, in the hiring of African-Americans, we can't find good conservative African-Americans to work for us," DeLay, R-Sugar Land, said after meeting Tuesday with conservative black leaders.
Citing a 2001 study by the Congressional Management Foundation, Ohio State Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell said only about 8 percent of the more than 20,000 Hill staffers are black. Only about 4 percent are in high-level positions and only about 1 percent are Republicans, Blackwell said. Only 50 of the more than 9,000 blacks holding elected positions nationwide in 2000 were Republicans, Blackwell said. READ

The quiet American mood of censorship

When it was finally released late last year in the United States - albeit only in New York and Los Angeles - director Philip Noyce's rendering of The Quiet American, Graham Greene's classic novel of 1955, was more significant than it might have seemed. Beyond the colour and intrigue of the film itself lies a story of studio intrigue and cowardice.
This is a work that nearly didn't see the light of day, at least not in America. The film, starring Michael Caine as a world-weary correspondent in Vietnam in 1952, when France's hold on Indo-China was coming undone, was completed more than a year ago. But its distributor, Miramax, was afraid to put it out. Not because it is any kind of dud; on the contrary, now that it has finally surfaced, there is talk of an Oscar nomination for Caine.
No, it was much worse than that. Miramax was nervous that the American public would be offended. READ

The 9/11 Movie Hollywood Won't Let You See

As movie premieres go, it was a low-key event. There was no red carpet, no one arrived in a limo and the press was noticeably absent. Instead, picture a crowd of graduate students with rain-dampened hair shuffling into the Roone Arledge Auditorium at Columbia University in New York on a blustery Sunday evening. It was the kind of premiere you'd expect for a Japanese art-house flick or a four-hour documentary on rural electrification in Rajasthan. Instead, though, the film being screened was the first major feature to deal with the events of Sept. 11, 2001, on the big screen. Two months after it was ready for release, and after it screened at high-profile international film festivals in Venice and Toronto, "11'09"01," the French-produced movie about the international repercussions of Sept. 11, can't get no respect in the U.S.
Dubbed "stridently anti-American" by Variety, the movie is in distribution limbo despite the participation of hot international directors such as Mira Nair ("Monsoon Wedding"), Alejandro González Iñárritu ("Amores Perros") and Danis Tanovic ("No Man's Land").
The controversy is easy to understand, especially in light of the current political climate in the U.S. After all, if Susan Sontag can get dragged across the coals for drawing a link between American foreign policy and 9/11, and if Bill Maher can lose his "Politically Incorrect" gig for questioning the description of the hijackers as "cowards," then it goes without saying that a film that looks kindly upon the family of a Palestinian suicide bomber and calls attention to U.S. complicity in murderous South American regimes might stick in the craws of executives at Sony and Universal. READ

January 2003 and December 2002 Stories not previously linked

Winning the Election, Losing the Public?

For example, in the Los Angeles Times survey, the public was asked what they thought would be more effective in stimulating the economy: economic agenda focused on returning money to taxpayers through tax cuts, or an economic agenda focused on spending for improvements to the country's infrastructure such as roads, bridges and schools?
By 53 percent to 39 percent, the public said they preferred the infrastructure improvements approach. Even more compelling, the public overwhelming said they did not want even the tax cuts currently scheduled for 2004 and 2006 to go through if that meant that will have to be taken out of Social Security funds to pay for other government programs as a result (opposed by 77 percent to 15 percent). READ

Waiting In The Food Line

Almost half the people fed by these lines are kids. The Agriculture Department figures that one in six children in America face hunger. That more than 12 million kids. Nationwide, children have the highest poverty rate.
Crystal Theobold needs food for two sons. Her boyfriend Toby Pederson recently lost his job as a heavy equipment operator. He gets unemployment, $100 a week, and food stamps come to $200 a month. So they stretch. They buy whole milk and cut it with an equal amount of water. It makes milk last longer. Because the baby right now, he needs milk. He don't know the difference yet, she says. READ

One generation to save world, report warns: Influential body says last chances must be seized

The human race has only one or perhaps two generations to rescue itself, according to the 2003 State of the World report by the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute The longer that no remedial action is taken, the greater the degree of misery and biological impoverishment that humankind must be prepared to accept, the institute says in its 20th annual report. READ

World on path to disaster, bomb pioneer warns
Defence analysts at Guardian non-proliferation conference see increased risk of atomic war

President George Bush, hijacked by hardliners in his administration, is setting the world on a course towards nuclear disaster, a founder of the nuclear deterrence policy said. The 1995 Nobel peace laureate, Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, accused the US of developing a policy which regarded nuclear weapons as bad if in the possession of some states or groups but good if they were kept by the US for the sake of world security.
The fact that it had signed the non-proliferation treaty and was legally bound to the elimination of nuclear weapons was ignored, he told the Guardian-sponsored non-proliferation conference, jointly hosted by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies and Physicians for Social Responsibility. READ

Power to the Privileged

A general strike in Venezuela, the fourth-largest exporter of oil to the United States, has contributed to a rise in oil prices in the last month. But the strike, which began on Dec. 2 and has resulted in a drastic decline in the country's oil production, was not initiated by left-wing labor unions, as many Americans may think. In fact, it was instigated by Venezuela's wealthy business elite....
Venezuela is only the most recent illustration. President Hugo Chavez was democratically elected in 1998 in a landslide victory, a result reconfirmed in a vote in 2000. Since taking office, however, Mr. Chavez has presided over an increasingly chaotic economy — a chaos not always, though sometimes, of his own making. The strikes currently crippling Venezuela's economy, for example, are largely the work of business interests that are intensely opposed to Mr. Chavez because of his threats of nationalization and his attempts to seize control of the oil sector. READ

Poll: Americans wary about spending, tax cuts, war 'It's a scary new year'

Americans believe by a 2-to-1 margin that it's prudent to hold off on more tax cuts, a centerpiece of President Bush's domestic policy agenda, an Associated Press poll found. READ

M.I.T. Studies Accusations of Lies and Cover-Up of Flaws in Antimissile System

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is looking into accusations that its premier laboratory lied to cover up serious problems with the technology at the heart of the administration's proposed antimissile defense system. READ

Stretching the truth to confuse the enemy - and us

There is a debate going on in the upper ranks of the government over how this country ought to present its image abroad.
This particular debate has gone back and forth ever since the days of the Voice of America (VOA) in World War II. On the one hand is the school that says: Present a full and fair picture, the blemishes along with the bright spots. On the other hand is the school that argues: Don't say anything negative. READ

Davis strategist hopes to topple Bush
South thanks governor, steps down to focus on next presidential campaign

Garry South, the brash strategist credited with shaping a decade of Gray Davis' political victories, will no longer work for the Democratic governor -- saying he is embarking on a new career on the national stage, "beating the bejesus out of George W. Bush."
South said Wednesday that he is pursuing involvement with independent political committees to push the Democratic message in the coming presidential election and exploring whether to work for a presidential candidate. READ

Outflanked Democrats Wonder How to Catch Up in Media Wars

Worried that their party has been outgunned in the political propaganda wars by conservative radio and television
personalities, influential Democrats are scouring the nation for a liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh and the many others on the deep bench of Republican friends. For years, Democrats have groused about their inability to balance what they see as the increasing influence over the electorate by advocates of Republican policies. But they say their concerns have taken on a new urgency because of the rise to the top of the cable news ratings by the Fox News Channel, considered by many to have a conservative slant, and the loss of the Senate to the Republicans in November. Some Democrats say the election outcome enhanced the influence of Fox News and personalities like Mr. Limbaugh. READ

Mid-January 2003 (with earlier links to economic trends)

Bush Economic Stimulus Plan Links

No Date: Misc. Links

A Strategy for Not Splitting our Future Votes

...Here's our problem. If we adopt all the Green Party positions, we may lose the middle voter. If we don't adopt sensible Green positions, however, the Greens will split our vote again. What should we do? And what should the Greens do, now that they may have in their hands the ability to grant or deny Mr. Bush a second term?...I'm sure Mr. Nader would not like to think of a second Bush presidency, either.
... Now. You are Terry McAuliffe. Dab your mouth with your napkin and think how you might avoid another split vote in 2004. Well, what do you do in an impossible conflict? You negotiate a truce. As Mr. McAuliffe, you call up Mr. Nader and the leadership of the Greens. You offer a four year truce, during which two things happen: One, the Green Party members are welcome at the Democratic convention and at local and national Democrat meetings, to make their case and influence the party planks. Two, the Democratic Party agrees to push Instant Runoff voting though as many state legislatures as possible, and even through Congress. READ

The Takeover Artists

...the Reagan business hero was the corporate takeover artist. Any regulations that might get in the way of these ruthless new capitalists were removed -- removed so that reptiles of uncommon greed and brutality might rule the earth, which they now nearly do.
What soon happened was that ALL corporations of medium size or larger had to look over their shoulders. How did a corporation protect itself in this environment from a hostile takeover? It had to close down any factories that were not earning obscene profits. Never mind that a factory had served a town well for a century, or that it provided a healthy and regular profit for its stockholders. If it seemed to be underperfoming by the new hypergreed standards, or if it could be closed in favor of opening a foreign plant that provided a slightly higher rate of return, then, in this new atmosphere, the company was derelict in its duty to its stockholders if it did not ruthlessly act.
Perfectly good and profitable factories were closed. Benefits to employees everywhere were attacked, and staffs were downsized, outsourced, computerized, downsized again, outsourced again to temp agencies that paid no health care or retirement, and on and on until America became a very different place. The gap between rich and poor is now wider than at any time in our history. READ

Hogs at the Public Trough

The Federal Government, four years ago, was paying out about $125 billion a year in corporate welfare nationally, Now, special corporate tax breaks have more than doubled it. They get that landslide of our tax dollars – billions more than is paid to alleviate poverty in this country -- in exchange for their campaign support of key legislators in Congress and in statehouses. The conservative Cato Institute has estimated that campaign contributions from fatcat donors are returned ten-to-one in corporate welfare payoffs.
Mr. Bresky has a little company called Seaboard, which includes flour mills in Ecuador, Guyana, Haiti, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has feed mills in Ecuador, Nigeria and the Congo. He has 3,000 acres of shrimp ponds in Ecuador and Honduras; 37,000 acres of sugarcane, 4,200 acres of citrus. A sugar mill in Argentina; a winery in Bulgaria. Agricultural interests in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Venezuela. He owns electric-power-generating facilities in the Dominican Republic; shipping companies in Liberia, and has containerized cargo vessels running between Miami and Central and South America. He also, as you may know, has hog farms in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Colorado, and poultry-processing plants, feed mills, hatcheries and 700 contract chicken growers in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Now why would this busy, busy man take time to write checks to members of the Oklahoma Legislature? Why does he pepper the members of the environmental regulation committees with generous donations? I suspect that he is just a good government booster, don't you? READ

Archives Have some respect for the American President. Based on some of his public pronouncements to date, respect is something George W. Bush may have trouble obtaining.

What significance does Nov. 7, 2000 hold? The day U.S.democracy broke down? The day Americans stopped caring? The day Floridians really became delusional? How about the day Dan Rather broke down, stopped caring, and really became delusional?
The staid newsman anchored last fall’s presidential jackpot using, without warning, what are sometimes called colourful comparisons.

Other times they are called nonsensical gibberish. Perhaps Rather should have saved these for a stint on Saturday Night Live:

"Bush is sweeping through the south like a tornado through a trailer park."
"If he doesn't carry Florida, Slim will have left town." (On Gore's odds.)
"(Whoever loses the election will be) madder than a rained-on rooster."
"Are your fingernails starting to sweat?"
"This race is as tight as a too-small bathing suit on a too-hot car ride back from the beach."
"These margins are shakier than cafeteria Jell-O."
"Bush's lead has melted faster than ice cream in a microwave."
"We try to look into the crystal ball to make predictions, but we're choking on broken glass tonight."
“(The Florida race was) hot enough to peel house paint."
"Bush has run through Dixie like a big wheel through a cotton field." READ

Week of 01/06/03

Reclaiming Our Courage: True victory for the right is impossible as long as we keep fighting

It's hard to maintain hope when greed and fear seem to hold all the cards. Despite Bush's mangled phrases, the political operatives who surround him are as ruthless and cunning as any in recent memory. Some of them believe they're taking orders from God. Others are simply playing the political game. Either way, they'll do whatever they can to maintain and increase their power.
With the help of a compliant media and a fearful and distracted populace, they may even temporarily prevail. But ultimately they'll succeed only if those of us who embrace more humane visions give up in despair. READ

Who's Playing 'Class Warfare'?

Be wary. By offering certain facts here, I may, according to President Bush, make myself guilty of "class warfare."
The president is proposing an economic "stimulus" plan that will certainly stimulate the very wealthiest Americans. Its centerpiece will be an end to taxes on dividends, which will cost the government about $300 billion over the next decade. It happens, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, that roughly half that money would go to people earning more than $350,000 a year, to the top 1 percent of Americans. The 80 percent of households earning less than $73,000 a year will get less than 10 percent of this stimulant.
With so many Americans losing their jobs and their health insurance, with senior citizens getting clobbered by prescription drug costs, with money short for educating kids, you'd think we could find better ways of stimulating the economy.
But everything I just said is politically incorrect because it involves a kind of warfare of which the president most definitely disapproves.
"I understand the politics of economic stimulus, that some would like to turn this into class warfare," Bush said last week as he was giving reporters a tour of that very nice ranch he owns in Crawford, Tex. "That's not how I think." READ

As the United States continues to ponder war with Iraq, a military scientist and writer now living in Reno recalls the truths she learned during a trip to post-Desert Storm Iraq.

...A decade later, President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell conspire to make their own devil's deal to finish off what the elder President Bush started. As for the civilian casualties of Desert Storm, former President Jimmy Carter has publicly stated that "maybe more than 150,000 Iraqi [civilians] were killed in [the] massive bombing." Powell, who directed Desert Storm as the head of America's armed forces, finds the whole matter of civilian casualties simply inconvenient. "That's not really a number I'm terribly interested in," he said. READ

Gulf War's toll: 158,000 Iraqis and a researcher's position

This time, Beth Osborne Daponte will be leaving her calculator off. A senior researcher at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, Daponte was the Census Bureau demographer who postulated in 1991 that 158,000 Iraqi men, women and children died during and shortly after the Persian Gulf war. In return, she was reprimanded by her government, and saw her report rewritten and her career sidetracked.
...The casualty issue is rising again, almost 11 years to the day after Daponte's body count caused a national ruckus after the Pentagon said there was no way to estimate it. By her count, based on demographic projections and ground-level accounts, more Iraqi civilians than soldiers perished
during and after the war. READ

What Bodies?

Leon Daniel, as did others who reported from Vietnam during the 1960s, knew about war and death. So he was puzzled by the lack