BushWhackedUSA: THE BLOG

BUSH'S "CULTURE OF OWNERSHIP"

2004-09-04T22:07:00.000-06:00

I don't know how long it will be at this URL, but here is John Cassidy on Bush's ambitious bid to make the rich richer and the poor poorer in the coming four years.

EXCERPT: A few weeks ago, George W. Bush crossed the Potomac to a community college in Annandale, Virginia, where he hosted an “Ask President Bush” town-hall-style meeting and took up a favorite campaign theme, saying that one of the things that separated him from his opponent was his intention to create a “culture of ownership.” The same day, the Bush-Cheney campaign released a new television ad that shows pictures of houses, workers, and businesses as the President announces, “One of the most important parts of a reform agenda is to encourage people to own something. Own their own home, own their own business, own their own health-care plan, or own a piece of their retirement. Because I understand if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of America.”

The President’s ownership initiative hasn’t featured prominently in the media coverage of the campaign, which, strictly from a news perspective, is understandable: he hasn’t announced many specific proposals to back up his talk. But in downplaying the Bush Administration’s economic agenda the media is missing one of the biggest domestic stories of the 2004 campaign. When the President pledges to create an “era of ownership,” he is not talking merely about encouraging people to buy their own homes and start small businesses. To conservative Republicans who understand his coded language, he is also talking about extending and expanding the tax cuts he introduced in his first term; he is talking about allowing wealthy Americans to shelter much of their income from the I.R.S.; about using the tax code to curtail the government’s role in health care and retirement saving; and, ultimately, about a vision that has entranced but eluded conservatives for decades: the abolition of the graduated income tax and its replacement with a levy that is simpler, flatter, and more favorable to rich people.

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OUTFOXING THE FOX

2004-08-24T21:01:00.000-06:00
In its continuing efforts to outfox Fox News, CNN's headline writer has thrown its weight behind the "few bad apples" theory with this headline today:

Report: Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House' at night

Yet the lede reads: Abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq represented "deviant behavior and a failure of military leadership and discipline" at the facility, but direct and indirect responsibility for those acts and others elsewhere went higher up the chain of command, an independent panel reported Tuesday.

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CELL PHONES IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

2004-08-24T20:56:00.000-06:00
(No pun intended.)

I'm so tired of the back and forth about Kerry's vietnam record, and so disgusted that the whole thing hasn't blown up in Bush's cowardly face, that I've decided not to read any more about it for several days. Not that I've got much time to read this week, but...

Here's an interesting article in ZNet, by Sam Bahour:

De-development, Israeli Style

EXCERPT: Faced with the lopsided Oslo Peace Accords, Palestinians attempted to overcome tremendous odds over the last ten years to sow the seeds of a modern Palestinian economy. However, Israel had different plans, namely to manipulate the uneven balance of power to eliminate any possibility for Palestinian self-sufficiency and the emergence of a Palestinian state. Mixing the greed of the corporate world with the might of the Israeli military, Israel is well on track to undermine Palestinian achievements, and by doing so, Israel has wrecked the Palestinian society with severe consequences that will last for many years.

There are winners and losers in today's cutthroat business world. Corporate America reigns supreme with its breadth and depth into world markets increasing daily. One huge market which is growing at an overwhelming pace is telecommunications, especially the cellular business. Around the world and in the Middle East specifically, the telecommunications sector is proving to be the vehicle that is prodding governments to modernize and become more transparent, accountable and market-driven.

Countries, particularly smaller and least developed ones, have benefited from this telecommunications boom by liberalizing their markets in order to attract foreign direct investment and gain firsthand experience in one of today's most dynamic industries. In conflict-stricken Israel and yet-to-be Palestine, this globalized model of development is not working and the Palestinians are losing while those tasked with maintaining the rules and laws of today's global village turn a blind eye.

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IRAN THREATENS US FORCES IN PERSIAN GULF

2004-08-20T11:03:00.000-06:00
Haven't seen much of this in America's mainstream media yet...

Iran threatens to attack US forces in Gulf
The Strait Times, 20 August 2004
EXCERPT: Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani has warned that Iran might launch a pre-emptive strike against United States forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.
'We will not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us,' he told Al-Jazeera television when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilities.
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'Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly.
'America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan. We are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq,' he said.
'The US military presence (in Iraq) will not become an element of strength (for Washington) at our expense. The opposite is true, because their forces would turn into a hostage' in Iranian hands in the event of an attack, he said.
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Gotta wonder how this will play out on The Rapture Index.

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PAT WILLIAMS ON PORTER GOSS

2004-08-19T01:00:00.000-06:00
We scored a good one for Thursday's issue...

Porter Goss: Another Bush Intelligence Failure
Former House Majority Whip Pat Williams on Bush's nominee for Director of Central Intelligence and why the furrowed brow and secretive pout of Porter Goss, a longtime CIA apologist, is the wrong face to lead an agency in dire need of reform
BushWhackedUSA, 19 August 2004
EXCERPT: Having served so long with Porter and knowing the political climate today, I expect, as do most observers, that the Senate will confirm him to head the CIA. As we all understand — now — America’s intelligence apparatus is in need of a real overhaul, but, frankly, I’m not convinced that Porter Goss is the right person for the task. I will say he looks right — Porter has one of those CIA faces: sincere, serious, secretive and worried — he has that furrowed-brow look that says, “I know something really bad, but I can’t tell you about it.” Perhaps that look comes from Goss’ earlier days as a CIA operative and later from his chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. So…Porter looks the part; and he has experience — but I question that experience. During the years we served together, Porter Goss was an apologist for the CIA and our other intelligence agencies as well. Back when only a few members of Congress understood that America was not being properly defended by the CIA and others, Porter Goss stoutly defended those agencies. And worse, he considered those who asked the hard questions as being weak on defense. Goss was a proponent not of reform, but rather of more money so the agencies could simply carry on with what we all now recognize were their inefficient, uncoordinated and, it turns out, dangerous malpractice. In 1998 Goss was the prime mover of securing an increase for those flawed agencies of $1 billion dollars — not for reform but for the same old failed intelligence processes.

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FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ISRAELI NUCLEAR WHISTLEBLOWER

2004-08-18T11:28:00.000-06:00
Democracy Now! scored the first international interview with Mordechai Vanunu. Not to be missed. (Here's the transcript.) EXCERPT:

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli government has called you a traitor. What is your response to that?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Well, I answer this. When I get out of the prison, I am saying many, many times that I am very glad, happy and proud to reveal its nuclear secrets to all the world and to let all the world to see the stupidity of Israel's nuclear weapons policy and the danger of a nuclear weapons policy in secret by Israel. And I was not a traitor. The real traitors are Israel's government who was behind this nuclear weapons policy for 40 years, and continues. They are betraying the Israeli citizens, and betraying the Arab community, and betraying all of humanity and the world, the human beings of all the world. They are the real traitors.

AMY GOODMAN: What are the secrets that you reveal that you think were most significant?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Excuse me, but I could not understand, hear you.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain, Mordechai Vanunu, the secrets you feel were most significant for the world to know? You were imprisoned 18 years ago. Can you say what you were trying to reveal to the world?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Well, it was very open and very clear: the secrets that were published by the Sunday Times in 1986. The main points were: one, the amount of Israel's nuclear weapons, how many Israel had, that no one could predict or know, including the CIA. They were thinking about a number like 10 or 15. But I came out with a number between 150 to 200. Second point is no one here could predict or know that Israel was involved or started producing the hydrogen bomb -- the most advanced and powerful atomic bomb that can kill millions of people. And that has no justification -- no need for Israel's existence. They don't need hydrogen bomb. That was my revelation that was proved, with photos, to all of the world. That was the very important news that I brought to the world.

AMY GOODMAN: And how did you know this?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: I knew that because I worked in the place, in the building where my job was producing the materials for nuclear weapons. My job was to produce plutonium that was used for atomic bomb. I knew how much they produced every day, every year. So I could make out the amount and see exactly how many bombs can they do. I also was producing, working on other materials for the hydrogen bomb. They call it lithium-6 and tritium. I was working on these and the only use for lithium-6 is the hydrogen bomb. And I also take photos of hydrogen bomb, from another part of the building. It was not part of my job, but I succeeded to go and take photos of the hydrogen bomb. My revelation was Israel [had] started producing a neutron bomb. I succeed to take photograph of the model of the neutron bomb. This means Israel was ready to use nuclear weapons in the next war, in 1986 if it had war with Iraq, or Iran or Syria. It could use them against armies. That means the beginning by Israel using atomic bomb.... That was the most dangerous point in the Middle East: Israel, they could have used nuclear weapons like no other state there...

AMY GOODMAN: So, Mordechai Vanunu, you say that they had 150 to 200 atomic bombs, that they had developed them. That they were building a hydrogen bomb, and a neutron bomb?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And have they done that at this point? It's 18 years later.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: I don't know what they did in 18 years. We can just assume they have much more and powerful, more advanced technology, all the new computers, everything could be much more easier and help them to build much more and many more nuclear weapons. I just assume. I don't have any new information, what happened in 18 years.

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BUSH IS EITHER MAKING YOU RICH OR FAT

2004-08-17T22:49:00.000-06:00
If for no other reason, Americans should vote Bush out of office in order to lose weight. It's true. Stands to reason. Here goes... The gap between rich and poor is growing in this country. As Leigh Strope of the Associated Press reports, "The wealthiest 20 percent of households in 1973 accounted for 44 percent of total U.S. income, according to the Census Bureau. Their share jumped to 50 percent in 2002, while everyone else's fell. For the bottom fifth, the share dropped from 4.2 percent to 3.5 percent." Just the other day the Congressional Budget office has found that a third of Bush's tax cuts have gone to people earning in the top one percent; meanwhile, the tax cuts are minimal or nonexistent for those on the bottom rung of the ladder. In other words, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And as NPR reported on Tuesday, if you're poor, you're more likely to suffer from obesity. So, statistically speaking, as that income gap widens so does your waistline.

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GHANDI IN PALESTINE

2004-08-15T22:41:00.000-06:00
It looks like the grandson of Mahatma Ghandi is headed to the occupied Palestinian territories to launch a nonviolent campaign to end Israeli occupation and oppression. One wonders if even the name of Ghandi will be enough to garner a few headlines in the apathetic Western media that scarcely takes note when Israeli helicopters fire missiles in Gaza or Israel's Palestinian prisoners stage a mass hunger strike. Well, the writing's on the wall and people on the other side of that wall are busy spelling out the difference between anarchy and chaos.

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MORE OF THE SAME

2004-08-13T10:43:00.000-06:00
CBO Report Finds Tax Cuts Heavily Favor the Wealthy
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
NYT, 13 August 2004
EXCERPT: Fully one-third of President Bush's tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday. The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings - averaging about $57,000 a year - were getting an average cut of only $1,090. The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush's tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers. Those are also the people, however, who pay a disproportionate share of federal income taxes. The calculations, which were requested by Congressional Democrats, are all but certain to intensify a central debate between Mr. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee. Mr. Bush has argued that the tax cuts provided crucial support to the economy at a time when it was mired in a recession and reeling from the effects of a stock market collapse, terrorist attacks and corporate scandals.
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Well, at least Bush knows how to solidify his base.

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WHY DOES THE RECONSTRUCTION (sic) LOOK LIKE SUCH A CRIMINAL RACKET?

2004-08-12T23:36:00.000-06:00
I grabbed several items for the Friday issue of BushWhackedUSA, but this is the one I'd love to discuss...

Fables of the Reconstruction
By Christian Parenti
The Nation, 12 August 2004
EXCERPT: Throughout the country, vital systems, from water and power to healthcare and education, are in woeful disrepair. The World Bank estimates that bringing Iraq back to its 1991 level of development will cost $55 billion and take at least four years. In the past seventeen months, US taxpayers have set aside a total of $24 billion to rebuild Iraq. Most of that sum has not been spent, though billions of dollars of poorly accounted for Iraqi oil revenues have been expended, or at least allocated to foreign (mostly American) contractors. Humanitarians see reconstruction as a moral obligation: a form of reparations for two US-led wars and thirteen years of brutal sanctions. From a military standpoint, reconstruction is central to the US counterinsurgency effort. The occupation's star officers, like Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, readily acknowledge that a broken economy means more violence. But seen up close, reconstruction in Iraq looks less like a mission of mercy or a sophisticated pacification program and more like a criminal racket.

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NEGLECTING THE BIGOT VOTE

2004-08-12T23:30:00.000-06:00
With Republicans echoing the talking point that Democrats take the African-American vote for granted (all summer long!), it should be a standard response to accuse the GOP of taking it's constituency of bigots for granted. Why don't they just come out of the closet: the GOP is the party for homophobes, xenophobes and people whose hearts are dripping with hatred.

I'm waiting for someone in the GOP to stand up and say, "I'm a bigoted American, and proud of it."

Grrr...

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CRUNCH TIME IS A GOOD TIME FOR BLOGGING

2004-08-09T23:10:00.000-06:00
I changed my mind. I'll keep at it, but won't commit to regular posts. Some days it'll be three, some days none. Gotta run -- the baby calls!

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Shhhhhhh

2004-08-08T14:41:00.000-06:00
I'm going to retire from the blog indefinitely, to focus my (severely limited) energy on the main site between now and November 2, which is 86 days away. It's crunch time, as they probably say in the cereal business, and in other crunchy businesses.

RED CROSS COMES DOWN OFF THE FENCE...FOR THE BRITISH

2004-08-05T00:02:00.000-06:00
I don't mean to complain. It's great that the International Red Cross has finally come out with what we all knew: that the US has committed systematic war crimes in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. I wonder, though, why it took the testimonies of three British ex-prisoners in the past couple of days to tip the IRC off the fence. The photos, video footage and testimonies of abuse of hundreds of Iraqi, Afghani and other prisoners weren't compelling enough already? Allegations that as many as 100 Iraqi children were abused, tortured and raped by coalition [sic] and Iraqi forces didn't jar the IRC into action?

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JUST FOR TODAY

2004-08-04T23:49:00.000-06:00
Today, and only today, I've posted the BushWhackedUSA items here instead of on the main site. My partner in crime is traveling, and rather than screwing up his system I thought this would be easier. So, now that you're here, feel free to comment on things. What's on your mind? Oh, and welcome!
-Eric Bosse
Co-Editor, BushWhackedUSA

BushWhackedUSA.com

BUSHWHACKEDUSA: INTERNATIONAL ITEMS, 5 AUGUST 2004

2004-08-04T23:46:00.000-06:00
US ABUSE COULD BE WAR CRIMES: Red Cross Says Britons May Have a Case
By Vikram Dodd and Tania Branigan
The Guardian (UK), 5 August 2004
EXCERPT: Repeated abuses allegedly suffered by three British prisoners at the hands of US interrogators and guards in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba could amount to war crimes, the Red Cross said yesterday. The organisation, which maintains a rigidly neutral stance in public, took the unusual step of voicing its concerns in uncompromising language after the former detainees, known as the Tipton Three, revealed that they had been beaten, shackled, photographed naked and in one incident questioned at gunpoint while in US custody. Their vivid account of the harrowing conditions at the camp, as told to their lawyers and published for the first time in yesterday's Guardian, has reignited the debate about the treatment of prisoners and the British government's role in their questioning and detention. Last night the Red Cross was joined by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, which argued that if the allegations were true they indicated systematic abuse, amounting to torture.
SEE ALSO: Editorial: Justice in the Balance (Guardian)
SEE ALSO: Families call for immediate freeing of Britons caught in 'Kafka nightmare' (Guardian)
SEE ALSO: Questioned at Gunpoint, Shackled, Forced to Pose Naked: British Detainees Tell Their Stories of Guantanamo Bay
By Vikram Dodd and Tania Branigan
The Guardian (UK) 4 August 2004
EXCERPT: Britain and the US last night faced fresh allegations of abuses after a British terror suspect said an SAS soldier had interrogated him for three hours while an American colleague pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot him. The allegation is contained in a new dossier detailing repeated beatings and humiliation suffered by three Britons who were captured in Afghanistan, then held in Guantánamo Bay for two years, before being released in March without charge. Rhuhel Ahmed, one of the "Tipton Three", claims in the 115-page dossier that shortly after his capture in November 2001 he was interviewed in Afghanistan by a British interrogator who said he was from the SAS. Mr Ahmed alleges he was taken by US guards to be interrogated by the British officer in a tent. "One of the US soldiers had a gun to his head and he was told if he moved they would shoot him," the report says. The SAS officer pressed him to admit he had gone to Afghanistan to fight a holy war.

Coalition Forces Holding Children in Iraqi Prisons
Human rights groups demand immediate access to children held as criminals or 'security detainees.'
By Tom Regan
Christian Science Monitor, 4 August 2004
EXCERPT: The Sunday Herald of Scotland reported this week on its own investigation into allegations that more than 100 children, some as young as 10 years-old, are being detained by coalition forces in Iraq under suspicion of "alleged activities targeting the occupying forces." Many of the children are being held in a special wing at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The Herald's story includes allegations that some of the children were abused, tortured, or raped, by coalition and Iraqi soldiers.

Bush Administration Knew They Were Lying About Iraq
Despite the whitewash, we now know that the Bush administration was warned before the war that its Iraq claims were weak
By David Sirota and Christy Harvey
In These Times, 3 August 2004
EXCERPT: If desperation is ugly, then Washington, D.C. today is downright hideous. As the 9/11 Commission recently reported, there was “no credible evidence” of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Similarly, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. With U.S. casualties mounting in an election year, the White House is grasping at straws to avoid being held accountable for its dishonesty. The whitewash already has started: In July, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee released a controversial report blaming the CIA for the mess. The panel conveniently refuses to evaluate what the White House did with the information it was given or how the White House set up its own special team of Pentagon political appointees (called the Office of Special Plans) to circumvent well-established intelligence channels. And Vice President Dick Cheney continues to say without a shred of proof that there is “overwhelming evidence” justifying the administration’s pre-war charges. But as author Flannery O’Conner noted, “Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” That means no matter how much defensive spin spews from the White House, the Bush administration cannot escape the documented fact that it was clearly warned before the war that its rationale for invading Iraq was weak. Top administration officials repeatedly ignored warnings that their assertions about Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and connections to al Qaeda were overstated. In some cases, they were told their claims were wholly without merit, yet they went ahead and made them anyway. Even the Senate report admits that the White House “misrepresented” classified intelligence by eliminating references to contradictory assertions. In short, they knew they were misleading America.

Weapons of Miller's Descriptions
Spoon-fed information about Iraq's WMDs, New York Times reporter Judith Miller authored many stories later found to be misleading or downright false.
By Herbert L. Abrams
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2004
EXCERPT:By June 3, 2003, according to a Harris Poll, 35 percent of Americans believed that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) had been found in Iraq, while 10 percent were not sure; in October, 30 percent were still persuaded, although six months of searching had failed to uncover any such weapons. How could so many have been convinced in the face of the total absence of evidence? Selected comments from New York Times reporter Judith Miller's dispatches from December 2001 through June 2003 provide part of the answer. Miller, with a special knack for writing what the Pentagon liked to read, was the sole reporter embedded with the 75th Exploitation Task Force, which operated Mobile Exploitation Teams (MET Alpha, MET Bravo) hunting for WMD in Iraq. Her stories, which were widely reprinted or reported in other newspapers, on cable TV, and on talk radio, helped convey the impression to the nation that illicit weapons had been found in Iraq, supposedly validating the decision for war.

Doctors and Torture: Medical Professionals Complicit in Illegal Procedures
By Robert J. Lifton, M.D.
New England Journal of Medicine, 29 July 2004
EXCERPT: There is increasing evidence that U.S. doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Such medical complicity suggests still another disturbing dimension of this broadening scandal. We know that medical personnel have failed to report to higher authorities wounds that were clearly caused by torture and that they have neglected to take steps to interrupt this torture. In addition, they have turned over prisoners' medical records to interrogators who could use them to exploit the prisoners' weaknesses or vulnerabilities. We have not yet learned the extent of medical involvement in delaying and possibly falsifying the death certificates of prisoners who have been killed by torturers.

New Thinking in an All-Orange World
By Tom Englehardt and Mark LeVine
TomDispatch, 3 August 2004
EXCERPT #1 (Engelhardt): Unfortunately, our media is programmatically like some exceedingly slow, brain-damaged acquaintance. You have this constant urge to stretch out your hand and say, "Here, here, I'll help you along." But you also know that, massive and influential as it may be, on certain crucial matters it is institutionally incapable of learning. I mean, it's almost three years after 9/11 and we know we have an administration that never saw a piece of false intelligence it couldn't run with or accurate intelligence it couldn't mangle or suppress.
EXCERPT #2 (LeVine): It is time for the United States to declare a truce with the Muslim world, and radical Islam in particular. This may sound like a naïve, even defeatist statement in the context of The 9/11 Commission Report's reminder that America remains very much at war with "Islamist terrorism" and the ideas behind it. Yet a truce -- in Arabic, hudna -- rather than an increasingly dangerous "clash of civilizations," is the only way to avoid a long, ultimately catastrophic conflict. And it's up to Europe to be the good broker. Indeed, there is no chance for a halt in the war on terror, or any fundamental change in U.S. foreign policy as long as George Bush is President. Even if John Kerry wins this November, the possibility that he might initiate such a transformation is slim. However, there is one major difference -- at least rhetorically -- between the two possible presidencies: Kerry has made a point of saying that he would "listen" to European allies and strive to build a common approach to combating terrorism.

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BUSHWHACKEDUSA: NATIONAL ITEMS, 5 AUGUST 2004

2004-08-04T23:43:00.000-06:00
FUBAR
Source for New Terror Alerts Fed U.S. False Information in 2002
Capitol Hill Blue, 4 August 2004
EXCERPT: An imprisoned terror suspect that the Bush administration says provided "vital" information that led to increased alerts in Washington, New York and New Jersey is the same suspect who provided false information that led to false alerts in 2002, angry intelligence officials say. The administration claimed it learned from an imprisoned terror suspect, separately from the documents and two prisoners named this week, that al-Qaida was plotting to attack U.S. financial buildings, officials. The White House described the latest information as "another new stream of intelligence" that supported its decision to issue warnings. It arrived days before the public alert, even as officials were reviewing reams of documents and photographs that showed surveillance of five such financial buildings in New York, New Jersey and Washington carried out years ago by al-Qaida. But Capitol Hill Blue has learned the terror suspect is Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaida honcho captured in Pakistan in March, 2002. At that time, Zubaydah claimed suicide bomb attacks against the same financial institutions were imminent and U.S. officials responded by raising the terror alert status only to lower it a short time later and admit Zubaydah's information was "questionable." "Old information isn't irrelevant information - particularly with this kind of enemy," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn. "Horseshit," muttered a DHS agent who, for obvious reasons, asked that his name be withheld. "We're chasing ghosts and we're chasing our tails. How many times must this clown lead us around by the nose before we learn we have been made fools of once again?"
SEE ALSO: Despite "Terror" Warnings, Laura Bush Visits Citicorp Building in New York (CNN/Money)

NYT Editorial: The Terror Alerts
New York Times, 5 August 2004
EXCERPT: Given the unprecedented circumstances and the costs of making a mistake, it's easy to understand why the administration has had so much trouble managing the way it informs the public about potential danger. But after 17 months in which alerts blinked from yellow to orange and back a half-dozen times, the White House should be past its learning curve. It isn't. The events of this week showed starkly that the system is not working. The administration was obviously right to warn the country that Al Qaeda had apparently studied financial institutions in three cities with the idea of a possible attack. But the delivery of the message was confusing. The color-coded threat chart doesn't serve the purpose for which it was invented, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge is hopeless as a public spokesman on this issue. The Bush administration needs to come up with a method of communication that informs the public in a calm, clear way. Perhaps most important, people need to be made totally confident that this critical matter is not being tangled up in the presidential campaign.

Bush Announces 20 Recess Appointments
Associated Press, 31 July 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush on Friday announced his intention to make 20 appointments during the congressional recess, including a new chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, a manufacturing czar and three ambassadors.

The Sultan Brought Cheesecake
The Smoking Gun, 4 August 2004
EXCERPT: Three hundred pounds of lamb. A $12,000 Franck Muller watch. Christian Dior after-shave lotion. A Lady McDuffies gourmet lemon cheesecake. Those are just a few of the fabulous gifts received last year by the Bush family from foreign leaders, according to a list released this week by the Department of State's Office of Protocol (below you'll find excerpts from the 52-page report). It will probably come as no surprise that the most valuable gift came from Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdallah, who gave First Lady Laura Bush a matching set of diamond and sapphire jewelry valued by U.S. officials at $95,500. The Saudi royal also gave the president an $8500 mantel clock and the "first family" (that would be first daughters Jenna and Barbara) received Bulgari necklaces valued at $8500 and $8000 apiece. Other recipients of Saudi largesse were Chief of Staff Andrew Card and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, both of whom got small daggers priced at $1500.

Playing Dirty: Negative Ads Aren't the Only Weapons in the GOP Arsenal
By David Corn
TomPaine.com, 4 August 2004
EXCERPT: Here come the dirty bombs. I’m not referring to the most recent terror alert, which just so happened to coincide with the conclusion of the Democrats’ successful convention. (Isn’t it awful that the public—quite justifiably—cannot approach the Bush administration’s terror announcements without a healthy dose of cynicism?) No, the dirty bombs being launched these days are coming from GOP HQ. No sooner had Commander Kerry accomplished his mission in Boston—by presenting himse

Bush's Daughters Get Ride on Rare Diverted Flight
WRAL, 3 August 2004
EXCERPT: A representative for US Airways said the decision to divert the plane had nothing to do with the Bush twins. In fact, the representative said US Airways often diverts planes for such problems, but could not provide an exact number when asked. Several passengers at Reagan National Airport said they have never heard of such treatment. Industry experts say such diversions are extremely rare.

Maybe two wrongs sometimes make a right...
Liberals Want Their Own Network
By Mark Baard
Wired News, 30 July 2004
EXCERPT: A group of progressive media activists covering the Democratic National Convention in Boston plans to launch a new television network to counter the conservative news coverage they see on Fox News and CNN. The group includes one of the producers of the Clinton documentary, The Hunting of the President, and the author of a book about corporate influence on politics, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization and High-Finance Fraudsters. Also on board are a veteran record producer, multimedia producers for the Democratic Party's website, leftist bloggers and the former head of the Dean Media Team Network, which produced online ads for the Howard Dean presidential campaign.

Action Alert: Join the Million Worker March on Washington D.C.
Sunday 17 October 2004
EXCERPT: This mobilization is being proposed in response to the attacks upon working families in America and the millions of jobs lost during the Bush administration and with the complicity of Congress. The working class has not suffered such hardships since the Great Depression.

Bush Zones Go National
By Jim Hightower
The Nation, 3 August 2004
EXCERPT: At the 2000 GOP nominating convention in Philadelphia, candidate Bush created a fenced-in, out-of-sight protest zone that could only hold barely 1,500 people at a time. So citizens who wished to give voice to their many grievances with the Powers That Be had to: (1) Schedule their exercise of First Amendment rights with the decidedly unsympathetic authorities. (2) Report like cattle to the protest pen at their designated time, and only in the numbers authorized. (3) Then, under the recorded surveillance of the authorities, feel free to let loose with all the speech they could utter within their allotted minutes (although no one--not Bush, not convention delegates, not the preening members of Congress, not the limousine-gliding corporate sponsors and certainly not the mass media--would be anywhere nearby to hear a single word of what they had to say). Imagine how proud the Founders would be of this interpretation of their revolutionary work. The Democrats, always willing to learn useful tricks from the opposition, created their own "free-speech zone" when they gathered in Los Angeles that year for their convention. Once ensconced in the White House, the Bushites institutionalized the art of dissing dissent, routinely dispatching the Secret Service to order local police to set up FSZs to quarantine protesters wherever Bush goes. The embedded media trooping dutifully behind him almost never cover this fascinating and truly newsworthy phenomenon, instead focusing almost entirely on spoon-fed soundbites from the President's press office.

[[[BushWhackedUSA.com & BushWhackedUSA: THE BLOG]]]

THE DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS

2004-08-03T11:26:00.000-06:00
Josh Marshall has nailed the mainstream media's willingness to believe ANYTHING Bush(co) says to the wall again. Here's an excerpt from today's Talking Points Memo:

...Wouldn't it be nice if we had a press which would make some effort to point out instances where the 'details' utterly belie what the president says he's doing?

The issue here is the president's supposed embrace of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, particularly on the creation of a new National Intelligence Director under whom the heads of the various intelligence agencies would operate.

I was working on another project pretty much constantly through most of the day and heard discussion of this on the cable networks, particularly CNN. What I heard there was that the president had embraced the commission's recommendation on this point while only disagreeing on whether this new head of national intelligence would be housed within the White House or have cabinet rank status outside the White House structure.

Yet it turns out that this is but one, and not at all the most significant way in which the policy the president has embraced differs from that of the commission. In fact, when you look closely at it, it's nothing like what the commission recommended at all. The president went out into the Rose Garden, said he was adopting the commission's proposals. But in fact he was doing close to the opposite, doing more or less what they said shouldn't be done.

(Read the rest if you've got a minute.)

BushWhackedUSA.com

MORE ON FASCISM IN AMERICA

2004-08-02T23:05:00.000-06:00
What are the signs of fascism in America today? Let's compile a list!

The Bush adminsistration has inched us steadily closer to the line when this country, this military and economic empire we call the USA, crosses over into fascism. Maybe we've already crossed over. In any case, this will be a new twist on an old favorite. It might not look like the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler, but given another four years George W. Bush's name could well belong right up there with those two.

So, again, what signs of fascism exist in the US today? Please post comments here in this thread or send me an E-mail, and in a few days I'll compile the list and publish it either here or on the main BushWhackedUSA site. Keep in mind the list of fourteen qualities of fascist states that we examined recently, not to mention the past three-plus years. (Hell, the past three-plus decades are fair game -- no, make that the past three-plus centuries, if you'd like.)

I'll start. Here are a few, just off the top of my nearly empty head:

- Ashcroft Tells Libraries to Destroy Citizen-Friendly Publications
- The Potential for Republicans to Steal the Next Election (too)
- The persistent fear-mongering, in the form of bogus terror warnings timed for convenient political gain
- The ubiquitous American flags, post-9/11
- The high-level authorization of human rights abuses and disdain for the Geneva Conventions
- Using Al Qaeda and fairy tales of scary WMDs to leverage support for the Iraq invasion
- The Bush Doctrine
- Using homophobia for political gain
- The military/industrial/congressional/media complex's obsession with "defense," which has turned the US into the most deadly and dangerous empire in the history of humankind
- Bush's consultations with right-wing Christian leaders on Middle East policies
- Use of the Supreme Court in 2000 and various Republican corporations in 2004 to rig elections
- And, perhaps most interestingly, the restriction of protesters to the "Free Speech Cage" at the Democratic National Convention in, of all places, BOSTON!

OK, your turn....

THE TIMES SHOWS ITS TEETH (Well, a tooth, anyway)

2004-08-02T22:55:00.000-06:00
While I'm not about to give the New York Times credit for transforming itself into a newspaper with the public interest at heart, after watching the Times behave as a slathering lapdog for the Bush administration during the run-up to the Iraq invasion it's heartening to see the two top stories of the moment (eleven o'clock, Mountain time, Monday evening):

1. Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say
EXCERPT: Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.
(And the corollary report: Few Measures to Avert Truck Bombs.)

2. A Czar Without Power? Support Leaves Questions
EXCERPT: President Bush on Monday cast his support for a new post of national intelligence director as an historic overhaul of the nation's major spy agencies. But White House officials left vague the authority that the new director would wield over personnel and spending, raising doubts among some experts about the real power of the new position.
Mr. Bush said the new director would "coordinate" the budgets for the nation's 15 major intelligence agencies, while Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, said the director would have a "coordinating role" in hiring. But neither the president nor Mr. Card said that the director should directly hire and fire or have authority over the estimated $40 billion that the government spends each year on intelligence. Right now, the Pentagon controls about 80 percent of the money.
"If the national intelligence director has no real budgetary authority, he or she will have no real power," said Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

---------

Tell me again: What's the legal definition of treason?

BushWhackedUSA.com

IF IT LOOKS LIKE FASCISM, WALKS LIKE FASCISM AND QUACKS LIKE FASCISM...

2004-08-01T20:39:00.000-06:00
Well well well, here we go. Timed conveniently to overshadow John Kerry's post-convention, super-tough-guy bounce in the polls, Tom Ridge and the Homeland Security folks have given us the first batch of highly specific terror warnings. And what's their target?

Here are a pair of pictures to illustrate the Bush team's vigilance. The first comes from the New York Times and shows armed guards outside the Citigroup building in Manhattan:

The second photo comes from the AP and shows an armed guard protecting both the New York Stock Exchange and a very large American flag:

So, today in America you cannot attend a speech by the Vice President (a once and future corporate bigwig) without signing a pledge of loyalty to Bush (another well connected corporate bigwig -- in fact, if you're a photojournalist you may not even be able to take the V.P.'s photo, depending on your ethnicity), you can't count on your vote getting counted by voting machines produced by Republican-owned and operated corporations, you can't hold a national political convention without getting into bed with corporations, and you've got armed guards crawling all over corporate financial headquarters -- and why? Because the government tells us to fear more terror attacks.

Sure, it's possible that this time there's a real threat. It's even possible that these actions will make the difference in protecting Americans from actual terrorists -- something the 9/11 Commission made abundantly clear that the Bush team (among others) failed to do. But if a few days pass without an attack, how will we know? Will this threat warning simply vanish down the "memory hole" like so many prior warnings?

We shall see. Meanwhile, this story dominates headlines while the administration's political rivals would otherwise be getting much more attention. Sound familiar? See below.

Hey, even Colin Powell has given us some pretty clear hints about the inner, darker workings of the Bush administration when he referred to the neocons in Doug Feith's crew as the "Gestapo office."

[[[BushWhackedUSA / BushWhackedUSA: THE BLOG]]]

FASCISM IN AMERICA: YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT

2004-08-01T16:21:00.000-06:00
I've thought a lot about fascism in the past year and a half. When I started BushWhackedUSA with my father in March of 2003, we decided against making much of accusations that the Bush administration's behaviors increasingly resembled fascism. Lately, though, we've watched all the pieces clicking into place. More on this subject in future posts -- in fact, I'm working on an essay about fascism in America, which I just might finish one of these days. In the meantime, I just came across a list of fourteen characteristics of fascist and protofascist states, by Laurence Britt. It's hard to find any of these qualities that aren't prominent in the US today:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism. [Homophobia, anyone?]
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

For more on that last item, take a look at Ronnie Dugger's article in The Nation: How They Could Steal the Election This Time And, in case you missed these items elsewhere:

- People attending a Cheney rally required to sign pledge of support for Bush
- Bush camp solicits race of photojournalist.

Those, along with these conveniently timed (to coincide with Kerry's bounce in the polls) terror alerts, the stink of fascism is growing awfully strong.

(Readers: drop a line to annalsofobscurity@yahoo.com if you spot an item of particularly conspicuous fascism in action -- or simply post a link here in the comments for this or other threads.)

[[[BushWhackedUSA / BushWhackedUSA: THE BLOG]]]

DEMOCRATS vs. REPUBLICANS: The Race for Corporate Cash

2004-08-01T12:13:00.000-06:00
From today's Observer (UK): USA Inc pays cash for access

EXCERPT: At the Democratic national convention last week, big business put on its biggest party at a political event. The return on its investment was simple: access and influence.

The American Gas Association budgeted to spend $700,000 on bashes at both major parties' conventions, evenly splitting its entertainment fund - typical corporate behaviour in what is expected to be a mighty close presidential contest.

While John Kerry accepted the Democratic nomination, the real action was in the skyboxes ringing the conference arena - making a mockery of Democrat criticism of Bush being in the thrall of 'special interests'.

Here, money guarantees access. It's something Bobby Savoie, who has raised over $200,000 for the Kerry campaign, laps up. Savoie's firm created the laser-guided system used during the Iraq war to target a restaurant where Saddam Hussein was thought to be eating. Last week, Savoie enjoyed invitations to 30 galas and lunches and had prime access to the convention hall and the exclusive 'sixth floor'.

Last week saw the first real sign that corporate America thinks Kerry can win. Sensing change was in the air, it lobbied potentially influential politicians and policymakers in a frenzy. Big business footed the bill for dozens of lunches, galas and nightclub events where the powerful guzzled champagne and consumed enough shellfish to empty a small sea.

Corporations have neatly sidestepped recent US legislation banning the donation of unlimited 'soft money' to political parties from business, unions and the wealthy. But funding official hosting committees that sponsor conventions is perfectly legal; and in a further boost to multinationals eager to buy influence, last year the Federal Election Commission withdrew a 10-year-old regulation that required companies contributing to host committees to be locally based.

Business has jumped through these loopholes with both feet. Campaign Finance Institute figures show that private donations to conventions have jumped from $8.4 million in 1992 (14 per cent of total funding) to $103.5m this year (60 per cent)....

CHOMSKY ALERT

2004-08-01T12:06:00.000-06:00
Today's ZNet has an exellent interview of Noam Chomsky, by Colombia University student Merlin Chowkwanyun. Here is the opening question and answer, but don't miss the rest (which includes such topics as the Bush administration, Haiti, Latin America and "liberal" academia):

Merlin Chowkwanyun: One scholar and activist whom you've cited (and whom I wish more people knew about and read) is Seymour Melman, who more than two decades ago articulated the concept of a "permanent war economy." What was Melman describing, and how does it limit or shape a chief executive's foreign policy?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: The term "permanent war economy" is attributed to Charles Wilson, CEO of GE, who warned at the end of World War II that the US must not return to a civilian economy, but must keep to a "permanent war economy" of the kind that was so successful during the war: a semi-command economy, run mostly by corporate executives, geared to military production. Among other very important contributions, Melman has written extensively on the harmful effects of gearing much of the economy to military production rather than to civilian needs. What he describes is correct and important, but there are other dimensions to be considered. After World War II, most economists and business leaders expected that the economy would sink back to depression without massive government intervention of the kind that, during the war years, finally overcame the Great Depression. The New Deal had softened the edges, but not much more. Business understood that social spending could overcome market catastrophes as well as military spending, but social spending has a downside: it has a democratizing and redistributive effect while military spending is a gift to the corporate manager, a steady cushion. And the public is not involved. People care about hospitals and schools, but if you can "scare the hell out of them," as Senator Vandenberg recommended, they will huddle under the umbrella of power and trust their leaders when it comes to jet planes, missiles, tanks, etc. Furthermore, business was well aware that high-tech industry could not survive in a competitive free enterprise economy, and "government must be the savior," as the business press explained. Such considerations converged on the decision to focus on military rather than social spending. And it should be borne in mind that "military spending" does not mean just military spending. A great deal of it is high-tech R&D. Virtually the entire "new economy" has relied heavily on the military cover to socialize risk and cost and privatize profit, often after many decades: computers and electronics generally, telecommunications and the Internet, satellites, the aeronautical industry (hence tourism, the largest "service industry"), containerization (hence contemporary trade), computer-controlled machine tools, and a great deal more. Alan Greenspan and others like to orate about how all of this is a tribute to the grand entrepreneurial spirit and consumer choice in free markets. That's true of the late marketing stage, but far less so in the more significant R&D stage. Much the same is true in the biology-based sectors of industry, though different pretexts are used. The record goes far back, but these mechanisms to sustain the advanced industrial economy became far more significant after World War II.

In brief, the permanent war economy has an economic as well as a purely military function. And both outcomes -- incomparable military force and an advanced industrial economy -- naturally provide crucial mechanisms for foreign policy planning, much of it geared to ensuring free access to markets and resources for the state-supported corporate sector, constraining rivals, and barring moves towards independent development.

AWOLAPALOOZA

2004-07-31T12:21:00.000-06:00
I've been contacted by someone who may have inside information about what exactly is being hidden in the Bush National Guard record, and I really haven't paid enough attention to the matter in the past couple of months. With a new baby and a new house, I have failed to scour the Internet for news on Dubya's checkered past. Last I recall, they released pay records which revealed he wasn't actually paid during the three months in 1972 about which everyone (especially the AP, who have filed various FIA requests) wants to know. Have I missed anything?

As far as this contact is concerned, it's never easy to tell who and what you're dealing with right up front. I'm not really in this as a journalist, but an interview may be in order.

Also, I'll update our resource page as soon as I am able: BushWhackedUSA's AWOL Resource Page.

The Washington Times is a scam operation

2004-07-30T22:14:00.000-06:00
Proof positive:

But [Times reporter] Audrey [Hudson] (and [Republican CO Congressman] McInnis) had their biggest collaboration in 2001. Audrey broke a story about Federal Wildlife biologists who had planted the hair of rare lynxes in the Cascade mountains so that the Endangered Species Act would close off federal land to the public, and confiscate private property. You know, as part of one of those radical environmental conspiracies. Ten articles, two editorials, and a couple of congressional hearings later, it turned out that the biologists hadn't planted any fake lynx hair, they had just included some blind samples of regular lynx hairs to be tested by the Forest Service's DNA lab, because they had (justified) doubts about the lab's reliability. No land was going to be confiscated. No lynxes were driving Cadillacs and wearing Rolexes as they cashed their welfare checks.

Here's part of a very interesting Audubon Mag article about the matter:

Perhaps the most astonishing aspect is the circulation of lies by America's mainstream media. Of all the reasons to disregard or at least rigorously vet a story, few are better than reading it in The Washington Times. Whatever possessed the Associated Press to recycle it 24 hours later? ...

Right-wing talking heads prattled gleefully. The property-rights community puffed and blew. Feeding the ravenous media were members of the U.S. Congress, most notably Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) and Representatives Scott McInnis (-CO), chair of the Forests Subcommittee; James Hansen (R-UT), chair of the Resources Committee; Barbara Cubin (R-WY); and Richard Pombo (R-CA). Craig called for oversight hearings; McInnis and Hansen scheduled them. In an open letter to the directors of the Interior and Agriculture departments, Pombo, Cubin, McInnis, and 16 other Republican representatives condemned the "unethical behavior [and] malicious activities that support the closet agenda of the 'green' community" and called for the termination of "those officials who knowingly and willingly planted unauthorized samples."

What makes the behavior of The Washington Times astonishing is not its willingness to shatter innocent lives in an effort to sell newspapers. This is expected of the Times. What's astonishing is its effort to use the mess it made to sell an ad.

Two weeks after the Times ran its original story and three iterations, the FSEEE got a call from the paper's advertising department. The guy said that the biologists were getting the bejesus kicked out of them by the editorial department and that the really smart thing to do would be to purchase a full-page ad for $9,450. That way the FSEEE and the biologists could tell their side of the story.

Overcoming speechlessness, Stahl feigned interest. "This wasn't just some ad rep operating on his own," he said. "I made sure he went to his department and that the Times sent me a mock-up of the ad. It's their brand of ethics: 'For a small price you can fix some of the damage we've done.'"

[Holy Mafiosos...]

I am unable to determine how the Times could not have known the "bio-fraud" tale was false before it published at least six of its "news" stories and two of its editorials. Audrey Hudson, who wrote all but one of the 12 stories, told me she got the investigation report that vindicated the biologist of "biofraud," a word the Times invented, from PEER's web site. PEER says it posted the report during the last week of December.

This raises three disturbing questions: How was Hudson able to reference the report and selectively pull information from it in the paper's first story, on December 17? Why, on January 18, was she still repeating the untruth about the biologists planting fur in the forests? And why was the Times still accusing the biologists of "fraud" on March 2?

This was my conversation with Hudson.

TW: "Are you going to issue a retraction and apology?"

AH: "No. We stand by our story."

TW: "But you've known it was false at least since December. . . ."

AH: "I reported what the Forest Service told me. We stand by our story."

TW: "But the Forest Service told you in its investigation report that your story isn't true. . . ."

AH: "I'm not going to quibble with you."

I guess that means that PEER and/or the FSEEE will have to write the Times's retraction and apology for it--provided, of course, that the paper has ad space available.

Here's part of the FAIR report on "Lynx-gate":

The Washington Times turned this incident into a crusade, dedicating 10 articles, two editorials and an opinion piece to this "biofraud" over the course of a month after breaking the story on December 17. Lynxgate illustrates the power of the Times--a newspaper founded in 1982 as a vehicle to promote the right-wing views of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church--to promote a conservative agenda and feed it into the mainstream media environment.

The Times’ Audrey Hudson broke Lynxgate with a front-page piece headlined "Rare Lynx Hairs Found in Forests Exposed as Hoax" (12/17/01), citing "officials" as the source for her allegation that biologists had planted lynx fur. "Had the deception not been discovered, the government likely would have banned many forms of recreation and use of natural resources in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Wenatchee National Forest in Washington state," her story falsely asserted. The one-sided article quoted a variety of conservative government and non-governmental officials, many with a dislike of the Endangered Species Act or federal land management policy. To give the appearance of balance, Hudson quoted the National Wilderness Institute, a think tank with an anti-environmentalist bent.

[...]

The "false premise," actually, is that a few fur samples could "shut down" forests--a claim repeated throughout Times coverage. In truth, the existence of lynx would have to be verified by live trapping and other measures before any changes in management would take place, a process that could take years. Even the proven presence of lynx would not close the forests; recreation and even logging goes on in forests inhabited by lynx. But presenting such facts does not serve the conspiratorial storyline.

BushWhackedUSA.com

WHY WOULDN'T THEY HATE US?

2004-07-28T18:41:00.000-06:00
A couple months ago I attended a press conference with Dennis Kucinich and asked him how a peace candidate would protect the country from terrorists. In a nutshell, he gave two main points as his answer:

1) He would tell the truth, and
2) he would address the root causes of terrorism.

In other words, he would not lie to the American people and the world about the ways that America's financial support of Israel's bloody and oppressive occupation of Palestinian lands. Kucinich didn't specifically mention Israel in his answer, but he came up to me in the lobby after the press conference (just before he gave the most inspiring speech I've ever heard in person) and asked if I understood what he was referring to. "We have to change the fundamental ways we deal with the Middle East if we're ever going to make peace with that part of the world," he said. Or words to that effect -- my memory is not the sharpest.

Anyway, with that in mind, I recommend reading this commentary by Lawrence Pintak at Common Dreams, showing exactly how badly Bush has done in the real war on terrorism.

Here's an excerpt:

Two new polls of attitudes in six Arab countries by Zogby International make for pretty grim reading to us, but they're manna from Heaven for the man who, news reports claim, is now believed to be holed up in the semi-autonomous region of Northwest Pakistan.

It was bad enough in 2002, when Zogby found that an appalling 35 percent of Jordanians and 12 percent of Saudis viewed us favorably. Now those figures are 15 percent and four percent respectively. We can't even buy friends. Egypt received some $4 billion last year in U.S. aid, yet only two percent of Egyptians responded positively. In a poll with a margin of error of about four points, that doesn't even move the needle.

Arab attitudes toward pretty much all things American are in the toilet, including American freedom and democracy - something even al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo Bay once told interrogators that they admired. Asked to name the "best thing about America" now, most Arabs responded, "nothing." The worst things about America? "Unfair Middle East policy" and our penchant to "murder Arabs."

If, four years ago, the Bush administration had consciously set out to create the "clash of civilizations" sought by bin Laden, it is hard to believe it could have been more successful.
-----

The article barely touches on the Israeli role in the equation, but it's there.

WELL?

2004-07-26T09:24:00.000-06:00
With so much media attention on the Democratic National Convention, I wonder if anyone there in the position to speak out and be heard widely will raise the point that we still don't have an independent and comprehensive investigation of U.S. soldiers' human rights abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere. It has been three months since the scandal broke -- or, for those who have read BushWhackedUSA (or paid much attention to the international press or the IRC), information about the abuses has been available since at least last December.

What's taking so long? Why isn't there an outcry for this investigation? What techniques were approved by the highest levels of Pentagon and the civilian government? Who is speaking out for the detainees who were "rendered to Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies, where torture is both systematic and sanctioned?

Here is a list of the six investigations currently underway and the one just completed and hustled under the public's radar last week by using the 9/11 Commission's report as cover. And here is a reort from Human Rights Watch on the Bush administration's deliberate policy of using illegal interrogation techniques: "The Road to Abu Graib."

We can't let this one fade into the so-called memory hole. We need an independent commission, not another little investigation appointed by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Let's hope someone in a position to do something about this will speak out, loudly and soon.

TERRORISM IS FUELED BY US-ISRAELI POLICY

2004-07-26T08:59:00.000-06:00
This is an unpopular thing to say, but I'll say it again: to any objective observer, it is clear that extremist Islamic terrorism is fueled by US support of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.

This point has been made thousands of times, by the Arab media, by the Israeli media, by peace groups, by European and British media, by Noam Chomsky, by countless other commentators, and NOW by none other than...

The 9/11 Commission.

Ray McGovern points out that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the “mastermind of the 9/11 attacks,” harbored a hatred of the US whcih "stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”

More from McGovern:

A footnote points out that his statements regarding the “why” of attacking the United States echo those of Ramzi Yousef, his nephew, when he was sentenced in New York to a prison term of 240 years in January 1998. Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, accused the United States of supporting Israeli terrorism against Palestinians, adding that he was proud to fight any country that supports Israel.

Hats off to commission staff for shoehorning that in—and to the commissioners for letting it slide. Highly unusual prose for establishment Washington.

And another bravo for the attempt to go beyond jingoism in addressing “why they hate us.” On page 374 begins a section titled “PREVENT THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM.” There the authors pick up on the conundrum expressed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld regarding whether the United States is generating more terrorists than it is killing, and whether the United States needs “a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists.”

In gingerly language, the report points out:

“America’s policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.”

…or, in the vernacular, “It’s the policy, stupid!”
--------

And because a post like this invariably inspires angry E-mails, let me save angry E-mailers some time: I already know that some will interpret this post as anti-Semitic. Those readers are flat wrong, of course. In fact, with the time those readers just saved, I'd encourage them to give some attention to Rabbi Michael Lerner's Tikkun.

SURVEY / OPEN THREAD

2004-07-26T00:19:00.000-06:00
Three questions (each with multiple parts, answer as many or few as you wish) for BushWhackedUSA readers:

1) What's your opinion of the Democratic National Convention? Is it worth paying attention to this week, beyond the speeches from Kucinich, Edwards and Kerry? Do you perceive a "disconnect" between the policies of the party's leaders and the party's voting base?

2) What's your opinion about protests in New York for the Republican convention? Would you go if you could? Do you think the protests should be confined to "free speech zones"?

3) What's on your mind? What issues would you like to discuss here this week?

I had to wipe a tear from the corner of my eye with a Kleenex

2004-07-25T22:03:00.000-06:00
Seriously. It was one of those moments. I posted this in the comments of a post by Mahablog:

OT, it just nearly tore me up, something I saw on the page as I scrolled down; your simple photo of Sam Clemens.

I dunno...I almost came to tears when I simply thought of what he would say or think about the present circumstances of our lives today. There are a million bloggers out there, and some damn fine ones, too, who can put issues and reports into terrific perspective. It could be said that Sam was blessed never to see the days we're living through. Other than that, it makes me incredibly sad not to have his wit and wisdom here and now, to help handle this mess.

Thanks for the post, and for the glimpse of the photo of that fabulous genius. Thank Koresh for the mere thought of him and his outlook, to help guide us today through some of the most miserable times this country has ever seen.

BushWhackedUSA.com

THE HORSE RACE

2004-07-25T15:37:00.000-06:00
Just spotted this analysis of the current status of the real election, the electoral vote. Things aren't exactly bleak for Bush right now, after all.

Think happy, positive thoughts

2004-07-24T23:27:00.000-06:00
Oh, yeah, this is the place you come to when you want to do THAT.

Last Thursday on the Diane Rehm show, CIA agent/author Anonymous said that nothing--NOTHING--has ever stopped or stalled or kept bin Laden from attacking when he wanted, where he wanted, and how he wanted to attack.

According to this tell-all CIA officer, bin Laden has never put off an attack, has never chosen a date for its historical purpose or to coincide with a date to get revenge, etc. When an attack is decided upon, it's carried out, unless foiled in process.

There is nothing an investigation or a commission or an intelligence agency can do to protect us. If bin Laden or a domestic terrorist or any sort of suicide killer/bomber/hijacker wants to, they will hit us again.

It's only a matter of time. It's the price we pay for living in a free society. If they haven't hit us in the last three years, it's because they don't WANT to hit us. And it's time someone besides me realized it, or said so out loud.

We all know it's true. My sentiment is this: Why is al Qaeda showing mercy upon the U.S.? Are they really fly-papered over in Iraq? If so...when will they hit us again?

BushWhackedUSA.com

FLIP-FLOPPER IN CHIEF

2004-07-22T11:18:00.000-06:00
This morning I came upon this list of Bush's flip-flops: President Bush: Flip-Flopper in Chief from the Center for American Progress. Interesting stuff there, and a useful resource for those inclined to defend John Kerry -- though I'm not so inclined, myself.

I was thinking about doing a short biography of the life of George W. Bush, compiling facts and statistics from various sources, and tailoring it to the everyday working-stiff reader -- until I considered Kerry's background and thought, what a waste of time.

MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS

2004-07-21T08:50:00.000-06:00
Courtesy of ZNet, here is an article from Mary Lou Malig of Focus on the Global South:

WAR: TRADE BY OTHER MEANS: How the US is getting a free trade agreement minus the negotiations

EXCERPT: Before it handed over “sovereignty” to Iraq, the US has done the humanitarian task of installing peace and order. This they did by issuing orders--called the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Orders or Bremer Orders for short. These orders covered almost everything from de-Baathification of Iraqi society to weapons control to management and use of Iraqi public property to new Iraqi Dinar banknotes. The CPA was impressively efficient in issuing orders compared to the haphazard way they have been repairing basic infrastructure in the country.

A rather harmless looking CPA order number 39 on Foreign Investment was issued as part of this laundry list last September 19, 2003. Not more than six pages long, it disguises its true weight, for it carries with it the same impact of a 100-page free trade agreement and covers all essential elements of an investment agreement that usually take years for countries to agree upon.

In one swift move, the US installed a market economy geared towards “promoting foreign investment through the protection of the rights and property of foreign investors in Iraq.” These investor rights are not new. In fact its similarity to other investment agreements is a little too uncanny to be coincidental.

BUSH HAS HIS PRIORITIES

2004-07-21T08:45:00.000-06:00
Well, it seems the Vacation President, America's record holder for time-off among commanders-in-chief, has decided that he won't take any vacations for a whole month! What prompted such a drastic change in behavior? Low standing in the polls and vulnerability in re-election, of course. When a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S." can't get the guy into the office for a month, one can only marvel at Bush's strength of character now that he realizes the seriousness of the Kerry threat to America's security.

Let's get this straight.

2004-07-20T20:06:00.000-06:00
It's okay for Bush to tell Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, a former ally of Iraq and the last country on Earth to sever ties with the Taliban, the precise battle plans for the INVASION of Iraq, before Bush even told his Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the first Gulf War...

...but it's not okay for Sandy Berger, former National Security Advisor, to brief SENATOR John Kerry, who presumably already has the highest of clearance codes, who will likely become the NEXT President of the United States, on some intel.

And we're wasting Justice Department resources on this. Terrorists will go un-apprehended because of this witchhunt.

Horseshit. Pure political horseshit, the kind that makes Whitewater come to mind.

BushWhackedUSA.com

DICK CHENEY AND HALLIBURTON CAUGHT RED-HANDED SUPPORTING TERRORIST NATIONS

2004-07-20T16:43:00.000-06:00
In keeping with the theme of the Corporate Cloud Over Civilization (namely, the military-industrial-congressional-administrative complex), here's another good one. From the Daily Mislead, an item not to be missed: Cheney Attacked Fight Against Terror While Abroad

On the same day that President Bush announced plans to investigate Iran for ties to terrorism,[1] Halliburton acknowledged that "a U.S. grand jury issued a subpoena to the company seeking information about its Cayman Islands unit's work in Iran,[2] where it is illegal for U.S. companies to operate." Earlier this year, CBS News reported that Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of the company "during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran."[3] In fact, Cheney was so adamant about doing business with terrorist nations like Iran, he even went abroad to publicly attack American foreign policy after meeting with top officials from a foreign government.

Despite economic sanctions on Iran because of its ties to terrorists, Cheney openly bragged about Halliburton's business dealings there during the 2000 campaign.[4] Cheney argued that it was ethical for Halliburton to use "independent foreign subsidiaries" that exist in tax shelter countries like the Cayman Islands to skirt U.S. law. He also went abroad to attack American policy: According to the Malaysian News Agency, Cheney publicly attacked U.S. sanctions on terrorist countries after a meeting with top Malaysian government officials in Kuala Lampur.[5]

During the 2000 campaign, Cheney also claimed that, as Halliburton CEO, "I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq,[6] even arrangements that were supposedly legal." Yet, earlier this year, The New Yorker reported "during Cheney's tenure[7] at Halliburton the company did business" in Iraq as well. The Washington Post reported that despite strict economic sanctions, Halliburton did up to $73 million in business[8] with Iraq while Cheney was heading the company.

----

Visit Misleader.org for links to their sources, and sign up for their daily E-mails while you're at it. Great stuff!

Did Bush-backed Republicans foment a right-wing coup in Haiti?

2004-07-20T11:34:00.000-06:00
According to Max Blumenthal of Salon.com, yes, they did. If you don't feel like reading that article or sitting through the obnoxious ads for a Salon day pass, you can hear and see Amy Goodman interviewing Blumenthal today on Democracy NOW!

EXCERPT: Haiti's unelected Prime Minister Gerard Latortue is in Washington today to attend a two-day conference at the World Bank headquarters to urge international donors to help the new U.S.-backed Haitian government. The World Bank has estimated about $1.3 billion is needed to help rebuild the country which is the poorest in the Americas.

The allocation of funds will be guided by the Interim Cooperation Framework, an assessment of Haiti"s financial needs completed earlier this month by the European Commission, the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations and the World Bank.

Critics warn that the program's failure to involve Haitians in the planning could end up sending nearly all the funds into the pockets of foreigners and Haitian elite, with little reaching the people in need. A protest is being organized outside the meeting today.

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary John Taylor said the United States would contribute $232 million and the Inter-American Development Bank $400 million. But what many people don't know is that U.S. federal funds have been flowing into Haiti for the past six years. A federally-funded group called the International Republican Institute, or IRI, has funneled some $3 million into Haiti to destabilize the democratically-elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide.

The IRI, a nonprofit political group backed by powerful Republicans close to the Bush administration, initiated the destabilization of Aristide's government by imposing harsh sanctions, training Aristide's political opponents and encouraging them to reject internationally-sanctioned power-sharing agreements. Haiti's political crisis eventually escalated into violence until Aristide was overthrown in February of this year in what he calls a modern-day kidnapping in the service of a coup backed by the United States.

---------------

Wey've got a group of Republicans closely tied to Bush involved in an anti-democratic scandal, meddling in the affairs of the hemisphere's poorest country, in plain sight.

One question: Where's the Democratic party on this one, hmm?

THE REAL STORY: DEFENSE CORPORATIONS USE GOVERNMENT TO LINE THEIR POCKETS

2004-07-20T10:39:00.000-06:00
We went for nearly a year without negative coverage of anything to do with the Bush administration appearing in the mainstream press. Now it's not uncommon to find articles and commentaries picking at the edges of the war effort, highlighting the human rights violations and damage to international relations. Still, though, we find little to do with the bigger story behind all of this -- the fundamental corruption of our government by the influence of, and cozy relationship with, big business. Democrats and Republicans are both culpable in this corruption, as Thomas Frank shows in this essay which appeared last week at TomDispatch and is now making its way around the progressive Internet circuit.

Here, though, is an article which appeared last weekend in the Los Angeles Times: IRAQ: Advocates of War Now Profit From Iraq's Reconstruction.

We found this at one of our favorite Web sites, CorpWatch.org.

Here is an excerpt:

Lobbyists, aides to senior officials and others encouraged invasion and now help firms pursue contracts. They see no conflict.
In the months and years leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, they marched together in the vanguard of those who advocated war.

As lobbyists, public relations counselors and confidential advisors to senior federal officials, they warned against Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, praised exiled leader Ahmad Chalabi, and argued that toppling Saddam Hussein was a matter of national security and moral duty.

Now, as fighting continues in Iraq, they are collecting tens of thousands of dollars in fees for helping business clients pursue federal contracts and other financial opportunities in Iraq. For instance, a former Senate aide who helped get U.S. funds for anti-Hussein exiles who are now active in Iraqi affairs has a $175,000 deal to advise Romania on winning business in Iraq and other matters.

And the ease with which they have moved from advocating policies and advising high government officials to making money in activities linked to their policies and advice reflects the blurred lines that often exist between public and private interests in Washington. In most cases, federal conflict-of-interest laws do not apply to former officials or to people serving only as advisors.

Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said the actions of former officials and others who serve on government advisory boards, although not illegal, can raise the appearance of conflicts of interest. "It calls into question whether the advice they give is in their own interests rather than the public interest," Noble said.

Michael Shires, a professor of public policy at Pepperdine University, disagreed. "I don't see an ethical issue there," he said. "I see individuals looking out for their own interests."

We encourage you to read the rest, here, and let us know what you think. We also hope you'll send us links and URLs, here, when you come across similar coverage and commentary in your own reading. Thanks.

OUTFOXED BY "OUTFOXED"

2004-07-18T21:24:00.000-06:00
Well, I tried to attend a local showing of Outfoxed, the movie about Fox News which is showing in various house parties around the country, but the house I signed up for had not received the movie. They send us along to another address, which was difficult (for us) to find; and when we did find it, it turned out to be an art gallery that was closed. Ah well. I was going to write a review here, but that's just not going to happen.

I had even baked a loaf of bread to take with us. At least we had that to snack on for the drive home. It's no easy task getting a four-week old infant and her accoutrements out the door, mind you. We earned that bread.

If anyone hears of another showing in or around Missoula, drop me a line.

RED-STATE AMERICA AGAINST ITSELF

2004-07-18T11:07:00.000-06:00
Why do so many people in poorer regions of the country consistently undermine their own economic self-interest by voting for conservative politicians?

Thomas Frank of the Baffler has an answer: democrats have given up the language of "class warfare," and handed most cultural issues over to the republicans; consequently, as the dems have shifted rightward economically (especially under Clinton), there's little or nothing left to distiguish themselves to voters. Given the choice between a party that represents neither their cultural nor economic interests and one that at least agrees with their conservative views on abortion, gay rights, etc., more and more Americans have voted conservative. Frank examines this trend in his home state of Kansas, and comes up with an interesting analysis.

We linked to this article on the main BushWhackedUSA page a couple days ago, but I wanted to revisit it here with the hope of sparking some discussion. So, take a look at Red-State America Against Itself and let me know what you think. I'll check back a few times today.

Here's an excerpt:

American conservatism depends for its continued dominance and even for its very existence on people never making certain mental connections about the world, connections that until recently were treated as obvious or self-evident everywhere on the planet. For example, the connection between mass culture, most of which conservatives hate, and laissez-faire capitalism, which they adore without reservation. Or between the small towns they profess to love and the market forces that are slowly grinding those small towns back into the red-state dust -- which forces they praise in the most exalted terms.

In this onrushing parade of anti-knowledge my home state has proudly taken a place at the front. It is true that Kansas is an extreme case, and that there are still working-class areas here that are yet to be converted to the Con gospel. But it is also true that things that begin in Kansas --the Civil War, Prohibition, Populism, Pizza Hut -- have a historical tendency to go national.

Maybe Kansas, instead of being a laughingstock, is actually in the vanguard. Maybe what has happened there points the way in which all our public policy debates are heading. Maybe someday soon the political choices of Americans everywhere will be whittled down to the two factions of the Republican Party. Whether the Mods still call themselves "Republicans" then or have switched to being Democrats won't really matter: both groups will be what Kansans call "fiscal conservatives," which is to say "friends of business," and the issues that motivated our parents' Democratic Party will be permanently off the table.

Sociologists often warn against letting the nation's distribution of wealth become too polarized, as it clearly has in the last few decades. Societies that turn their backs on equality, the professors insist, inevitably meet with a terrible comeuppance. But those sociologists were thinking of an old world in which class anger was a phenomenon of the left. They weren't reckoning with Kansas, with the world we are becoming.

DO YOU KNOW ANY OF THESE MEN?

2004-07-17T11:05:00.000-06:00
Thanks to Holden at Eschaton for posting a link to THIS PHOTO of new Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi with three of his American bodyguards -- who allegedly witnessed America's puppet leader when he grabbed a gun and summarily executed half a dozen Iraqi prisoners just a few days before taking office.

If you know one of these guys, perhaps you can help put them in touch with an American investigative reporter with a nose for news -- if such a beast exists anymore. Speaking of which: WHERE IS THE AMERICAN MAINSTREAM PRESS ON THIS STORY?!!! Or this one?!!!

Talk about complacent.

OH, HOW COMFORTING

2004-07-16T22:28:00.000-06:00
Here's a good way to lose thinking people on the left. From the AP: Kerry Backs Much of Bush's Pre-Emption Doctrine

CORPORATIONS: A CLOUD OVER CIVILIZATION

2004-07-16T10:20:00.000-06:00
JK Galbraith argues that "corporate power is the driving force behind US foreign policy - and the slaughter in Iraq," and gets no argument here.

Building democracy, one bullet at a time...

2004-07-16T10:04:00.000-06:00
From the Sydney Morning Herald, courtesy of Common Dreams: Did our chosen leader in Baghdad execute six insurgents by shooting them in the head just days before taking control of the country?

Perhaps Ambassador John Negroponte should look into it. After all, we know we can count on him.

HOW BAD WERE THOSE APPLES?

2004-07-15T12:14:00.000-06:00
Is the Bush administration holding videotape footage of American soldiers sodomizing Iraqi children? Perhaps that would be enough to erode some of Bush's support from the rabid Christian right...

Nah!

The BushWhackedUSA ONLINE STORE is now open!

2004-07-15T08:37:00.000-06:00
Yes, friend, you now have the golden, irresistible opportunity to make an anti-Bush fashion statement by shopping at the BushWhackedUSA online store!

We've got a few choice items posted (love those bibs!), with more to come in the days and weeks ahead. T-shirts, tank-tops, mugs, bumper stickers, gifts for the ones you love...

Happy shopping! And let us know if there's a product you'd like to see in our store.

THE NEXT INVASION: VENEZUELA

2004-07-14T09:45:00.000-06:00
Greg Palast offers an excellent background report on the situation in Venezuela, where the rich and poor are battling over control of that country's oil wells.

SEE ALSO: Chavez Warns Andean Nations Against Trade Deal with US
SEE ALSO: Venezuelan President Chavez again accuses US of backing campaign to unseat him

(Thanks go to Information Clearing House for these!)

Anybody see the All-Star Game last night?

2004-07-14T09:20:00.000-06:00
Anybody notice...the large sections of empty seats from time to time? That slipped by the Fox Sports producers, and onto the live camera shots?

Hell, there were huge swaths of empty seats for the opening ceremonies, too. I've never seen anything more embarrassing for a community. It never would have happened here in St. Louis. Every seat would have long been sold out, and every seat would have been filled with cheering fans from long before the broadcast.

I daresay that would have been the case for just about any other MLB town--except Montreal. There, as what probably happened in Houston, anxious production assistants would have been desperately hawking FREE tickets in order to put butts in the seats for the cameras.

That fairly anemic crowd must have been embarrassing not only for the poor stepchild community of Houston...but for Poppy Bush and "Beautiful Mind" Babs, sitting in the front row behind the plate. And we all know how kindly they take to being embarrassed.

I guess when Enron collapsed, it took so many jobs, no one can afford to go to the baseball game any more. And, folks, remember: When that brand-spanking new cookie-cutter retro-cool stadium first opened, its name was--

--ENRON FIELD.

ha ha

BUSH LOVES CARLYLE GROUP LOVES BUSH LOVES CARLYLE...

2004-07-13T14:00:00.000-06:00
An alert reader (thanks, Gerhard!) sent this one along: Army post candidate has ties to Carlyle.

Who is this Francis Harvey, Bush's apparent choice to be the next secretary of the Army? Well...

EXCERPT: Harvey is former chief operating officer for a division of Westinghouse Electric, a leading defense contractor, and serves on the boards of two Carlyle-affiliated firms. Most prominently, he's vice chairman of Maryland's Duratek, which specializes in the handling and disposing of radioactive materials. Duratek, which reported sales of $286 million last year, has contracts with both the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, which is itself one of the nation's top defense contractors. Carlyle owns about 23 percent of the company and appointed Harvey to Duratek's board in 1998. He has been re-elected by shareholders every year since then. Diane Brown, Duratek's vice president of investor relations, said about 3 percent of the company's revenue comes from the Army. About 10 percent is from the Department of Defense and 65 percent from the Energy Department. The rest comes from commercial contracts.

Read the rest here.

If you've got a story you'd like us to see here at the blog or on our main page, please send it along to either Eric or Roger.

THE END (of democracy) IS NIGH!

2004-07-13T08:09:00.000-06:00
...or not, it's had to tell, but if Lou Dubose and Molly Ivins are right, things don't look good for the good guys. Both of those Texas journalists are interviewed on today's Democracy Now! Dubose talks about the sinister political manipulations of Tom Delay. And Ivins gives a great interview about the character, skills and methods of the Shrub himself. If you've got an hour to spare, this is a great way to use it up.

By the way, has anyone seen any negative political fallout from Ashcroft's June 8 refusal to hand over torture-scandal related documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee? Any at all?!!

Circa 1983

2004-07-12T22:18:00.000-06:00
Whenever I need to make a particularly poignant point, one with subtlety and grace, about war and death and such, my first natural
instinct is to quote...

80s pop band Huey Lewis and the News' Sports.

Walking On A Thin Line

Sometimes in my bed at night
I curse the dark and pray for the light
And sometimes the light's no consolation
Blinded by a memory
Afraid of what it might do to me
And the tears and the sweat only mock my desperation

Don't you know me, I'm the boy next door
The one you found so easy to ignore
Is that what I was fighting for?

Walking On A Thin Line
Straight off the front line
Labeled as freaks, loose on the streets of the city
Walking On A Thin Line
Angry all the time
Take a look at my face, see what it's doing to me

Taught me how to shoot to kill
A specialist with a deadly skill
A skill I needed to have to be a survivor
It's over now, or so they say
Well, sometimes, it don't turn out that way
Cause you're never the same when you've been under fire

Don't you know me, I'm the boy next door
The one you find so easy to ignore
Is that what I was fighting for?

Walking On A Thin Line
Straight off the front line
Labeled as freaks loose on the streets of the city
Walking On A Thin Line
Angry all the time
Take a look at my face, see what it's doing to me

BushWhackedUSA.com

Ladies and gentlemen...we have a Troll!

2004-07-11T23:22:00.000-06:00
You can find him in the Haloscan Comments. And he's one SERIOUS fucking troll, too. Threatens to shoot us between the eyes...threatens us with serious assault and battery...and he calls US fascists...

There's nothing like the Internet to make a true American hero out of an anonymous coward. Just one of those little miracles that happens each and every day on the Internet. Thank God Al Gore invented it!

ha ha

Keep Coming Back, A. Verlo; it works when you work it, and YOU'RE WORTH IT!

ha ha

BushWhackedUSA.com

What are they smoking?

2004-07-11T23:09:00.000-06:00
I want some.

Democrats give Ron Reagan prime time speaking slot

(CNN) -- Ron Reagan will speak in prime time at the Democratic National Convention on the importance of stem cell research, a senior adviser to presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry told CNN on Sunday.

...

The [Kerry] adviser also said Reagan's speech would have "big appeal" to independents.

But the Bush campaign official predicted that the remarks by [Democratic Senator from Georgia Zell] Miller -- who supported key parts of Bush's agenda -- would resonate more with independents.

Now THAT'S rich--the Bush campaign official predicts that Miller will impress independents more than RONALD REAGAN'S SON.

Most independents will probably say: "Who the hell is Zell Miller? What the hell is a Zell Miller? What the hell kind of a name is Zell?"

ha ha

BushWhackedUSA.com

Taking steps to secure the election in November

2004-07-11T12:56:00.000-06:00
If this doesn't scare you, nothing will.

American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call "alarming" intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack, NEWSWEEK has learned.

The same geniuses at Justice that determined Bush could conveniently ignore the Geneva Convention are now furiously working on interfering with the Presidential election. This will make November/December 2000 look like a pre-teen shoplifting charge.

Time to sign up for that firearms class. I've put that off for far too long. Coup d'etat just around the corner, folks, and this time the Democrats better not take it lying down.

BushWhackedUSA.com

Always glad to spread yet another unproven rumor about my President

2004-07-11T09:20:00.000-06:00
It's my DUTY. Although unproven by the photo, does this NOT strike you as perfectly in character for the Commander-in-Thief? We've come a long way, baby.

Via Blah3.com:

The single greatest event of my life

After waiting around for about 45 minutes, the motorcade passed by us again. A few police cars, followed by a van or two, drove by. Then, a Bush/Cheney bus passed, followed by a second one going slower. At the front of this second bus was The W himself, waving cheerily at his supporters on the other side of the highway. Adam, Brendan, and I rose our banner (the More Trees, Less Bush one) and he turned to wave to our side of the road. His smile faded, and he raised his left arm in our direction. And then, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America, extended his middle finger.

It's a memory this young man will certainly cherish forever, tell his grandkids about. Maybe he'll even get on some talk shows or the college lecture circuit.

I'm reminded of a story from my trusty copy of "The People's Almanac", vintage 1976, about Richard M. Nixon:

From page 330:

"Occasionally, Nixon found it necessary to lash out physically at hecklers. During his trip to Peru as Vice-President, a man in the crowd spat on him. 'As I saw his legs go by,' Nixon remembers, 'at least I had the satisfaction of planting a healthy kick on his shins...Nothing I did all day made me feel better.' "

BushWhackedUSA.com

Blood in the Water

2004-07-09T13:24:00.000-06:00
Am I the only one who wants to see Kerry and Edwards strike fast and hard, just as soon as possible? Bush is incredibly vulnerable right now. A crucial portion of his 1972 National Guard record has been conveniently destroyed, even though the AP was informed just two weeks ago that the record was available on microfilm and "would erase any questions" about Bush's service. (I guess "erase" was intended all too literally.) Bush's good buddy and Number One Campaign Contributer of All Time, "Kenny Boy" Lay just got perp-walked out of FBI offices in Houston. And, as stated below, the Bush administration is blatantly attempting to link Democrats to Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, reports have come out that Karl Rove and the Bush team are trying to time the apprehension of Al Qaeda to affect the election. And this is all just the last 36 hours or less.

Positive, upbeat and optimistic are nice, but it's time for Kerry and Edwards to attack like hungry sharks.

Somehow, though, I'm starting to get that sinking feeling I remember well from late 2000...

DIRTY MONEY

2004-07-09T11:43:00.000-06:00
Greg Palast calls for Bush and other Republicans to give back the dirty money from Ken Lay and the Enron crew, who happen to be the Number One political donors for George W. Bush's entire political career.

The Donald fires Bush

2004-07-09T10:40:00.000-06:00
I hate reality TV shows. Except for two episodes of The Osbournes, which were terrific, I've never seen one. NEVER.

But I have seen plenty of promos and ads for them; you can't miss those if you watch TV at all. So I'm familiar enough with The Apprentice to appreciate this great parody.

I'm laughing my ass off, just waiting for this to LOAD!

BushWhackedUSA.com

BIN LADEN TO ENDORSE KERRY

2004-07-09T10:03:00.000-06:00
This point has likely been made elsewhere and by others, and I haven't had the chance to poke around the Internet to see who has made it -- so I'll just say it here: the Bush crowd is obviously trying to link the Democrats to the terrorists.

How?

Yesterday Tom Ridge called the potential terrorist strikes in the US "an effort to disrupt the democratic process." In other words, if the terrorists strike in the US any time between now and the election, it must clearly be an attempt to scare Americans into voting Bush out of office, just as Al Qaeda scared Spain into dumping its ruling party in favor of the liberal socialists.

It's a win-win way to frame the terrorist threat. If there's no strike, that's because the Bush team has been vigilant in a way that Kerry never could be. If there is a strike, it's a blatant attempt to frighten Americans into voting Democratic. Only through toughness and iron resolve will we be able to protect our president [sic] and his administration from those evildoers.

All of this is implied, of course, in such statements as this one by Tom Ridge: ""We know they have the capability to succeed and they also hold the mistaken belief that their attacks will have an impact on America's resolve."

The subtext is clear, though: Do you want Osama bin Laden to determine the outcome of the 2004 election, or do you love freedom and democracy?

If you're not with Bush, you're with the bad guys.

CIA intel on 'Saddam gassing his own people' came from...

2004-07-08T19:14:00.000-06:00
...the newspapers.

Story here.

Saddam Could Call CIA in His Defence

Evidence offered by a top CIA man could confirm the testimony given by Saddam Hussein at the opening of his trial in Baghdad Thursday that he knew of the Halabja massacre only from the newspapers.

Thousands were reported killed in the gassing of Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in the north of Iraq in March 1988 towards the end of Iraq's eight-year war with Iran. The gassing of the Kurds has long been held to be the work of Ali Hassan al-Majid, named in the West because of that association as 'Chemical Ali'. Saddam Hussein is widely alleged to have ordered Ali to carry out the chemical attack.

...

A report prepared by the top CIA official handling the matter says Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the massacre, and indicates that it was the work of Iranians. Further, the Scott inquiry on the role of the British government has gathered evidence that following the massacre the United States in fact armed Saddam Hussein to counter the Iranians chemicals for chemicals.

...

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja, he said. "The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent -- that is, a cyanide-based gas -- which Iran was known to use. "The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time."

...

[CIA officer Stephen C.] Pelletiere wrote that Saddam Hussein has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. "But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them."

Another Bush lie, repeated endlessly ad nauseum, debunked.

BushWhackedUSA.com

YOU MUST READ THIS ARTICLE

2004-07-07T21:47:00.000-06:00
Or else.

I've been telling my Republican friends to get ready for the unveiling of Osama bin Laden some time between mid-July and mid-September of this year. Why? Just a hunch...

Of, By, For...

2004-07-07T13:24:00.000-06:00
How would George Orwell define "representative government"? Like this...

From the New Standard: One in Four Members of Congress Made Over $1 Million Last Year

Winning the War on the Environment

2004-07-07T13:14:00.000-06:00
...one tree at a time.

From BushGreenWatch:

Under the guise of preventing forest fires, the Bush administration is planning the biggest timber sale on public lands in modern history. The Biscuit Project would allow logging of 372 million board feet of timber across 30 square miles of southwest Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest—enough timber to fill 70,000 logging trucks. The logging would be done on wildlands of uncommon beauty and ecological diversity, far from any community that could be damaged in a fire.

"It's the biggest logging sale since World War II," says Steve Holmer, communications director with the Unified Forest Defense Campaign, a coalition of national and regional conservation organizations. "Timber companies have made huge contributions to the Bush campaign. This project is political payback."

Nader Calls Kerry a "Puppet" for Israel

2004-07-07T13:00:00.000-06:00
Amy Goodman has a great interview with Ralph Nader today.

NADER: John Edwards has been vetted. There aren't going to be any skeletons in his closet. He has a good two-Americas speech. There will be a lot of dynamism and he's a charmer, but the question I have is will he defend the civil justice system, which is the right of the American people when they're wrongfully injured or defrauded to have their full day in court against corporations, or will he sidestep that issue? Civil justice is under serious attack. It's already been eroded in state legislatures and there's a current Class Action bill in the congress that will further weaken the rights of defrauded people from having their day in state court. So that remains to be seen....

The other parties are pro-war, pro-PATRIOT act, pro-death penalty, pro-corporate globalization, and we are on the other side of that. We are the only anti-war candidate. When I talked to John Kerry, I talked basically about the dirty tricks that the democratic parties at the state level are using to try to keep us off the ballot on technicalities, drain our resources. In Arizona, the democrats hired three corporate law firms. They filed suit against us. They had filed suit on such things like one of our signature gatherers-- it takes 14,500 signatures to get on the Arizona ballot. One of the signature gatherers collected 550 signatures. He happened to be an ex-felon who paid his debt to society. He had been on juries. He was a registered voter. They found that he did not pay allegedly a $400 fine to the state, and they wanted to knock off 550 signatures. That would have cost us long days in litigation, and we had to drop our effort. We have limited funds under Federal Election Commission regulation. The democrats have unlimited funds outside of any regulation. That's what they're doing in Oregon and elsewhere. I told John Kerry to-- words to the wise. He may be presiding over a situation, whether he knows it or not, that can be a mini Watergate....

What is unfortunate and dismaying is the political bigotry that is being demonstrated by some liberals. Sure, oppose us, challenge us, argue with us, but don't say that you can speak, assemble and petition outside the electoral arena, but don't go into the electoral arena and be so adamant about it. Of course, the democrats' dirty tricks are just beginning to unfold. I'm sure that the press will report more of what's going on there. But we have an obligation to challenge the two-party cabal. The one corporate party with two heads wearing different makeup. The kind of parties that have brought us corporate-occupied territory in Washington. The kind of parties that have let giant business say no to health insurance for everybody, no to living wage, no to a fair tax system, no to waging peace, no to doing something about the bloated wasteful Pentagon budget that now comprises one-half of the federal government's operating expenditures, at the expense of schools, clinics, public transit systems and all the necessities back home that don't find any funds to improve facilities for the American people....

The U.S. government never connects with the deep and broad Israeli peace movement that represents members and former members of the Knesset, former military people, former intelligence people, former mayors, existing mayors, professors, rabbis. They put 120,000 people in the square in Tel Aviv recently. You would think that the U.S. government was not a puppet. It would support the deep Israeli peace movement, which has been in touch with the Palestinian peace advocates and has worked out more than one accord where there could be a two-state solution living in peace with a viable and independent Palestinian state. So, there should be a debate. The two candidates Kerry, and Bush, are both pro-Israeli military government. They do not connect with the Israeli peace movement or peace now or Jewish voice for peace or Michael Lerner's Tikkun group. Both Kerry and Bush are pro-war.

Strong rumor: Gephardt's in

2004-07-05T09:15:00.000-06:00
According to ArchPundit, and Political Wire.

I think I'm going to throw up. As I have said many times--if Kerry didn't pick Edwards, he doesn't want to win it badly enough.

BushWhackedUSA.com

Amnesty considered for insurgents in Iraq

2004-07-03T21:53:00.000-06:00
I wonder how the Marines feel about this plan.

Iraq May Give Amnesty to Insurgents

BushWhackedUSA.com

Death comes in threes

2004-07-03T00:12:00.000-06:00
That's what my ex-mother-in-law used to say. She is a character. Tough old bird from the old school, etc.

When Reagan and Ray Charles died within a day or so of each other, the platitudes were flying. Damn, they STILL have those flags at half-mast. "What'd I Say?" really influenced an entire generation of Boomers, I suppose. That's some tribute.

;)

Still, they say death comes in threes. And when Marlon Brando died today, the platitudes came heavy again. Greatest actor of our generation. A trail-blazer. Difficult private character, but unbelievable power on stage. The Master is gone.

But it struck me a minute ago how ironic it is that the best actor of our generation was preceded into death by less than a month by one of the WORST actors ever. Reagan never sold me on a single performance he ever gave--especially his Presidential ones.

He could afford to be a sunny optimist--he had HIS.

BushWhackedUSA.com

Rock Paper Saddam!

2004-07-02T21:13:00.000-06:00
I'm sitting here with TEARS OF LAUGHTER streaming down my face.

Go and see why.

BushWhackedUSA.com

Good 'toons

2004-07-01T14:39:00.000-06:00
I saw some hilarious cartoons today at Bartcop.

First, the two guys talking on the phone at work from Get Your War On:

"What were the first words spoken in the newly sovereign Iraq?"

" 'Mr. Bremer! Aren't you staying for the reception?' "

"You know, I'm surprised he didn't take one final leisurely stroll through the lazy summer streets of Baghdad."

"I love it. Nothing says 'Good luck' like handing off sovereignty and running straight to the airport. Do we always treat sovereigny like it's a goddam grenade?"

Then we have Vanna White before the Wheel of Fortune letter board, with the words "GO _UCK YOURSEL_" written out--category, Phrase.

Then there's the bumper sticker I want--

Bush/Cheney '04 (the actual genuine logo) followed by:

Don't Switch Horsemen Mid-Apocalypse

BushWhackedUSA.com

The Statistics of "Fahrenheit 9/11"

2004-06-30T23:39:00.000-06:00
According to this writer, F 9/11 ranks in the top five grossing movies of all time--by way of gross per theater.

In other words, F 9/11 packed the movie theaters with more paying customers than any other film except the other five it shared the statistic with. And it did so with far fewer theaters that released the film. In that category, it's the best of all time.

Nice, eh?

BushWhackedUSA.com

NOW I get it!

2004-06-30T23:18:00.000-06:00
This explains it all. Why do WMD enthusiasts refuse to see reality?

Josh Marshall is a genius. Go read the rest of it; it's good, too.

"There's a body of sociological literature which shows that when the world does not come to an end on the day prescribed by this or that messianic cult, the cult usually does not fall apart. Rather, their belief only tends to intensify to still greater levels. Safire seems to be an example of the same phenomenon only applied to Iraqi WMD cult."

BushWhackedUSA.com

Make up your minds, why don'tcha?

2004-06-30T22:39:00.000-06:00
Jordan Rejects Ban on Osama, Saddam Names

AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan's parliament rejected a bill Wednesday that would enable the government to prevent parents from naming their children Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.

By a vote of 50-38, legislators turned down the proposed amendment to the Civic Status Law, which would have empowered registration officers to reject names that they deem "harmful to public order."

"The bill does not implement democracy, and there is no law in the whole world which restricts the freedom of naming newborns," said independent legislator Mohammed Shawabkeh.

An Islamist lawmaker, Mohammed Abu-Faris, said the bill had been proposed "to please the Americans."

Jordan needs to get its act together. Bush has brought freedom to the Middle East. Prohibiting naming your own children after such obvious evil-doers is a big part of that freedom.

If Jordan doesn't get their act together, I promise you...they're next.

BushWhackedUSA.com

They've lost Jesse

2004-06-30T22:17:00.000-06:00
Well, they'll just tell you he's too old to make sense any more. Or something like that. From the Washington Post (scroll down), via atrios:

"I would not have voted for [President Bush's] tax cut, based on what I know. . . . There is no doubt that the people at the top who need a tax break the least will get the most benefit. . . . Too often presidents do things that don't end up helping the people they should be helping, and their staffs won't tell them their actions stink on ice."

-- Former senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), in a recent interview with Business North Carolina magazine.

"...stink on ice." Now there's a phrase you don't hear every day, except from people who lived through the Great Depression.

BushWhackedUSA.com

I miss the good old days

2004-06-30T22:16:00.000-06:00
Where'd all the fucking money go? Where's the money?

Reality Intrudes on Promises in Rebuilding of Iraq

...

More than a year into an aid effort that American officials likened to the Marshall Plan, occupation authorities acknowledge that fewer than 140 of 2,300 promised construction projects are under way. Only three months after L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator who departed Monday, pledged that 50,000 Iraqis would find jobs at construction sites before the formal transfer of sovereignty, fewer than 20,000 local workers are employed.

I miss the good old days--when the biggest argument was Monica Lewinsky, and how to spend the surplus.

Don't you?

BushWhackedUSA.com

Prices Rose After Medicare Law

2004-06-30T21:03:00.000-06:00
Bush's Medicare law was passed in exactly the same illegal fashion as the buildup to Dubya's Iraq invasion, by WITHHOLDING CRUCIAL INFORMATION and presenting LIES TO CONGRESS. It is one of his administration's biggest crimes, but we only have SO MANY PROSECUTORS TO SPARE to avoid investigating his most criminal administration in U.S. history.

You have to go back to the days of Louis XVII for more open corruption, the days of King John for more outright sinister executive rule, or the days of Caligula to the days of more ridicule for the rule of law.

Some genius has to tell me--why is implementing a law whose end result is HIGHER PRICES FOR DRUGS is...a good thing?

Drug Prices Rose After Medicare Law, Group Says

Remember? AARP bent over BACKWARDS to sell this monstrosity to Congress and its AARP members. Millions of members have expressed their discontent with the organization; thousands have quit, but most have not because they CAN'T AFFORD TO.

Turns out they figured out that the bill of goods they were sold and they DID sell was BOGUS. The entire leadership of AARP should resign in disgrace, but apparently they have no more shame than Bush & CO.

Fellow Three Stooges enthusiasts will recognize this famous name from their shorts: The con man with the pencil-moustache and the pin-stripe suit--

I. Fleecem.

Among the 25 top-selling drugs, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s anti-clotting drug Plavix topped the list with a 7.9 increase, followed by its cholesterol-fighting Pravachol at 7 percent.

Goddammit, I'M on Pravachol!

BushWhackedUSA.com

Congress bows to the Reverend Sun Yung Moon

2004-06-30T15:43:00.000-06:00
Will this event be covered as little and as late as the LAST Moon coronation? Koresh help us...if it weren't so, so, so...constitutionally obscene to everything America has stood for since 1776, this would be HILARIOUS. It is both, I suppose.

"Kingdom of God" to be revealed Wednesday at National Press Club

Link.

BACKGROUND: Intense media and public interest has arisen concerning an event held on March 23, 2004 at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. Questions and controversies have swirled regarding the purpose of the event, what happened, who attended and why. Were dignitaries "duped" into attending? What about the provocative claims made by Rev. Moon? How did such an event take place on Capitol Hill? Are the charges of anti-semitism, homophobia, etc., true?

In attendance will be a number of rabbis, imams, priests and other religious leaders from the United States, Israel and Palestine, representing the event co-sponsors.

Internally, Moon's preachers have described the press conference as "the day of the revealing of the Kingdom Of God." So they're in a tight spot. Unless they bend the truth, they must play down the holy revelation aspect of the event, without contradicting what they've told their own followers about America's accepting Moon as its king. And to explain why Congressmen weren't "duped," they're under pressure to avoid embarrassing the politicians who want to distance themselves from views I linked to above.

...According to reader Rob, who attended, Rabbi Waldman attended, blew a shofar and was identified as being from Temple Beth Tephilath, apparently in suburban Detroit. And Archbishop Stallings threw a fit following a question about whether he'd taken money or a gold watch from Moon (he had).

BushWhackedUSA.com

What do you think of "Farehnheit 9/11"?

2004-06-26T00:10:00.000-06:00
My father, my niece and I went to a sold out showing with about a thousand Missoulians tonight at the Wilma Theater. The movie was terrific -- far more mellow and evenhanded than I had anticipated, from the reviews. I'll need to see it again before I can gather my thoughts into something like a review, but I loved it.

What did you think?

BushWhackedUSA.com

Homeland Defense Follies

2004-06-26T00:09:00.000-06:00
Well, your right to arm bears extends to the 51st state, apparently:

Saudi: Foreigners can carry guns

Dalai Lama tells KFC to shove off

2004-06-26T00:05:00.000-06:00
Apparently the Empire hasn't yet taken over everything:
Dalai Lama warns KFC off Tibet
Clearly we need more bombs.

Quagmire

2004-06-25T02:15:00.000-06:00
You have to wonder: Who had the contract to train and run the Iraqi police and security? One guess.

Exhibit #782:

Security a shambles ahead of handover

With one week to go, 30,000 police officers face the sack amid serious shortages of staff and equipment

Rory McCarthy and Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Thursday June 24, 2004
The Guardian

Up to 30,000 Iraqi police officers are to be sacked for being incompetent and unreliable and given a $60m payoff before the US hands over to an Iraqi government, senior British military sources said yesterday.

Many officers either deserted to the insurgents or simply stayed at home during the recent uprisings in Falluja and across the south.

Fourteen months after the war and just a week before the Iraqis take power on June 30, the sources revealed serious shortfalls of properly trained police and soldiers and vital equipment.

The problems are particularly critical because 35 new police checkpoints are to be set up across Baghdad before the handover, when violence is expected to escalate.

Although the US has set aside $3.5bn to rebuild the security forces, much of the training and many of the contracts have yet to be completed.

...up to 30,000 regular police officers who are now deemed unsuitable will be sacked and replaced. Each will receive $1,000 to $2,000 in severance pay - a total package of up to $60m.

"The feeling is this will allow them to generate a business and feed their family and not force them to become fighters," one source said.

I'm not sure I understand how this ad HELPS Bush...

2004-06-24T21:59:00.000-06:00
Or maybe I do. But one thing is for sure--the potential for this commercial to BACKFIRE is enormous. And that is what Rove now has to resort to--desperate tactics. Taking chances.

A "Hail Mary", if you will.

The video is HERE.

A description from Reuters:

...

Shown is a sound bite from a screaming speech by former Vice President Gore in which he said: "How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s torture prison?"

Dean, the former Vermont governor and ex-presidential candidate, is shown shouting: "I want my country back."

A clip from an anti-Bush ad from the liberal organization MoveOn.org blends images of Adolf Hitler and Bush.

Hollywood director Michael Moore, who produced a controversial anti-Bush movie called "Fahrenheit 911," is seen telling the Academy Awards (news - web sites) that, "We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons."

"This president is a miserable failure," says Missouri Democratic Rep. Richard Gephardt in another film clip.

And finally, Kerry is seen telling a campaign event in Iowa: "Today, today, George Bush will lay off your camel, tax your shovel, kick your (bleep) and tell you there is no Promised Land."

BushWhackedUSA.com

Ralph is wearing out his welcome--in his own party

2004-06-24T09:30:00.000-06:00
From today's salon.com:

Nader vs. the Green Party?

The leading candidate for the Green Party's presidential nomination talks about Ralph Nader's latest betrayal, and how to run an independent campaign that would not reinstall Bush in the White House.

...Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb, Ralph Nader's main opponent within the party, held a low-profile Q-and-A session with University of South Carolina students and faculty. Unlike Ohio, South Carolina is hardly a competitive race: In 2000, Bush beat Gore by 16 points there, and it is difficult to imagine how the Green Party could "spoil" the outcome of its presidential vote. But the state has a fledgling Green Party, and Cobb was there to court its delegates to the Green Party's 2004 nominating convention.

While only one day in a long campaign, last Monday's events illustrate the differing strategies of the two leading candidates competing for the Green Party's backing. Cobb seeks the Green Party's nomination, while Nader, who has distanced himself from the party in an attempt to reach a wider audience, seeks only the Green Party's "endorsement" of his independent campaign. "Ralph Nader has refused to participate in the Green Party's democratic process," Cobb says. "I don't understand what we would hope to accomplish by supporting Ralph Nader's independent candidacy."

Go read the rest.

BushWhackedUSA.com

Mission Accomplished

2004-06-24T09:27:00.000-06:00
The war in Iraq is over. We won.

Somebody needs to let the insurgents know this. Maybe we can do a leaflet airdrop.

69 Said Dead in Attacks Across Iraq

...

The large number of attacks, mostly directed at Iraqi security services, was a clear sign of just how powerful the insurgency in Iraq remains and could be the start of a new push to torpedo Wednesday's transfer of sovereignty to an interim transitional government.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the attacks were meant "to foil the democratic process," but he said the situation was under control.

Of COURSE the situation is under control. This is just a tiny fraction of the entire country of Iraq--it's fewer than the number of people who died in homicides just LAST NIGHT in the U.S. alone!

There are plenty more innocent people left to kill! This is just a small underground movement, one that will be crushed in no time at all. Nothing to worry about!

Bring 'em on!

BushWhackedUSA.com

Calling all Greens...

2004-06-23T21:20:00.000-06:00
Here's some interesting evidence that completely contradicts the contention of Ralph Nader--and not a few of his followers--that there is no difference between a Republican and a Democrat.

From the daily Kos:

Least progressive Dem

by kos
Wed Jun 23rd, 2004 at 20:28:43 EDT

I was playing around at Progressive Punch, and came across a startling revelation.

First of all, a little on the Progressive Punch ranking methodology.

After going through a number of steps and gyrations, we came up with a list of seven hard-core progressive United States Senators (7% of that body) and 38 hard-core progressive United States Representatives (about 9% of that body). The algorithm that we've used to come up with these progressive scores is that we take ANY VOTE in which a majority of those progressives--so in the House say, if there were no absences, it would be 20 of the 38--voted in contradistinction to a majority of the Republican caucus then that vote then qualifies for the database. The same process is used in the Senate. So, non-ideological votes such as National Groundhog Day: 429-0 with 6 absences, do not qualify for the database.

The process is automated, so it can't be massaged the way many ideological organizations massage their rankings (more on that in a bit).

To get the rankings of all congresscritters, click on "select by score" on the ProgressivePunch homepage. Herseth is in the lead, but that's based on a single vote, so she really doesn't count. Raul Grijalva of Arizona is the most progressive Dem, followed by by congresswoman, Barbara Lee.

The most conservative Democrat is Gene Taylor of Mississippi, with a 45.73 percent rating. That is, he votes with the most progressive Dems nearly 46 percent of the time. Charles Stenholm of Texas is the second most conservative.

But get this -- the most liberal Republican is Chris Shays of Connecticut. He votes with the most progressive Dems only 30.87 percent of the time.

In other words, the most right-wing Democrat is 15 percent more likely to vote for the progressive position than the most left-wing Republican.

This is empirical proof that their IS a difference between the parties, and that the most conservative Dems are far more preferable to even the most palatable Republicans.

Now to be fair, the methodology includes procedural votes, and those often fall along party lines. But that merely emphasizes my contention that electing a conservative Dem is critical, even if just to get that one vote for Pelosi as speaker.

As John Denver once said: "Thank God I'm A Democrat--Yeah!"

BushWhackedUSA.com

ABC News poll: Kerry 53, Bush 45

2004-06-21T21:58:00.000-06:00
Neocons: Read 'em and WEEP.

OPENLY.

BushWhackedUSA.com

PLAYING INTO BIN LADEN'S HANDS

2004-06-20T00:44:00.000-06:00
Don't miss this article in The Guardian.

BUSH WINS

2004-06-20T00:28:00.000-06:00
From the Moscow Times:

Surely it is now time for all the Bush-bashers and war critics -- on both left and right -- to swallow their pride, put aside their partisanship, and admit the stone-cold truth:

The invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a rousing success.

For despite many setbacks and dark days, it cannot be denied that George W. Bush has accomplished exactly what he set out to do in launching his aggression: the installation -- through "a heavy dose of fear and violence," as one U.S. commander eloquently put it -- of a client state in Iraq, led by a strongman who will facilitate the Bush Regime's long-term (and long-declared) strategic goal of establishing a permanent military "footprint" in the key oil state, while also guaranteeing the short-term goal of opening the country to exploitation by Bush cronies and favored foreign interests. All of this has now been done -- and even sealed with the approval of the UN Security Council.

Let's have fun with poetry!

2004-06-18T00:11:00.000-06:00
Share whatever poem best describes how you're feeling these days. Mine is via Kurt Vonnegut's greatest book, Cat's Cradle:

When I Felt The Bullet Enter My Heart

Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology

I was the first fruits of the Battle of Missionary Ridge.
When I felt the bullet enter my heart
I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
Instead of running away and joining the army.
Rather a thousand times the county jail
Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,
And this granite pedestal
Bearing the words, "Pro Patria."
What do they mean, anyway?

BushWhackedUSA.com

Perjury

2004-06-17T21:16:00.000-06:00
I love it when this happens. Why people don't see this, read it and come to the only logical conclusion--Bush and his henchmen lie constantly--I will never know.

Must be too much trouble to read all this. Pathetic.

Via atrios, who got it from The Stakeholder at DCCC:

Perjury

There is some recycled material here, but it is worth revisiting.

Rumsfeld, under oath before the Senate:

"Any instructions that have been issued or anything that's been authorized by the department was checked by the lawyers . . . and deemed to be consistent with the Geneva Conventions."

Seattle Times (May 23, 2004):

"Presented last fall with a detailed catalog of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the U.S. military responded Dec. 24 with a confidential letter to a Red Cross official asserting that many Iraqi prisoners were not entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Conventions."

Today:

At the request of CIA Director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered the military to secretly hold a suspected terrorist in Iraq , a Pentagon spokesman said.

The suspected terrorist has been held since October without being given an identification number and without the International Committee of the Red Cross being notified, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. Both conditions violate the Geneva Accords on treatment of prisoners of war.

[...]

Maj. David Kolarik, a spokesman for the military's Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, said all prisoners are treated "in accordance with the principles" of the Geneva Conventions "to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity."

BushWhackedUSA.com

More promises broken

2004-06-17T20:48:00.000-06:00
From The Daily Kos:

What happened to Bush's "series of speeches"?

by kos
Thu Jun 17th, 2004 at 17:57:04 EDT

This is what they said back on May 21:

President Bush will deliver an "important speech" about the transfer of political power in Iraq on Monday night, a White House spokesman said Friday.

Bush's address, to be delivered at 8 p.m. at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, will be the first in a series of prime-time speeches intended to lay out the way forward in Iraq, according to White House officials.

So, uh, what happened?

Was that promise a lie, or just a run-of-the-mill Bush flip-flop?

Update: An even better quote:

Beginning with Monday's address at the Army War College, Bush will give a major speech on Iraq every week through June 30, when the U.S.-led coalition is due to turn over limited authority to a new interim Iraqi government. "We're entering a critical phase, and the president will be speaking out each week to discuss with the American people, and the world, the way forward in Iraq," said a White House official.

"Some speeches will have more details than others, and will be given at different places and times. All have the important goal of explaining the essential tasks at hand and the significance of June 30," the official added.

(Thanks to mitch2k2 in the comments.)

I know what happened. The first speech flopped so badly, it came in FOURTH in the prime-time ratings. And the Bush administration SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED the networks NOT cover the speech--an unheard-of situation, in my memory.

Completely bizarre, but somehow perfect in these crazy times we're living in...

BushWhackedUSA.com

SUPERTASER!

2004-06-17T15:25:00.000-06:00
Your tax dollars at work! Just what the world needs, a taser that can stun an entire crowd!

GET READY IRAQ: This Gun's Coming to a Marine Near You

EXCERPT: Much akin to Sci-Fi movies, a host of new weapons that use electric-shocks and lasers to immobilize crowds without actually harming them are being readied for sale to the Defence and police forces in the US and Europe.
At present, commercial stun guns called "Tasers" target one person at a time, and work only at close quarters. The new breed of non-lethal weapons can be used on many people at once and operate over far greater distances.
The weapon being created by the US Department of Defense's research division, DARPA, and defence companies in Europe has a conducting channel, which uses a small explosive charge to squirt a stream of tiny conductive fibers through the air at the victim.
In another experiment, engineers at Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems (XADS), based in Indiana, have made a different kind of wireless weapon. Instead of using fibers, the Close Quarters Shock Rifle projects an ionised gas, or plasma, towards the target, producing a conducting channel. It can also interfere with electronic ignition systems and stop vehicles.
The gun has been designed for the US Marine Corps to use for crowd control and security purposes and is due out next year. It is based on early, unwieldy technology and has a range of only 3 meters, but an operator can debilitate multiple targets by sweeping it across them.
Meanwhile, XADS is also planning a more advanced weapon, which will have a range of 100 meters or more. Instead of firing ionised gas, it will probably use a powerful laser to ionise the air itself.

God bless America! I wonder how gun control opponents feel about this one....

Maybe Supertaser will be in use tonight in Spokane. We half-considered making the drive, but now, well, never mind.

NEWS & COMMENTARY ROUNDUP

2004-06-17T08:37:00.000-06:00
A few headlines:

NATIONAL
Pentagon Failed on 9/11
Nonprofit Hospitals Overcharge the Uninsured (NYT)
Waste and Fraud Besiege US Program to Link Poor Schools to Internet (NYT)
Bush (41) and Reagan Officials Say Bush (43) Must Go (Nation)
Bush Takes Aim at Northwest States (AP)
Bush Energy Bill Would Reward Oil Industry Without Lowering Prices (BushGreenWatch)
BREAKING NEWS: New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional (CHB)

INTERNATIONAL
Prisoner Abuse: Rumsfeld Issued an Order to Hide Detainee from Red Cross in Iraq (NYT)
9/11 Panel finds No Al Qaeda-Iraq Ties (NYT)
Ray McGovern: Consequential Lies
Car Bomb Kills at Least 31 Outside Iraqi Army Base (NYT)
Jim Lobe: Stymied in Iraq, Hawks Still Positioning US as Globocop (IPS via Common Dreams)
Tom Engelhardt: Who's Sovereign Now? (TomDispatch)

More to come...

The Hunting Of The President

2004-06-16T17:38:00.000-06:00
"Fahrenheit 9/11" isn't the only film coming out that trashes certain right wing fanatics...

A thousand show up for Clinton film debut

June 16, 2004 | LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- More than a thousand people turned out Tuesday night for the world premiere of "The Hunting of the President," a film claiming to expose "the 10-year campaign to destroy Bill Clinton."

The 90-minute documentary re-creates interviews conducted for the best-selling book of the same name by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons. Rough versions have already played at four film festivals.

The first public showing, at $50 a ticket -- with the proceeds going to a couple of Arkansas-based charities -- drew a large crowd to a ballroom at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, a short walk from where Clinton celebrated his two presidential election victories. It is also next door to the Peabody Hotel, formerly the Excelsior, where Clinton accuser Paula Jones said he harassed her when he was governor.

I met and discussed this movie with Joe Conason in Washington, D.C. a little over two years ago. I never thought it would get distribution; I'm still not sure if it has. It's only playing one-night-stands here and there. I was skeptical.

But at least it's had its premiere, which is more than I can say for MY movie!

BushWhackedUSA.com

No. Credibility. What. So. Ever.

2004-06-16T17:19:00.000-06:00
None. And this is why. From thismodernworld.com:

Cheney:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Saddam Hussein had "long-established ties" with al Qaida, an assertion that has been repeatedly challenged by some policy experts and lawmakers.

The vice president on Monday offered no details backing up his claim of a link between Saddam and al Qaida.

"He was a patron of terrorism," Cheney said of Hussein during a speech before The James Madison Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Florida. "He had long established ties with al Qaida."

9/11 commission:

WASHINGTON - Bluntly contradicting the Bush administration, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday there was "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaida target the United States.

BushWhackedUSA.com

Wow

2004-06-16T17:09:00.000-06:00
Kerry raises $100 million in three months

BushWhackedUSA.com

THE COST OF WAR: $500 per month, per household

2004-06-16T14:44:00.000-06:00
In his forthcoming book The Real Cost of War, Joshua S. Goldstein suggests the following:

To get an idea what your household pays for security against foreign threats, install a parking meter in your living room, and insert a quarter every twenty minutes, 24/7. This amount – about $500/month – is what the government spends, per household, on military-related budgets including veterans’ benefits and homeland security expenses. It will not bankrupt us, but it is a substantial cost.

The book covers government spending, the broader economic effects of war, and the future costs, as well. Here's a sample: Chapter One (pdf file)

PYTHON DOES RUMSFELD

2004-06-16T12:15:00.000-06:00
Terry Jones has a great column about what is torture and what just looks like torture in today's Guardian (UK).

WATER-BOARDING IN THE WHITE HOUSE

2004-06-15T23:20:00.000-06:00
Another superb essay from Tom Engelhardt today on America's global terror network. This one's a sequel to the Orwell/Kafka piece I linked to a couple days ago--and neither is to be missed: Water-boarding in the White House

EXCERPT: On Sunday, in part one of this dispatch on our global torture system, George Orwell… meet Franz Kafka, I wrote: "There will be so much more to learn. Already, when it comes to Abu Ghraib, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the Pentagon keeps heaping investigations on top of one another, each subsequent one led by a figure with a higher rank and so more capable of investigating responsibility at higher levels, and I think it can be said with certainty that this will only get worse -- worse probably than anything we now imagine." As it happens, this administration is hemorrhaging documents. It took exactly twenty-four hours for my modest prediction to come true.

In the space of a day, we learned much more; it got significantly worse; and the Pentagon announced yet another investigation, this time of prisoner conditions at Guantanamo, where, it is rumored, much treatment and mistreatment was systematically and bureaucratically videoed, filed, and stored. Though this may seem but the next case of the criminal investigating the crime, there are numerous military men and intelligence officials angry enough, often disgusted enough, at what this administration has let loose to make even insider investigations dangerous for the administration these days.

Were the subject at hand anything but the creation of an American torture regime (and implicitly "high crimes and misdemeanors"), some of what's happened would be hilarious. For instance, Attorney General Ashcroft has stiff-armed Congress, refusing to declassify the memoranda that the administration's many legal minds produced justifying torture and the most literal sort of imperial presidency (to be presided over by a torturer-in-chief); and yet, in the last day or so, these memos have sprouted like so many wretched weeds at news sites all over the Internet....

What they make clear is that the Bush administration had torture on the brain. Its officials were fixated on the subject, which went so naturally with the President's new-style, no-holds-barred, we're-the-only-law-in-town, dead-or-alive, assassination-and-kidnapping "war on terrorism." It's no longer a matter of whether knowledge of the acts committed at Abu Ghraib prison reach the President and his advisors, but of what can only be termed a complete obsession with the subject of torture among those figures. The highest officials at the Pentagon, in the military, in the CIA, and at the Justice Department clearly couldn't stop thinking about torture -- as over the course of more than a year they requested legal memorandum after memorandum, all chewing over how to define torture so that various inhumane acts involving the infliction of mental and physical pain would not be considered such; over how far to go when too far was never quite far enough. In this sense, whether they were aware of the individual acts of horror at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere (and a number of them evidently were), they were certainly intensely aware that acts of this nature and worse were a "necessity" of their war (even if photos of them were not).

Engelhardt goes on to summarize the various news items. Again, if you're following the twists and turns of this scandal -- or if you'd like a good summary to bring you up to date -- these two essays aren't to be missed.

Also, we have a unique opportunity. There's a good chance Tom will stop by here within the next day or two. I extended the invitation, and he expressed interest. So, if you've got any questions or comments for him, click "Comments" just below, post your note, and hopefully Tom will have some time to spare.