Why I can't support Hillary

Hillary Clinton is very smart. No one of sound mind could claim otherwise. Were she to occupy the Oval Office, she would probably bring into the administration a lot of equally smart or even smarter people, some of whom would probably have pretty good progressive credentials.

But like many smart people, Senator Clinton has blind spots. Hers are frequently of the forehead-slapping kind. Attending a fund-raiser hosted by the Neocon propaganda king Rupert Murdoch is one such of recent vintage in a long history of making bad decisions.

But that alone is not why I can't support Hillary Clinton as Democratic candidate for the 2008 Presidential election. The real reason is, plain and simple; I don't think she can win. Certainly not against John McCain, once the great centrist of the Republican party, the heir to Barry Goldwater, who despite humiliating himself in his pandering to the Republican machine and the failed Bush Presidency [check out the scene in the film "Why We Fight" when McCain interrupts his condemnation of Iraq policy to take a phone call from VP Cheney - priceless!] is likely to pull many independents and right-leaning Dems into his camp, especially if the Dems retake Congress in November.

Why don't I think Hillary can win? Because a huge swathe of the progressive base, the heart and soul of the Democratic party, including MANY women that I have talked to, feel as I do - that there's just a little too much opportunism, a little too much power-mongering, and way too much pandering towards corporate America and some imagined right-of-center contingent in the Democratic Party on the part of Hillary Clinton. And it was exactly those policies of Bill Clinton's, such as NAFTA, which rose out of the same political philosophy, that wrecked havoc here and abroad, despite his overall reasonable success as chief-of-state.

Read Molly Ivins take on the same issue here.

Pragmatism

Jan Frel's rumination at Alternet on the lesser of evils and what it means for the body politic really struck a chord with me.

"The big names in the Democratic Party have even lower numbers than Bush -- is that because everyone's ignoring the crisis in our politics?"

"Be pragmatic. Take a good, long look at reality, and recognize that even though there isn't a Democrat in Washington who will admit that our political system is profoundly sick and obsolete, in the real world, the Democratic Party is currently all we have. So support it anyway.

"That's what I've been telling myself, but boy can it be hard to swallow. Take, for example, the sea of problems Hillary Clinton poses to any political idealist. Hillary Clinton may represent many awful things -- Iraq, corporatism, insane military spending -- but the truth is, millions of Americans may well have health care if she becomes president, and they won't if she loses to a Republican in the next election."

Read the rest along with many great comments here.

All of which leads me to my next post.

'Shock therapy' and the freefalling greenback

"The dollar has embarked on a big decline that will see it fall against all leading currencies. The plunge is being prompted by America's $800 billion current-account deficit"-- David Smith, The Sunday UK Times

"We are in meltdown mode"-- David Brown, chief-European economist at Bear Stearns

The dollar is getting hammered almost daily now. It's like watching the blood ooze from an open wound. In just one month the dollar has tumbled from $1.20 to $1.29 vs. the euro; an astonishing 7% retreat.

Can't the American people see what is happening to their future? In just 6 years Bush has taken the world's strongest currency and chopped it into finally ground hash. By the time people rouse from their stupor, the greenback will be eye to eye with the peso.

Bush has piled up more debt than all the other presidents combined. His tax cuts have fattened the bankrolls of his constituents but they've put the dollar on a downward slide. Since he took office the once-mighty greenback has plummeted a whopping 35%.

Read the rest here.

-- Mike Whitney, The Smirking Chimp

And don't miss Mike's equally depressing 'The economic tsunami, just months away'

Telcos Seek to Deceive Bloggers with Cartoon

Coming to a blog near you is a telecom-sponsored advertisement dressed up as an underground cartoon. It's the latest in the ongoing campaign by large phone companies to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public.The cartoon is a product of a front group funded by AT&T and BellSouth.

The group, Hands Off the Internet, is headed by Mike McCurry, the former Clinton Press Secretary who has been widely discredited for selling out his integrity to become the telephone industry's spokesmodel.McCurry's group is now attempting to buy its way into the blogosphere, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a misinformation campaign against network neutrality -- the principle that keeps the Internet free and open to all.

The ad and the animation it links to are an example of Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness" in action. Telco giants cloak their real interests behind a populist message that sounds plausible, while undermining the work of genuine public and consumer advocates.No where throughout this propaganda do they identify the nation’s largest telecom companies as the money behind the production. Instead, they dress up www.dontregulate.org as an authentically amateur effort -- complete with hand-drawn cartoons, a scraggly, counter-culture net-guy as protagonist and a David vs. Goliath subtext.

They frame the issue as pitting corporations against the people, the rich guy against you, and bureaucracy against the free market. They even give the URL a “dot-org” tag to cover their corporate tracks.

They paint the SavetheInternet coalition as seeking drastic regulation of the Internet. In fact, this group of more than 500 organizations, bloggers, educators and small businesses is asking only that Congress preserve Net Neutrality, the guiding principle that has kept the Internet free and open since its beginning.It is AT&T and BellSouth that are asking Congress to radically re-regulate the Internet by stripping Net Neutrality from the wires. It's the largest phone and cable corporations -- with their monopoly control of broadband access across more than 50 percent of America -- that pose the biggest threat to the free and fair enterprise and democratic discourse. (These are the same companies have handed over to the National Security Agency the personal phone logs of tens of millions of ordinary Americans -- a betrayal of their customer privacy agreements. Now, they want us to entrust them with the Internet?).

Without Net Neutrality protections, companies like AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon will swoop in to dismantle Internet diversity in favor of websites that pay their tax for speed. Industry-supported legislation now before Congress would hand over control of the Internet to these massive telcos, allowing them to set up tollbooths along the onramps and exits of the information superhighway.Shoved to the margins will be the small businesses, open-source innovators, bloggers, independent musicians, political organizers and everyone else who can't afford the toll.

These Web outsiders and upstarts have been the lifeblood of the Internet. Many are already creating their own animations and PSAs to call public attention to AT&T and Verizon's Internet swindle, while coming to the defense of Net Neutrality. While these homegrown videos don't have a big-money ad buy behind them, they are spreading of their own volition across the blogosphere.

This type of grassroots creativity wouldn’t stand a chance under a regime where the largest ISPs limit access to high speed Internet to the companies that pay them the most. McCurry's powerfully deceptive cartoon is a part of this telco scheme. It’s designed to convince bloggers and net users to support a plan that goes against their best interests.

For a frame-by-frame debunking of the telco cartoon, visit www.savetheinternet.com/=lie

-- Timothy Karr Media Citizen

Ya gotta love it

Photo courtesy of the Brad Blog.

ChoicePoint INC. and the Bush war on America

So, big surprise, right? Another Republican-run corporation feeding at the trough of crony credit, courtesy of the taxpayers. But this one's a little different. Let Greg Palast tell it:

"I know you're shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news.This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.

"The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company, formed , called, "ChoicePoint, Inc," which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts. Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration.

"Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect if for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.

"Who ARE these guys selling George Bush a piece of you? ChoicePoint's board has more Republicans than a Palm Beach country club. It was funded, and its board stocked, by such Republican sugar daddies as billionaires Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone -- even after Langone was charged by the Securities Exchange Commission with abuse of inside information."

Read the rest here.

Oh, in case you forgot; yes, these are the clowns who sold credit card data for 145,000 citizens to a criminal ring, and also compiled horribly erroneous "felony" data on thousands of (predominantly black) Florida voters in the 2000 election, thereby preventing them from casting their vote.

Save Internet freedom!

AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth want us to trust that they’ll be good stewards of Internet freedom. Meanwhile, they’re selling out ordinary Americans to the National Security Agency.

A report in May 11's USA Today tells how these three carriers secretly provided to the NSA the phone call records of tens of millions of people — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime.

These companies apparently have no qualms about betraying customer trust — or breaking federal law.

According to the report, Section 222 of the Communications Act, prohibits companies from giving out information regarding their customers’ calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination, and who calls in to the number. When asked about their potentially illegal handover of this personal information, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth declined to comment, citing “national security matters.”

Now they are asking Congress to strip away Net Neutrality protections so they can become benevolent overlords of the World Wide Web.

Would you trust these corporations with your Internet?

Just days ago, a Republican-dominated congressional committee struck a blow to Internet freedom by voting to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment.

The full House will vote on whether to preserve Internet freedom next week. Then, all eyes turn to a key Senate Committee.

The time for action is now.

Here's what you can do:

1 - Sign a petition to Congress.

2 - Call your representatives.

3 - Write your representatives.

4- Blog or put the "Save the Internet" logos and links on your web page.

5- Add "Save the Internet" as a a friend on MySpace.

Want more info? Get it here or here.

Much of this text was copied from Savetheinterenet.com's blog.

Bush Approves Takeover of Military Plants by Dubai

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (April 28) - President Bush on Friday approved a deal for a Dubai-owned company to take control of some U.S. plants that manufacture parts for American military contractors.

Initial reactions from Congress indicated that there would not be the opposition to the deal that prevented another Dubai-based company from taking over operations of several U.S. ports.

"This was a transaction that was thoroughly reviewed and closely scrutinized," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in confirming the deal. "In the view of the committee, it does not compromise our national security."

As a condition of the president's approval, the company signed an agreement that promised an uninterrupted supply, McClellan said. The White House was in the process of informing key members of Congress of the president's decision.

House leadership aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said lawmakers from both parties on the relevant committees had been briefed on the deal, and had agreed that necessary safeguards were in effect. They said there had been numerous contacts with the administration.

And watch those Bush family fortunes soar. Remember, from his perch the economy looks pretty darn good.

Dear Mr. President

"Dear Mr. President"
by Pink

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you

Listen to the song and view some moving accompanying videos here.

It's my dream, too...

Is this why Porter Goss resigned as CIA chief?

Sex, Lies, and Government Contracts

5/07/06 -- -- The most extensive federal corruption scandal in a century is growing. In March, former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison (the longest sentence ever given to a member of Congress) for accepting $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for lucrative defense contracts. Yet Cunningham's crimes, the "magnitude and duration" of which are compared to the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, may end up a mere prelude.

According to recent reports, federal investigators have traced the outlines of a far more extensive network of suspected corruption, involving multiple members of Congress, some of the nation's highest-ranking intelligence officials, bribery attempts including "free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes," tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts awarded under dubious circumstances, and even efforts to influence U.S. national security policy by subverting democratic oversight.

The ringleader

At the center of the storm is California defense contractor Brent Wilkes -- aka "Co-Conspirator #1" in government documents -- "who gave more than $630,000 in cash and favors" to Cunningham "for help in landing millions of dollars in federal contracts." Wilkes devoted much of his 20-year career to "developing political contacts in Washington," a task at which he excelled, serving recently both as a county finance co-chairman of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R-CA) campaign and as the state finance co-chairman for President Bush. "Wilkes, his family members and his employees were heavy campaign contributors to several members of Congress," and he frequently invited members -- including Cunningham, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) -- on chartered corporate jets.

The efforts paid off handsomely: "Wilkes won tens of millions of dollars worth of defense contracts for his companies through the process of closed-door congressional earmarking of the federal budget." Indeed, "many of the contracts Wilkes secured" were for projects the Pentagon never even requested. Wilkes has thus far avoided any criminal charges, but federal officials are investigating instances of quid pro quo, since the "timing of Wilkes' many political donations closely parallels the approval of earmarks for Wilkes' companies."

'Red lights on Capitol Hill'

For more than a decade, Wilkes curried favor with lawmakers and CIA officials by hosting weekly parties at lavish hospitality suites at the Watergate and Westin hotels in Washington. Guests would gamble, socialize, and sometimes receive prostitutes; according to Harper's magazine, the festivities "began early with poker games and degenerated" into what one source described "as a 'frat party' scene -- real bacchanals." Mitchell Wade, another defense contractor who pleaded guilty in February to bribing Cunningham, has "told federal prosecutors that he periodically helped arrange for a prostitute for the then-congressman."

But investigators are digging for more: FBI agents "have fanned out across Washington, interviewing women from escort services, potential witnesses and others who may have been involved in the arrangement," attempting to determine "whether any other members of Congress, or their staffs, may also have used the same free services." Last week, a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune said that "as many as a half dozen other Congressmen" may ultimately be implicated in the scandal. (Several have already denied ever attending Wilkes' parties.) Also, investigators are reportedly "trying to determine whether Cunningham and other legislators brought prostitutes to the hotels or prostitutes were provided for them there"; there is speculation that Wilkes may be subject to felony federal sex-trafficking charges if the Virginia-based limousine service he used transported the prostitutes into Washington.

CIA's third in command admits he attended parties

The highest-ranking CIA official to admit he attended the poker parties thrown by Wilkes is Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the agency's third-ranking official. (Foggo even "occasionally hosted the poker parties at his house in northern Virginia," though he denies ever seeing prostitutes at the gatherings.) Foggo's relationship with Wilkes goes back 30-plus years; the two were roommates in college, best men at each others' weddings, and even "named their sons after each other."

By the 1980s, Foggo had joined the CIA and "was sent to Honduras to assist the Nicaraguan Contra rebels," where his "position was essentially a contracting officer -- he could get anyone anything they needed." Meanwhile, Wilkes had established himself in Washington and made his living "ferrying congressmen to Central America, where he would introduce them to Foggo and the Contras." Foggo's connections to Wilkes and fellow contractor Mitchell Wade are now the focus of an investigation into CIA contracts by the agency's inspector general, first made public in March. One of Wilkes' companies, Archer Logistics, won a contract to provide supplies to CIA agents in Afghanistan and Iraq despite having "no previous experience with such work, having been founded a few months before the contract was granted."

CIA director Goss tied to scandal?

Last week, Harper's magazine reported that party-goers "under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees -- including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post." CIA Director Porter Goss is perhaps the only individual who fits such a description. ("This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn't even been to the Watergate in decades," a CIA spokeswoman said. When asked if Goss had attended Wilkes' parties at the Westin or other locations, she repeated the denial. "It's horribly irresponsible. Flatly untrue.") But the alleged links between Goss, Foggo, and Wilkes have led some to return to questions raised when Goss initially selected Foggo to be executive director in November 2004.

At the time, the decision was viewed with skepticism since Foggo's previous position was as a "midlevel procurement supervisor," and because following his unexpected selection, "Porter Goss lieutenant Patrick Murray went to then-Associate Deputy Director of Operations for Counterintelligence Mary Margaret Graham and informed her that if anything leaked about other Goss appointments -- in particular, Foggo's -- she would be held responsible." Project on Government Oversight fellow Jason Vest reported last week that much of Foggo's counterintelligence file "has to do with various social encounters over the years, none of which he's been deceptive about when polygraphed, and all of which have been deemed to be of no threat to operational security -- but are still the types of things that could be embarrassing for Goss and the Agency." Vest suggests the latest reports raise important questions about the "relationship between Foggo and Wilkes, and the relationship of each with Goss."

Even the limo service is corrupt

Another piece of the puzzle is Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc., the firm that Wilkes used to "transport congressmen, CIA officials, and perhaps prostitutes to his Washington parties." Shirlington's president, Christopher Baker, has a "lengthy history of illegal activity," detailed in his 62-page rap-sheet which "runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petty larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more." Shirlington Limo also "operates in what looks to be a deliberately murky way. The limo company does business under at least four different names; in addition, the office addresses listed on its business filings regularly change. A number of those office addresses are actually at residential buildings or business suites, and calls to the listed phone numbers are taken by an answering service."

The company was sued in 2004 for failing to make payments on buses it had purchased, has received eviction notices from its offices, and even had its federal license revoked by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in both 2001 and 2004. Despite all of this, the Department of Homeland Security last fall awarded Shirlington a $21 million contract "to provide transportation, including limo service for senior officials." Shirlington also won contracts "with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (for $519,823) and...the Federal Highway Administration (for $142,000)." What role did Wilkes play in Shirlington receiving these federal contracts?

The Defense Appropriations Committee 'Cabal'

A common thread links the members of Congress that Wilkes courted most aggressively, such as Cunningham and Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), and John Doolittle (R-CA). All were (or still are) on subcommittees overseeing defense and intelligence spending. On Monday, prominent conservative strategist Ed Rollins described the main players in the scandal as a "real little cabal on the defense appropriations committee." In particular, the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense is "aggressively courted not just by defense contractors, but by lobbyists for foreign governments interested in swinging US defense spending in certain directions," investigative journalist Laura Rozen notes. "It is really where the checks are signed, and decisions about funding sometimes wholly un-debated aspects of U.S. national security policy are made."

Indeed, many of the figures tied to the scandal have histories of involvement in reactionary conservative elements of U.S. foreign policy: Kyle Foggo worked extensively with the Nicaraguan contras, Mitchell Wade headed a White House-contracted group called the "Iranian Democratization Foundation", and Wilkes was reportedly set to receive a contract to "create and run a secret plane network" for the CIA before his links to Cunningham were made public. The roots of this scandal may be as much in profiteering as they are in "this club's conviction that the law is an impediment to the national security cause, that the way to run things is through these informal networks.

-- The Progress Report (American Progress Action Fund)

Original post here.

Huh? (or was that Como?)

On Cinco de Mayo, our President demanded that, "Those who come here to our country have a responsibility to learn the English language."

In the belief that responsibility begins at home, here is the same President's February 4, 2005 explanation of how he will "save" our Social Security system:

"Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised. DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE TO YOU? IT'S KIND OF MUDDLED. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. This is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- that that growth is affect, it will help on the red."

Hmmmmm.

(A tip of the MJ hat to Greg Palast).

Thank you, Stephen Colbert

Post a "thank you" to comedian Stephen Colbert for using comedy to deliver the message to President Bush that the media just won't. And if you didn't see Colbert's masterful performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner, you can watch it there as well.

Dear Laura

Would you like to send the following Mother's Day message to Laura Bush?

Dear First Lady Laura Bush:

I'm sure that for Mothers Day you'll be celebrating the fact that you have two great daughters growing up and moving into the professional world.

But I'm writing to ask that you take a moment to reflect on the thousands of other American mothers who won't be celebrating Mothers Day this year. Instead, for those who have lost their sons and daughters in Iraq, this day will only be a reminder of grief and sorrow.

Now, your husband is rattling his saber against Iran and threatening a military attack. I beg of you -- please convince him that war should not be an option. The so-called Iranian "crisis" can be resolved through diplomacy and coalition-building -- not dropping bombs and sending in troops.

So, please have a word with your husband. Ask him if he would still attack Iran if your two daughters were in the military and scheduled to be in the first units sent in. If the answer to that question is no, then how can he ask other moms and dads to make a sacrifice that he's not willing to himself?

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME HERE

If so, click here.

Greg Palast: Armed Madness

Greg Palast is perhaps our most fearless investigative reporter, on the front lines with true diligence against the Neocon insanity that threatens to consume the United States once and for all. He's got a new book coming out in June, Armed Madhouse:


"For the past two years, I've nearly disappeared from BBC Television screens and from newspapers so my team could focus on our most important investigation yet. I've put it in a book: Armed Madhouse. The book travels from Beijing to New Orleans to Caracas to Baghdad to New Mexico ... a five-part investigation of global economic piggery so deep, dark and devious you just have to scream or cry -- or laugh.

"Don't be fooled by the fact that 'Armed Madhouse' is entertaining -- this is my most serious reporting yet -- connecting oil panic, Hurricane Katrina, Chinese currency, Venezuela's petrodollars, disappearing ballots, Thomas Friedman, more oil, and the murder of General Motors. These are dispatches from the front lines of the class war."

Read more.

Hundreds of thousands in New York march against war

Unlike Washington last fall, I couldn't be there this go round. As usual, the media barely gave it a nod. UFPJ says there were 300,000 - my home town rag said "tens of thousands;" the cops - who are told not to offer any estimates - said nothing. I believe UFPJ.

Some scenes from the crowd:

Bush challenges hundreds of laws

From the Boston Globe, by Charlie Savage, April 30, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more governmental power into the White House.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

Read more.

Hey Rush, doesn't "Snow" rhyme with "ho"?

Media Matters for America has compiled just a few of the many falsehoods that incoming White House Press spokesperson Tony Snow has issued while a Fox news pundit

• Snow falsely asserted that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV said his wife, Valerie Plame, "wasn't covert for six years" before she was exposed as a CIA operative by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

• Snow put forward numerous falsehoods to argue that "[e]volutionary theory, like ID [intelligent design], isn't verifiable or testable. It's pure hypothesis."

• Snow claimed that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the "most liberal justice in American history," despite evidence to the contrary.

• Snow peddled the baseless Republican National Committee talking point that 2004 presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) had blamed U.S. troops for the explosives looted from the Al Qaqaa military installation following the invasion of Iraq. Snow said, "[T]he Kerry campaign is not criticizing the president here. They're criticizing our troops."

• Following President Bush's lead, Snow distorted Kerry's stated desire to reduce terrorism to a "horrible nuisance." Snow claimed Kerry had "called terrorists a nuisance."

• Snow backed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's attacks on Kerry, falsely claiming, "[T]here has been no documentary contradiction of the Swift Boat stuff."

• Snow falsely defended Bush from probing questions regarding his National Guard service.
  

Bush White House Press spokesperson standard operating procedure:

If only ...

Rush Limbaugh, the 55-year-old ultra right-wing commentator, surrendered Friday at the Palm Beach County jail on a warrant charging that in 2003, sought a prescription from a physician without revealing that he had received medications from another practitioner within 30 days. That charge, commonly referred to as doctor shopping, is a felony that could carry a sentence of up to 5 years in prison. Limbaugh was booked, photographed and fingerprinted before being released on $3,000 bail.

Now, wouldn't you just love to see some dude doing 15 years or more for possession of a joint standing over the fat slob and saying "Squeal like a pig..."

Bush's REAL base

"This is an impressive crowd — the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base." —Presidential candidate George W. Bush, at the annual Al Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Oct. 19, 2000


From The Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 26, 2006

Eighteen of America's wealthiest families, including the Timkens of Canton, are bankrolling efforts to permanently repeal estate taxes that would save their families a total of $71.6 billion, according to a report released Tuesday by public interest groups.

Groups funded by the super-rich have engaged in a deceptive campaign to convince the public that estate taxes cause widespread problems for small businesses and family farms when they actually affect about one in 370 estates, said the report released by Public Citizen and Boston-based United for a Fair Economy.

This year, all assets under $2 million for individuals and under $4 million for couples are exempt from estate taxes. Current tax law will boost those exemptions to $3.5 million and $7 million in 2009, eliminate the estate tax in 2010, and reimpose it in 2011 with a $1 million exemption.

The House voted to permanently repeal the estate tax last year, but the measure stalled in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to override filibusters. Majority Leader Bill Frist says he will bring the bill up in May.
-- Sabrina Eaton

Read more.

George Orwell’s distinction between patriotism and nationalism

Orwell wrote the essay “Notes on Nationalism” in 1945, just as the most cataclysmic war in human history was ending in Europe.

“By patriotism,” he wrote, “I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world, but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally.”

Nationalism, as Orwell defined it, “is inseparable from the desire for power.... A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige.... His thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations.” To Orwell, it was “power hunger tempered by self-deception,” a kind of moral insanity.

Presaging his masterpiece “1984,” Orwell was most alarmed by the fervid nationalist’s indifference to reality: “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage—torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians—which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.”

-- Courtesy of Gene Lyons, "Is our democracy sleepwalking into a nightmare," Little Rock Democrat Gazette

Hostile Takeover

Steven Lendman has posted an important and very germane analysis of how the global corporate culture has transformed human society in ways dire and unprecedented in history. This is not a mere rant - it is a reasoned analysis of how giant coprorations manipulate governments, media, finance, and their employees to fulfill their agenda. And what is that agenda? To make stock holders happy. And CEOs richer and richer.

Pentagon Strike

This Flash media presentation accumulates in rapid-fire succession all of the evidence that suggests something quite other than the official story about the Pentagon attack of September 11, 2001. Still think that the greatest conspiracy in American history could never be kept secret if it were true? Remember, the conspirators ARE in power.

Unembedded

In a stunningly powerful series of photographs and videos, four INDEPENDENT photographers and two filmmakers document life in Iraq during wartime. This is a must see website.

Rumsfeld's grand plan for world domination

In my hometown paper, this was buried on page 8.

From the Washington Post:

New Plans Foresee Fighting Terrorism Beyond War Zones, Pentagon to Rely on Special Operations

By Ann Scott Tyson, Sunday, April 23, 2006

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the case of another major terrorist attack on the United States, according to defense officials.

The long-awaited campaign plan for the global war on terrorism, as well as two subordinate plans also approved within the past month by Rumsfeld, are considered the Pentagon's highest priority, according to officials familiar with the three documents who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Details of the plans are secret, but in general they envision a significantly expanded role for the military -- and, in particular, a growing force of elite Special Operations troops -- in continuous operations to combat terrorism outside of war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Developed over about three years by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, the plans reflect a beefing up of the Pentagon's involvement in domains traditionally handled by the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.

For example, SOCOM has dispatched small teams of Army Green Berets and other Special Operations troops to U.S. embassies in about 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where they do operational planning and intelligence gathering to enhance the ability to conduct military operations where the United States is not at war.

Venezuela here we come.

Welcome to the New American Century.

Full article here.

Does Karl Rove lead a double life?

Royal fascist by day ... Leather Queen by night?
I first heard Randi Rhodes insinuate somthing to this effect months ago, and frankly, it is just too delicious to pass up. Of course, you'd think at least The Nation would have picked up on it already if it were true ...

From The Truth Seeker .

From Conspiracy Planet.

From Choice 101.

From the Nashua Advocate.

This is one of these things to which you figure a sizable percentage of the White House Press Corps know the answer but keep their mouth shut (probably for all the wrong reasons).

Not that there's anything wrong with it ... (barring the HYPOCRISY!).

President Debt meets the Bank

How many retired generals does it take to call for impeachment?

The count of retired military brass calling for Rumsfeld's resignation continues to increase every week. You have to ask yourself, how much is this in response to cladestine pleas from the still active commanders who don't want to imperil their careers by speaking out while still in active service? The situation is unprecedented in American history, and only adds to the weight of arguments that we have been manipulated and overtaken by a lunatic fringe of loathsome rogues for whom common reality is everyone else's worst nightmare.

More news of the unquiet revolt building in the ranks of the military:

A warning to Pentagon: Does this look familiar?

Retired colonel claims U.S military operations are already underway in Iran

The generals' revolt, by Pat Buchanan

3 degrees: Chief scientist warns bigger rise in world's temperature will put 400 million at risk

The world's temperature is on course to rise by more than three degrees Centigrade despite efforts to combat global warming, Britain's chief scientist has warned.

Sir David King issued a stark wake-up call that climate change could cause devastating consequences such as famine and drought for hundreds of millions of people unless the world's politicians take more urgent action.

Britain and the rest of the European Union have signed up to a goal of limiting the temperature rise to two degrees. In his strongest warning yet on the issue, Sir David suggested the EU limit will be exceeded.

According to computer-modelled predictions for the Government, a three-degree rise in temperatures could put 400 million more people at risk of hunger; leave between one and three billion more people at risk of water stress; cause cereal crop yields to fall by between 20 and 400 million tons; and destroy half the world's nature reserves.

-- Andrew Grice, The Independent. Full article here.

And the right wing continues to call this "junk science." This from the purveyors of "junk thinking."

American Hero of the Week

Doris "Granny D" Haddock is a 96 year-old activist whose long life is pure inspiration. Visit her web site, and hope that you and me can muster hald of this nonogenarian's personal courage, spirit and energy.

In this speech from 2002, Granny D attempts to answer the conundrum that perplexes me every day: how can people accept the direction in which our nation is being steered?

An excerpt: "If we Americans are split into two meaningful camps, it is not conservative versus liberal. The two camps are these: the politically awake and the hypnotized -- hypnotized by television and other mass media, whose overpaid Svengalis dangle the swinging medallions of packaged candidates and oft-told lies. It is all done to politically prolong the open season on us -- open season indeed, as the billionaire takeover artists bag their catch for the day. And in their bags are our freedoms, our leisure, our health care futures, our old age security, our family time, our village life, our family-owned businesses on Main Street, the middle class itself, and our position of honor and peaceful leadership in the world."


Granny D has two books out Granny D : You're Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell and Granny D : Walking Across America in My Ninetieth Year.

Will another war bring Americans into the streets ...

... or just our consumer-addled society to its knees?

Half a million people fill the streets to demonstate against an hypocritical immigration policy. Well and good, though at the heart of it, you can't help thinking that it's all about the desire to join the rest of the pigs at the trough (rather than asking if the trough is going to last forever or even deserves to).

Meanwhile, a deluded, war-obsessed, messianic, appointed president considers sending nuclear weapons against a fundamentalist Islamic government in the Persian Gulf. Where is the outrage about this? What degree of exceutive insanity will be necessary to bring a half million people into the streets in protest?

New Hampshire phone-jamming records point to White House

Larry Margasak, Associated Press, April 11

WASHINGTON - Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.

The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 — as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.

The national Republican Party, which paid millions in legal bills to defend Tobin, says the contacts involved routine election business and that it was "preposterous" to suggest the calls involved phone jamming.

Whole article here.

And why is it that I can only see Karl Rove's fat little hands pulling the strings behind this little caper?

We pause in our regularly scheduled programming ...

Ever wonder what right wing assholes do on their computers in their spare time (when they're not venting their stupidity on blog sites like sondraK)?

http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=11cb8e54-152a-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7

Still think that George W. Bush was "elected" president?

From the Brad Blog:

A summary of the key points in the story so far…
Based on the Reporting of Brad Friedman
(For a list of key articles in this series, see www.BradBlog.com/ClintCurtis.htm)

...OVERVIEW...

On December 6^th, 2004 , The BRAD BLOG (www.bradblog.com) published a sworn affidavit by Florida software programmer Clint Curtis. In his affidavit and videotaped sworn testimony presented before members of the U.S. House Judiciary committee, Curtis claims to have been asked by U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) to design a "vote-rigging software prototype". This request took place in October 2000 during a meeting at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), a computer consulting firm in Oviedo, Florida.

Curtis, a life-long Republican up until then, had been a programmer at YEI, which had several top-secret clearance contracts with the state, NASA and other government agencies. Curtis' understanding at the time was that the prototype he was being asked to create (built to the very precise specifications of Feeney) was to address Feeney’s concerns that the Democrats might attempt to electronically rig the election and Feeney wanted to know what to look out for in that event. After informing YEI CEO Mrs. Li-Woan Yang that he would not be able to hide the vote-flipping routines in the software source-code as Feeney had requested, Curtis testified that Mrs. Yang informed him that the program was needed to "rig the vote in South Florida ".

At the time of the alleged meeting, Feeney was the incoming Speaker of the Florida House, and also a registered lobbyist and the general corporate counsel for YEI. Previously, he had been the running mate of Jeb Bush during his 1994 unsuccessful first bid for Florida Governor. In November 2000, Feeney gained national notoriety after declaring open defiance of the Florida Supreme Court by vowing to choose Presidential electors for George W. Bush regardless of whether a court-ordered recount showed that Gore won Florida . He eventually ascended to the U.S. Congress and today sits on the House Judiciary Committee. Although he was outspent two to one by his Democratic opponent in 2002, Feeney beat him handily at the polls and then ran unopposed for the same seat in 2004.

...CONFIRMED LINKS TO CHINESE ESPIONAGE...

Curtis also reported in his affidavit and to the Florida State Inspector General that YEI was employing an illegal Chinese alien by the name of Hai Lin "Henry" Nee who was inserting "wire-tapping modules" into sensitive database programs which YEI had built for NASA and other companies. Curtis also alleged that the brother of Mrs. Li-Woan Yang, the YEI CEO, had been a deported Chinese spy.

Since the time of Curtis' allegations, Hai Lin "Henry" Nee has been indicted, and pleaded guilty to charges of espionage related to attempting to send chips used in Hellfire anti-tank missile systems to China. The arrest was the result of a four year sting operation by the Homeland Security Office's Immigration and Customs Export (ICE) bureau. Although Nee admitted in his pleading to have sent such chips "ten to twenty times in the past year" to China, he was sentenced (10/2004) to just three years probation and a $100 fine!

Federal officials in the Florida Inspector General’s report investigating claims by Curtis have confirmed that Nee was an illegal alien as of January 2000. Yet for reasons still unknown, Federal officials refused to disclose information on Nee's alien status to the Florida IG until after Nee's prosecution had concluded in October of 2004.

...YEI DENIALS EXPOSED AS LIES...

Mrs. Yang and the attorneys for YEI (Tom Feeney's former law-partner and current contributor, Michael O'Quinn) still insist that Nee never worked for them even though the Florida Inspector General’s report confirmed otherwise. Moreover, weekly time records published by The BRAD BLOG show that Nee worked 40 to 60 hours a week at YEI on their contract with the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT). As Curtis also charged in his affidavit, the recent Florida IG's report found YEI owing approximately $300,000 in questionable charges to the FDOT where Curtis had been working at the time he originally blew the whistle on these allegations.

...THE DEAD INSPECTOR GENERAL...

The original Inspector General assigned to the case, Raymond Lemme, had contacted Curtis in mid-June of 2003, after both Curtis and the other whistleblower on the case had been fired without cause – both on the same day. (Eventually, both of them would win their whistleblower cases against FDOT on the matter.) Curtis says in his sworn affidavit that Lemme had advised him in mid-June that he would be very happy about his upcoming report and he should keep his ears open for it because, he told Curtis, "this goes all the way to the top."

Two weeks later, Lemme was found dead in a Valdosta, Georgia motel room.

The police report determined the death was a suicide. However, this BRAD BLOG article examines a number of troubling inconsistencies in the police report including photographs from the crime scene which the Valdosta police report claimed would not exist due to a failed "flash memory card" in the camera. In reality, however, the photographs do exist and are now posted along with the other troubling inconsistencies and anomalies in this part of the story.

The Valdosta police department now admits that they re-opened the Lemme case after "interest from the Internet" in December 2004, but then re-closed it quickly after they received a phone call (confirmed by the Valdosta police, but so-far unexplained) from FDOT.

...FEENEY'S DENIALS EXPOSED AS LIES...

Tom Feeney has categorically denied all charges made by Curtis and has refused to comment on the record about any of the allegations beyond telling MSNBC that "Curtis has defamed a lot of people". In the meantime, The BRAD BLOG, has so far been unable to find any holes or inconsistencies in any of Curtis' claims. On the contrary, the bulk of Curtis’ claims have so far been proven truthful and legitimate based on a multitude of hard evidence obtained from public documents, court records, newspaper accounts, emails and other materials from a long three year paper trail.

On the other hand, statement after statement made by Feeney, YEI and their attorneys on this matter have turned out to be demonstrably untrue and incorrect based on documented evidence as reported over the past three months on The BRAD BLOG.

...LOCAL MEDIA GETS ON THE STORY...

Even though this scandal links a powerful Republican Congressman to Chinese espionage, the national media has largely ignored the story so far. But in Florida , several local newspapers have jumped on the story, including the Seminole Chronicle, Oviedo Voice, St. Petersburg Times, and New Times Broward Palm-Beach. While some reports have been more responsible than others, all largely confirm the bulk of items reported by The BRAD BLOG and many of the claims by Curtis' himself.

...CLINT CURTIS PASSES POLYGRAPH TEST!...

After many months and many requests and many challenges from both critics and Mainstream Media types, The St. Petersburg Times reports -- and The BRAD BLOG can confirm -- that Clint Curtis took a polygraph test on March 3rd, 2005...and passed!

The lie-detector test, administered by Tim Robinson, the retired chief polygraph operator for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, found that Curtis was indeed found to be truthful in all of his responses!

...CLINT CURTIS TO RUN FOR CONGRESS AGAINST FEENEY!...

On February 13th, 2006, it was announced on The BRAD BLOG that Clint Curtis is planning a run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida's 24th District. If he is able to make it through a Primary Challenge, he will then go on to face Tom Feeney, the current occupant of that seat, in the 2006 General Election...Curis has now set up a campaign website to raise much needed funds at www.ClintCurtis.com

The story and the investigation continue…

Additional details and a list of key articles can be found at www.BradBlog.com/ClintCurtis.htm

For more information on interviews on this story, or for help in scheduling an interview with Clint Curtis, please contact Brad Friedman via email at TheBradBlog@cville.com

The future of elections in the USA

Just when we face the worst presidency in the history of the republic, and a majority party in Congress consumed by corruption and corporate shilling on one hand, and appeasing a radical, reactionary, anti-intellectual, pseudo-Christian movement on the other, we have this:

Dennis Vadura is the former CEO of AccuPoll, a voting machine vendor that has filed for bankruptcy. He has this to say about the industry (emphasis added):

"I am not happy about the outcome, or the state of the industry. I think that something needs to be done. I'm not sure what it is, it probably doesn't include AccuPoll at this point, but I do not feel that any of the vendors has a system that voters can trust. I think that vendors outright misrepresent the robustness, stability, and security of their systems. You just have to look at the litany of problems and it points at one thing, bad fundamental design, and not enough checks and balances. I also wonder why the other vendors were so adamant in fighting a VVPAT [voter verified paper audit trail] system requirement. They spent much more in fighting it than in implementing it."

-- Courtesy of "News From Underground." Read the whole article on the voting machine mess by John Gideon Executive Director of VotersUnite.org, Information Manager of votetrustusa.org
here.

Homeland sexuality

From the Dept. of Homeland Security Press Room 2004 Accomplishments Report:

"More than 4,600 child sex predators were apprehended nationwide and over 2,100 child sex predators were deported. "

From The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2004 press release:

"HOMELAND SECURITY ANNOUNCES NEW MILESTONE IN ITS GLOBAL EFFORT TO COMBAT CHILD SEX PREDATORS"

Whoops! Missed one ...

"On Wednesday, prosecutors prepared to extradite Brian J. Doyle — a senior public information officer for the [Dept. of Homeland Security] — who faces 23 felony counts of using a computer to seduce a child and of transmitting harmful materials to a minor."
-- From "Sex Charges Raise Security Issues" by Nick Timiraos, LA Times

Homeland Security Deputy Press Secretary arrested. -- WTSP, Tampa, FL

Hmmm, I wonder if he wrote that press release from 2004 ...?

Now, more than ever.

California's version of Tom DeLay

Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA) typifies the worst excesses of a Republican-led legislature. This guy gives Tom Delay a major run for the money as THE congressional corruption king (now that "Duke" Cunningham is off crying in his beer). The stakes are high for unseating him, and it will not be easy. Read about this man's abuse of the public trust here.

Independent World Television

I think this could be the start of something big...

www.iwtnews.com