Bob Novak on being ‘The Prince of Darkness’
“All the stars are aligned against the Republicans in 2008,” Bob Novak told the assembled masses at the Americans for Tax Reform’s Wednesday meeting, causing a subtle gasp to leak out of the conservative faithful.
“You’re breaking our rule on being cheerful, Bob,” ATR’s Grover Norquist responded.
“Well, I am the Prince of Darkness,” Novak said, jokingly.
And Novak is embracing his nickname: His latest book, due out in July, is titled, “The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years of Reporting in Washington.”
Novak also weighed in on several potential ’08 candidates:
Al Gore: “He likes being rich ... he likes being an Oscar-winner and I think he likes being fat, too.”
John McCain, at the recent GOP debate in California: “He didn’t look like a winner.”
Mitt Romney: In response to Romney’s performance at the recent GOP debate, Novak said some people told him that Romney “almost looked too perfect.”
Fred Thompson: Novak said that, apparently, people believe that Thompson “did such a good job as the district attorney of New York City that he deserves a chance to be president.”
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
More Bushite B.S.: When Will It Stop?
When we stop it!
Yesterday, we learned that the 11 House Republicans met with the president and his senior aides at the White House this week for an “unvarnished” conversation about the administration’s war policy in Iraq.
Various media accounts of the 90-minute meeting suggested that the GOP lawmakers are nervous about what the war is going to do to the party’s future.
This certainly wasn’t good news for the White House, but an adept political operation could spin the meeting fairly easily. Indeed, Dana Perino was on CNN last night articulating a positive message: “They expressed frustration, because of a lack of progress. The president understands that. He’s right there with them on that. And I think that, if you look at our party, we are ones that like frank exchange of views. We have a big tent. And discussions like this are OK. They’re good to have. And that’s why the president was very happy to have them at the White House.”
See? The meeting was a good thing after all! Or at least it was, right up until the White House started stepping on its own spin.
Top Bush administration officials lashed out at a pair of House Republicans at the White House yesterday after details about a contentious meeting between President Bush and GOP legislators were leaked to the media earlier this week.
The confrontations are the latest indications of an intensifying rift between Bush and congressional Republicans.
Reps. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) attracted the ire of White House officials for allegedly speaking to reporters about a Tuesday meeting between Bush and centrist Republicans on the Iraq war.
Oops.
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Yesterday, we learned that the 11 House Republicans met with the president and his senior aides at the White House this week for an “unvarnished” conversation about the administration’s war policy in Iraq.
Various media accounts of the 90-minute meeting suggested that the GOP lawmakers are nervous about what the war is going to do to the party’s future.
This certainly wasn’t good news for the White House, but an adept political operation could spin the meeting fairly easily. Indeed, Dana Perino was on CNN last night articulating a positive message: “They expressed frustration, because of a lack of progress. The president understands that. He’s right there with them on that. And I think that, if you look at our party, we are ones that like frank exchange of views. We have a big tent. And discussions like this are OK. They’re good to have. And that’s why the president was very happy to have them at the White House.”
See? The meeting was a good thing after all! Or at least it was, right up until the White House started stepping on its own spin.
Top Bush administration officials lashed out at a pair of House Republicans at the White House yesterday after details about a contentious meeting between President Bush and GOP legislators were leaked to the media earlier this week.
The confrontations are the latest indications of an intensifying rift between Bush and congressional Republicans.
Reps. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) attracted the ire of White House officials for allegedly speaking to reporters about a Tuesday meeting between Bush and centrist Republicans on the Iraq war.
Oops.
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Junior Can't Even Speak At A Small College....
....without protests.
It seems the administration knows that Junior isn't welcome anywhere, but with the military, where no on dare speak their minds, or at small out-of-the-way colleges.
Guess they can scratch small colleges from their list.
How the mighty have fallen.........
Bush Delivers Commencement Address While Students Protest War
May 11, 2007 4:23 p.m. EST
Linda Young - AHN Staff Writer
Latrobe, PA (AHN) - When a small Roman Catholic liberal arts college invited Pres. George W. Bush to give the spring commencement address it probably didn't anticipate that one of its students would choose not to finish a thesis to avoid graduating when Bush was the commencement speaker.
But that student wasn't the only one to join anti-war protests while Bush spoke at St. Vincent's College, Latrobe, Pa., on Friday.
Bush was warmly greeted inside the school gymnasium, but philosophy major Ronny Menzie, who chose to defer completing her theses, was outside on the road protesting with other students.
And students weren't alone in protesting Bush as the commencement speaker.
Some 30 current and former faculty of the tiny college signed an open letter criticizing Bush for his handling of the war, environment, poor and sick. They complained that linking Bush to the college tarnished its reputation.
But supporters said having Bush deliver the commencement address was an honor.
Bush advised graduates to serve their communities and help make the nation a better place to live saying that volunteering was important because: "You learn to take the initiative, instead of waiting for a government to step in."
Copyright © AHN Media Corp - All rights reserved.Redistribution, republication. syndication, rewriting or broadcast is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AHN.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
GOP, Hoping Gonzales Mess Will Just Go Away
Well, I sure wouldn't count on it. Think that Summer will change things, do ya? Think that Americans will lose interest?
Think again.
It's not just about fired US attorneys anymore
Congress is asking pointed questions about the role of partisanship in prosecutions, hirings at Justice Department.
By Peter Grier Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON - Pundits for weeks have been predicting his resignation is imminent, and lawmakers from both parties have called on him to quit. But so far Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has defied critics – and shows no signs of packing his bags.
The clamor over the firings of eight US attorneys may yet force Mr. Gonzales out. Members of Congress will have another chance to publicly press for his ouster at his scheduled appearance Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee.
But even if Gonzales leaves, uproar about management at the Department of Justice is unlikely to subside. A steady stream of revelations – from allegations about partisan hiring in the Civil Rights Division to possible White House involvement in the US attorney dismissals – has seen to that.
"Congress now is sufficiently concerned that, even were he to resign, I don't think it would change things very much," says Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
In one sense, Gonzales's continued survival is a lesson in political power. It has been weeks since experts began to expound about how he couldn't possibly last more than a few days in office. Influential senators, including some Republicans, have made it clear that Gonzales's continued presence will affect their attitude toward Justice Department initiatives.
Yet he continues in office, with President Bush's apparent unwavering backing. Mr. Bush may well genuinely believe that his attorney general is a good man who is being smeared. After all, charges of politicization at the Justice Department are nothing new in Washington.
"In every administration there are [such] allegations very consistently," said Benjamin Wittes, a governance expert and guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, at a recent seminar here on the subject.
But other calculations may be at work as well. As long as Gonzales stays in office, he remains a focus for criticism that might otherwise be directed elsewhere. There is evidence that White House political adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers had input into the list of attorneys to be fired, for example.
Also, if Gonzales left, he would have to be replaced – meaning the administration might face a long confirmation battle in the Democrat-controlled Senate for his successor.
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(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers
.
Think again.
It's not just about fired US attorneys anymore
Congress is asking pointed questions about the role of partisanship in prosecutions, hirings at Justice Department.
By Peter Grier Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON - Pundits for weeks have been predicting his resignation is imminent, and lawmakers from both parties have called on him to quit. But so far Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has defied critics – and shows no signs of packing his bags.
The clamor over the firings of eight US attorneys may yet force Mr. Gonzales out. Members of Congress will have another chance to publicly press for his ouster at his scheduled appearance Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee.
But even if Gonzales leaves, uproar about management at the Department of Justice is unlikely to subside. A steady stream of revelations – from allegations about partisan hiring in the Civil Rights Division to possible White House involvement in the US attorney dismissals – has seen to that.
"Congress now is sufficiently concerned that, even were he to resign, I don't think it would change things very much," says Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
In one sense, Gonzales's continued survival is a lesson in political power. It has been weeks since experts began to expound about how he couldn't possibly last more than a few days in office. Influential senators, including some Republicans, have made it clear that Gonzales's continued presence will affect their attitude toward Justice Department initiatives.
Yet he continues in office, with President Bush's apparent unwavering backing. Mr. Bush may well genuinely believe that his attorney general is a good man who is being smeared. After all, charges of politicization at the Justice Department are nothing new in Washington.
"In every administration there are [such] allegations very consistently," said Benjamin Wittes, a governance expert and guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, at a recent seminar here on the subject.
But other calculations may be at work as well. As long as Gonzales stays in office, he remains a focus for criticism that might otherwise be directed elsewhere. There is evidence that White House political adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers had input into the list of attorneys to be fired, for example.
Also, if Gonzales left, he would have to be replaced – meaning the administration might face a long confirmation battle in the Democrat-controlled Senate for his successor.
Page 1 2 Next Page
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers
.
Another Specious U.S. Attorney Firing?
O.K., wait a minute.
After awhile, one might get suspisious that some of these Bush appointees might be plants, to help sink the investigation. Isn't that a favorite Rove tactic?
Perhaps paranoia is contagious, but we are just saying.....
Ex-U.S. attorney questions own firing
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 11, 7:53 PM ET
A former West Virginia federal prosecutor said Friday the White House fired him in 2005 in the middle of a corruption and vote-buying investigation but never told him why.
Karl K. "Kasey" Warner said he has "concerns" and sees parallels between himself and eight other ousted U.S. attorneys. Congress and an internal Justice Department agency are investigating whether those firings were politically motivated.
The Justice Department rejected any suggestion of politics in Warner's dismissal.
"The notion that the termination was political is absolutely false," spokesman Dean Boyd said. "We encourage Mr. Warner to provide the department with a written privacy waiver and we will be happy to provide you with the reason for his removal."
Warner would not elaborate on what concerned him about his August 2005 firing but rejected the idea that he was fired over his performance.
"The facts speak for themselves. Look into how I ran my office. See how I managed the office," Warner said. "If they want to look at the cases I had and the corruption cases we have now, people can come to their own conclusions about why I was let go."
Warner said he refused to resign when asked by the Justice Department, responding that he took his direction from President Bush.
"Next thing I know, I get a letter from the president's counsel, Harriet Miers, saying I'd been fired, no reason given," Warner recounted in a telephone interview.
A state legislative audit later revealed e-mails in which Warner had offered to secretly contribute to a 2004 county political campaign.
"Let me try to steer some contributions your way (gently) and perhaps use a family member with a different last name to make my contribution," Warner wrote in one July 2003 e-mail, according to the audit.
Warner said he never followed through on the offer and discounted that as a reason behind his departure.
Warner was nominated by Bush in 2001 to serve as the top federal prosecutor in southern West Virginia. The heavily Democratic district is the center of the state's coal industry. Bush carried the state in both 2000 and 2004.
Almost immediately Warner made public corruption and vote-buying cases a priority, sometimes to the ire of Democrats who accused him of targeting them for political purposes. Warner's brother Kris was the Republican state party chairman, and his brother Monty ran for governor.
Some former U.S. attorneys such as New Mexico's David Iglesias said Republican politicians pressured them to rush public corruption investigations in election years. Warner would not comment on whether he received any such pressure and would not say who was being investigated when he was fired.
"Speaking generally," he said, "in my mind, if you want a good justice system, you don't remove U.S. attorneys to thwart ongoing criminal investigations."
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has denied that politics influenced hiring and firing decisions. And though Gonzales has apologized for mishandling the controversy, he has rejected calls from lawmakers to step down.
The Justice Department has also said it never tried to influence an investigation for political reasons. An internal probe is under way.
Warner's statements came on the heels of those by former western Missouri U.S. Attorney Todd Graves, who said he was forced out in March 2006. Graves said he fell out of favor with the Justice Department after refusing to cooperate with the filing of a Missouri voter fraud lawsuit a year before the 2006 election.
Congress is holding hearings on the eight other firings, and former Justice Department White House liaison Monica Goodling is shaping up to be a main witness. A federal judge approved an immunity deal for her Friday, allowing her to testify without fear of prosecution.
Warner's statements echo those by former Maryland U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who in March said he believed he was fired for investigating corruption in a Republican governor's administration.
The Justice Department said DiBiagio was fired for writing e-mails calling for "front-page" corruption indictments before Election Day.
Warner said that, if asked, he would cooperate with any investigation. But he said he has made peace with his termination and is not trying to become part of the Capitol Hill story line. That's why the former Army officer said he has not approached investigators.
"Sometimes soldiers catch a bullet. If you're truly out there doing your job, if you're truly a leader, sometimes you catch a bullet," he said. "It might not be fair, it might not be right, it might be sad, but that's part of what you do. I caught a bullet. It's not something you cry about or complain about."
___
Associated Press writers Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington and Lawrence Messina in Charleston, W.Va., contributed to this report.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
After awhile, one might get suspisious that some of these Bush appointees might be plants, to help sink the investigation. Isn't that a favorite Rove tactic?
Perhaps paranoia is contagious, but we are just saying.....
Ex-U.S. attorney questions own firing
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 11, 7:53 PM ET
A former West Virginia federal prosecutor said Friday the White House fired him in 2005 in the middle of a corruption and vote-buying investigation but never told him why.
Karl K. "Kasey" Warner said he has "concerns" and sees parallels between himself and eight other ousted U.S. attorneys. Congress and an internal Justice Department agency are investigating whether those firings were politically motivated.
The Justice Department rejected any suggestion of politics in Warner's dismissal.
"The notion that the termination was political is absolutely false," spokesman Dean Boyd said. "We encourage Mr. Warner to provide the department with a written privacy waiver and we will be happy to provide you with the reason for his removal."
Warner would not elaborate on what concerned him about his August 2005 firing but rejected the idea that he was fired over his performance.
"The facts speak for themselves. Look into how I ran my office. See how I managed the office," Warner said. "If they want to look at the cases I had and the corruption cases we have now, people can come to their own conclusions about why I was let go."
Warner said he refused to resign when asked by the Justice Department, responding that he took his direction from President Bush.
"Next thing I know, I get a letter from the president's counsel, Harriet Miers, saying I'd been fired, no reason given," Warner recounted in a telephone interview.
A state legislative audit later revealed e-mails in which Warner had offered to secretly contribute to a 2004 county political campaign.
"Let me try to steer some contributions your way (gently) and perhaps use a family member with a different last name to make my contribution," Warner wrote in one July 2003 e-mail, according to the audit.
Warner said he never followed through on the offer and discounted that as a reason behind his departure.
Warner was nominated by Bush in 2001 to serve as the top federal prosecutor in southern West Virginia. The heavily Democratic district is the center of the state's coal industry. Bush carried the state in both 2000 and 2004.
Almost immediately Warner made public corruption and vote-buying cases a priority, sometimes to the ire of Democrats who accused him of targeting them for political purposes. Warner's brother Kris was the Republican state party chairman, and his brother Monty ran for governor.
Some former U.S. attorneys such as New Mexico's David Iglesias said Republican politicians pressured them to rush public corruption investigations in election years. Warner would not comment on whether he received any such pressure and would not say who was being investigated when he was fired.
"Speaking generally," he said, "in my mind, if you want a good justice system, you don't remove U.S. attorneys to thwart ongoing criminal investigations."
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has denied that politics influenced hiring and firing decisions. And though Gonzales has apologized for mishandling the controversy, he has rejected calls from lawmakers to step down.
The Justice Department has also said it never tried to influence an investigation for political reasons. An internal probe is under way.
Warner's statements came on the heels of those by former western Missouri U.S. Attorney Todd Graves, who said he was forced out in March 2006. Graves said he fell out of favor with the Justice Department after refusing to cooperate with the filing of a Missouri voter fraud lawsuit a year before the 2006 election.
Congress is holding hearings on the eight other firings, and former Justice Department White House liaison Monica Goodling is shaping up to be a main witness. A federal judge approved an immunity deal for her Friday, allowing her to testify without fear of prosecution.
Warner's statements echo those by former Maryland U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who in March said he believed he was fired for investigating corruption in a Republican governor's administration.
The Justice Department said DiBiagio was fired for writing e-mails calling for "front-page" corruption indictments before Election Day.
Warner said that, if asked, he would cooperate with any investigation. But he said he has made peace with his termination and is not trying to become part of the Capitol Hill story line. That's why the former Army officer said he has not approached investigators.
"Sometimes soldiers catch a bullet. If you're truly out there doing your job, if you're truly a leader, sometimes you catch a bullet," he said. "It might not be fair, it might not be right, it might be sad, but that's part of what you do. I caught a bullet. It's not something you cry about or complain about."
___
Associated Press writers Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington and Lawrence Messina in Charleston, W.Va., contributed to this report.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Feds Rescue Coulter from Voter Fraud Allegations.
Hey, we thought that the Feds were all about voter fraud investigations these days?
What happened to all that concern at the DOJ?
FBI agent steps into Coulter voting case:
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter has been cleared of allegations that she falsified her Palm Beach County voter's registration and voted illegally — this, after a high-level FBI agent made unsolicited phone calls to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office to vouch for Coulter.
The caller wasn't just any G-man. According to PBSO documents, he was Supervisory Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald, of the FBI Academy's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Va. — the closest reality gets to the serial-killer catchers on CBS' Criminal Minds.
Cheney warns Iran, assures allies on Gulf visit
Could we please keep the Prince of Slitherin" home until he and Junior, hopefully, leave office?
After that, he is welcome to go abroad. Hehehehehe.
Cheney warns Iran, assures allies on Gulf visit Politics News Reuters.com:
ABOARD USS JOHN C. STENNIS (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney said on Friday the heightened U.S. military presence in the Gulf demonstrated Washington's resolve in a standoff with Iran over Tehran's nuclear plans.
'With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike,' said Cheney on a visit to the John C. Stennis aircraft carrier off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a close U.S. ally.
'We'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region,' he said, speaking from a cavernous hangar bay. Stennis officials said 3,500 to 4,000 of the 5,000 personnel aboard were on hand. (Like they really had a choice?)
I Can’t Hack This Brand of Revolution
We don't get it either.
I Can’t Hack This Brand of Revolution - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
Those were the days, my friend. The days when songs with “revolution” in the lyrics weren’t yet used to market cars and running shoes.
We thought we could change the world, rearrange the world.
In some ways, we did.
The U.S. media actually brought down a president for 18 minutes of missing tape while today, missing White House emails are lumped in with Alec Baldwin’s voice mails.
Millions of us took to the streets and demanded an end to segregation, to war, to nuclear bomb testing. And end them we did.
I Can’t Hack This Brand of Revolution - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
Those were the days, my friend. The days when songs with “revolution” in the lyrics weren’t yet used to market cars and running shoes.
We thought we could change the world, rearrange the world.
In some ways, we did.
The U.S. media actually brought down a president for 18 minutes of missing tape while today, missing White House emails are lumped in with Alec Baldwin’s voice mails.
Millions of us took to the streets and demanded an end to segregation, to war, to nuclear bomb testing. And end them we did.
Iraq War Is All About Controlling The Oil
No shit, Sherlock.
I could never quite figure out why everyone believed that the Iraq war was about cheap oil, as was the assertion, for awhile.
There are oil men in the White House. Why would anyone believe that any oil man wants cheap oil.?
Does anyone think that the credit card companies want dirt cheap interest rates?
Iraq War Is All About Controlling The Oil - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
AFTER WORLD WAR II, the president’s national security council propounded a policy that would shape the world’s geopolitical future: “Oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy.”
More than a half-century later, that policy has not changed.
With the invasion of Iraq already secretly being planned, freshly selected President George W. Bush listed “energy security” as his first action priority.
I could never quite figure out why everyone believed that the Iraq war was about cheap oil, as was the assertion, for awhile.
There are oil men in the White House. Why would anyone believe that any oil man wants cheap oil.?
Does anyone think that the credit card companies want dirt cheap interest rates?
Iraq War Is All About Controlling The Oil - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
AFTER WORLD WAR II, the president’s national security council propounded a policy that would shape the world’s geopolitical future: “Oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy.”
More than a half-century later, that policy has not changed.
With the invasion of Iraq already secretly being planned, freshly selected President George W. Bush listed “energy security” as his first action priority.
House Democrats Raise New Criticism of Gonzales
It seemed to me that House Rethugs have decided to let Gonzo slide on the outrageous abuse of power that is the U.S. Attrorney firings scandal.
That would be a huge mistake.
House Democrats Raise New Criticism of Gonzales:
Washington - Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales endured new criticism on Capitol Hill today as House Democrats questioned his leadership of the Department of Justice and his personal candor.
Mr. Gonzales, appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, was questioned again about the dismissals of United States attorneys - amid a new assertion that, in effect, nine of them let go, rather than eight as previously reported - and about his awareness of what is going on in his huge department.
The session was in some ways reminiscent of Mr. Gonzales's appearance last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Democrats and Republicans alike expressed exasperation with him, although he was bolstered today by some supportive words from Republicans.
Criminalizing Speech
When bad government takes away our freedoms, it is not only our right, but our duty to civilly resist and disobey.
Stephen Lendman: Criminalizing Speech:
In a post-9/11 climate, the right of free expression is under attack and endangered in the age of George Bush when dissent may be called a threat to national security, terrorism, or treason. But losing that most precious of all rights means losing our freedom that 18th century French philosopher Voltaire spoke in defense of saying 'I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' Using it to express dissent is what noted historian Howard Zinn calls 'the highest form of patriotism' exercising our constitutional right to freedom of speech, the press, to assemble, to protest publicly, and associate as we choose for any reason within the law.
Stephen Lendman: Criminalizing Speech:
In a post-9/11 climate, the right of free expression is under attack and endangered in the age of George Bush when dissent may be called a threat to national security, terrorism, or treason. But losing that most precious of all rights means losing our freedom that 18th century French philosopher Voltaire spoke in defense of saying 'I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' Using it to express dissent is what noted historian Howard Zinn calls 'the highest form of patriotism' exercising our constitutional right to freedom of speech, the press, to assemble, to protest publicly, and associate as we choose for any reason within the law.
Democracy-Theft Goes Global
Junior is exporting his brand of "Democracy" all over the place. It is convenient, I'll say that. Just let the machines vote for you. Have the votes counted by Saudi Arabian software
Wake up world! Time to take your countries back from those damnable Democracy stealing machines!
The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election Issues:
From Ohio and California to Scotland and France, the disputes surrounding electronic voting machines have gone truly global.
E-voting machines have already been extensively studied and condemned by a wide range of expert committees, commissions and colleges, including the General Accountability Office, the Carter-Baker Commission, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Stanford University and others. Rigging of a recount in Cleveland has resulted in two felony convictions. The failures of e-voting machines have been the subject of numerous documentary films, including the aptly titled HBO special 'Hacking Democracy.'
Wake up world! Time to take your countries back from those damnable Democracy stealing machines!
The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election Issues:
From Ohio and California to Scotland and France, the disputes surrounding electronic voting machines have gone truly global.
E-voting machines have already been extensively studied and condemned by a wide range of expert committees, commissions and colleges, including the General Accountability Office, the Carter-Baker Commission, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Stanford University and others. Rigging of a recount in Cleveland has resulted in two felony convictions. The failures of e-voting machines have been the subject of numerous documentary films, including the aptly titled HBO special 'Hacking Democracy.'
Republicans fear defeat over Iraq
When the GOP is roundly defeated in November, 2008, it won't be just because of Iraq. Iraq is not all they have lied through their damn teeth about, or covered-up for BuCheney.
The country is a damnable mess. It wasn't like that when Bush stole the election in 2000.. The White House could not have wreaked this much destruction without the help of the GOP Congress. No American is likely to forget that, as things only get worse, over the next year or so.
Bush and Cheney, with the help of the GOP Congress, have done far more damage to this country that Osama and Al Qaeda could have dreamed of doing.
We are not going to forget that.
FT.com / In depth - Republicans fear defeat over Iraq:
Talking to Fox News, the conservative broadcaster, on his visit to Baghdad on Thursday, Dick Cheney said: “We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican party. Our mission is to do everything we can to prevail ... against one of the most evil opponents we’ve ever faced.”
Friday, May 11, 2007
The Hippies Were Right!
Yep.
I wondered when others would start to recognize this obvious fact.
Much of the good today; the major strides in everything from the environment to mental/physical health to alternative spiritual traditions, to which millions belong today or practice regularly, all this and more, were born in the amazing era, known to us as the 60s, and have only recently come of age.
The Hippies Were Right!Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? Time To Give The Ol’ Tie-Dyers Some Respect - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that’s happening right now in the newly “greening” America and don’t say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile, unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?
I’m talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I’m looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target and I’m talking saving the whales and protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation’s oddest status symbol. You know, good things.
I wondered when others would start to recognize this obvious fact.
Much of the good today; the major strides in everything from the environment to mental/physical health to alternative spiritual traditions, to which millions belong today or practice regularly, all this and more, were born in the amazing era, known to us as the 60s, and have only recently come of age.
The Hippies Were Right!Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? Time To Give The Ol’ Tie-Dyers Some Respect - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that’s happening right now in the newly “greening” America and don’t say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile, unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?
I’m talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I’m looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target and I’m talking saving the whales and protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation’s oddest status symbol. You know, good things.
A Surge of Insanity (Bring on the Shrinks!)
Isn't this why we have the 25th amendment?
The Cabinet are derelict in their duty to challenge the fitness of Junior and Vice to govern?
When , please, does "spin" becomes just another word for losing touch with reality?
This administration runs the gamut of dangerous personality disorders and even more acute forms of psychopathology.
These people are clearly a danger to themselves and others, on a global scale.
A Surge of Insanity - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
Just one day after a majority of Iraqi lawmakers rejected the continuing occupation of their country, the Washington Postreports that the Pentagon will begin deploying 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades to Iraq in August –”making it possible to sustain the increase of US troops there until at least the end of this year.”
It turns out that the “short-term surge” is just another way of saying a war without mission or end. If it’s true what the LA Times reported about Secretary of Defense Robert Gates not being on board with the “surge” policy, then who’s pushing for this new policy? Not former Generals like John Batiste and Paul Eaton who, today, go on the air in a TV ad sponsored by VoteforVets.org.
“You did not listen, Mr. President,” General Batiste says in the ad. “You continue to pursue the failed strategy that is breaking our great Army and Marine Corps.”
The Cabinet are derelict in their duty to challenge the fitness of Junior and Vice to govern?
When , please, does "spin" becomes just another word for losing touch with reality?
This administration runs the gamut of dangerous personality disorders and even more acute forms of psychopathology.
These people are clearly a danger to themselves and others, on a global scale.
A Surge of Insanity - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
Just one day after a majority of Iraqi lawmakers rejected the continuing occupation of their country, the Washington Postreports that the Pentagon will begin deploying 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades to Iraq in August –”making it possible to sustain the increase of US troops there until at least the end of this year.”
It turns out that the “short-term surge” is just another way of saying a war without mission or end. If it’s true what the LA Times reported about Secretary of Defense Robert Gates not being on board with the “surge” policy, then who’s pushing for this new policy? Not former Generals like John Batiste and Paul Eaton who, today, go on the air in a TV ad sponsored by VoteforVets.org.
“You did not listen, Mr. President,” General Batiste says in the ad. “You continue to pursue the failed strategy that is breaking our great Army and Marine Corps.”
Thursday, May 10, 2007
People For The American Way: Gonzo Must Go
Because Gonzales was a chief architect of this administration's overreaching presidential powers and detainee torture policies, People For the American Way opposed Gonzales' confirmation as Attorney General in early 2005. We agonized then that "the risk that such a lack of independence poses...is simply too great to warrant his confirmation," and now our fears have come to pass.
Gonzales puts the interests of this president over the people every time—the political interests and power of his president over the public interest of the people.
This is about much more than fired U.S. attorneys. This is about illegal spying and illegal detention and disdain for Congressional oversight and the laws that protect every eligible American citizen's right to vote. This is about furthering an executive agenda over the rule of law and the interests of the American people. This is about an imperial presidency and an impaled right to habeas corpus.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Gonzales puts the interests of this president over the people every time—the political interests and power of his president over the public interest of the people.
This is about much more than fired U.S. attorneys. This is about illegal spying and illegal detention and disdain for Congressional oversight and the laws that protect every eligible American citizen's right to vote. This is about furthering an executive agenda over the rule of law and the interests of the American people. This is about an imperial presidency and an impaled right to habeas corpus.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Uh Oh! Administration Wants To Run Shadow Government.
Ok, this is really quite alarming.
Heads up!
Here we go!
Bush Changes Continuity Plan
Administration, Not DHS, Would Run Shadow Government
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 10, 2007; A12
President Bush issued a formal national security directive yesterday ordering agencies to prepare contingency plans for a surprise, "decapitating" attack on the federal government, and assigned responsibility for coordinating such plans to the White House.
The prospect of a nuclear bomb being detonated in Washington without warning, whether smuggled in by terrorists or a foreign government, has been cited by many security analysts as a rising concern since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The order makes explicit that the focus of federal worst-case planning involves a covert nuclear attack against the nation's capital, in contrast with Cold War assumptions that a long-range strike would be preceded by a notice of minutes or hours as missiles were fueled and launched.
"As a result of the asymmetric threat environment, adequate warning of potential emergencies that could pose a significant risk to the homeland might not be available, and therefore all continuity planning shall be based on the assumption that no such warning will be received," states the 72-paragraph order. It is designated National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20.
The statement added, "Emphasis will be placed upon geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to increase survivability and maintain uninterrupted Government Functions."
After the 2001 attacks, Bush assigned about 100 senior civilian managers to rotate secretly to locations outside of Washington for weeks or months at a time to ensure the nation's survival, a shadow government that evolved based on long-standing "continuity of operations plans."
Since then, other agencies including the Pentagon, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA have taken steps to relocate facilities or key functions outside of Washington for their own reasons, citing factors such as economics or the importance of avoiding Beltway "group-think."
Norman J. Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an adviser to an independent Continuity of Government Commission, said the order "is a more explicit embrace of what has been since 9/11 an implicit but fairly clear set of assumptions."
He added, "My frustration is that those assumptions have not gripped the Congress in the same way."
Other former Bush administration officials said the directive formalizes a shift of authority away from the Department of Homeland Security to the White House.
Under an executive order dating to the Reagan administration, responsibility for coordinating, implementing and exercising such plans was originally charged to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and later DHS, the Congressional Research Service noted in a 2005 report on a pending DHS reorganization.
The new directive gives the job of coordinating policy to the president's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism -- Frances Fragos Townsend, who will assume the title of national continuity coordinator -- in consultation with Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, with the support of the White House's Homeland Security Council staff. Townsend is to produce an implementation plan within 90 days. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will continue to coordinate operations and activities, the directive said.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Ads By Generals May Be The Beginning Of The End....
If Bush means what he says about listening to the military, a series of ads featuring retired generals should produce critical mass on Iraq. Brought to us by Vote Vets, the first spot features former Iraq commander Maj. Gen. John Batiste.
Our ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people…Mentioning them by name at the end, the local spots will call on them to “Protect America, Not George Bush.”
Batiste comes right out and says he left the armed forces in protest over Bush putting service members at risk for a failed strategy.
Following is a list of the elected officials the ads are aimed at. If one of them belongs to you, remember that nothing makes an impression on a public servant like a call from the folks back home.
They are:
Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Sen. John Sununu, N.H.Sen. John Warner, Virg. Sen. Norm Coleman, Minn. Rep, Mary Bono, Palm Springs, Calif.Rep. Phil English, Erie, Penn.Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl, Bath, N.Y.Rep. Jim Walsh, Syracuse, N.Y.Rep. Heather Wilson, Santa Fe, N.M.Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Springfield, Mo.Rep. Tim Johnson, Urbana, Ill.Rep. Mike Rogers, Brighton, Mich.Rep. Fred Upton, Kalamazoo, Mich.Rep. Mike Castle, Wilmington, Del.
Future ads will feature Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and our personal favorite, Gen. Wesley Clark.
Pony up some bucks, if you can, so the spots can be run nationwide.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Our ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people…Mentioning them by name at the end, the local spots will call on them to “Protect America, Not George Bush.”
Batiste comes right out and says he left the armed forces in protest over Bush putting service members at risk for a failed strategy.
Following is a list of the elected officials the ads are aimed at. If one of them belongs to you, remember that nothing makes an impression on a public servant like a call from the folks back home.
They are:
Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Sen. John Sununu, N.H.Sen. John Warner, Virg. Sen. Norm Coleman, Minn. Rep, Mary Bono, Palm Springs, Calif.Rep. Phil English, Erie, Penn.Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl, Bath, N.Y.Rep. Jim Walsh, Syracuse, N.Y.Rep. Heather Wilson, Santa Fe, N.M.Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Springfield, Mo.Rep. Tim Johnson, Urbana, Ill.Rep. Mike Rogers, Brighton, Mich.Rep. Fred Upton, Kalamazoo, Mich.Rep. Mike Castle, Wilmington, Del.
Future ads will feature Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and our personal favorite, Gen. Wesley Clark.
Pony up some bucks, if you can, so the spots can be run nationwide.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Wilkerson, Former Aide To Powell, Calls For Imeachment
This is huge!
On Thursday, May 10, 2007, Lawrence Wilkerson, speaking on National Public Radio, proposed impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Here's the audio.
Wilkerson is a Retired Army Colonel, the former Chief of Staff at the State Department from 2002 to 2005 under then Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Vietnam War veteran, the former Acting Director of the Marine Corps War College at Quantico, and currently a teacher of national security at William and Mary College.
The program, On Point, was hosted by Tom Ashbrook, who focused the discussion on a need for greater public accountability for the Iraq War, but who maintained that the public was not outraged or interested. (Ashbrook should read some polls and invite on organizers of the impeachment movement.)
Also on the program was Ken Adelman, who promoted the war and said it would be "a cakewalk". Adelman argued a case for not holding public officials accountable.
Wilkerson said in early comments on the show: "This administration doesn't know how to effect accountability in my opinion." But he did not raise the possibility of impeachment until after a member of the audience had phoned in.
The first caller who was put on the air demanded an investigation of the lies that launched the war, and asked for accountability "all the way up." In response to Adelman's claims that history would hold people accountable, the caller said "I would love to have a job where, worst case scenario, my historical record is flawed."
Ashbrook framed the question in terms of alleged limitations of the U.S. political system, and Wilkerson replied: "Well I do think that that's a reality of our system. However, let me back up just a minute and say that I really do think that our founding fathers, Hamilton, Washington, Monroe, Madison, would all be astounded that over the course of our short history as a country, 200 plus years, we haven't used that little two to three lines in Article II of the Constitution more frequently, the impeachment clause. I do believe that they would have thought had they been asked by you or whomever at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 'Do you think this will be exercised?' they would have said 'Of course it will, every generation they'll have to throw some bastard out'. That's a form of accountability too. It's ultimate accountability."
After an interruption, Wilkerson continued: "The language in that article, the language in those two or three lines about impeachment is nice and precise – it's high crimes and misdemeanors.
You compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance."
Ashbrook asked for some examples of such high crimes and misdemeanors, and Wilkerson replied: "I think that the caller was right. I think we went into this war for specious reasons. I think we went into this war not too much unlike the way we went into the Spanish American War with the Hearst press essentially goading the American people and the leadership into war.
That was a different time in a different culture, in a different America. We're in a very different place today and I think we essentially got goaded into the war through some of the same means."
Speakers Available:http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/speakers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
On Thursday, May 10, 2007, Lawrence Wilkerson, speaking on National Public Radio, proposed impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Here's the audio.
Wilkerson is a Retired Army Colonel, the former Chief of Staff at the State Department from 2002 to 2005 under then Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Vietnam War veteran, the former Acting Director of the Marine Corps War College at Quantico, and currently a teacher of national security at William and Mary College.
The program, On Point, was hosted by Tom Ashbrook, who focused the discussion on a need for greater public accountability for the Iraq War, but who maintained that the public was not outraged or interested. (Ashbrook should read some polls and invite on organizers of the impeachment movement.)
Also on the program was Ken Adelman, who promoted the war and said it would be "a cakewalk". Adelman argued a case for not holding public officials accountable.
Wilkerson said in early comments on the show: "This administration doesn't know how to effect accountability in my opinion." But he did not raise the possibility of impeachment until after a member of the audience had phoned in.
The first caller who was put on the air demanded an investigation of the lies that launched the war, and asked for accountability "all the way up." In response to Adelman's claims that history would hold people accountable, the caller said "I would love to have a job where, worst case scenario, my historical record is flawed."
Ashbrook framed the question in terms of alleged limitations of the U.S. political system, and Wilkerson replied: "Well I do think that that's a reality of our system. However, let me back up just a minute and say that I really do think that our founding fathers, Hamilton, Washington, Monroe, Madison, would all be astounded that over the course of our short history as a country, 200 plus years, we haven't used that little two to three lines in Article II of the Constitution more frequently, the impeachment clause. I do believe that they would have thought had they been asked by you or whomever at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 'Do you think this will be exercised?' they would have said 'Of course it will, every generation they'll have to throw some bastard out'. That's a form of accountability too. It's ultimate accountability."
After an interruption, Wilkerson continued: "The language in that article, the language in those two or three lines about impeachment is nice and precise – it's high crimes and misdemeanors.
You compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance."
Ashbrook asked for some examples of such high crimes and misdemeanors, and Wilkerson replied: "I think that the caller was right. I think we went into this war for specious reasons. I think we went into this war not too much unlike the way we went into the Spanish American War with the Hearst press essentially goading the American people and the leadership into war.
That was a different time in a different culture, in a different America. We're in a very different place today and I think we essentially got goaded into the war through some of the same means."
Speakers Available:http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/speakers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Tom Coburn, R., pathological liar, Oklahoma
Listen up, Oklahomans!
Get rid of this nutcase, before we change your name to Joke-Lahoma, which is native American for "Nitwits, in big ass group.."
To understand how the United States got itself into its current fix, it’s helpful to understand that the American Right and its powerful media apparatus have created a kind of parallel universe that has its own internal logic that sort of makes sense even if the “reality” isn’t exactly real.
So, on the Iraq War, everything is going pretty well except, as Fox News reminds its viewers, the “liberal media” keeps hiding all the positive developments from the American people. Plus, the only way to explain hostility toward George W. Bush is to postulate that his critics are consumed by irrational hatreds. The Right’s reality-divergent narrative exists on domestic policy, too.
For instance, Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and a medical doctor, explained in an April 23 speech at the Tulsa Press Club why a single-payer health insurance system like Canada’s is a sure failure and why the U.S. system of private insurance, often paid by employers, works so much better.
Coburn noted that the auto industry and many other old-line U.S. companies want a national health insurance program to get medical costs off the backs of employers and help them compete with foreign rivals that don’t pay for employee health insurance. But the senator offered anecdotes why that wouldn’t be a good idea.
“I talked to the head of General Mills,” the giant food manufacturer, Coburn said. “They have lots of employees in Canada. … I said what do you do when one of your Canadian employees gets really sick? They said they bring them to America because the Canadian system isn’t working well for acutely ill people.”
Commenting on the British medical system, the senator said, “When you look at England, the average length of time from the diagnosis of cancer to the onset of chemotherapy in England now is eight months. How many of you would be satisfied with that?”
However, like much of Fox’s happy talk about Iraq, Coburn’s scary comments about the health programs in Canada and the United Kingdom don’t square with the facts.
General Mills denies it has a program to send Canadians to the United States for treatment of serious illnesses and the U.K. cancer treatment program operates well within acceptable medical standards.
“It is true that, in certain circumstances, a General Mills employee in Canada could visit a doctor in the U.S.,” General Mills spokesman Tom Forsythe told me. “It would likely involve a U.S.-based employee on assignment in Canada. It does not happen often, and it could not be described as routine.
“However, there could be and have been cases where routine surgery, for example, (hernia, knee arthroscopy, some scans) could be done more quickly in the U.S., and an employee may visit a doctor in the U.S. for that procedure. I do not know the number, but it would be small.”
David Jensen of the government-run Health Canada said the health care budget for fiscal year 2005-06 was $37.9 billion, of which only $55.6 million was paid to U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities. That included care or treatment for Canadians vacationing in the U.S., students, and persons assigned to the U.S. by Canadian companies.
In short, there was no stream of Canadians surging into the United States for medical treatment as suggested by the senator from Oklahoma.
UK Care
When I sought comment from the Kings Fund, the health care oversight organization for the United Kingdom, I was directed to a 2006 study on cancer treatment.
According to the study, “Patients who visit their GP with symptoms that suggest cancer must be given urgent referral to secondary care under the two-week target established by the Cancer Plan. In June 2006, 98.9 percent of people with suspected cancer were seen by a specialist within the target time.”
The report continued, “The plan also set a target of a maximum one-month wait from diagnosis to first treatment for all cancers, which was meant to be achieved by the end of 2005. Some 99 percent of patients diagnosed with cancer start treatment within 31 days.”
Kings Fund senior associate Tony Harrison said Coburn’s information was “not correct, assuming that chemotherapy is the first line of treatment, which of course it may not be.” In reference to the 2006 study, Harrison said, “You will see that targets that have been set for referral to start of treatment are now largely met.”
As for Coburn’s claim about an eight-month wait for chemotherapy, Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy director of the American Cancer Society, said the point could be misleading since any treatment plan depends on a patient’s condition when the cancer is discovered.
“We do not have a single standard of care,” Lichtenfeld said. “We really don’t have good studies from diagnosis to cure.”
In other words, Coburn’s assertion about an eight-month window has no real point of reference in treatment plans since other strategies might be employed besides chemotherapy.
Still, Coburn’s horror stories about medical care in Canada and the U.K. have been part of the Republican mantra in the ongoing fight to prevent a universal health care system from being established in the United States.
Bizarre Myths
The Oklahoma senator has become notorious for making extreme statements that are later revealed as bizarre urban myths.
During his 2004 race for the Senate, for instance, Coburn was taped saying a campaign worker from Coalgate, Oklahoma, told him “lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom.”
The Coalgate superintendent of schools expressed outrage at the ludicrous claim, which was met with ridicule by many other Oklahomans. Nevertheless, Coburn was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Coburn also has argued that condoms promote sexually transmitted disease, that abstinence education prevents teenagers from having sex, and that silicone breast implants are good for women’s health. All these positions have been challenged by government studies and expert medical opinion.
Coburn, as a new member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005, opined while pondering a bill restricting class-action suits, "You know I immediately thought about silicone breast implants and the legal wrangling and the class-action suits off that.
"And I thought I would just share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows. . . . In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier."
At the time, Coburn made that statement silicone breast implants had been banned in the United States for more than a decade because of cases of implant leakage and other health complaints from women.
In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration did approve the implants return to the U.S. market, although a subsequent European study and many doctors have continued to raise questions about possible protein buildup around the implants and other safety issues.
Other medical experts, including the scientists cited by the FDA, argue that the preponderance of studies fail to show that silicone implants are detrimental to a woman’s health, but they don’t claim the implants make women healthier.
Richard L. Fricker is a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based freelance reporter/writer and two-time winner of the American Business Press Editors Award for Investigative Journalism. He writes regularly for the Swiss newsweekly Sonntags Blick and Consortiumnews.com. Fricker can be reached at rlfricker@hotmail.com .
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Ann Cuntler Strikes Again: Indecency On The TeeVee
She really does bring out the very worst in everyone, including Moi!
I'm remembering back to Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," which I did not witness, until it was replayed by every cabal news channel about a million times, while the whole country seemed gob-smacked by the Super-bowl, half-time incident.
Geeze Louise, one might have thought Ms. Jackson had committed a terrorist act at the Super Bowl!
Seriously, if there are genuinely people out there who are all that disturbed by a breast, they need to seek help immediately. It could be a sign of deeper problems, with their psycho-emotional well-being.
Nevertheless, there is indecency on the TeeVee, all the time, with which we should all be much more concerned. This article reflects it well.
The kind of verbal attacks which are usually attributed to Coulter, are indecent, in my book. We all know what she meant by this. She was stating her twisted belief that if a black man wins the White House, especially one who has a Muslim-sounding name, it will thrill Al Qaeda right down to their little toes. That is what she meant and we all know it.
I cannot say I have a a clue what thrills Osama, but if anyone knows, Coulter would. She is alot like him, in her hatred for whole races of people, the vast majority of whom do not even know who she is and, certainly, are not plotting against her.
The reader can google for some of Coulters's infamous remarks; they will not be re-printed here, because we find them indecent, in the extreme.
What's more indecent is that any TeeVee news channel, even a faux one, would give her airtime.
I am not suggesting taking away her first amendment rights. I would never suggest that. But no one has a right to a huge megaphone through which to spew hate-speech and misinformation. Let her take to the street corners like those poor unfortunates, whom one often finds in big cities, warning us of endtimes and the wrath of God or the great spaghetti being in the sky or whatever. She has a right to stand on the street corner and spew whatever toxic BS pops into her toxic little mind. Her fellow pedestrians have a right to ignore her or express their own views, right back. Atleast until the cops show up.
No one has a constitutional right to TeeVee time, unless they are running for office, in which case the public airwaves are needed and it is in the best interest of the American voter and the country that candidates be allowed airtime.
But who the hell is Ann Coulter and why does anyone give a damn what she thinks about anything? Why not just take the cameras out to the local "macadamia ranch" and do "nut on the street" interviews? Actually, it would probably be much more informative than having Coulter on, to spew her toxic views, all over people who have already shown a clear propensity for that most dread disease, hatred.
As to the rest of Coulter's psychotic rant; it disturbs me greatly that there are, apparently, people out there, in our country, who find this woman credible and who pay their hard-earned bucks for her diatribes in print.
Does anyone really believe that Newsweek would skew their polls to help Al Qaeda? Just how paranoid would a person have to be to believe that? What has Newsweek ever done or printed that would cause a person to believe they are sympathetic to the people who attacked New York City and Washington, D.C. with flying bombs? (At least, that is how the official story goes.)
Ann, calm down! No American, be they liberal or conservative or more centrist, has any love lost for Al Qaeda. No one, running for president, is gay. They all have healthy hetero historys. Obama is not a manchurian candidate. Hillary is not the anti-christ. Get back on your meds. You will feel so much better, and so will we. See how that works?
By ALAN FRAM
WASHINGTON (AP) - A recent Newsweek poll showing Democrat Barack Obama leading top Republican presidential hopefuls could have been made up and might help al-Qaida, conservative commentator Ann Coulter said in her latest verbal broadside.
Coulter, a best-selling author known for outrageous and often controversial statements, was asked Sunday on Fox News'"At Large" what she thought about the survey results.
"I think this is Newsweek doing more push polling for al-Qaida," she said, referring to campaign-season telephone calls to voters masquerading as neutral surveys but designed to build opposition to targeted candidates.
Asked by host Geraldo Rivera whether she thought Newsweek would make up the results, Coulter said, "Yes, I do," adding, "In polls where people are actually allowed to vote, Republicans do a lot better."
Coulter did not explain how the poll might help the terrorist group. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, some Republicans have argued that their party would do a better job of protecting the U.S. against terrorism than Democrats.
Coulter's remark drew a response from Evans Witt, chief executive officer of Princeton Survey Research Associates International, which conducted the Newsweek survey.
"As the 2008 election campaign continues to heat up, I am sure that there will be informed and incisive criticisms of polls from many observers," he said. Coulter's comments "do not fit into this category," he added.
Newsweek spokeswoman Jan Angilella said the magazine would have no comment.
In March, Coulter used a gay slur about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
I'm remembering back to Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," which I did not witness, until it was replayed by every cabal news channel about a million times, while the whole country seemed gob-smacked by the Super-bowl, half-time incident.
Geeze Louise, one might have thought Ms. Jackson had committed a terrorist act at the Super Bowl!
Seriously, if there are genuinely people out there who are all that disturbed by a breast, they need to seek help immediately. It could be a sign of deeper problems, with their psycho-emotional well-being.
Nevertheless, there is indecency on the TeeVee, all the time, with which we should all be much more concerned. This article reflects it well.
The kind of verbal attacks which are usually attributed to Coulter, are indecent, in my book. We all know what she meant by this. She was stating her twisted belief that if a black man wins the White House, especially one who has a Muslim-sounding name, it will thrill Al Qaeda right down to their little toes. That is what she meant and we all know it.
I cannot say I have a a clue what thrills Osama, but if anyone knows, Coulter would. She is alot like him, in her hatred for whole races of people, the vast majority of whom do not even know who she is and, certainly, are not plotting against her.
The reader can google for some of Coulters's infamous remarks; they will not be re-printed here, because we find them indecent, in the extreme.
What's more indecent is that any TeeVee news channel, even a faux one, would give her airtime.
I am not suggesting taking away her first amendment rights. I would never suggest that. But no one has a right to a huge megaphone through which to spew hate-speech and misinformation. Let her take to the street corners like those poor unfortunates, whom one often finds in big cities, warning us of endtimes and the wrath of God or the great spaghetti being in the sky or whatever. She has a right to stand on the street corner and spew whatever toxic BS pops into her toxic little mind. Her fellow pedestrians have a right to ignore her or express their own views, right back. Atleast until the cops show up.
No one has a constitutional right to TeeVee time, unless they are running for office, in which case the public airwaves are needed and it is in the best interest of the American voter and the country that candidates be allowed airtime.
But who the hell is Ann Coulter and why does anyone give a damn what she thinks about anything? Why not just take the cameras out to the local "macadamia ranch" and do "nut on the street" interviews? Actually, it would probably be much more informative than having Coulter on, to spew her toxic views, all over people who have already shown a clear propensity for that most dread disease, hatred.
As to the rest of Coulter's psychotic rant; it disturbs me greatly that there are, apparently, people out there, in our country, who find this woman credible and who pay their hard-earned bucks for her diatribes in print.
Does anyone really believe that Newsweek would skew their polls to help Al Qaeda? Just how paranoid would a person have to be to believe that? What has Newsweek ever done or printed that would cause a person to believe they are sympathetic to the people who attacked New York City and Washington, D.C. with flying bombs? (At least, that is how the official story goes.)
Ann, calm down! No American, be they liberal or conservative or more centrist, has any love lost for Al Qaeda. No one, running for president, is gay. They all have healthy hetero historys. Obama is not a manchurian candidate. Hillary is not the anti-christ. Get back on your meds. You will feel so much better, and so will we. See how that works?
By ALAN FRAM
WASHINGTON (AP) - A recent Newsweek poll showing Democrat Barack Obama leading top Republican presidential hopefuls could have been made up and might help al-Qaida, conservative commentator Ann Coulter said in her latest verbal broadside.
Coulter, a best-selling author known for outrageous and often controversial statements, was asked Sunday on Fox News'"At Large" what she thought about the survey results.
"I think this is Newsweek doing more push polling for al-Qaida," she said, referring to campaign-season telephone calls to voters masquerading as neutral surveys but designed to build opposition to targeted candidates.
Asked by host Geraldo Rivera whether she thought Newsweek would make up the results, Coulter said, "Yes, I do," adding, "In polls where people are actually allowed to vote, Republicans do a lot better."
Coulter did not explain how the poll might help the terrorist group. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, some Republicans have argued that their party would do a better job of protecting the U.S. against terrorism than Democrats.
Coulter's remark drew a response from Evans Witt, chief executive officer of Princeton Survey Research Associates International, which conducted the Newsweek survey.
"As the 2008 election campaign continues to heat up, I am sure that there will be informed and incisive criticisms of polls from many observers," he said. Coulter's comments "do not fit into this category," he added.
Newsweek spokeswoman Jan Angilella said the magazine would have no comment.
In March, Coulter used a gay slur about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Now We Have A Gooper Quoting The Founder of The KKK.
Is anyone else getting sick and tired of this crap? I mean, really!
Here we are, in the early years of the 21st Century, and we still have some lunatic quoting the first Grand Wizard of the KKK on the freakin' House Floor of the U.S. Congress!
Outlaw The GOP!
Republican quotes KKK founder on House floor
Roll Call reports today that a House Republican delivered a foreign policy speech yesterday in which he quoted Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the KKK.
On Monday, Rep. Ted Poe took to the House floor to discuss foreign policy matters. To make a point, the Texas Republican invoked the words of Civil War Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest: “Git thar fustest with the mostest.”
The quotation got some floor watchers’ attention pretty quickly. Forrest is a controversial figure who was one of the Klan’s first grand wizards. Although the Civil War hero (if you were a Confederate, that is) ultimately abandoned the Klan for its violent tactics, he continues to kick up dust.
“Controversial figure” doesn’t quite cut it. Most lists of the worst Americans in U.S. history include Nathan Bedford Forrest near the top. That’s what happens when someone creates the KKK to terrorize freed slaves and their allies, after taking up arms against the United States. What on earth would possess a GOP lawmaker to quote Forrest on the House floor?
Poe’s spokesperson told Roll Call, “The reference to Forrest was used in an historical context comparing the request to Congress for support of the Confederate troops to the request that is being made today by our Generals in Iraq.”
First, the comparison doesn’t make any sense. Second, when one bolsters their argument with the words of one of the most controversial Americans ever, rationalizing it as a historical comparison is unpersuasive.
Shouldn’t this be a bigger deal? Given all of the racial problems of the Republican Party, isn’t it rather scandalous for a Republican lawmaker to rely on the words of the founder of the KKK?Post Script: And, just as an aside, the quote Poe used was wrong.
[A]ccording to historians, Forrest didn’t really say the line that’s so often attributed to him. “Do not, under any circumstances whatever, quote Forrest as saying ‘fustest’ and ‘mostest’,” Civil War scholar Bruce Catton wrote in his 1971 book, “The Civil War.” Catton wrote that Forrest actually believed the essence of strategy — and the proper quote — was “to git thar fust with the most men.”
What’s worse than quoting the founder of the KKK on the House floor? Quoting him incorrectly.
Update: ThinkProgress has the video.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Amerkans Sick Of Bush
Poll: Americans disapprove of Bush's Iraq veto
from Alexander Mooney
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A majority of the U.S. public disapproves of President Bush's decision to veto a war spending bill that called for U.S. troops to leave Iraq in 2008, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday.The poll found that 54 percent of Americans opposed Bush's May 1 veto, while 44 percent backed the president's decision to kill the $124 billion bill.Now that the veto has been cast, 57 percent of Americans said they want Congress to send another spending bill with a timetable for withdrawal back to the White House, the poll found -- but 61 percent would support a new bill that dropped the timetables in favor of benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet to maintain American support. (Full results [PDF])
While it found that more Americans believe Congress, rather than the president, should be responsible for setting policy in Iraq, the survey may give the Democratic leadership some pause. The percentage of people saying Democratic control of Congress is good for the country dropped from 59 percent in a March poll to 51 percent now.The poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN, surveyed 1,028 American adults between Friday and Sunday. It has a sampling error of 3 percentage points.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
from Alexander Mooney
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A majority of the U.S. public disapproves of President Bush's decision to veto a war spending bill that called for U.S. troops to leave Iraq in 2008, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday.The poll found that 54 percent of Americans opposed Bush's May 1 veto, while 44 percent backed the president's decision to kill the $124 billion bill.Now that the veto has been cast, 57 percent of Americans said they want Congress to send another spending bill with a timetable for withdrawal back to the White House, the poll found -- but 61 percent would support a new bill that dropped the timetables in favor of benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet to maintain American support. (Full results [PDF])
While it found that more Americans believe Congress, rather than the president, should be responsible for setting policy in Iraq, the survey may give the Democratic leadership some pause. The percentage of people saying Democratic control of Congress is good for the country dropped from 59 percent in a March poll to 51 percent now.The poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN, surveyed 1,028 American adults between Friday and Sunday. It has a sampling error of 3 percentage points.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
The On-going GOP Bushite Coup
Justice Department Inquiry Expanded
Tuesday May 8, 2007 1:01 AM
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress stepped up its inquiry into the politics of Justice Department decision-making Monday as it sought cooperation from one department official and prepared to put its former White House liaison under oath.
The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Bradley Schlozman, a former senior civil rights attorney and U.S. attorney, to speak with investigators. The Justice Department, meanwhile, said it wouldn't try to prevent Congress from granting immunity to White House liaison Monica Goodling if she testifies before a committee.
Lawmakers want to talk to Schlozman and Goodling as part of an inquiry into whether the department played politics with the hiring and firing of department officials. The inquiry began as a question about whether U.S. attorneys - presidential appointees who serve as the top federal law enforcement officials in their state districts - were fired for political reasons.
It has grown, however, into an investigation of whether the agency let politics affect criminal investigations and whether officials made employment decisions for political reasons.
Lawmakers want to question Schlozman, who now works for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, about a voter fraud lawsuit he filed against Missouri in the lead-up to the 2006 election. Committee members said they wanted to know whether Schlozman's predecessor was forced out for not endorsing that lawsuit, which was ultimately dismissed.
"The Committee would benefit from hearing directly from you in order to gain a better understanding of the role voter fraud may have played in the administration's decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. attorneys,'' Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote in a letter co-signed by the committee's top Republican, Arlen Specter of New York.
The letter asked Schlozman to voluntarily submit to interviews and testimony and provide documents to the committee.
Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said politics do not influence decisions about whether to bring a case.
"The Justice Department brings its civil actions and criminal prosecutions based on evidence, not on politics,'' Boyd said. ``We expect U.S. Attorneys to bring election and voter fraud cases where evidence of such fraud exists.''
The Justice Department is conducting an internal review of the firings of U.S. attorneys and other decisions. As part of that investigation, the agency is reviewing whether Goodling sought to place Republicans as front-line prosecutors in state U.S. attorney districts.
Lawmakers want to question Goodling but, without a promise of immunity, she has refused. In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., the department said it would prefer not to see an immunity deal.
"However, we understand the committee's interest in obtaining Ms. Goodling's testimony,'' the letter said. ``Therefore, after balancing the significant public interest against the impact of the committee's actions on our ongoing investigation, we will not raise an objection or seek a deferral.''
The letter was signed by Inspector General Glenn Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel to the Office of Professional Responsibility.
Committee lawyers must now send an immunity request to a federal judge for approval. Once that deal is approved, Goodling would face a contempt order if she refused to testify. Her lawyer, John M. Dowd, said Monday she would testify under such a deal.
"She'll be honest and clear and she'll work very hard to answer all questions,'' Dowd said.
Conyers said he would move quickly to ask a judge to approve the immunity deal and schedule a hearing.
A congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no agreement on testimony had been reached, said lawmakers were planning to hold a hearing as early as next week and hoped to secure testimony from Schlozman.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Tuesday May 8, 2007 1:01 AM
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress stepped up its inquiry into the politics of Justice Department decision-making Monday as it sought cooperation from one department official and prepared to put its former White House liaison under oath.
The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Bradley Schlozman, a former senior civil rights attorney and U.S. attorney, to speak with investigators. The Justice Department, meanwhile, said it wouldn't try to prevent Congress from granting immunity to White House liaison Monica Goodling if she testifies before a committee.
Lawmakers want to talk to Schlozman and Goodling as part of an inquiry into whether the department played politics with the hiring and firing of department officials. The inquiry began as a question about whether U.S. attorneys - presidential appointees who serve as the top federal law enforcement officials in their state districts - were fired for political reasons.
It has grown, however, into an investigation of whether the agency let politics affect criminal investigations and whether officials made employment decisions for political reasons.
Lawmakers want to question Schlozman, who now works for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, about a voter fraud lawsuit he filed against Missouri in the lead-up to the 2006 election. Committee members said they wanted to know whether Schlozman's predecessor was forced out for not endorsing that lawsuit, which was ultimately dismissed.
"The Committee would benefit from hearing directly from you in order to gain a better understanding of the role voter fraud may have played in the administration's decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. attorneys,'' Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote in a letter co-signed by the committee's top Republican, Arlen Specter of New York.
The letter asked Schlozman to voluntarily submit to interviews and testimony and provide documents to the committee.
Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said politics do not influence decisions about whether to bring a case.
"The Justice Department brings its civil actions and criminal prosecutions based on evidence, not on politics,'' Boyd said. ``We expect U.S. Attorneys to bring election and voter fraud cases where evidence of such fraud exists.''
The Justice Department is conducting an internal review of the firings of U.S. attorneys and other decisions. As part of that investigation, the agency is reviewing whether Goodling sought to place Republicans as front-line prosecutors in state U.S. attorney districts.
Lawmakers want to question Goodling but, without a promise of immunity, she has refused. In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., the department said it would prefer not to see an immunity deal.
"However, we understand the committee's interest in obtaining Ms. Goodling's testimony,'' the letter said. ``Therefore, after balancing the significant public interest against the impact of the committee's actions on our ongoing investigation, we will not raise an objection or seek a deferral.''
The letter was signed by Inspector General Glenn Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel to the Office of Professional Responsibility.
Committee lawyers must now send an immunity request to a federal judge for approval. Once that deal is approved, Goodling would face a contempt order if she refused to testify. Her lawyer, John M. Dowd, said Monday she would testify under such a deal.
"She'll be honest and clear and she'll work very hard to answer all questions,'' Dowd said.
Conyers said he would move quickly to ask a judge to approve the immunity deal and schedule a hearing.
A congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no agreement on testimony had been reached, said lawmakers were planning to hold a hearing as early as next week and hoped to secure testimony from Schlozman.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
These people are unfreakin'believable!
Bush Hit-Woman BehindProsecutor Firings Has Long Historyof Purges to Protect Bush
Published March 19th, 2007 in Articles
Harriet Miers fired investigator in 1997 to cover Bush draft-dodge
by Greg Palast, from the original reports for BBC Television and the Guardian (UK)
The Mister Big behind the scandal of George Bush’s firing of US Attorneys is not a ‘mister’ at all. The House Judiciary Committee has released White House emails indicating that the political operative who ordered the hit on prosecutors too honest for their own good was Harriet Miers, one-time legal counsel to the President.
But this is not the first time that Miers has fired investigators to protect Mr. Bush.
In 1999, while investigating Governor George Bush of Texas for the Guardian papers of Britain, I obtained an extraordinary, and extraordinarily confidential, memo to the US Attorney’s office in Austin. It disclosed that, in 1997, Governor Bush secretly suggested to the chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission that she grant a contract to the client of a Bush ally.
The Governor’s back-door demand to the Lottery chairwoman was not so easy. Bush wanted the Lottery to grant a multi-billion dollar contract to GTech Corporation. But GTech hadn’t even bid on the contract - and a winner was already announced.
There was only way for the Chairwoman to carry out the fix: fire the director of the Lottery who had discouraged GTech from bidding because of its history of corruption.
The Chairwoman, Harriet Miers, did the deed: fired the Lottery director; Miers then ignored the winning bid — and gave Bush’s favored company the contract, no bidding, in perpetuity.
Miers and the Draft
Neither Miers nor President Bush have ever denied the contents of the memo [I’ve posted it here] despite repeated requests from the Guardian and BBC Television.
Bush’s attempt to appoint Hit-woman Harriet to the US Supreme Court in 2005 surprised many. Not me. Miers, personal and governmental lawyer for George Bush, had quite a file on her boss, and he must have been grateful for her discretion.
Most crucially, she knew why Bush so desperately needed to give GTech the lottery contract.
The heart of the matter was the then-successful cover-up of the Bush family’s using its influence to get young George Bush into the Texas Air National Guard and out of the Vietnam war draft.
The memo to the US Attorney reads:
“Governor Bush thru [name withheld] made a deal with Ben Barnes not to rebid because Barnes could confirm that Bush had lied during the ‘94 campaign [for governor of Texas]. Bush was asked if his father … had helped him get in the National Guard. Bush said no he had not, but the fact is his dad call then-Lt. Gov. [Ben] Barnes ….”
Lt. Governor Barnes, through a cut-out, called the Texas Air Guard commander and got Bush into the ‘top gun’ seat and out of the war.
You may recall that in 2004, years after we reported this story in Britain, Barnes confessed to the draft-dodge fix on 60 Minutes. [That was the report that brought down Dan Rather; but the Barnes confession was never challenged.]
What 60 Minutes missed is the creepy Miers involvement. Barnes, after he left the post of Lt. Governor, became a lobbyist — for GTech, the lottery company. By using his influence to get and keep the lottery contract for GTech, Barnes picked up quite a nice fee: over $23 million. With those millions in his pocket, Barnes kept a happy and lucrative silence about his saving little George Bush from the draft.
According to the memo from the US Attorney’s office, Barnes met with Bush about GTech and the lottery. Then,
“The Governor talked to the chair of the lottery [Miers] two days later and she then agreed to support letting GTech keep the contract without a bid.”
Note something else here: this information was sitting in the hands of the US Attorney. Yet, no action was taken in 1997 though we now know that, from Barnes’ confession in 2004, the accusation about his putting in the fix for young George Bush is true.
An insider told BBC TV that the US Attorney’s office and Justice Department, though under Democratic control, never acted because they discovered that Barnes, a Democrat, had not only manipulated the system to get George Bush into the Texas Air Guard, Barnes did the same for the sons of Democratic big wigs including Congressman (later Senator) Lloyd Bentsen and Governor John Connolly.
In other words, control over a US Attorney and what is called their “prosecutorial discretion” is worth its weight in gold to politicians. They can provide protection for cronies and exact punishment on enemies. And no one knows that better than “Justice” Harriet Miers and her boss, fighter pilot George W. Bush.
***********************
This report is adapted from Greg Palast’s New York Times bestselling book, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans — Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. New edition to be released April 24.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
RFK, Jr. Calls For Investigation Of Timothy Griffin....
...and his former boss, Karl Rove.
Monday, May 7, 2007
NEW YORK — Voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for prison time for the new US Attorney for Arkansas, Timothy Griffin and investigation of Griffin’s former boss, Karl Rove, chief political advisor to President Bush.
“Timothy Griffin,” said Kennedy,”who is the new US attorney in Arkansas, was actually the mastermind behind the voter fraud efforts by the Bush Administration to disenfranchise over a million voters through ‘caging’ techniques - which are illegal.”
[Hear Kennedy on Griffin, Rove and ‘caging lists’ below or here]
Kennedy based his demand on the revelations by BBC reporter Greg Palast in the new edition of his book, “Armed Madhouse.” On one page of the book, Palast reproduces a copy of a confidential Bush-Cheney campaign email, dated August 26, 2004, in which Griffin directs Republican operatives to use the ‘caging’ lists.
This is one of the emails subpoenaed by Congress but supposedly “lost” by Rove’s office. Palast obtained 500 of these, fifty with ‘caging’ lists attached.
‘Caging’ lists are “absolutely illegal” under the Voting Rights Act, noted Kennedy on his Air America program, Ring of Fire. The 1965 law makes it a felony crime to challenge voters when race is a factor in the targeting. African-American voters comprised the bulk of the 70,000 voters ‘caged’ in a single state, Florida.
Palast wrote in his book, “Here’s how the scheme worked. The Bush campaign mailed out letters,” particularly targeting African-American soldiers sent overseas. When the letters sent to the home addresses of the soldiers came back “undeliverable” because the servicemen were in Baghdad or elsewhere, the Republican Party would, “challenge the voter’s registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted.”
The Republicans successfully challenged “at least one million” votes of minority voters in the 2004 election.
Kennedy, a voting rights attorney, fumed, “What he [Griffin] did was absolutely illegal and he should be in jail. Instead [Griffin] was rewarded with the US Attorney’s office.”
“They [Griffin, Rove and their confederates at the RNC] knew it was illegal.”
Kennedy has called on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to expand their investigations of the firing of US Attorneys to include a probe of their replacements, especially Griffin, as well as Rove’s knowledge of the caging operation.
In preparation for just such an investigation, Kyle Sampson, former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, wrote a confidential email, dated December 19, 2006 outlining a strategy to stall Congress’ from questioning the propriety of the Griffin appointment. “We should gum this to death,” wrote Sampson, “Ask the senators to give Tim a chance . . . then we can tell them we’ll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in ‘good faith,’ of course.”
Sampson has since resigned.
Palast said, “Just as Rove is known as ‘Bush’s brain,’ Griffin is ‘Rove’s Brain.’
I’m flattered by his ‘review.’”
Palast first reported on the caging list operation for BBC Television’s premier current affairs show, Newsnight, in 2004. In a February 7, 2007 email obtained by subpoena from Rove’s office, Griffin boasted that, “No [US] national media picked up” the BBC story. Griffin attached an excerpt of Armed Madhouse.
Griffin sent his remarks to Monica Goodling, Senior Counsel to Attorney General Gonzales, who has since resigned and invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answer Congressional questions.
Griffin and Rove refused several requests from Palast and BBC to respond to charges of illegal, racial ‘caging’ of voters. However, a Republican spokeswoman, while admitting the lists could be used to challenge soldiers’ votes, said that was ‘not the purpose’ for gathering the lists.
**********Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans — Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House GONE WILD.To see Palast’s reports for BBC, obtain more information on Armed Madhouse or the prosecutor firing scandal, or to request an interview with Palast, go to www.GregPalast.com
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Monday, May 7, 2007
NEW YORK — Voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for prison time for the new US Attorney for Arkansas, Timothy Griffin and investigation of Griffin’s former boss, Karl Rove, chief political advisor to President Bush.
“Timothy Griffin,” said Kennedy,”who is the new US attorney in Arkansas, was actually the mastermind behind the voter fraud efforts by the Bush Administration to disenfranchise over a million voters through ‘caging’ techniques - which are illegal.”
[Hear Kennedy on Griffin, Rove and ‘caging lists’ below or here]
Kennedy based his demand on the revelations by BBC reporter Greg Palast in the new edition of his book, “Armed Madhouse.” On one page of the book, Palast reproduces a copy of a confidential Bush-Cheney campaign email, dated August 26, 2004, in which Griffin directs Republican operatives to use the ‘caging’ lists.
This is one of the emails subpoenaed by Congress but supposedly “lost” by Rove’s office. Palast obtained 500 of these, fifty with ‘caging’ lists attached.
‘Caging’ lists are “absolutely illegal” under the Voting Rights Act, noted Kennedy on his Air America program, Ring of Fire. The 1965 law makes it a felony crime to challenge voters when race is a factor in the targeting. African-American voters comprised the bulk of the 70,000 voters ‘caged’ in a single state, Florida.
Palast wrote in his book, “Here’s how the scheme worked. The Bush campaign mailed out letters,” particularly targeting African-American soldiers sent overseas. When the letters sent to the home addresses of the soldiers came back “undeliverable” because the servicemen were in Baghdad or elsewhere, the Republican Party would, “challenge the voter’s registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted.”
The Republicans successfully challenged “at least one million” votes of minority voters in the 2004 election.
Kennedy, a voting rights attorney, fumed, “What he [Griffin] did was absolutely illegal and he should be in jail. Instead [Griffin] was rewarded with the US Attorney’s office.”
“They [Griffin, Rove and their confederates at the RNC] knew it was illegal.”
Kennedy has called on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to expand their investigations of the firing of US Attorneys to include a probe of their replacements, especially Griffin, as well as Rove’s knowledge of the caging operation.
In preparation for just such an investigation, Kyle Sampson, former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, wrote a confidential email, dated December 19, 2006 outlining a strategy to stall Congress’ from questioning the propriety of the Griffin appointment. “We should gum this to death,” wrote Sampson, “Ask the senators to give Tim a chance . . . then we can tell them we’ll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in ‘good faith,’ of course.”
Sampson has since resigned.
Palast said, “Just as Rove is known as ‘Bush’s brain,’ Griffin is ‘Rove’s Brain.’
I’m flattered by his ‘review.’”
Palast first reported on the caging list operation for BBC Television’s premier current affairs show, Newsnight, in 2004. In a February 7, 2007 email obtained by subpoena from Rove’s office, Griffin boasted that, “No [US] national media picked up” the BBC story. Griffin attached an excerpt of Armed Madhouse.
Griffin sent his remarks to Monica Goodling, Senior Counsel to Attorney General Gonzales, who has since resigned and invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answer Congressional questions.
Griffin and Rove refused several requests from Palast and BBC to respond to charges of illegal, racial ‘caging’ of voters. However, a Republican spokeswoman, while admitting the lists could be used to challenge soldiers’ votes, said that was ‘not the purpose’ for gathering the lists.
**********Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans — Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House GONE WILD.To see Palast’s reports for BBC, obtain more information on Armed Madhouse or the prosecutor firing scandal, or to request an interview with Palast, go to www.GregPalast.com
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Why Does The Far Right See Snakes Under Their Beds
Maybe, because they have snakes in their heads...........
George Kennan vs. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Kristol, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Coulter
George Kennan's 15 May 1953 speech at the University of Notre Dame was delivered at a time, when the right-wing anti-communist hysteria, inflamed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was at its peak. Yet, it courageously exposed the demagogic McCarthyites for the ignorant, self-righteous, fear-mongering extremists they were. Thus, one can hardly avoid the conclusion that John Lukacs appended the speech to his new book about George Kennan, because it has much to teach us about courage during the current campaign of fear orchestrated by today's American equally self-righteous right-wing extremists.
Kennan excoriated McCarthyism's "alarmed and exercized anti-communism," as "an anti-communism of a quite special variety, bearing an air of excited discovery and proprietorship, as though no one had ever known before that there was a communist danger, as though no one had ever thought about it and taken its measure, as though it had all begun about the year 1945 and these people were the first to learn of it."
President Bush behaved the same way, as if "alarmed and exercised" anti-terrorism rhetoric would enable him to hide his failures to prevent 9/11, notwithstanding numerous warnings about impending terrorist attacks. Attempting to gain proprietorship, Bush's numerous asinine assertions about the terrorists demonstrated that he didn't have a clue.
First, he ignorantly claimed: "They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." Then he foolishly promised to "rout out terror wherever it may exist." [Woodward, p.73] More ominously, he would "make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them." [p. 30] Finally, he also promised to "rid the world of evil." [p. 67]
Such words befit an overeager, ignorant, petulant child, not a mature statesman. Yet, can any less be said of all the Americans, who found such nonsense persuasive? No wonder citizens throughout the rest of the world consider the United States to be the greatest menace to world peace.
Kennan considered President George W. Bush to be a "profoundly shallow" man. And in September 2002, at the age of 98, Kennan not only asserted that alarmed and exercized attempts to link Iraq to al Qaeda was "pathetically unsupported and unreliable," he also castigated Democrats for "timidity out of concern for the [November 2002] elections."
Unfortunately, Kennan already was bedridden when the evil, fear-mongering Darth Cheney - who, I remind you, was the negligent sitting Vice-President when al Qaeda's terrorists successfully attacked the U.S. on 9/11 - asserted: "A November win by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would put the United States at risk of another "devastating" terrorist attack." [CNN.com, Sept. 7, 2004]
A few months after Kennan's death, but long after it became clear that the Bush administration's incompetence had lost Osama bin Laden, and was losing its war in Iraq (perhaps, Afghanistan, as well), Karl Rove still was asserting: "Conservatives saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war, liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding."
Beyond this McCarthyite smear, Rove committed others: "Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see…Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia." [Joe Conason, It Can Happen Here, pp. 24-25] Thus, as he did from 9/11 forward, Rove was betting that a majority of the electorate could be frightened to vote Republican by Republican hate- and fear-mongering.
Worse still, with the aid of America's warmongering neoconservatives (those brave folks who, somehow, never get around to serving in the military, themselves) such as Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Bush and Cheney were able "to divert America's wrath away from those who perpetrated that attack and turn it against those [in Iraq] who did not." [Scott McConnell, "The Weekly Standard's War," The American Conservative, September 21, 2005]
As Scott McConnell has written, in 1997 Kristol and Robert Kagan wrote an article, "Saddam Must Go," in which they asserted: "We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it's time to start thinking the unthinkable." After 9/11, Kristol's Weekly Standard propagandists incessantly beat the war drums for invading Iraq. And they did so by repeating their BIG LIE - Saddam was linked to al Qaeda.
For, as Scott McConnell notes, in the very first issue published after 9/11, the Weekly Standard "laid down a line from which the magazine would not waver over the next 18 months." Their line was "to link Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in virtually every paragraph, to join them at the hip in the minds of readers, and then lay out a strategy that actually gave attacking Saddam priority over eliminating al Qaeda." [McConnell, The American Conservative]
Moreover, the most zealous neocon, Douglas Feith, used his position within the Department of Defense to fabricate bogus intelligence to present to fellow neocon, Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Darth Cheney, who would then present the BIG LIE to the public. Supplementing the BIG LIE was the superficial nonsense spouted by America's neocons about the ease with which democracy and freedom could be exported to the Middle East - even at the point of a gun.
How serious is the BIG LIE? Consider Robert Parry's observation: "Under principles of international law applied from Nuremberg to Rwanda, propagandists who contribute to war crimes or encourage crimes against humanity can be put in the dock alongside the actual killers." [Consortium News, Posted August 21, 2006]
But what about the water-carriers for Bush, Cheney, Rove and Kristol, such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter? They certainly meet the criteria Kennan observed in 1953, when he said: "[T]hey claim the right to define a certain area of our national life and cultural output as beyond the bounds of righteous approval… One has the impression that if uncountered, these people would eventually narrow the area of political and cultural respectability to a point where it included only themselves, the excited accusers, and excluded everything and everybody not embraced in the profession of denunciation."
Like the McCarthyite and virulent racist, J. Edgar Hoover, who was "so malicious that he would stop at nothing to destroy" Martin Luther King Jr., "a man who believed in justice," [NY Times Jan. 18, 1998] today's McCarthyite and virulent racist, Rush Limbaugh, is leaving few stones unturned in his attempt to destroy Senator Barack Obama. Limbaugh, you'll recall, decades ago told an African-American caller to "take that bone out of your nose." Judging by his recent assaults on Senator Obama, it doesn't sound like Limbaugh has ever learned from the errors of his ways.
Intending to "destroy the burrhead," Hoover's men let King know about the damaging material gathered on him by the F.B.I. and suggested, "he do the honorable thing and take his own life." They didn't know the great character possessed by the man they were dealing with. [Ibid]
And while we can only speculate whether Limbaugh intended to provoke the racist threats that require unusually early Secret Service protection for Senator Obama, who can doubt that Limbaugh is pandering to the low class white racism of his half-witted audience through thinly-veiled racist taunts. He energizes both his and the Republican Party base with his racial references to: "Halfrican American," "Obama Osama," and by playing "Barrack, The Magic Negro."
But Limbaugh's McCarthyism extends far beyond his racist Hooverism. In 2003, for example, Limbaugh called the patriots who protested America's impending invasion of Iraq, "anti-American, anti-capitalist Marxists and communists." On August 15, 2005, he asserted: "Wouldn't it be great if anybody who speaks out against this country, to kick them out of the country? Anybody that threatens this country, kick 'em out. We'd get rid of Michael Moore, we'd get rid of half the Democratic Party if we would just import that law. That would be fabulous. The Supreme Court ought to look into this. Absolutely brilliant idea out there."
On June 27, 2006, he launched a McCarthyite smear of the New York Times: "If you look at The New York Times and the kind of stories they're leaking and running and the information they're getting, it's clear that they're trying to help the terrorists….80 percent of their readers have to be jihadists." And, then, on April 5, 2007, in the great tradition of tail gunner Joe, Limbaugh pimped for Cheney when he asked about Sen. Harry Reid and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi: "Is this what they really intend, to lose the war, to make sure we come home defeated?"
I've written about Limbaugh's McCarthyism before; see:
http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/Limbaugh.html
Bill O'Reilly is no better. On September 14, 2001, three days after the 9/11 attacks, Mr. O'Reilly added his voice to the BIG LIE: "I believe that you're going to find out that money from Iraq flowed in and helped this happen." And on March 18, 2003, Mr. O'Reilly lent his support to another BIG LIE, the one about Iraq's so-called WMD: "And I said on my program, if -- if -- the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." (Yet, Mr. O'Reilly continues to serve as a cheerleader of Bush's illegal, immoral war.)
On August 10, 2006, Mr. O'Reilly made a McCarthyite smear against the "far left." "The far left in America is dominated by haters, people who despise their own country and want to injure those with whom they disagree. These smear merchants are now all over the mainstream media and have spread like lice on the Internet." At one point, in July 2005, Bill O'Reilly announced that he would be exposing and naming all the people and organizations he considered to be helping the terrorists.
Thanks, however, to some media researchers at Indiana University, who've sampled O'Reilly's McCarthyite tactics, we now know that he "employed six of the seven [classic] propaganda devices nearly 13 times each minute of his editorials." In this, he "is a heavier and less-nuanced user of the propaganda devices than [the anti-Semite and fascist, Father Charles] Coughlin."
"Fear was used in more than half (52.4 percent) of the commentaries, and O'Reilly almost never offered a resolution to the threat."
Worst of all, however, is Ann Coulter. After the 9/11 attacks, Ms. Coulter made the following outrageous statement: "We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." As if Ms. Coulter knew anything about war.
In her book, Treason, Ms. Coulter defended the BIG LIE of warmongers who claimed the existence of ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. And, on December 21, 2005, Ms. Coulter made the outrageous assertion: "I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo."
Ms. Coulter makes great sport of demoninzing liberals. As she wrote in Treason, "Betraying the manifest national defense objectives of the country is only part of the left's treasonous scheme. They aim to destroy America from the inside with their relentless attacks on morality and truth."
And she's a great fan of McCarthy: "The myth of 'McCarthyism' is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times…Liberals weren't cowering for fear during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name." Now, whom are you going to believe, George Kennan - "the conscience of America" -- or someone who's probably certifiably insane?
(I took great delight in the widespread anger that this review -- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/20/RV153961.DTL -- provoked among Ms. Coulter's fans.)
The erudite Middle East scholar, Juan Cole has dismissed such McCarthyites with the following observation: "Cranky rich people hire sharp-tongued and relatively uninformed young people all the time and put them in their mass media to badmouth the poor, spread bigotry, exalt mindless militarism, promote anti-intellectualism, and ensure generally that rightwing views come to predominate even among people who are harmed by such policies. One of their jobs is to marginalize progressives by smearing them as unreliable." [Cole, Informed Comment, Feb. 08, 2005]
Kennan took them much more seriously. Noting that "the forces of intolerance…are incompatible with the flowering of the human spirit," Kennan observed: "There is no greater mistake we of this generation can make than to imagine that the tendencies which in other countries have led to the nightmare of totalitarianism will, as they appear in our own midst, politely pause - out of some delicate respect for the American tradition - at a point where they would begin to affect our independence of mind and belief. The forces of intolerance and political demagoguery are greedy forces, and unrestrained. There is no limit to their ambitions or their impudence."
To those, like the writer, who are inclined to fight fire with fire, the following observations seem inescapable: In light of the fact that the Bush/Cheney regime started an illegal, immoral war against Iraq, based upon lies and exaggerations about Iraq's so-called weapons of mass destruction and so-called links to al Qaeda; in light of the fact that the lives of more than 3,300 American soldiers have been wasted for such lies and exaggerations, as well as, perhaps, the lives of some hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and in light of the facts that this illegal, immoral war has increased terrorist attacks seven-fold around the world, elevated Iran to a position of regional dominance, infringed upon domestic liberties in the U.S. and caused a worldwide explosion of hatred of the United States; isn't it plausible to claim that the real traitors to the United States are the members of the Bush administration, the neocons and their McCarthyite water-carriers? ?
Kennan, however, wouldn't approve. Although speaking about the McCarthyites in 1953, his following admonition has universal application: "I tremble when I see this attempt to make a semi-religious cult out of emotional-political currents of the moment, and particularly when I note that these currents are ones exclusively negative in nature, designed to appeal only to man's capacity for hatred and fear, never to their capacity for forgiveness and charity and understanding. I have lived more than ten years of my life in totalitarian countries. I know where this sort of thing leads."
In the name of "forgiveness and charity and understanding," then, let's simply work to assure that the Bush administration, the neocons and their McCarthyite water-carriers receive justice. Which would include impeachment for some and jail time for all!
Walter C. Uhler is an independent scholar and freelance writer whose work has been published in numerous publications, including The Nation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Military History, the Moscow Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also is President of the Russian-American International Studies Association (RAISA).
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
George Kennan vs. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Kristol, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Coulter
George Kennan's 15 May 1953 speech at the University of Notre Dame was delivered at a time, when the right-wing anti-communist hysteria, inflamed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was at its peak. Yet, it courageously exposed the demagogic McCarthyites for the ignorant, self-righteous, fear-mongering extremists they were. Thus, one can hardly avoid the conclusion that John Lukacs appended the speech to his new book about George Kennan, because it has much to teach us about courage during the current campaign of fear orchestrated by today's American equally self-righteous right-wing extremists.
Kennan excoriated McCarthyism's "alarmed and exercized anti-communism," as "an anti-communism of a quite special variety, bearing an air of excited discovery and proprietorship, as though no one had ever known before that there was a communist danger, as though no one had ever thought about it and taken its measure, as though it had all begun about the year 1945 and these people were the first to learn of it."
President Bush behaved the same way, as if "alarmed and exercised" anti-terrorism rhetoric would enable him to hide his failures to prevent 9/11, notwithstanding numerous warnings about impending terrorist attacks. Attempting to gain proprietorship, Bush's numerous asinine assertions about the terrorists demonstrated that he didn't have a clue.
First, he ignorantly claimed: "They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." Then he foolishly promised to "rout out terror wherever it may exist." [Woodward, p.73] More ominously, he would "make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them." [p. 30] Finally, he also promised to "rid the world of evil." [p. 67]
Such words befit an overeager, ignorant, petulant child, not a mature statesman. Yet, can any less be said of all the Americans, who found such nonsense persuasive? No wonder citizens throughout the rest of the world consider the United States to be the greatest menace to world peace.
Kennan considered President George W. Bush to be a "profoundly shallow" man. And in September 2002, at the age of 98, Kennan not only asserted that alarmed and exercized attempts to link Iraq to al Qaeda was "pathetically unsupported and unreliable," he also castigated Democrats for "timidity out of concern for the [November 2002] elections."
Unfortunately, Kennan already was bedridden when the evil, fear-mongering Darth Cheney - who, I remind you, was the negligent sitting Vice-President when al Qaeda's terrorists successfully attacked the U.S. on 9/11 - asserted: "A November win by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would put the United States at risk of another "devastating" terrorist attack." [CNN.com, Sept. 7, 2004]
A few months after Kennan's death, but long after it became clear that the Bush administration's incompetence had lost Osama bin Laden, and was losing its war in Iraq (perhaps, Afghanistan, as well), Karl Rove still was asserting: "Conservatives saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war, liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding."
Beyond this McCarthyite smear, Rove committed others: "Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see…Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia." [Joe Conason, It Can Happen Here, pp. 24-25] Thus, as he did from 9/11 forward, Rove was betting that a majority of the electorate could be frightened to vote Republican by Republican hate- and fear-mongering.
Worse still, with the aid of America's warmongering neoconservatives (those brave folks who, somehow, never get around to serving in the military, themselves) such as Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Bush and Cheney were able "to divert America's wrath away from those who perpetrated that attack and turn it against those [in Iraq] who did not." [Scott McConnell, "The Weekly Standard's War," The American Conservative, September 21, 2005]
As Scott McConnell has written, in 1997 Kristol and Robert Kagan wrote an article, "Saddam Must Go," in which they asserted: "We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it's time to start thinking the unthinkable." After 9/11, Kristol's Weekly Standard propagandists incessantly beat the war drums for invading Iraq. And they did so by repeating their BIG LIE - Saddam was linked to al Qaeda.
For, as Scott McConnell notes, in the very first issue published after 9/11, the Weekly Standard "laid down a line from which the magazine would not waver over the next 18 months." Their line was "to link Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in virtually every paragraph, to join them at the hip in the minds of readers, and then lay out a strategy that actually gave attacking Saddam priority over eliminating al Qaeda." [McConnell, The American Conservative]
Moreover, the most zealous neocon, Douglas Feith, used his position within the Department of Defense to fabricate bogus intelligence to present to fellow neocon, Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Darth Cheney, who would then present the BIG LIE to the public. Supplementing the BIG LIE was the superficial nonsense spouted by America's neocons about the ease with which democracy and freedom could be exported to the Middle East - even at the point of a gun.
How serious is the BIG LIE? Consider Robert Parry's observation: "Under principles of international law applied from Nuremberg to Rwanda, propagandists who contribute to war crimes or encourage crimes against humanity can be put in the dock alongside the actual killers." [Consortium News, Posted August 21, 2006]
But what about the water-carriers for Bush, Cheney, Rove and Kristol, such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter? They certainly meet the criteria Kennan observed in 1953, when he said: "[T]hey claim the right to define a certain area of our national life and cultural output as beyond the bounds of righteous approval… One has the impression that if uncountered, these people would eventually narrow the area of political and cultural respectability to a point where it included only themselves, the excited accusers, and excluded everything and everybody not embraced in the profession of denunciation."
Like the McCarthyite and virulent racist, J. Edgar Hoover, who was "so malicious that he would stop at nothing to destroy" Martin Luther King Jr., "a man who believed in justice," [NY Times Jan. 18, 1998] today's McCarthyite and virulent racist, Rush Limbaugh, is leaving few stones unturned in his attempt to destroy Senator Barack Obama. Limbaugh, you'll recall, decades ago told an African-American caller to "take that bone out of your nose." Judging by his recent assaults on Senator Obama, it doesn't sound like Limbaugh has ever learned from the errors of his ways.
Intending to "destroy the burrhead," Hoover's men let King know about the damaging material gathered on him by the F.B.I. and suggested, "he do the honorable thing and take his own life." They didn't know the great character possessed by the man they were dealing with. [Ibid]
And while we can only speculate whether Limbaugh intended to provoke the racist threats that require unusually early Secret Service protection for Senator Obama, who can doubt that Limbaugh is pandering to the low class white racism of his half-witted audience through thinly-veiled racist taunts. He energizes both his and the Republican Party base with his racial references to: "Halfrican American," "Obama Osama," and by playing "Barrack, The Magic Negro."
But Limbaugh's McCarthyism extends far beyond his racist Hooverism. In 2003, for example, Limbaugh called the patriots who protested America's impending invasion of Iraq, "anti-American, anti-capitalist Marxists and communists." On August 15, 2005, he asserted: "Wouldn't it be great if anybody who speaks out against this country, to kick them out of the country? Anybody that threatens this country, kick 'em out. We'd get rid of Michael Moore, we'd get rid of half the Democratic Party if we would just import that law. That would be fabulous. The Supreme Court ought to look into this. Absolutely brilliant idea out there."
On June 27, 2006, he launched a McCarthyite smear of the New York Times: "If you look at The New York Times and the kind of stories they're leaking and running and the information they're getting, it's clear that they're trying to help the terrorists….80 percent of their readers have to be jihadists." And, then, on April 5, 2007, in the great tradition of tail gunner Joe, Limbaugh pimped for Cheney when he asked about Sen. Harry Reid and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi: "Is this what they really intend, to lose the war, to make sure we come home defeated?"
I've written about Limbaugh's McCarthyism before; see:
http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/Limbaugh.html
Bill O'Reilly is no better. On September 14, 2001, three days after the 9/11 attacks, Mr. O'Reilly added his voice to the BIG LIE: "I believe that you're going to find out that money from Iraq flowed in and helped this happen." And on March 18, 2003, Mr. O'Reilly lent his support to another BIG LIE, the one about Iraq's so-called WMD: "And I said on my program, if -- if -- the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." (Yet, Mr. O'Reilly continues to serve as a cheerleader of Bush's illegal, immoral war.)
On August 10, 2006, Mr. O'Reilly made a McCarthyite smear against the "far left." "The far left in America is dominated by haters, people who despise their own country and want to injure those with whom they disagree. These smear merchants are now all over the mainstream media and have spread like lice on the Internet." At one point, in July 2005, Bill O'Reilly announced that he would be exposing and naming all the people and organizations he considered to be helping the terrorists.
Thanks, however, to some media researchers at Indiana University, who've sampled O'Reilly's McCarthyite tactics, we now know that he "employed six of the seven [classic] propaganda devices nearly 13 times each minute of his editorials." In this, he "is a heavier and less-nuanced user of the propaganda devices than [the anti-Semite and fascist, Father Charles] Coughlin."
"Fear was used in more than half (52.4 percent) of the commentaries, and O'Reilly almost never offered a resolution to the threat."
Worst of all, however, is Ann Coulter. After the 9/11 attacks, Ms. Coulter made the following outrageous statement: "We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." As if Ms. Coulter knew anything about war.
In her book, Treason, Ms. Coulter defended the BIG LIE of warmongers who claimed the existence of ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. And, on December 21, 2005, Ms. Coulter made the outrageous assertion: "I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo."
Ms. Coulter makes great sport of demoninzing liberals. As she wrote in Treason, "Betraying the manifest national defense objectives of the country is only part of the left's treasonous scheme. They aim to destroy America from the inside with their relentless attacks on morality and truth."
And she's a great fan of McCarthy: "The myth of 'McCarthyism' is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times…Liberals weren't cowering for fear during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name." Now, whom are you going to believe, George Kennan - "the conscience of America" -- or someone who's probably certifiably insane?
(I took great delight in the widespread anger that this review -- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/20/RV153961.DTL -- provoked among Ms. Coulter's fans.)
The erudite Middle East scholar, Juan Cole has dismissed such McCarthyites with the following observation: "Cranky rich people hire sharp-tongued and relatively uninformed young people all the time and put them in their mass media to badmouth the poor, spread bigotry, exalt mindless militarism, promote anti-intellectualism, and ensure generally that rightwing views come to predominate even among people who are harmed by such policies. One of their jobs is to marginalize progressives by smearing them as unreliable." [Cole, Informed Comment, Feb. 08, 2005]
Kennan took them much more seriously. Noting that "the forces of intolerance…are incompatible with the flowering of the human spirit," Kennan observed: "There is no greater mistake we of this generation can make than to imagine that the tendencies which in other countries have led to the nightmare of totalitarianism will, as they appear in our own midst, politely pause - out of some delicate respect for the American tradition - at a point where they would begin to affect our independence of mind and belief. The forces of intolerance and political demagoguery are greedy forces, and unrestrained. There is no limit to their ambitions or their impudence."
To those, like the writer, who are inclined to fight fire with fire, the following observations seem inescapable: In light of the fact that the Bush/Cheney regime started an illegal, immoral war against Iraq, based upon lies and exaggerations about Iraq's so-called weapons of mass destruction and so-called links to al Qaeda; in light of the fact that the lives of more than 3,300 American soldiers have been wasted for such lies and exaggerations, as well as, perhaps, the lives of some hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and in light of the facts that this illegal, immoral war has increased terrorist attacks seven-fold around the world, elevated Iran to a position of regional dominance, infringed upon domestic liberties in the U.S. and caused a worldwide explosion of hatred of the United States; isn't it plausible to claim that the real traitors to the United States are the members of the Bush administration, the neocons and their McCarthyite water-carriers? ?
Kennan, however, wouldn't approve. Although speaking about the McCarthyites in 1953, his following admonition has universal application: "I tremble when I see this attempt to make a semi-religious cult out of emotional-political currents of the moment, and particularly when I note that these currents are ones exclusively negative in nature, designed to appeal only to man's capacity for hatred and fear, never to their capacity for forgiveness and charity and understanding. I have lived more than ten years of my life in totalitarian countries. I know where this sort of thing leads."
In the name of "forgiveness and charity and understanding," then, let's simply work to assure that the Bush administration, the neocons and their McCarthyite water-carriers receive justice. Which would include impeachment for some and jail time for all!
Walter C. Uhler is an independent scholar and freelance writer whose work has been published in numerous publications, including The Nation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Military History, the Moscow Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also is President of the Russian-American International Studies Association (RAISA).
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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