MY POV

IF YOU'RE NOT OUTRAGED, YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Benjamin Franklin

How Bush really feels about you.

"If there were such a thing as Intelligent Design, we wouldn't have George W. Bush."

Christy Marx

The Mars Society

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)
34th President of the USA
a Republican, in a letter written to his brother on November 8, 1954

"...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone...."

Benito Mussolini

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Abraham Lincoln
November 12, 1864

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man."

Martin Luther King Jr., 1963

"CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."

James Madison
(1751-1836)
4th President of the United States

"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings."

Heinrich Heine
Almansor, 1823

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

Sir Winston Churchill
(1874-1965)

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarschall

"Authoritarian societies inevitably crumble because they silence the critics who could save them from errors of blind hubris. Dissent is not a luxury to be indulged in the best of times, but rather an obligation of free people, particularly when the very notion of dissent is unpopular."

Robert Scheer

"FASCISM: a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism."

American Heritage Dictionary

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is
neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it
because it is right.

Dr. Martin Luther King

"My life is my message."

Gandhi

Posted: 31 Dec. 2005

This is quite long, but I urge everyone to read the entire thing. Read it and think about it.

What I heard about Iraq in 2005
Eliot Weinberger

In 2005 I heard that Coalition forces were camped in the ruins of Babylon. I heard that bulldozers had dug trenches through the site and cleared areas for helicopter landing pads and parking lots, that thousands of sandbags had been filled with dirt and archaeological fragments, that a 2600-year-old brick pavement had been crushed by tanks, and that the moulded bricks of dragons had been gouged out from the Ishtar Gate by soldiers collecting souvenirs. I heard that the ruins of the Sumerian cities of Umma, Umm al-Akareb, Larsa and Tello were completely destroyed and were now landscapes of craters.

I heard that the US was planning an embassy in Baghdad that would cost $1.5 billion, as expensive as the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero, the proposed tallest building in the world.

I saw a headline in the Los Angeles Times that read: ‘After Levelling City, US Tries to Build Trust.’

I heard that military personnel were now carrying ‘talking point’ cards with phrases such as: ‘We are a values-based, people-focused team that strives to uphold the dignity and respect of all.’

I heard that 47 per cent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein helped plan 9/11 and 44 per cent believed that the hijackers were Iraqi; 61 per cent thought that Saddam had been a serious threat to the US and 76 per cent said the Iraqis were now better off.

I heard that Iraq was now ranked with Haiti and Senegal as one of the poorest nations on earth. I heard the United Nations Human Rights Commission report that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children had doubled since the war began. I heard that only 5 per cent of the money Congress had allocated for reconstruction had actually been spent. I heard that in Fallujah people were living in tents pitched on the ruins of their houses.

I heard that this year’s budget included $105 billion for the War on Terror, which would bring the total to $300 billion. I heard that Halliburton was estimating that its bill for providing services to US troops in Iraq would exceed $10 billion. I heard that the family of an American soldier killed in Iraq receives $12,000.

I heard that the White House had deleted the chapter on Iraq from the annual Economic Report of the President, on the grounds that it did not conform with an otherwise cheerful tone.

Within a week in January I heard Condoleezza Rice say there were 120,000 Iraqi troops trained to take over the security of the country; I heard Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat from Delaware, say that the number was closer to 4000; I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘The fact of the matter is that there are 130,200 who have been trained and equipped. That’s a fact. The idea that that number’s wrong is just not correct. The number is right.’

I heard him explain the discrepancy: ‘Now, are some getting killed every day? Sure. Are some retiring at various times or injured? Yes, they’re gone.’ I remembered that a year before he had said the number was 210,000. I heard the Pentagon announce it would no longer release Iraqi troop figures.

I heard that 50,000 US soldiers in Iraq did not have body armour, because the army’s equipment manager had placed it at the same priority level as socks. I heard that soldiers were buying their own flak jackets with steel ‘trauma’ plates, Camelbak water pouches, ballistic goggles, knee and elbow pads, drop pouches to hold ammunition magazines, and load-bearing vests. I heard they were rigging their vehicles with pieces of scrap metal as protection against roadside bombs, since the production of armoured Humvees had fallen more than a year behind schedule and the few available armoured vehicles were mainly reserved for officers and visiting dignitaries.

I heard that the private security firm Custer Battles had been paid $15 million to provide security for civilian flights at Baghdad airport at a time when no planes were flying. I heard that US forces were still unable to secure the two-mile highway from the airport to the Green Zone.

I heard that the President’s uncle, Bucky Bush, had made half a million dollars cashing in his stock options in Engineered Support Systems Inc, a defence contractor that had received $100 million for work in Iraq. Bucky Bush is on the board of directors. I heard Dan Kreher, vice-president of investor relations for ESSI, say: ‘The fact his nephew is in the White House has absolutely nothing to do with Mr Bush being on our board or with our stock having gone up 1000 per cent in the past five years.’

READ THE REST.

Posted: 30 Dec. 2005

The mass media is pretty pathetic when we have to rely on Rolling Stone to tell it like it is.

The Magical Victory Tour
by MATT TAIBBI

While Iraq burns, the president keeps playing the same old song December 7th, 10:44 a.m., the sixty-fourth anniversary of Pearl Harbor day. I've just woken up with a line of drool on my face in the back row of a ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., where any minute now President George W. Bush will give the second address of his barnburning four-speech "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" tour.

There are no T-shirts for this concert tour, but if there were, the venue list on the back would make for one of the weirder souvenirs in rock & roll history. U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, November 30th, no advance publicity, closed audience: check. Here at the Omni, December 7th, again no advance warning, handpicked audience, ten reporters max (no one else knew about it), with even the cashiers in the hotel's coffee shop unaware of the president's presence: check. Dates three and four, venues and dates unknown for security reasons: check and check.

This is how President Bush takes his message to the people these days: in furtive sneak-attack addresses to closed audiences of elite friendlies at weird early-morning hours. If you want to catch Bush's act in person during this tour, you have to stalk him for days and keep both ears open for last-minute changes of plan; I actually missed the Annapolis speech when I made the mistake of briefly taking my eye off him the day before.

In the Obey Your Thirst/Image Is Everything era of American politics, Bush's National Victory campaign is a creepy innovation. It features the president thumping a document -- the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" -- that was largely written not by diplomats or generals but by a pair of academics from Duke University named Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi. Essentially a PR document, the paper is basically a living political experiment, designed to prove that Americans will more readily accept military casualties if the word "victory" is repeated a great many times in public.

"This is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency," Gelpi told The New York Times. "The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion."

In other words, this was really a National Strategy for Victory at Home. It was classic Bush-think: Instead of bombing the insurgency off the map, he bombs the map -- in lieu of actually fighting the war, a bold strategy, to be sure. But would it work?

READ THE REST.

Posted: 29 Dec. 2005

Project Shamrock
by Bruce Schneier

Decades before 9/11, and the subsequent Bush order that directed the NSA to eavesdrop on every phone call, e-mail message, and who-knows-what-else going into or out of the United States, U.S. citizens included, they did the same thing with telegrams. It was called Project Shamrock, and anyone who thinks this is new legal and technological terrain should read up on that program.

Project SHAMROCK...was an espionage exercise that involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data entering into or exiting from the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) and its successor NSA were given direct access to daily microfilm copies of all incoming, outgoing, and transiting telegraphs via the Western Union and its associates RCA and ITT. Operation Shamrock lasted well into the 1960s when computerized operations (HARVEST) made it possible to search for keywords rather than read through all communications.

Project SHAMROCK became so successful that in 1966 the NSA and CIA set up a front company in lower Manhattan (where the offices of the telegraph companies were located) under the codename LPMEDLEY. At the height of Project SHAMROCK, 150,000 messages a month were printed and analyzed by NSA agents. In May 1975 however, congressional critics began to investigate and expose the program. As a result, NSA director Lew Allen terminated it. The testimony of both the representatives from the cable companies and of director Allen at the hearings prompted Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Frank Church to conclude that Project SHAMROCK was "probably the largest government interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken."

If you want details, the best place is James Banford's books about the NSA: his 1982 book, The Puzzle Palace, and his 2001 book, Body of Secrets. This quote is from the latter book, page 440:

Among the reforms to come out of the Church Committee investigation was the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which for the first time outlined what NSA was and was not permitted to do. The new statute outlawed wholesale, warrantless acquisition of raw telegrams such as had been provided under Shamrock. It also outlawed the arbitrary compilation of watch list containing the names of Americans. Under FISA, a secret federal court was set up, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In order for NSA to target an American citizen or a permanent resident alien--a "green card" holder--within the United States, a secret warrant must be obtained from the court. To get the warrant, NSA officials must show that the person they wish to target is either an agent of a foreign power or involved in espionage or terrorism.

A lot of people are trying to say that it's a different world today, and that eavesdropping on a massive scale is not covered under the FISA statute, because it just wasn't possible or anticipated back then. That's a lie. Project Shamrock began in the 1950s, and ran for about twenty years. It too had a massive program to eavesdrop on all international telegram communications, including communications to and from American citizens. It too was to counter a terrorist threat inside the United States. It too was secret, and illegal. It is exactly, by name, the sort of program that the FISA process was supposed to get under control.

Twenty years ago, Senator Frank Church warned of the dangers of letting the NSA get involved in domestic intelligence gathering. He said that the "potential to violate the privacy of Americans is unmatched by any other intelligence agency." If the resources of the NSA were ever used domestically, "no American would have any privacy left.... There would be no place to hide.... We must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is an abyss from which there is no return."

Bush's eavesdropping program was explicitly anticipated in 1978, and made illegal by FISA. There might not have been fax machines, or e-mail, or the Internet, but the NSA did the exact same thing with telegrams.

We can decide as a society that we need to revisit FISA. We can debate the relative merits of police-state surveillance tactics and counterterrorism. We can discuss the prohibitions against spying on American citizens without a warrant, crossing over that abyss that Church warned us about twenty years ago. But the president can't simply decide that the law doesn't apply to him.

This issue is not about terrorism. It's not about intelligence gathering. It's about the executive branch of the United States ignoring a law, passed by the legislative branch and signed by President Jimmy Carter: a law that directs the judicial branch to monitor eavesdropping on Americans in national security investigations.

It's not the spying, it's the illegality.

Yeah, things are going just great in Iraq...unless you happen to live there.

Iraqi Shias abducted and killed
BBC News

About 12 Shia Muslims have been killed by insurgents who broke into their homes south of Baghdad, officials say.

The victims were reported to be members of the same extended family, living in the mainly Sunni town of Latifiya, about 30km (20 miles) south of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, a web statement attributed to al-Qaeda in Iraq said it was holding five Sudanese hostages, and would kill them unless Sudan cut ties with Iraq.

And Iraq's largest oil refinery has shut down over a security threat.

"Threats were made to tanker-truck drivers" and they have stopped reporting to the Baiji refinery in northern Iraq, causing it to cease output, said an oil ministry spokesman.

"Efforts are being made to convince the drivers to return to work," he added.

Oil exports have been further hit by storms that have prevented shipping from the Basra terminal, Reuters said.

READ THE REST.

I'll be Bush would love to have this kind of law here. A reminder of why we must fight to protect the Bill of Rights.

Partial reprieve for Turk writer
Orhan Pamuk's case has drawn international criticism
BBC Newss

Turkish state prosecutors have dropped one of two criminal charges against the best-selling writer Orhan Pamuk.

The charge that he had insulted Turkey's armed forces was dropped, but he still faces the charge that he insulted "Turkishness", lawyers said.

The case stems from a magazine interview earlier this year in which Mr Pamuk said: "One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it."

Mr Pamuk is being tried under Article 301, which makes it illegal to insult the republic, parliament or any organs of state. A guilty verdict can carry a prison sentence of up to three years.

READ THE REST.

Posted: 28 Dec. 2005

Revealed: the pill that prevents cancer
by Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 28 December 2005

A daily dose of vitamin D could cut the risk of cancers of the breast, colon and ovary by up to a half, a 40-year review of research has found. The evidence for the protective effect of the "sunshine vitamin" is so overwhelming that urgent action must be taken by public health authorities to boost blood levels, say cancer specialists.

A growing body of evidence in recent years has shown that lack of vitamin D may have lethal effects. Heart disease, lung disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis are among the conditions in which it is believed to play a vital role. The vitamin is also essential for bone health and protects against rickets in children and osteoporosis in the elderly.

After assessing almost every scientific paper published on the link between vitamin D and cancer since the 1960s, US scientists say that a daily dose of 1,000 international units (25 micrograms) is needed to maintain health. " The high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency combined with the discovery of increased risks of certain types of cancer in those who are deficient, suggest that vitamin D deficiency may account for several thousand premature deaths from colon, breast, ovarian and other cancers annually," they say in the online version of the American Journal of Public Health.

The dose they propose of 1,000IU a day is two-and-a-half times the current recommended level in the US. In the UK, there is no official recommended dose but grey skies and short days from October to March mean 60 per cent of the population has inadequate blood levels by the end of winter.

READ THE REST.

Big Brother is alive and well and living in the White House...and the Pentagon...and the FBI...and the NSA...

NSA just one of many federal agencies spying on Americans
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue

Spying on Americans by the super-secret National Security Agency is not only more widespread than President George W. Bush admits but is part of a concentrated, government-wide effort to gather and catalog information on U.S. citizens, sources close to the administration say.

Besides the NSA, the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors are spying on millions of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

“It’s a total effort to build dossiers on as many Americans as possible,” says a former NSA agent who quit in disgust over use of the agency to spy on Americans. “We’re no longer in the business of tracking our enemies. We’re spying on everyday Americans.”

READ THE REST.

Big Brother Bush
Domestic spying threatens fabric of republic
by Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas -- The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Thirty-five years ago, Richard Milhous Nixon, who was crazy as a bullbat, and J. Edgar Hoover, who wore women's underwear, decided some Americans had unacceptable political opinions. So they set our government to spying on its own citizens, basically those who were deemed insufficiently like Crazy Richard Milhous.

For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents. There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of our country.

The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John Yoo, who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.

READ THE REST.

Impeach the bastard.

Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency
New York Times op ed

George W. Bush has quipped several times during his political career that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his vice president that this was a joke.

Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr. Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers of the presidency - from writing energy policy behind closed doors with oil executives to abrogating longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions and spy on American citizens.

It was a chance Mr. Cheney seems to have been dreaming about for decades. Most Americans looked at wrenching events like the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the Iran-contra debacle and worried that the presidency had become too powerful, secretive and dismissive. Mr. Cheney looked at the same events and fretted that the presidency was not powerful enough, and too vulnerable to inspection and calls for accountability.

The president "needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy," Mr. Cheney said this week as he tried to stifle the outcry over a domestic spying program that Mr. Bush authorized after the 9/11 attacks.

Before 9/11, Mr. Cheney was trying to undermine the institutional and legal structure of multilateral foreign policy: he championed the abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow in order to build an antimissile shield that doesn't work but makes military contractors rich. Early in his tenure, Mr. Cheney, who quit as chief executive of Halliburton to run with Mr. Bush in 2000, gathered his energy industry cronies at secret meetings in Washington to rewrite energy policy to their specifications. Mr. Cheney offered the usual excuses about the need to get candid advice on important matters, and the courts, sadly, bought it. But the task force was not an exercise in diverse views. Mr. Cheney gathered people who agreed with him, and allowed them to write national policy for an industry in which he had recently amassed a fortune.

READ THE REST.

He scares the crap out of me.

Bush beats Gollum to Movie Villain of the Year award
The people have spoken
By Lester Haines
Published Thursday 28th October 2004 12:08 GMT

George Bush has seen off some stiff competition to win Total Film magazine's movie Villain of the Year, the London Evening Standard reports.

Bush was awarded the honour for his role in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and in the process eclipsed the contributions of shortlisted Doctor Octopus, Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Gollum and Elle Driver (Kill Bill) to the cause of world villainy. Total Film editor Matt Mueller told the Standard: "It is possible that people have been a little bit tongue in cheek here, but they are also saying that Bush was very scary in Fahrenheit 9/11. He was absolutely terrifying in that film. He looked like a man who had lost control - the famous scene where he sits there in a school, absolutely paralysed, after being told about the twin towers, is just one example."

Around 10,000 people took part in the Total Film poll - which will be published in full in the magazine's next issue on 4 November, just two days after Americans flock to the polls to vote for their "US Presidential Candidate of the Year". ®

The Bush regime has no shame. No shame at all.

U.S. stalls on human trafficking
Pentagon has yet to ban contractors from using forced labor
By Cam Simpson
Washington Bureau
Published December 27, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Three years ago, President Bush declared that he had "zero tolerance" for trafficking in humans by the government's overseas contractors, and two years ago Congress mandated a similar policy.

But notwithstanding the president's statement and the congressional edict, the Defense Department has yet to adopt a policy to bar human trafficking.

A proposal prohibiting defense contractor involvement in human trafficking for forced prostitution and labor was drafted by the Pentagon last summer, but five defense lobbying groups oppose key provisions and a final policy still appears to be months away, according to those involved and Defense Department records.

The lobbying groups opposing the plan say they're in favor of the idea in principle, but said they believe that implementing key portions of it overseas is unrealistic. They represent thousands of firms, including some of the industry's biggest names, such as DynCorp International and Halliburton subsidiary KBR, both of which have been linked to trafficking-related concerns.

Lining up on the opposite side of the defense industry are some human-trafficking experts who say significant aspects of the Pentagon's proposed policy might actually do more harm than good unless they're changed. These experts have told the Pentagon that the policy would merely formalize practices that have allowed contractors working overseas to escape punishment for involvement in trafficking, the records show.

READ THE REST.

Posted: 23 Dec. 2005

This moves me to tears...tears fueled by rage at the utter hypocrisy of it all.

Culture of Life: Pull the plug on conscious patients - W's law.
by YucatanMan

No one here can forget the spectacle made over the death of Terri Schiavo, whose brain had died long, long ago. But in Texas, the law George W. Bush signed as governor allows doctors to inform the family that further treatment is hopeless (and costly) and Pull the Plug. Literally.

In the latest case to escape the Culture of Life warriors, Tirhas Habtegiris, a young woman and legal immigrant from Africa, was CONSCIOUS and responsive when removed from a respirator and allowed to die.

Let me rephrase that: She was killed by doctors who removed the ventilator keeping her alive. And this action was fully legal under Bush's "economic considerations" law. Her body was ravaged by cancer, but she was alert. She was responsive.

"They handed me this letter on December 1st. and they said, we're going to give you 10 days so on the 11th day, we're going to pull it out," said her brother Daniel Salvi.

Salvi was stunned to get this hand-delivered notice invoking a complicated and rarely used Texas law where a doctor is "not obligated to continue" medical treatment ....

She wasn't white. Politicians did not speculate on her diagnosis via video tape. Conservative religious zealots did not picket the hospital. She didn't have insurance. Ventilator treatment is expensive. Baylor did not want to incur any more expenses. So they removed a conscious woman from a respirator.

THIS is the true face of "compassionate conservatism" and of the phony "culture of life". They don't give a rat's ass, as long as the insurance will pay the bill. No insurance? Good-bye, you die.

...Tirhas still responded and was conscious. She was waiting one person.

"She wanted to get her mom over here or to get to her mom so she could die in her mom's arms," says her cousin Meri Tesfay.

Ten days was not enough time, they say, to get a mother from Africa to America.

The family and hospital desperately tried to get Tirhas moved to a nursing home but they say no one would take her.

"A fund issue is what I understand. Because she is not insured and that was the major reason the way I understood it," Salvi said.

A statement from Baylor Plano disputes that and says the hospital did its best to comply with the family's wishes in every way.

Still, on the 11th day, Tirhas Habtegiris was taken off the respirator and died.

A dying person's last request: To die with her mother by her side. Yet, "economic considerations" are more important in Texas than compassion. Without insurance, you are literally condemned to death if you need expensive treatment.

"It was against our will to unplug her. We never wanted that."

After the fact, the hospital claims they were willing to help bring the mother from Africa, but the family here in Dallas says they were told time had run out. Yes, the hospital was willing to help, but only within 10 days. Otherwise... the bill.

Tirhas Habtegiris would not have recovered from her cancer. There is no dispute of that. But... just to see her mother one more time. That was all she asked. And the hospital allowed 10 days before treatment was discontinued.

Daniel Salvi and his family surrounded his sister's bedside Monday at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano and watched doctors take the 27-year-old off life support.

"It didn't take long -- 15 to 16 minutes," Tirhas Habtegiris' brother recalled.

Can you imagine what it must be like to know you are dying for 15 minutes? Every time some wing-nut Republican politician trots out the phrase "culture of life", remember Tirhas Habtegiris. Reflect on a conscious person knowing that life-giving air was being cut off.

Sit quietly for 15 minutes and contemplate how hopeless and horrifying that must feel. Recall the abject hypocrisy of Schiavo: Bush rushed back to Washington (more than he did for New Orleans) to sign the Schiavo Federal Court review legislation. But, Tirhas Habtegiris died quietly, died for 15 minutes, without anyone knowing, without politicians manipulating her life and death, never uncared about within the phony "culture of life."

And she died without seeing her mother one last time.

Posted: 21 Dec. 2005

Impeach the bastards.

Report | The Constitution in Crisis
By House Judiciary Committee Minority Staff
Tuesday 20 December 2005

The Downing Street minutes and deception, manipulation, torture, retribution, and coverups in the Iraq war.

Full Report: www.truthout.org/3.122005ConRes.pdf

Executive Summary

This Minority Report has been produced at the request of Representative John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. He made this request in the wake of the President's failure to respond to a letter submitted by 122 Members of Congress and more than 500,000 Americans in July of this year asking him whether the assertions set forth in the Downing Street Minutes were accurate. Mr. Conyers asked staff, by year end 2005, to review the available information concerning possible misconduct by the Bush Administration in the run up to the Iraq War and post-invasion statements and actions, and to develop legal conclusions and make legislative and other recommendations to him.

READ THE REST.

I strongly recommend reading this entire essay by security expert, Bruce Schneier. It's packed with vital information and dozens of informative links.

Schneier on Security
The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power

This past Thursday, the New York Times exposed the most significant violation of federal surveillance law in the post-Watergate era. President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to engage in domestic spying, wiretapping thousands of Americans and bypassing the legal procedures regulating this activity.

This isn't about the spying, although that's a major issue in itself. This is about the Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search. This is about circumventing a teeny tiny check by the judicial branch, placed there by the legislative branch, placed there 27 years ago -- on the last occasion that the executive branch abused its power so broadly.

In defending this secret spying on Americans, Bush said that he relied on his constitutional powers (Article 2) and the joint resolution passed by Congress after 9/11 that led to the war in Iraq. This rationale was spelled out in a memo written by John Yoo, a White House attorney, less than two weeks after the attacks of 9/11. It's a dense read and a terrifying piece of legal contortionism, but it basically says that the president has unlimited powers to fight terrorism. He can spy on anyone, arrest anyone, and kidnap anyone and ship him to another country ... merely on the suspicion that he might be a terrorist. And according to the memo, this power lasts until there is no more terrorism in the world.

Yoo starts by arguing that the Constitution gives the president total power during wartime. He also notes that Congress has recently been quiescent when the president takes some military action on his own, citing President Clinton's 1998 strike against Sudan and Afghanistan.

Yoo then says: "The terrorist incidents of September 11, 2001, were surely far graver a threat to the national security of the United States than the 1998 attacks. ... The President's power to respond militarily to the later attacks must be correspondingly broader."

This is novel reasoning. It's as if the police would have greater powers when investigating a murder than a burglary.

More to the point, the congressional resolution of Sept. 14, 2001, specifically refused the White House's initial attempt to seek authority to preempt any future acts of terrorism, and narrowly gave Bush permission to go after those responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

Yoo's memo ignored this. Written 11 days after Congress refused to grant the president wide-ranging powers, it admitted that "the Joint Resolution is somewhat narrower than the President's constitutional authority," but argued "the President's broad constitutional power to use military force ... would allow the President to ... [take] whatever actions he deems appropriate ... to pre-empt or respond to terrorist threats from new quarters."

Even if Congress specifically says no.

READ THE REST.

From The Center for American Progress.

NATIONAL SECURITY
Warrantless Spying Apologetics Continue

Concern over President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program is growing. U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret FISA Court, took the extraordinary step of resigning on Monday "in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program." Associates of Judge Robertson, who was appointed to the court by late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, said he had "privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work." Also yesterday, a bipartisan group of senators, including Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), called "for a joint investigation by the Senate judiciary and intelligence panels into the classified program."

Meanwhile, the Bush administration and its supporters in Congress continue to mount defenses of the President's activities. Some are simply rhetorical flourish: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said on Monday, "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead." Sen. Russ Feingold's (D-WI) retort, borrowed from Patrick Henry, was fitting: "Give me liberty or give me death." But other defenses of the program require deeper analysis: President Bush has argued that his authority to spy on Americans without a court order derives from the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress after September 11. Others have issued defenses that boil down to the claim, "President Clinton did it too." None are accurate.

DEBUNKING THE WAR RESOLUTION MYTH: President Bush said on Monday that he did not have to secure warrants to spy on Americans because "after September the 11th, the United States Congress also granted me additional authority to use military force against al Qaeda." Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made the same case, in greater detail. But Congress clearly did not intend for the AUMF passed after 9/11 to authorize such activities. When the authorization was debated on September 14, 2001, members of Congress were extremely clear about the limited authority it gave the President. Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) noted that it provided "no new or additional grant of powers to the President." Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) argued, "Some people say that is a broad change in authorization to the Commander in Chief of this country. It is not. It is a very limited concept."

DEBUNKING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER MYTH: Conservative activist Matt Drudge yesterday posted the following headline on his popular website: "Clinton Executive Order: Secret Search on Americans Without Court Order." This is false. Drudge highlights one sentence from an executive order issued by President Clinton in February 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order." But the order also includes the following text: "Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) [50 U.S.C. 1822(a)] of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] Act (FISA), the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section." That section of FISA requires the Attorney General to certify that the search will not involve "the premises, information, material, or property of a United States person." That means U.S. citizens or anyone inside of the United States. In stark contrast, Bush’s program permits, for the first time ever, warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and other people inside of the United States. Neither Clinton’s 1995 executive order, nor President Carter's 1979 executive order (which Drudge also claims allows warrantless searches of Americans) authorizes that.

DEBUNKING THE GORELICK MYTH: A related argument was made yesterday by Byron York in a National Review article titled "Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches." The article cites then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick’s July 14, 1994 testimony that "the President has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." Sen. Cornyn cited the testimony several times yesterday. What York obscures is that, at the time of Gorelick's testimony, physical searches were not covered under FISA. It’s not surprising that, in 1994, Gorelick argued that physical searches were not covered by FISA. They weren't. With Clinton’s backing, the law was amended in 1995 to include physical searches. The distinction is clear. The Clinton administration viewed FISA, a criminal statute, as the law. The Bush administration viewed FISA as a set of recommendations they could ignore.

DEBUNKING THE ECHELON MYTH: Another variation of the "Clinton did it" argument involves a top-secret surveillance program employed by the Clinton administration, code-named Echelon. The conservative outlet NewsMax presents the basic case: "During the 1990’s under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon…all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks." This is false. The Echelon program complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. Then-CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00: "We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."

BUDGET
Congress's Holiday Shenanigans

As the Senate prepares to vote on the federal budget, members turned to manure metaphors to describe the situation. "It all hits the fan tomorrow," Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) warned, and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said about the budget, "It's a bill to hold one's nose and let it go through." The Detroit Free Press agreed with their assessment: "[S]ome of the methods used to get things done [in Congress] just reek to high heaven." What stinks so badly in Washington, D.C. today? First, Vice President Cheney is set to cast the tiebreaking vote on a budget that hurts the poor, helps special interest lobbies, and does not address budget deficits. Second, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has hit a new low with his efforts to attach a provisions allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge onto a defense spending bill. Not only are the ends foul, but the means by which conservatives plan on implementing their policies are truly unsavory. "The American people will see this for what it is, a cynical approach to legislating that will further erode public confidence in the federal government," Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-ME) spokeswoman said. We hope she's right.

A BUDGET ONLY SCROOGE COULD LOVE: The budget in its current from "would cause considerable hardship among low-income families and people who are elderly or have disabilities." The budget would increase Medicaid co-pays and premiums, and some who are now paying $3 for hospital services would later pay upwards of $100 for the same service. Elderly and disabled persons on Medicare will face higher premiums. Meanwhile, new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provisions would encourage states to "exclude poor two-parent families from assistance." Child support enforcement is also on the chopping block. Students, "who already borrow an average of $18,000 to finance their college educations," would face a $12.7 billion cut in education aid. The United States Student Association says the cuts would add thousands of dollars to student loan interest payments. ECONOMY -- TREASURY SECRETARY CLAIMS CLINTON'S SURPLUS WAS A 'MIRAGE': Bloomberg reports that Treasury Secretary John Snow called the $127 billion budget surplus left by President Clinton a "mirage." Upon entering office, President Bush immediately whittled away the Clinton surplus, running up a deficit of $319 billion in 2005 primarily through handsome tax cuts for the wealthy. But Snow incredulously believes "the president's legacy will be one of having significantly reduced the deficit in his time." "Snow's comment would be laughable if it weren't so pathetically and obviously inaccurate," said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution. Snow's economic analysis that Clinton's surplus "wasn't a real surplus" ranks up there with Vice President Cheney's prior claim that "deficits don't matter."

IRAQ -- ELECTION RESULTS SOW SEEDS OF SECTARIAN CONFLICT: The Independent writes of the Iraqi election returns, "Iraq is disintegrating. The first results from the parliamentary election last week show the country is dividing between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions." The Seattle Times writes, "Post-election harmony in Iraq is unraveling." The Shia religious coalition, which is closely tied to Iran, appears to have achieved a "total victory in Baghdad and the south of Iraq" while Sunni and Kurdish parties are likely to win large majorities in their ethnic-majority regions. The Asia Times said of the outcome, "Iran wins big in Iraq's elections." Sounding despair at the results, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said, "It looks as if people have preferred to vote for their ethnic or sectarian identities. But for Iraq to succeed there has to be cross-ethnic and cross-sectarian co-operation." Former LA Times columnist Robert Scheer suggests that the U.S. hope is "that Shiite and Sunni fanatics can check each other long enough for the United States to beat a credible retreat and call it a victory, albeit a pyrrhic one."

ETHICS -- DELAY LIVES LAVISH LIFE WITH CAMPAIGN AND CHARITY CONTRIBUTIONS: Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) has become "a king of campaign fundraising, [and] he lived like one too." DeLay -- who has been indicted for money laundering in connection with the 2002 Texas elections -- has raised $35 million for his campaign, PACs, foundation, and legal defense fund since 1995. The Associated Press reports that over $1 million of this money has gone toward DeLay's lavish lifestyle: "at least 48 visits to golf clubs and resorts; 100 flights aboard company planes; 200 stays at hotels, many world-class; and 500 meals at restaurants, some averaging nearly $200 for a dinner for two." DeLay's personal spending far exceeds that of other lawmakers, and Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) noted, "It’s excessive, it’s obscene, it distorts someone’s ability to have good judgment. ... It’s an abuse of campaign finance law and of our ethics law."

Posted: 20 Dec. 2005

I've been too busy to post the multitude of articles and opinion pieces that have been flying by. I am angered and heartened by two large issues.

Thanks to a Bush-appointed judge, the nutjobs who are trying to push their "Intelligent Design" belief into science classes have been told to shove off and keep their religious dogma where it belongs, which is not in a science classroom. Finally, a hint of sanity.

Like so many other Americans who care about the values upon which our country were founded, and the documents that embody it -- namely the Constitution and the Bill or Rights -- I am infuriated with the non-stop chutzpah, lies and illegal activities of the Bush regime. Bush can scarcely open his mouth without more lies tumbling out. He and his neocons are trying to undermine every value our country is built upon by destroying civil liberties, enabling and condoning torture, invading another country upon lies and pretext, ignoring the checks and balances the Founding Fathers wisely put in place to prevent tyranny by any one branch of government, especially the Executive. Bush wants a power grab, pure and simple, a de facto dictatorship in which he and his ilk can do whatever they damn well please.

But they're being called on it. Finally, FINALLY, the word impeachment is being used. Impeach the bastards, I say. Not that a Republican-controlled Congress will ever let this happen, but if they can go after Clinton hammer and tong over a friggin' blow job, they owe it to the country to go after Bush for breaking far more serious laws.

Please communicate with your senators and your representative. Write letters to your local newspaper. Let your voice be heard. It's time to take back our country from the lunatics who have hijacked it.

Posted: 17 Dec. 2005

I'd give a lot to be see absolute proof behind some of these ideas.

Distinguished University of Minnesota Philosophy Professor Joins 9/11 Fight, Saying the Truth Must Be Uncovered
James H.Fetzer, PhD., has publicly thrown his hat in the ring to support other professors seriously questioning and casting doubt on the official 9/11 story.

By Greg Szymanski

EXCERPTS: A University of Minnesota philosophy professor, like an unexpected Christmas snowstorm, has dropped a large bundle of holiday cheer on the 9/11 truth movement, as this week he has thrown his hat into the ring with others seeking the truth.

Fetzer has published more than 100 articles and reviews as well as 20 books in the philosophy of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science.

“Most Americans may not realize that no steel-structure high-rise building has ever collapsed from fire in the history of civil engineering, either before or after 9/11,” wrote Fetzer. “If we assume that those fires have occurred in a wide variety of buildings under a broad range of conditions, that evidence suggests that these buildings do not have a propensity to collapsed as an effect of fire. That makes an alternative explanation, especially the use of powerful explosives in a controlled demolition, a hypothesis that must be taken seriously.”

READ THE REST.

Posted: 6 Dec. 2005

Time for a few yuks.

How to Spot a Terrorist

He has also noted that an anagram of Ann Coulter's name is Unclean Rot. How perfect.

This website concerning 9/11 does a good job of compiling many different sources. Here's what they say about themselves:

Welcome . . . and congratulations for your willingness to look at the proof about 9-11.

No matter how painful the facts raised by this site may be, we -- as patriotic Americans and people of good faith -- must look at the evidence for ourselves.

This site is wholly non-partisan, and not intended to criticize or to bolster any political party. The sources cited come from across the political spectrum. The issues raised transcend political differences, and are vital to conservatives, liberals and moderates; they affect your life whether you are a republican, democratic, independent, or non-voter.

This website provides links to credible sources, so that you can easily check the information for yourself. Just read and click. And then make up your own mind.

GO TO 911Proof.com

From The Center for American Progress.

RADICAL RIGHT -- FORD MOTOR CO. CAVES TO RIGHT WING'S HOMOPHOBIC AGENDA: Ford Motor Company has announced that "it will cut back on advertising in gay-oriented publications" after the right-wing American Family Association (AFA) threatened a boycott of the company for Ford's "track record for supporting the homosexual agenda." In the past, Ford received praise from gay rights organizations, promoting LGBT workplace diversity and donating to gay causes, including the Human Rights Campaign. While Jaguar and Land Rover ads will be pulled from gay publications, a Ford spokesperson could not confirm whether donations to LGBT organizations will continue. AFA chairman, Donald E. Wildmon, was pleased with Ford's decision: "They've heard our concerns," he said. "They are acting on our concerns." The right-wing Christian organization, Focus on the Family, was less successful in convincing its banker, Wells Fargo, to change its agenda. Focus has fired Wells Fargo after the banking company's decision to make a matching grant to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

IRAQ -- RUMSFELD'S RULES FOR MEDIA COVERAGE OF IRAQ WAR: In an address at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld blamed the press for depicting a deteriorating situation on the ground in Iraq, arguing the country is "on a greatly improved path." Rumsfeld said "news media organizations were focusing too much on casualties and mistakes by the military in Iraq and were failing to provide a full picture of the progress toward stabilizing the country." Washington Post columinst Richard Cohen responds by noting it was Rumsfeld's "mistakes, miscalculations and arrogant dismissal of dissent [that] have cost American (and Iraqi) lives and prolonged the conflict." Rumsfeld's numerous miscalculations, writes Cohen, include, among other things "fighting the war on the cheap -- in terms of both manpower and money" and dismissing the "looting that stripped Iraq bare following the war, setting the stage for the chaos and lawlessness that persist to this day." Cohen concludes, "When it comes to Iraq, if the United States is going to stay, then Rumsfeld has to go." Some pundits inside the beltway have begun speculating Rumsfeld may be on his way out, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) may be on his way in.

CORRUPTION -- CUNNINGHAM CO-CONSPIRATOR RAN WASHINGTON, D.C. 'HOSPITALITY SUITE': Military contractor Brent Wilkes, named as "co-conspirator No. 1" in the Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) case, was "a political operative" who "knew how to grease the wheels" to gain influence with lawmakers. Wilkes's contacts reached to the top of government, including to the CIA's third-in-command, Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, Wilkes's best friend since high school. He was able to "identify which politicians should be given donations" in order to gain lucrative contracts. Wilkes also gave generously to legislators -- including over $100,000 to Cunningham -- "and ran a hospitality suite, with several bedrooms, in Washington – first in the Watergate Hotel and then in the Westin Grand near Capitol Hill." Hospitality suite?

ETHICS -- JUDGE'S RULING THWARTS DELAY'S RETURN TO LEADERSHIP: A Texas judge ruled yesterday that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) should stand trial for money-laundering allegations. The judge threw out the lesser charge of conspiracy. DeLay and two of his fundraisers, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, "are accused of illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate donations to 2002 Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns, but it can be used for administrative purposes." The decision by the judge threw a wrench into DeLay's plans to return to his leadership post in the House, making it likely that his colleagues will soon hold an election to choose new leaders. Rep. Charles Bass (R-NH) said of the DeLay situation, "We have a very strange and somewhat murky leadership structure, and I'm not sure that's good for the discipline and our ability to work together."

UNITED NATIONS -- BOLTON THREATENING TO BLOCK UNITED NATIONS BUDGET PROCESS: "Muscular diplomacy is one thing. But John Bolton has been all muscle and no diplomacy" during his tenure as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, concluded the New York Times's editorial staff. He is threatening to block the entire two-year operating budget of the U.N. "unless his demands for major reforms are met almost immediately." Bolton "has called for the United Nations to approve a budget for three or four months rather than the usual two-year budget," a move opposed by the vast majority of the U.N. members, including Britain and Japan. A stop-gap budget would leave the United Nations "with a deficit of $320 million in the first quarter of 2006" and would likely cut "recruitment, travel, equipment purchases and salary payments," according to Warren Sach, assistant secretary general and controller.

Posted: 5 Dec. 2005

I keep waiting for the mass media to wake up and report the lies of the Bush regime.

Bullet Points over Baghdad
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Friday 02 December 2005

The National Security Council document released this week under the grandiose title "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" is neither an analytical report nor a policy statement. It's simply the same old talking points - "victory in Iraq is a vital U.S. interest"; "failure is not an option" - repackaged in the style of a slide presentation for a business meeting.

It's an embarrassing piece of work. Yet it's also an important test for the news media. The Bush administration has lost none of its confidence that it can get away with fuzzy math and fuzzy facts - that it won't be called to account for obvious efforts to mislead the public. It's up to journalists to prove that confidence wrong.

Here's an example of how the White House attempts to mislead: the new document assures us that Iraq's economy is doing really well. "Oil production increased from an average of 1.58 million barrels per day in 2003, to an average of 2.25 million barrels per day in 2004." The document goes on to concede a "slight decrease" in production since then.
We're not expected to realize that the daily average for 2003 includes the months just before, during and just after the invasion of Iraq, when its oil industry was basically shut down. As a result, we're not supposed to understand that the real story of Iraq's oil industry is one of unexpected failure: instead of achieving the surge predicted by some of the war's advocates, Iraqi production has rarely matched its prewar level, and has been on a downward trend for the past year.

READ THE REST.

From Grist on-line magazine.

Bush administration gamed analysis of competing air-pollution plans

Now, we know you're going to find this hard to believe, but ... it seems the Bush administration has been less than truthful about its industry-friendly air-pollution proposal. In late October, the U.S. EPA released a report purporting to demonstrate that its "Clear Skies" legislation delivered the most bang for the least cost, compared to competing proposals from Sens. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) and James Jeffords (I-Vt.). But the independent, nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has determined that the numbers were massaged in favor of the Bush plan -- exaggerating the costs of controlling mercury and underestimating the economic benefits of fewer people getting sick or dying from air pollution. EPA says the CRS report "largely ignores and misinterprets our analysis." But the two senators feel vindicated. Says a Carper spokesflack, "The report clearly states that there's no reason to settle for the president's Clear Skies plan."

From The Center for American Progress.

Out of Touch

Today, President Bush will travel to North Carolina to tout an economy the White House says is "cooking along" with "strong and sustained economic growth." Ordinary Americans do not share the president's enthusiasm: 63 percent of Americans characterize the economy as "bad," "very bad," or "terrible," and "by 58 to 36 percent people say economic conditions are getting worse, not better." The divide is understandable. For the beneficiaries of President Bush's economic policies -- major corporations and wealthy Americans -- times are booming. Inflation-adjusted corporate profits have risen more than 50 percent since the last quarter of 2001. But the basic test of an administration is not whether it can merely improve the lot of the comfortable and well-off; it's whether growth and opportunity can be spread throughout an economy. As public opinion numbers show, President Bush has not passed this test. Middle and working-class Americans are frustrated with the economy for the simple fact that it's not working for them. Despite positive job and GDP indicators, most families are losing economic ground -- losing purchasing power, stretching stagnant wages, and piling up debt.

MAKING LESS MONEY: Real wages have declined heavily this year, and have remained stagnant both since the end of the recession and since Bush took office. In other words, the average American worker hasn't had a raise above inflation since President Bush took office. Inflation-adjusted hourly wages were about as high last October as in March 2001. Inflation-adjusted weekly earnings in October were 0.7 percent lower than in March 2001. Labor Department figures released Friday show wages continued to be flat or even lower than at the start of the business cycle in November. Hourly wages for production, non-supervisory workers -- the vast majority of workers -- rose by just 0.2 percent, while weekly earnings actually fell by 0.1 percent, before the effects of inflation are even taken into account.

FALLING INTO THE DEBT TRAP: With spending growth outstripping disposable income, personal savings rates have plummeted. In August, the personal savings rate dropped to negative 2.2 percent, a level not seen since the Great Depression, and remained negative for the fourth straight month in October. As a result, households are now spending a record 13.6 percent of their disposable income to service their outstanding debt. In the third quarter of 2005, all banks reported that the ratio of consumer loans that were in default, including credit card debt, rose to over 3 percent for the first time in more than two years. And as we continue to borrow to finance the debts of the government and American consumers, the current account deficit has ballooned -- on pace for a record $800 billion this year -- requiring us to borrow $3 billion per business day to finance our spending excess. President Bush's job record is still too weak to allow middle-class families to escape the debt trap. Without stronger, prolonged, broad-based employment growth and a clear turnaround in wages, millions of Americans will continue to struggle under a mountain of debt amassed over the past few years.

'MISERY INDEX' HITS TWELVE-YEAR HIGH: "If you ask the classic Ronald Reagan question, 'Are you better off now than you were four years ago?' a large number of Americans are in fact not better off," says Michael Mussa, a member of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers from 1986 to 1988. Bloomberg News notes that Mussa's assessment "is reflected in the 'misery index,' a combination of the rates of unemployment and inflation, which reached a 12-year high of 9.8 in September as energy prices escalated." That is higher than the 7.8 level when President Bush took office and "higher than the average of 8.7 during the past two decades."

TALKING TAX RELIEF: President Bush will also be speaking about taxes today, partly because even many conservatives are now balking at more tax cuts for the rich. (The Economist magazine says this development heralds the end of the "era of irresponsibility.") President Bush's idea of tax relief is demonstrated by his backing of the immoral House budget plan to cut $50 billion from Medicaid, food stamps and student loans while spending tens of billions of dollars on tax cuts for people earning over $1 million per year. There's a way to reform the tax code that's consistent with progressive values. The Center for American Progress released a plan earlier this year to restore fairness, simplicity, and opportunity to the tax system. To restore fairness, the Center proposes taxing wage and investment income at the same rate, reducing the share employees pay into the regressive payroll tax, and increasing the take-home pay for working families. To simplify the tax code, the Center's plan would reduce the number of tax brackets to three, close corporate and individual tax loopholes, and eliminate the AMT. By restoring fiscal discipline and offering increased incentives to save, the plan would implement a progressive growth strategy while making the tax system less complex.

ETHICS -- CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL: Despite a flurry of recent congressional ethics scandals, including the guilty pleas of former Rep. Duke Cunningham and lobbyist Michael Scanlon and the continuing investigation into lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the House committee responsible for upholding the chamber's ethics code has been asleep at the wheel. The Washington Post writes, "With a California congressman headed to prison for accepting bribes and several others under investigation for accepting lavish gifts and money from former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, one might expect the House committee to have a lot of work to do. But the committee's five Republican and five Democratic members have not opened a new case or launched an investigation in the past 12 months." In fact, the committee "has been virtually moribund for the past year" in the midst of staffing changes and a new chairman. "This is really an important time for Congress to step up and say this is going way too far and something needs to be done about it," said Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS -- STATE DEPARTMENT USING IDEOLOGICAL LITMUS TESTS TO SCREEN AMERICANS: The State Department has been using political litmus tests "to screen private American citizens before they can be sent overseas to represent the United States, weeding out critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy," Knight-Ridder reports. One State Department official said he does not know of a blacklist of banned scholars, but "there certainly is a 'white list' of those who can go." In one case, David L. Phillips, a leading expert on conflict resolution and State Department adviser, had his participation in a U.S. Embassy-sponsored teleconference in Jerusalem abruptly canceled, as a result of his book "Losing Iraq" that was critical of President Bush. In another case, "a request by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, to arrange a visit by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who lived in Indonesia when he was young, was delayed for seven months. The visit never occurred."

ETHICS -- FRIST'S LEGISLATIVE RECORD FILLED WITH ATTEMPTS TO LINE THE POCKETS OF FAMILY BUSINESS: Since Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) entered the Senate 10 years ago, he has repeatedly sponsored and supported bills that benefit HCA Inc., the "Nashville-based hospital company that's been the foundation of the Frist family's wealth." The Nashville Tennessean reviewed Frist's legislative proposals and found a number of examples where Frist's actions would serve to benefit his family's wealth. One example is a bill Frist introduced in July to help insure the uninsured and limit jury awards. Other bills supported by Frist have given hospitals more money for treating seniors and curbed development of physician-owned specialty hospitals that compete with HCA. Another example the paper notes is that "several years ago, [Frist] fought a Democratic-sponsored version of a 'patients' bill of rights' that would have allowed patients to sue their HMOs and collect unlimited damages. Physician groups such as the American Medical Association supported the bill, but Frist, a former heart-lung transplant surgeon at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, opposed it." The bill, if it passed, would have limited HCA's revenue. Frist remains under investigation by the SEC and the Department of Justice for selling his stock in the company one month before the price took a sharp dive.

Posted: 3 Dec. 2005

This was such clear cut corruption when it happened, I am astounded it took this long for this to be revealed. The question now is -- what can be done about it? Because something damn well should be done about it.

Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal
Voting Rights Finding On Map Pushed by DeLay Was Overruled
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 2, 2005

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded.

The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled discriminatory compared with other options.

But the Texas legislature proceeded with the new map anyway because it would maximize the number of Republican federal lawmakers in the state, the memo said. The redistricting was approved in 2003, and Texas Republicans gained five seats in the U.S. House in the 2004 elections, solidifying GOP control of Congress.

READ THE REST.

I'm starting to like this woman. ;)

The Autumn of the Patriarchy
By MAUREEN DOWD

In the vice president's new, more fortified bunker, inside his old undisclosed secure location within the larger bunker that used to be called the West Wing of the White House, Dick Cheney was muttering and sputtering.

He wasn't talking to the pictures on the wall, as Nixon did when he finally cracked. Vice doesn't trust those portraits anyway. The walls have ears. He was talking to the only reliable man in a city of dimwits, cowards, traitors and fools: himself.

He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the picture of Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of Churchill. Winston Chalabi, he likes to call him.

Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping - and that's just inside the White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed to be his own. He's the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and conspire.

The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York's Daily News that embattled White House aides felt "President Bush must take the reins personally" to save his presidency.

Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire enough for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to his presidency, Vice holds Junior's reins. So he just needs to get all these sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the master plan.

Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up and running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about Saddam's being responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. Everything was groovy.

But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In Wyoming, Vice shoots doves.

How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just because he served in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started his own war. Now that's a credential!

It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of armor for the troops. Then they complain that there aren't enough troops. Well, that would just require more armor that we don't have. Then they kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja. Vice likes the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.

What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making noises about timetables. Before you know it, it's going to be helicopters on the rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.

Just because Junior's approval ratings are in the 30's, people around here are going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn't worried. Numbers are for sissies.

Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the White House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about lying about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops lying.

He didn't want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to themselves what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.

Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay's on the ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on antique commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an amateur get involved with defense contracts.

Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about re-election. Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their bread is oiled on. Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught lying about the energy task force meeting, while Vice can't even get a little thing like torture chambers through the Senate. What's so wrong with a little torture?

And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his plan for Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the president is answerable to America?

Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George Senior and Colin Powell. If Poppy's upset about his kid's mentor, he should be man enough to come slug it out.

Poppy isn't getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: "He's my son. It's my war. It's my country."

(And the bad news is: this man is our vice president.)

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

From Grist on-line magazine.

Waning of Atlantic currents could chill Europe

Remember that movie The Day After Tomorrow? With the shifting ocean currents that cause sudden, catastrophic climate changes? Crazy stuff! Michael Moore territory! Well ... funny story. Turns out the Atlantic Ocean currents that move warm tropical waters northward and cooler waters south have in fact slowed dramatically -- by about 30 percent in the past 50 years, according to a new study in the journal Nature. The likely culprit? Disruption in the salinity and density of Atlantic waters brought about by increased "freshening" with more rain and melting glaciers, thanks to global warming. This could be bad news for northwestern Europe, which depends on that hit of tropical heat for its mild climate. A total shutdown of the Atlantic current system -- still deemed unlikely so far -- could cool the region by several degrees over 10 to 20 years. Hello, ice age! Researchers say a lot more study is needed, but most seem alarmed by the findings. And alarmed researchers make us nervous.

From The Center for American Progress.

INTELLIGENCE -- BRITISH EFFORT TO KEEP DOWNING STREET MEMO SECRET BACKFIRES: The British government's attempts to "crackdown on government leaks" has actually called more attention to the top secret No. 10 Downing Street memo, which has evidence that President Bush considered bombing the headquarters of Arab television station Al-Jazeera. The British attorney general has threatened that anyone who reveals the contents of the memo would be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act and two former British officials already face charges. The report on the memo, published by the Daily Mirror, was originally dismissed by most media outlets. Only when the British government tried to quiet the story by invoking the Official Secrets Act did the rest of the world start to take notice: "If the attorney general hadn’t issued his warning, the story probably would have died," one British media executive said.

HEALTH CARE -- PART-TIME WORKERS OVERWHELMINGLY LACK HEALTH CARE: Eighty percent (approximately 27 million Americans) of the nation's part-time workforce lack health insurance, according to a study released today by the Iowa Policy Project. By comparison, only 25 percent of the full-time workforce is without coverage. Additionally, "21 percent of nonstandard employees had health insurance through their jobs, compared with 74 percent of full-time workers." Part-time, temporary, and contract workers comprise 25 percent of the of the nation's workforce, and the Project's findings demonstrate "the weakness in our health insurance system'' for a "vulnerable group of workers," said Sara Collins with the Commonwealth Fund.

IRAQ -- BUSH ADMINISTRATION REPORTEDLY PLANNING TO PULL MOST OF NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS FROM IRAQ: The London Times reports that the Bush administration is planning to withdraw significant numbers of National Guard troops from Iraq, despite President Bush's claim yesterday that "pulling our troops out before they've achieved their purpose is not a plan for victory." The paper reveals that the U.S. National Guard is "planning to cut the number of its troops in Iraq by 75 per cent over the next year in a dramatic change of approach by the American military." Such an approach would mean that nearly 50,000 of the 159,000 troops in Iraq will soon be heading home. The strain on the National Guard has been felt in a variety of ways. First, soldiers have been asked to serve multiple tours. Second, recruitment is down. "The active-duty Army and the part-time Army National Guard and Army Reserve all missed their 2005 recruiting goals by 8% to 20%. The three fell short by a combined 24,000 enlistees." And third, the Guard is encountering equipment problems to deal with domestic responsibilities. A recent GAO study found "more than 101,000 pieces of National Guard equipment, including items such as trucks, radios and night vision devices, have been sent overseas"

IRAQ -- PENTAGON CALLS FOR BETTER POST-WAR PLANNING: "A broad Pentagon directive issued this week orders the military to be sure, the next time it goes to war, to prepare more thoroughly for a strategy after the conflict," the Boston Globe reports. The directive, which took the Pentagon one year to produce, comes after harsh criticism of the way the Bush administration handled the situation in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad. "Not only did conditions in the country turn out worse than anticipated, but early Pentagon hopes of being able to hand off a large share of responsibility to US and foreign civilian organizations and to Iraqis proved overly optimistic." "Stability operations are a core US military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support," the directive says.

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