Saturday, December 31, 2005
Pentagon Covers Up Dangers of Anthrax Vaccinations
from Bob Evans - dailypress.com
The Pentagon never told Congress about more than 20,000 hospitalizations involving troops who'd taken the anthrax vaccine, despite repeated promises that such cases would be publicly disclosed.
Instead, a parade of generals and Defense Department officials told Congress and the public that fewer than 100 people were hospitalized or became seriously ill after receiving the shot from 1998 through 2000.
They also showed Congress written policies that required public reports to be filed for hospitalizations, serious illnesses and cases where someone missed 24 hours or more of duty.
But only a sliver of those cases were reported, while the rest were withheld from Congress and the public, records obtained by the Daily Press show.
Critics of the vaccine, veterans' advocates and congressional staffers say the Pentagon's deliberate low-balling of hospitalizations helped persuade Congress and the public that the vaccine was safe.
Keeping the actual number of illnesses secret contributed to a shorter list of government-recognized side effects for the drug, giving patients and physicians a false idea of what might constitute a vaccine-related illness or problem. Doctors are expected to know the full list of side effects and alert federal drug safety officials whenever they see a repeat of those symptoms.
Repeated evidence of the same adverse side effect after a vaccination is one of the most telling signs of a systematic problem with a drug or vaccine, as opposed to a coincidental relationship, vaccine safety experts say.
During the Daily Press' investigation of the vaccine and its effects, the newspaper found three cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease - that the military hadn't reported. The disease destroys muscles and nerves, is always fatal and rarely hits people younger than 45.
One of the three cases involves Navy Capt. Denis Army of Virginia Beach. Army died in 2000, after developing symptoms less than a week after his first anthrax vaccination - and a few days before his 45th birthday.
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Kristin Shemeley died of ALS in 2001, at 29. Her symptoms began about two months after her third shot.
Before Shemeley died, she spent 14 months in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where she was regularly visited by high-ranking military officers, said her mother, Ginger Shemeley of Quakertown, Pa. She says her daughter repeatedly told those generals and admirals that she was suffering because of the vaccine and even pleaded with one of them to stop giving it to troops. Several of those generals and admirals had promised Congress that such cases would be publicly reported to VAERS.
The military never filed a VAERS report on Kristin Shemeley. But Ginger Shemeley filed one after her daughter died.
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from Bob Evans - dailypress.com
The Pentagon never told Congress about more than 20,000 hospitalizations involving troops who'd taken the anthrax vaccine, despite repeated promises that such cases would be publicly disclosed.
Instead, a parade of generals and Defense Department officials told Congress and the public that fewer than 100 people were hospitalized or became seriously ill after receiving the shot from 1998 through 2000.
They also showed Congress written policies that required public reports to be filed for hospitalizations, serious illnesses and cases where someone missed 24 hours or more of duty.
But only a sliver of those cases were reported, while the rest were withheld from Congress and the public, records obtained by the Daily Press show.
Critics of the vaccine, veterans' advocates and congressional staffers say the Pentagon's deliberate low-balling of hospitalizations helped persuade Congress and the public that the vaccine was safe.
Keeping the actual number of illnesses secret contributed to a shorter list of government-recognized side effects for the drug, giving patients and physicians a false idea of what might constitute a vaccine-related illness or problem. Doctors are expected to know the full list of side effects and alert federal drug safety officials whenever they see a repeat of those symptoms.
Repeated evidence of the same adverse side effect after a vaccination is one of the most telling signs of a systematic problem with a drug or vaccine, as opposed to a coincidental relationship, vaccine safety experts say.
During the Daily Press' investigation of the vaccine and its effects, the newspaper found three cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease - that the military hadn't reported. The disease destroys muscles and nerves, is always fatal and rarely hits people younger than 45.
One of the three cases involves Navy Capt. Denis Army of Virginia Beach. Army died in 2000, after developing symptoms less than a week after his first anthrax vaccination - and a few days before his 45th birthday.
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Kristin Shemeley died of ALS in 2001, at 29. Her symptoms began about two months after her third shot.
Before Shemeley died, she spent 14 months in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where she was regularly visited by high-ranking military officers, said her mother, Ginger Shemeley of Quakertown, Pa. She says her daughter repeatedly told those generals and admirals that she was suffering because of the vaccine and even pleaded with one of them to stop giving it to troops. Several of those generals and admirals had promised Congress that such cases would be publicly reported to VAERS.
The military never filed a VAERS report on Kristin Shemeley. But Ginger Shemeley filed one after her daughter died.
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Friday, December 30, 2005
Bush Sanctioned Torture in Uzbekistan
from Greg Saunders - This Modern World
Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is defying a gag-order and publishing torture memos on his blog relating to the coordination between the Uzbek, British, and American governments. As Kos says, it's brutal.
Last year, the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov (its dictator) as a friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seven thousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of speech, without freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of assembly, without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous with medieval serfdom.
Uzbekistan's geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the population of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all the other states in a region which is important to future Western oil and gas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here, and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years.
Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the contrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduce any meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid, more than US aid to all of West Africa, is related to comparative developmental need as opposed to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov's vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He, and they, are in fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?
The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely known. And, the information retracted could only be useless. Consequently, the aim of the torture is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe (al Qaeda), that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.
Keep in mind that Article 2 of the U.N. Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
Here's what this partnership between the Bush administration and Uzbekistan looks like in action :
At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.
And, this is the standard that we're living under with a President who looks the other way while children are being tortured.
(Editor's note .... Bush's collaboration with tyranny and torture in Uzbekistan negates his latest stated reason for his illegal war in Iraq. His statement for public consumption that he is in Iraq to bring Democracy and freedom from tyranny to the Iraqi people is quite obviously just another big Bush lie.)
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from Greg Saunders - This Modern World
Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is defying a gag-order and publishing torture memos on his blog relating to the coordination between the Uzbek, British, and American governments. As Kos says, it's brutal.
Last year, the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov (its dictator) as a friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seven thousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of speech, without freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of assembly, without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous with medieval serfdom.
Uzbekistan's geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the population of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all the other states in a region which is important to future Western oil and gas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here, and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years.
Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the contrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduce any meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid, more than US aid to all of West Africa, is related to comparative developmental need as opposed to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov's vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He, and they, are in fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?
The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely known. And, the information retracted could only be useless. Consequently, the aim of the torture is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe (al Qaeda), that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.
Keep in mind that Article 2 of the U.N. Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
Here's what this partnership between the Bush administration and Uzbekistan looks like in action :
At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.
And, this is the standard that we're living under with a President who looks the other way while children are being tortured.
(Editor's note .... Bush's collaboration with tyranny and torture in Uzbekistan negates his latest stated reason for his illegal war in Iraq. His statement for public consumption that he is in Iraq to bring Democracy and freedom from tyranny to the Iraqi people is quite obviously just another big Bush lie.)
*************************************************************************
Retraction
Earlier, CARTOONS-POLITICAL.COM NEWS BLOG repeated a New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times story that was widely published on the Internet about a UMass Dartmouth senior receiving a visit from Homeland Security Officers for his ordering Mao's 'Little Red Book' from the University's inter-library loan system. Since then, the student recanted the story claiming it was just a hoax. However, the account would have been a likely scenario for the library provision of the Patriot Act. And, the resulting massive response to the account throughout the Internet demonstrated the disgust the public has for it.
*************************************************************************
Earlier, CARTOONS-POLITICAL.COM NEWS BLOG repeated a New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times story that was widely published on the Internet about a UMass Dartmouth senior receiving a visit from Homeland Security Officers for his ordering Mao's 'Little Red Book' from the University's inter-library loan system. Since then, the student recanted the story claiming it was just a hoax. However, the account would have been a likely scenario for the library provision of the Patriot Act. And, the resulting massive response to the account throughout the Internet demonstrated the disgust the public has for it.
*************************************************************************
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Crime without Conviction: U.S. Makes Deals With Corporate Criminals Instead of Prosecuting
Russell Mokhiber - editor of Corporate Crime Reporter
from an interview on Democracy Now
Corporations that commit securities and accounting fraud can now expect to get sweetheart deals from the Justice Department, and they don't face public exposure for their misdeeds.
A report released yesterday found that under a new policy implemented by the Justice Department in 2003, a number of major corporations caught committing serious crimes have not been prosecuted or convicted by the U.S government. The report, titled, "Crime without Conviction: The Rise of Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements" by the watch-dog group, Corporate Crime Reporter, named 34 major corporations that have entered into special deals with the U.S government. Under these deals, prosecutors agree not to criminally prosecute the corporation in exchange for cooperation against executives, implementation of corporate monitors and fines. In fact, the report finds that no major corporation caught engaging in accounting or securities fraud has been convicted since the Arthur Andersen conviction in June 2002.
If you and I engaged in a fraud against the government that cost the government $2.5 billion, as KPMG did, then you and I would be criminally prosecuted and sent to prison. I went to the press conference where the Attorney General of the United States announced this prosecution of KPMG, and he started off the press conference by saying, “Today, KPMG admits its criminal wrongdoing in this tax shelter fraud that cost the government $2.5 billion.” Then the head of the I.R.S. came on, and detailed the criminal activity.
There was no conviction. The company was charged with a felony, and then the government gave the company a deferred prosecution agreement. These kinds of agreements were intended for juvenile delinquents, to clear the courts of minor issues. But now they are being used in cases like KPMG to relieve the company of its criminal liability.
In our report, which is on our website, CorporateCrimeReporter.com, we have listed 34 of these fraud cases and bribery cases cases that we could identify, in which the company engaged in egregious criminal activity admits to its criminal wrongdoing, but there's no conviction. 23 of the cases have come in the last three years. And so, that’s twice as many in the last three years as in the previous ten years.
This sets a double standard for ordinary Americans. When we commit crimes, even minor crimes, we’re prosecuted, criminally convicted and sent to jail. But for major American corporations, like Monsanto and KPMG and the rest named in this report, they get these special deals. We think it’s unfair. And this just switched over the last couple of years since the Arthur Andersen conviction.
Corporate defense counsel really like these kinds of cases, because it let's the corporation off the hook. And what's happening is the corporate defense counsel is calling up the prosecutor and saying, ‘Look, we’ll turn over everything. We’ll give you the executives. We’ll give you all the information about what happened here in exchange for this kind of deal of not having a criminal record.’ It’s a backdoor way of getting around the stigma and major adverse publicity.
In the 1990s, we put out a report called “The Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s.” There were so many criminal prosecutions of these companies, they had an educational effect. It sent the message that the major criminal actors in our society are these major corporations, and that corporate crime and violence inflict far more damage on society than all street crime committed by individuals. That’s just a slam dunk. It was all over the papers.
We're treating corporate crime and corruption with double standards with these special deals. And, the result is the lingering public impression that street crime inflicts far more damage than corporate crime and violence, and we have to change that. If you ask an average person to give his impression on “looting”, the first thing that comes to his mind is the black kids in New Orleans stealing the DVDs and wading through the water, not Conrad Black, who looted a Hollinger International Corporation of millions of dollars and currently being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald.
Creative corporate defense attorneys and prosecutors took the treatment for juvenile delinquents as a model and said, ‘Hey, here’s a way where we can settle these cases quickly, where we can give the corporation what it wants, which is no criminal prosecution, and where we can get out of these cases and not spend a lot of time on them.’ Also, in cases in which the prosecutors want to go after the individual executive they are more likely to get a lot of individual convictions if the corporate attorney is working with the prosecutor to go after the executives.
Ten years ago, it was the company protecting the individual executives and pleading the company guilty. And so what would happen is you get a guilty plea against the company, the executives would get off, and the company would pay a fine. And there was a stigma against the company. I think that had a real general deterrence. Now what you have is the corporate attorneys and the prosecutors working together to turn on the executives. To me, the ideal case is you prosecute both the corporation and the executives, and you put the company on corporate probation.
One of the things we found in agreements that were cut between the corporate counsel and the prosecutors is an area that’s ripe for corruption. The company really wants no conviction on its record, and it says to the prosecutor, ‘Okay, we don't want a conviction. What can we give you?’ So that opens the door to some shady deals.
Here’s a couple. Bristol-Myers Squibb, accused of a major accounting fraud by the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, so Bristol-Myers’s attorney goes to the U.S. Attorney and says, ‘Okay, we don't want a criminal conviction. What can we give you?’ The U.S. Attorney says ‘Well, how about a chair in business ethics at my alma mater, Seton Hall Law School?’ That's what he got. The Attorney General of Oklahoma goes to M.C.I. and says, ‘Okay, we’ve got the goods on you. We’ll give you a deferred prosecution. What are you going to give us?’ ‘We’ll give you 1,600 jobs over ten years in Oklahoma.’
I think we have to move away from the kinds of deals that are being cut. We have to start criminally prosecuting the company and start getting convictions and bring some real punishment. Criminal prosecution is the big stick against corporate crime.
Russell Mokhiber's status at the Bush White House...
At a February 1, 2005 press conferences with Scott McClellan, Mokhiber asked, “Scott, last night in an amicus brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Justice Department came down in favor of displaying the Ten Commandments at courthouses and state houses around the country. My question is: "Does the President believe in Commandment number six, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ as it applies to the U.S. invasion of Iraq?" And Scott McClellan said, "Go ahead. Next question."
Since then, he hasn't been able to ask many other questions. According to Mokhiber, "Here’s what was going on. I was going over and I had my press pass, they would make me wait at the gate. I would wait for like a half an hour. They would let me in. I would wait like for an hour for the thing to start. Then he would skip over me. There was a period of time where he wasn’t calling on me. He said he was going in order. But, when he’d come to me, he would skip over me, so he wasn't allowing me to ask questions. When I was asking questions, he wasn’t answering them. I was spending like three or four hours a day at the White House and not getting any questions answered. But it doesn't mean I'm not going back. I’m going back."
*************************************************************************
Russell Mokhiber - editor of Corporate Crime Reporter
from an interview on Democracy Now
Corporations that commit securities and accounting fraud can now expect to get sweetheart deals from the Justice Department, and they don't face public exposure for their misdeeds.
A report released yesterday found that under a new policy implemented by the Justice Department in 2003, a number of major corporations caught committing serious crimes have not been prosecuted or convicted by the U.S government. The report, titled, "Crime without Conviction: The Rise of Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements" by the watch-dog group, Corporate Crime Reporter, named 34 major corporations that have entered into special deals with the U.S government. Under these deals, prosecutors agree not to criminally prosecute the corporation in exchange for cooperation against executives, implementation of corporate monitors and fines. In fact, the report finds that no major corporation caught engaging in accounting or securities fraud has been convicted since the Arthur Andersen conviction in June 2002.
If you and I engaged in a fraud against the government that cost the government $2.5 billion, as KPMG did, then you and I would be criminally prosecuted and sent to prison. I went to the press conference where the Attorney General of the United States announced this prosecution of KPMG, and he started off the press conference by saying, “Today, KPMG admits its criminal wrongdoing in this tax shelter fraud that cost the government $2.5 billion.” Then the head of the I.R.S. came on, and detailed the criminal activity.
There was no conviction. The company was charged with a felony, and then the government gave the company a deferred prosecution agreement. These kinds of agreements were intended for juvenile delinquents, to clear the courts of minor issues. But now they are being used in cases like KPMG to relieve the company of its criminal liability.
In our report, which is on our website, CorporateCrimeReporter.com, we have listed 34 of these fraud cases and bribery cases cases that we could identify, in which the company engaged in egregious criminal activity admits to its criminal wrongdoing, but there's no conviction. 23 of the cases have come in the last three years. And so, that’s twice as many in the last three years as in the previous ten years.
This sets a double standard for ordinary Americans. When we commit crimes, even minor crimes, we’re prosecuted, criminally convicted and sent to jail. But for major American corporations, like Monsanto and KPMG and the rest named in this report, they get these special deals. We think it’s unfair. And this just switched over the last couple of years since the Arthur Andersen conviction.
Corporate defense counsel really like these kinds of cases, because it let's the corporation off the hook. And what's happening is the corporate defense counsel is calling up the prosecutor and saying, ‘Look, we’ll turn over everything. We’ll give you the executives. We’ll give you all the information about what happened here in exchange for this kind of deal of not having a criminal record.’ It’s a backdoor way of getting around the stigma and major adverse publicity.
In the 1990s, we put out a report called “The Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s.” There were so many criminal prosecutions of these companies, they had an educational effect. It sent the message that the major criminal actors in our society are these major corporations, and that corporate crime and violence inflict far more damage on society than all street crime committed by individuals. That’s just a slam dunk. It was all over the papers.
We're treating corporate crime and corruption with double standards with these special deals. And, the result is the lingering public impression that street crime inflicts far more damage than corporate crime and violence, and we have to change that. If you ask an average person to give his impression on “looting”, the first thing that comes to his mind is the black kids in New Orleans stealing the DVDs and wading through the water, not Conrad Black, who looted a Hollinger International Corporation of millions of dollars and currently being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald.
Creative corporate defense attorneys and prosecutors took the treatment for juvenile delinquents as a model and said, ‘Hey, here’s a way where we can settle these cases quickly, where we can give the corporation what it wants, which is no criminal prosecution, and where we can get out of these cases and not spend a lot of time on them.’ Also, in cases in which the prosecutors want to go after the individual executive they are more likely to get a lot of individual convictions if the corporate attorney is working with the prosecutor to go after the executives.
Ten years ago, it was the company protecting the individual executives and pleading the company guilty. And so what would happen is you get a guilty plea against the company, the executives would get off, and the company would pay a fine. And there was a stigma against the company. I think that had a real general deterrence. Now what you have is the corporate attorneys and the prosecutors working together to turn on the executives. To me, the ideal case is you prosecute both the corporation and the executives, and you put the company on corporate probation.
One of the things we found in agreements that were cut between the corporate counsel and the prosecutors is an area that’s ripe for corruption. The company really wants no conviction on its record, and it says to the prosecutor, ‘Okay, we don't want a conviction. What can we give you?’ So that opens the door to some shady deals.
Here’s a couple. Bristol-Myers Squibb, accused of a major accounting fraud by the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, so Bristol-Myers’s attorney goes to the U.S. Attorney and says, ‘Okay, we don't want a criminal conviction. What can we give you?’ The U.S. Attorney says ‘Well, how about a chair in business ethics at my alma mater, Seton Hall Law School?’ That's what he got. The Attorney General of Oklahoma goes to M.C.I. and says, ‘Okay, we’ve got the goods on you. We’ll give you a deferred prosecution. What are you going to give us?’ ‘We’ll give you 1,600 jobs over ten years in Oklahoma.’
I think we have to move away from the kinds of deals that are being cut. We have to start criminally prosecuting the company and start getting convictions and bring some real punishment. Criminal prosecution is the big stick against corporate crime.
Russell Mokhiber's status at the Bush White House...
At a February 1, 2005 press conferences with Scott McClellan, Mokhiber asked, “Scott, last night in an amicus brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Justice Department came down in favor of displaying the Ten Commandments at courthouses and state houses around the country. My question is: "Does the President believe in Commandment number six, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ as it applies to the U.S. invasion of Iraq?" And Scott McClellan said, "Go ahead. Next question."
Since then, he hasn't been able to ask many other questions. According to Mokhiber, "Here’s what was going on. I was going over and I had my press pass, they would make me wait at the gate. I would wait for like a half an hour. They would let me in. I would wait like for an hour for the thing to start. Then he would skip over me. There was a period of time where he wasn’t calling on me. He said he was going in order. But, when he’d come to me, he would skip over me, so he wasn't allowing me to ask questions. When I was asking questions, he wasn’t answering them. I was spending like three or four hours a day at the White House and not getting any questions answered. But it doesn't mean I'm not going back. I’m going back."
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Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Dover, Darwin, and Design: One Chimp's Opinion
by Myriam Miedzian - CommonDreams.org
Apes are capable of planning ahead and communicating about the past. I was so taken by these and other research findings, that I struggled with fatigue to finish the chapter I was reading in primatologist Frans De Waal’s new book, Our Inner Ape. The last line I remember reading before falling asleep is: "Caretakers generally have a higher opinion of ape’s mental abilities than the philosophers and psychologists..."
And then I had a dream.
I was sitting in the courtroom of the most recent "intelligent design" trial in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The judge was about to give a summation and was banging her gavel. Nothing unusual except—the judge was a bonobo (a.k.a. pygmy chimp.) She wore rimless glasses and protruding from underneath her black judicial robe was the high collar of a wine colored blouse.
"A plague on both your houses is my verdict," she said in a slightly shrieky voice, a little like Eleanor Roosevelt’s, and then continued:
"The prosecution’s claim that you are descended from the ape family and that we share over 98% of our genetic makeup is prima facie absurd. How could we be related to a species as violent, treacherous, lying, and greedy as humans? Your genetic research and theory of evolution are undoubtedly flawed. We bonobos are overwhelmingly loving and peaceful. If some of our males begin to assault each other, my sisters and I surround them, stop the fighting, and then often engage them in calming sexual activity. Apparently, during one of your slaughters known as the Vietnam war, some humans sought to emulate our behavior and carried signs stating "make love not war." They were unsuccessful and your slaughters continue.
It saddens us that our overweight and rather clumsy chimp cousins occasionally give a thrashing to a female whose sexual behavior they are unable to control. But their misbehavior does not begin to compare to that of some human males who jealously murder their ex-wives or girlfriends, force them to wear what look like beehive keepers outfits, stone to death female victims of rape, or demand that females be sexually mutilated to ensure fidelity.
Bonobos are repelled by the lethal raids that our chimp cousins sometimes carry out on neighboring communities, but a few casualties here and there pale next to your own experts’ estimate of over 170 million humans killed in your twentieth century alone.
As for the defense’s belief in intelligent design, I agree with the prosecution that "intelligent design" is a cover up for creationism. Many of you truly believe this world was created by a perfect deity who made humans in his image, and are offended by the evolutionist’s theory that you are descended from us."
At this point the judge shook her head and rolled her eyes in disbelief.
She went on:
"How extraordinary that humans who have created gas chambers to murder millions of their brothers and sisters and bombs which annihilate cities in seconds, have the chutzpah to view themselves as morally superior to us. I am aware that some members of your species occasionally demonstrate empathy and kindness, and abhor war and violence. Some primatologists even believe that you have the potential to become as peaceful and loving as we are. If so, you certainly have a long way to go.
Your 21rst century has barely begun and already you have slaughtered hundreds of thousands in countries known as Iraq and Sudan. Some of your young ones blow themselves up for the joy of killing large numbers of humans whose leaders they hold responsible for their people’s suffering. The young men who engage in these murders apparently believe they will be rewarded with endless sexual pleasure in a place they call "paradise." (We bonobos enjoy frequent and highly pleasurable sex with no preliminary homicide.)
Is this what you describe as ‘superior intelligence and morality?’"
It was at this point that my clock radio went off and I woke up smiling at this extraordinary dream. Then I heard " Fifty Iraqis and six Americans were killed this morning in Baghdad when a car bomb… A shooting spree in a suburban mall…"
*************************************************************************
by Myriam Miedzian - CommonDreams.org
Apes are capable of planning ahead and communicating about the past. I was so taken by these and other research findings, that I struggled with fatigue to finish the chapter I was reading in primatologist Frans De Waal’s new book, Our Inner Ape. The last line I remember reading before falling asleep is: "Caretakers generally have a higher opinion of ape’s mental abilities than the philosophers and psychologists..."
And then I had a dream.
I was sitting in the courtroom of the most recent "intelligent design" trial in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The judge was about to give a summation and was banging her gavel. Nothing unusual except—the judge was a bonobo (a.k.a. pygmy chimp.) She wore rimless glasses and protruding from underneath her black judicial robe was the high collar of a wine colored blouse.
"A plague on both your houses is my verdict," she said in a slightly shrieky voice, a little like Eleanor Roosevelt’s, and then continued:
"The prosecution’s claim that you are descended from the ape family and that we share over 98% of our genetic makeup is prima facie absurd. How could we be related to a species as violent, treacherous, lying, and greedy as humans? Your genetic research and theory of evolution are undoubtedly flawed. We bonobos are overwhelmingly loving and peaceful. If some of our males begin to assault each other, my sisters and I surround them, stop the fighting, and then often engage them in calming sexual activity. Apparently, during one of your slaughters known as the Vietnam war, some humans sought to emulate our behavior and carried signs stating "make love not war." They were unsuccessful and your slaughters continue.
It saddens us that our overweight and rather clumsy chimp cousins occasionally give a thrashing to a female whose sexual behavior they are unable to control. But their misbehavior does not begin to compare to that of some human males who jealously murder their ex-wives or girlfriends, force them to wear what look like beehive keepers outfits, stone to death female victims of rape, or demand that females be sexually mutilated to ensure fidelity.
Bonobos are repelled by the lethal raids that our chimp cousins sometimes carry out on neighboring communities, but a few casualties here and there pale next to your own experts’ estimate of over 170 million humans killed in your twentieth century alone.
As for the defense’s belief in intelligent design, I agree with the prosecution that "intelligent design" is a cover up for creationism. Many of you truly believe this world was created by a perfect deity who made humans in his image, and are offended by the evolutionist’s theory that you are descended from us."
At this point the judge shook her head and rolled her eyes in disbelief.
She went on:
"How extraordinary that humans who have created gas chambers to murder millions of their brothers and sisters and bombs which annihilate cities in seconds, have the chutzpah to view themselves as morally superior to us. I am aware that some members of your species occasionally demonstrate empathy and kindness, and abhor war and violence. Some primatologists even believe that you have the potential to become as peaceful and loving as we are. If so, you certainly have a long way to go.
Your 21rst century has barely begun and already you have slaughtered hundreds of thousands in countries known as Iraq and Sudan. Some of your young ones blow themselves up for the joy of killing large numbers of humans whose leaders they hold responsible for their people’s suffering. The young men who engage in these murders apparently believe they will be rewarded with endless sexual pleasure in a place they call "paradise." (We bonobos enjoy frequent and highly pleasurable sex with no preliminary homicide.)
Is this what you describe as ‘superior intelligence and morality?’"
It was at this point that my clock radio went off and I woke up smiling at this extraordinary dream. Then I heard " Fifty Iraqis and six Americans were killed this morning in Baghdad when a car bomb… A shooting spree in a suburban mall…"
*************************************************************************
Keeping the Faith
by Gray Brechin - the San Francisco Chronicle
Seventy-two years after it first emerged from President Franklin Roosevelt's post-inaugural Hundred Days of epochal legislation, the New Deal rises from the grave to haunt those who hoped they had buried it for good. Its eternal foes ironically resurrected "that man's" memory by attempting to privatize his most popular and enduring legacy. Social Security -- a program whose very name invokes the communitarian ethos that makes the New Deal satanic for those who would privatize risk along with everything else in the public domain -- still easily has enough voting friends that Republicans backed off tampering with it before next year's midterm elections.
But nothing did so much to freshen the fading memory of the New Deal as hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In their ruinous wake, liberal commentators called for similar federal activism to rebuild the South while reactionaries sought to tamp back its dreaded specter into the tomb of forgetfulness.
Among the latter, New York Times columnist John Tierney predicted ("Losing the Faith," Sept. 24) that the "1930s nostalgia craze" would quickly founder on the rocks of a public cynicism to which he added his own weighty boulders. Tierney related how he had lost faith in government after working with a federal antipoverty program in the 1970s. There, he witnessed bored teenagers paid to do little or nothing.
A 1939 Dorothea Lange photograph reminded me that Tierney's tale of redundant teens was as stale as those of FDR's enemies, who savaged the Works Progress Administration for useless make-work projects. Lange's camera captured a 1939 parade of WPA laborers in San Francisco protesting congressional funding cutbacks. One carried a sign asking, "Was the Cow Palace Built Leaning on Shovels?" (a reference to the city-owned exhibition building that has been paying dividends since it opened in 1941 by hosting everything from Republican Party conventions to Billy Graham revivals, rodeos and the Beatles). Few know that federal workers and grants built the Cow Palace, and that they did so with not a whiff of graft. As waves of corruption and mismanagement charges engulf the present Republican administration, those who have lost faith in government cannot conceive of a regime so notable for little scandal even as it employed millions of men and women on public-works projects.
For most Americans, the ubiquitous public landscape of the New Deal is as invisible as it is essential for the functioning of a modern nation. One of the New Deal's first alphabet soup agencies -- the Civil Works Administration -- lasted only for the dire winter of 1933-34. Within three weeks, CWA Director Harry Hopkins put 2 million people to work, a number that soon doubled as legions of laborers built or repaired more than 800 airports, 3,700 athletic fields and 255,000 miles of roads. Demonstrating a commitment to public education characteristic of subsequent New Deal programs, the CWA built or modernized 4,000 school buildings, hired 50,000 teachers for rural schools, and controversially employed about 3,000 artists and writers who, Hopkins insisted, "had to eat, too."
In the coming years, Hopkins' CWA and the Public Works Administration (under "Honest" Harold Ickes) put millions more to work building a network of levees, roads, airports, military bases, schools, community colleges, civic auditoriums, water-delivery systems, sewers, hospitals, zoos and parks still in use today. New Deal workers restored the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument and San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, and they built the Triborough and San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridges, the Lincoln Tunnel, TVA dams, Treasure Island and the spectacular Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. Without WPA flood-control projects, last winter's storms would have devastated Southern California at a cost of billions of dollars to taxpayers and insurance companies.
Civilian Conservation Corps "boys" stationed in thousands of rural camps meanwhile reforested the nation and clocked in 6.5 million days fighting forest fires. They built 204 museums, restored almost 4,000 historic buildings and constructed 3,116 fire towers and more than 46,000 bridges. While saving families and individuals from destitution, the CCC made the nation's proliferating parklands so gracefully accessible that few who use them are aware of the peacetime "tree army's" heroic contributions to our collective well-being.
FDR called upon Americans to overcome their fear even as his works programs vastly enlarged the public domain, providing them with a multitude of spaces in which to come together both as citizens and as a national community. By remembering the optimism, the wit, and the demonstrable compassion with which he led the nation through the twin calamities of depression and world war, we can better measure what recent administrations lack, as well as the quality we have forgotten to demand. Those who -- like Tierney -- have lost their faith in what government can accomplish for the common good have but to look around themselves to regain it. The evidence of intelligent design is everywhere; it bears the name of Roosevelt, and it points to the future we could have if we but remembered we once had it.
Gray Brechin is project scholar and writer for the New Deal Legacy Project (www.newdealproject.org), which is documenting the physical legacy of the New Deal in California under the aegis of the California Historical Society.
************************************************************************
by Gray Brechin - the San Francisco Chronicle
Seventy-two years after it first emerged from President Franklin Roosevelt's post-inaugural Hundred Days of epochal legislation, the New Deal rises from the grave to haunt those who hoped they had buried it for good. Its eternal foes ironically resurrected "that man's" memory by attempting to privatize his most popular and enduring legacy. Social Security -- a program whose very name invokes the communitarian ethos that makes the New Deal satanic for those who would privatize risk along with everything else in the public domain -- still easily has enough voting friends that Republicans backed off tampering with it before next year's midterm elections.
But nothing did so much to freshen the fading memory of the New Deal as hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In their ruinous wake, liberal commentators called for similar federal activism to rebuild the South while reactionaries sought to tamp back its dreaded specter into the tomb of forgetfulness.
Among the latter, New York Times columnist John Tierney predicted ("Losing the Faith," Sept. 24) that the "1930s nostalgia craze" would quickly founder on the rocks of a public cynicism to which he added his own weighty boulders. Tierney related how he had lost faith in government after working with a federal antipoverty program in the 1970s. There, he witnessed bored teenagers paid to do little or nothing.
A 1939 Dorothea Lange photograph reminded me that Tierney's tale of redundant teens was as stale as those of FDR's enemies, who savaged the Works Progress Administration for useless make-work projects. Lange's camera captured a 1939 parade of WPA laborers in San Francisco protesting congressional funding cutbacks. One carried a sign asking, "Was the Cow Palace Built Leaning on Shovels?" (a reference to the city-owned exhibition building that has been paying dividends since it opened in 1941 by hosting everything from Republican Party conventions to Billy Graham revivals, rodeos and the Beatles). Few know that federal workers and grants built the Cow Palace, and that they did so with not a whiff of graft. As waves of corruption and mismanagement charges engulf the present Republican administration, those who have lost faith in government cannot conceive of a regime so notable for little scandal even as it employed millions of men and women on public-works projects.
For most Americans, the ubiquitous public landscape of the New Deal is as invisible as it is essential for the functioning of a modern nation. One of the New Deal's first alphabet soup agencies -- the Civil Works Administration -- lasted only for the dire winter of 1933-34. Within three weeks, CWA Director Harry Hopkins put 2 million people to work, a number that soon doubled as legions of laborers built or repaired more than 800 airports, 3,700 athletic fields and 255,000 miles of roads. Demonstrating a commitment to public education characteristic of subsequent New Deal programs, the CWA built or modernized 4,000 school buildings, hired 50,000 teachers for rural schools, and controversially employed about 3,000 artists and writers who, Hopkins insisted, "had to eat, too."
In the coming years, Hopkins' CWA and the Public Works Administration (under "Honest" Harold Ickes) put millions more to work building a network of levees, roads, airports, military bases, schools, community colleges, civic auditoriums, water-delivery systems, sewers, hospitals, zoos and parks still in use today. New Deal workers restored the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument and San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, and they built the Triborough and San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridges, the Lincoln Tunnel, TVA dams, Treasure Island and the spectacular Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. Without WPA flood-control projects, last winter's storms would have devastated Southern California at a cost of billions of dollars to taxpayers and insurance companies.
Civilian Conservation Corps "boys" stationed in thousands of rural camps meanwhile reforested the nation and clocked in 6.5 million days fighting forest fires. They built 204 museums, restored almost 4,000 historic buildings and constructed 3,116 fire towers and more than 46,000 bridges. While saving families and individuals from destitution, the CCC made the nation's proliferating parklands so gracefully accessible that few who use them are aware of the peacetime "tree army's" heroic contributions to our collective well-being.
FDR called upon Americans to overcome their fear even as his works programs vastly enlarged the public domain, providing them with a multitude of spaces in which to come together both as citizens and as a national community. By remembering the optimism, the wit, and the demonstrable compassion with which he led the nation through the twin calamities of depression and world war, we can better measure what recent administrations lack, as well as the quality we have forgotten to demand. Those who -- like Tierney -- have lost their faith in what government can accomplish for the common good have but to look around themselves to regain it. The evidence of intelligent design is everywhere; it bears the name of Roosevelt, and it points to the future we could have if we but remembered we once had it.
Gray Brechin is project scholar and writer for the New Deal Legacy Project (www.newdealproject.org), which is documenting the physical legacy of the New Deal in California under the aegis of the California Historical Society.
************************************************************************
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Selling Out - $1.3 Trillion of American Companies Sold to Foreign Corps
EconomyInCrises.org
Buying Us Out With Our Own Money
As former Assistant Treasury Secretary under President Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts writes, the "result of many years of persistent trade surpluses with the United States, many foreign countries have acquired extensive dollar reserves. For example, the Japanese government holds dollar reserves of $1 Trillion. China's accumulation of dollars is approximately $600 Billion. South Korea holds about $200 Billion."
These dollars are returning to this country to buy us out and to exert influence over our ability to control our future.
However, at our current rate of trade and budget deficits, foreigners need to purchase $2 billion in dollar-denominated assets each day just to keep the dollar stable, said Axel Merk, who manages $60 million at Merk Investments and runs the Merk Hard Currency Fund.
The following staggering amount of our wealth producing companies has been sold to foreign owners in the 10 years from 1995 through 2005. Below is a partial list of the 8,600 U.S. companies sold.
It is critical to understand that even if these are not all familiar corporate names, they are all very valuable strategic companies with vast amounts of technology, assets, production facilities, tax base, and employment attached to each one. In fact, many of the smallest, most unfamiliar acquisitions represent some of the most significant strategic and proprietary technology losses to this country. Many of these companies took decades, and in some cases generations, to build to their size and scope prior to acquisition. Not only does the US lose control of the assets and technologies of these companies as of the date they were acquired, the US also loses all future profit and title to all future advancements of these companies.
These companies were the means through which America created much of its present wealth. With the loss of these companies and having no comparable replacement, it's easy to see that our future will not be as good as our past, especially since the countries that acquired these companies are now able to compete with us in almost all industries. Why are we doing this? Don't we have alternatives? Who is responsible, demand answers from your congressperson.
The following table lists only a few of the 8,600 foreign acquisitions during this period. The $1.3 Trillion figure and complete list can be verified at the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Oil and Gas; Petroleum Refining
Telecommunications
Transportation Equipment
Printing, Publishing, and Allied Services
Mining
Insurance
Electronic and Electrical Equipment
Drugs
Computer and Office Equipment
Machinery
Metal and Metal Products
Investment & Commodity Firms,Dealers,Exchanges
Commercial Banks, Bank Holding Companies
Motion Picture Production and Distribution
Chemicals and Allied Products
Rubber and Miscellaneous Plastic Products
Food and Kindred Products
Credit Institutions
Electric, Gas, and Water Distribution
Business Services
This hollowing out of American industry is leaving us with a very dim future, indeed!
*************************************************************************
EconomyInCrises.org
Buying Us Out With Our Own Money
As former Assistant Treasury Secretary under President Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts writes, the "result of many years of persistent trade surpluses with the United States, many foreign countries have acquired extensive dollar reserves. For example, the Japanese government holds dollar reserves of $1 Trillion. China's accumulation of dollars is approximately $600 Billion. South Korea holds about $200 Billion."
These dollars are returning to this country to buy us out and to exert influence over our ability to control our future.
However, at our current rate of trade and budget deficits, foreigners need to purchase $2 billion in dollar-denominated assets each day just to keep the dollar stable, said Axel Merk, who manages $60 million at Merk Investments and runs the Merk Hard Currency Fund.
The following staggering amount of our wealth producing companies has been sold to foreign owners in the 10 years from 1995 through 2005. Below is a partial list of the 8,600 U.S. companies sold.
It is critical to understand that even if these are not all familiar corporate names, they are all very valuable strategic companies with vast amounts of technology, assets, production facilities, tax base, and employment attached to each one. In fact, many of the smallest, most unfamiliar acquisitions represent some of the most significant strategic and proprietary technology losses to this country. Many of these companies took decades, and in some cases generations, to build to their size and scope prior to acquisition. Not only does the US lose control of the assets and technologies of these companies as of the date they were acquired, the US also loses all future profit and title to all future advancements of these companies.
These companies were the means through which America created much of its present wealth. With the loss of these companies and having no comparable replacement, it's easy to see that our future will not be as good as our past, especially since the countries that acquired these companies are now able to compete with us in almost all industries. Why are we doing this? Don't we have alternatives? Who is responsible, demand answers from your congressperson.
The following table lists only a few of the 8,600 foreign acquisitions during this period. The $1.3 Trillion figure and complete list can be verified at the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Oil and Gas; Petroleum Refining
- Amoco Corp British Petroleum Co PLC UK
$48.174 Billion - ARCO BP Amoco PLC UK
$27.224 Billion - Texaco-US Refining & Marketing Shell Oil-Western US Business NL
$3.964 Billion - Pennzoil-Quaker State Co Shell Oil Co Netherlands
$2.909 Billion - Texaco Inc-Refining Operations Saudi Refining Inc Saudi Arabia
$1.280 Billion - Amerada Hess-St Croix Refinery PDVSA Venezuela
$0.932 Billion - Chevron Corp-Port Arthur,TX Clark Refining & Marketing Inc Canada
$0.825 Billion - Monsanto Oil Co(Monsanto Co) BHP Petroleum(Americas)Inc Aust
$0.745 Billion - CITGO Petroleum Corp Propernyn BV Netherlands
$0.662 Billion - Other $29.603 Billion
- Total $116.317 Billion
Telecommunications
- AirTouch Communications Inc Vodafone Group PLC UK
$60.287 Billion - VoiceStream Wireless Corp Deutsche Telekom AG Germany
$29.404 Billion - AT&T-Worldwide Assets,Ops British Telecomm-Worldwide UK
$5.038 Billion - GE Americom Communications SES Global SA Luxembourg
$4.326 Billion - Cellular Communications Intl Kensington Acquisition Sub Inc Italy
$1.688 Billion - Loral Space-Satellites(6) Intelsat Ltd Bermuda
$1.100 Billion - QUALCOMM-Land-Based Wireless Kyocera Corp Japan
$1.000 Billion - GE Capital Spacenet Services Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd Israel
$0.228 Billion - Lockheed Martin Corp-World Intelsat Ltd Bermuda
$0.120 Billion - Other $43.239 Billion
- Total $146.429 Billion
Transportation Equipment
- Chrysler Corp Daimler-Benz AG Germany
$40.466 Billion - ITT Inds-Automotive Electrical Valeo SA France
$1.700 Billion - AlliedSignal Auto-Braking Busn Robert Bosch GmbH Germany
$1.500 Billion - Blue Bird Corp Henlys Group PLC UK
$0.665 Billion - Motor Coach Industries Intl Consorcio G Grupo Dina'l'ads Mex
$0.335 Billion - Dana Corp-Driveline Business GKN PLC-Driveline Assembly UK
$0.108 Billion - Mack Trucks Inc Renault Vehicules Industriels France
$0.104 Billion - Delphi Automotive Sys-Magnaque San Huan Group Inc China
$0.070 Billion - General Motors-Assembly Line China-General Engine Factory China
$0.017 Billion - Dana Corp-Kirkstall Forging Bharat Forge Ltd India
$0.006 Billion - Other $9.247 Billion
- Total $54.217 Billion
Printing, Publishing, and Allied Services
- Harcourt General Inc Reed Elsevier Group PLC UK
$5.603 Billion - Simon & Schuster-Educ,Prof Pearson PLC UK
$4.600 Billion - West Publishing Co Thomson Corp Canada
$3.425 Billion - Macmillan Inc Maxwell Communication Corp UK
$2.522 Billion - Houghton Mifflin Co Vivendi Universal SA France
$2.272 Billion - Ziff Davis Media Inc Softbank Corp Japan
$2.100 Billion - CBS Records Group(CBS Inc) Sony Corp Japan
$2.000 Billion - Random House Inc Bertelsmann AG Germany
$1.300 Billion - Doubleday-Publishing&Printing Bertelsmann AG Germany
$0.500 Billion - Harper & Row Publishers Inc News America Holdings Inc Aust
$0.293 Billion - Addison-Wesley Publishing Co Pearson Inc (Pearson PLC) UK
$0.273 Billion - Other $31.483 Billion
- Total $56.371 Billion
Mining
- Magma Copper Co BHP Australia
$2.432 Billion - NERCO Inc Kennecott Corp(RTZ Corp PLC) UK
$1.162 Billion - Cyprus Amax-US Coal Mining Ops RAG International Mining Gmbh Germany
$1.100 Billion - Getchell Gold Corp Placer Dome Inc Canada
$1.079 Billion - ASARCO Inc Nueva Grupo Mexico SA de CV Mexico
$1.073 Billion - Other $12.281 Billion
- Total $19.126 Billion
Insurance
- John Hancock Finl Svcs Inc Manulife Financial Corp Canada
$11.063 Billion - TransAmerica Corp Aegon NV Netherlands
$9.691 Billion - Farmers Group Inc BATUS Inc(BAT Industries PLC) UK
$5.200 Billion - CIGNA Corp-US & International ACE Ltd Bermuda
$3.450 Billion - American Bankers Ins Group Inc Fortis AG Belgium
$2.630 Billion - Providian Corp-Insurance Aegon NV Netherlands
$2.624 Billion - Other $51.261 Billion
- Total $85.917 Billion
Electronic and Electrical Equipment
- AMP Inc Tyco International Ltd Bermuda
$10.736 Billion - DII Group Flextronics International Ltd Singapore
$2.591 Billion - Silicon Valley Group Inc ASM Lithography Holding NV NL
$1.561 Billion - ChipPAC Inc ST Assembly Test Services Ltd Singapore
$1.459 Billion - VLSI Technology Inc Koninklijke Philips Electronic NL
$1.163 Billion - GTE Electrical Prods-Sylvania Osram GmbH Germany
$1.000 Billion - Artisan Components Inc ARM Holdings PLC UK
$0.933 Billion - Exide Electronics Group Inc BTR PLC UK
$0.583 Billion - Westinghouse Elec-Power Equip Asea Brown Boveri Sweden
$0.370 Billion - Zenith Electronics Corp LG Electronics Inc South Korea
$0.186 Billion - Natl Semiconductor Corp-Bus VIA Technologies Inc Taiwan
$0.167 Billion - Natl Semiconductor-Chip Plant Matsushita Electric Industrial Japan
$0.100 Billion - Other $40.773 Billion
- Total $61.622 Billion
Drugs
- SmithKline Beckman Corp Beecham Group PLC UK
$7.922 Billion - Marion Merrell Dow Inc Hoechst AG Germany
$7.265 Billion - Syntex Corp Roche Holding AG Switzerland
$5.307 Billion - Rorer Group Inc Rhone-Poulenc SA France
$3.476 Billion - SICOR Inc Teva Pharma Inds Ltd Israel
$3.401 Billion - Genentech Inc Roche Holding AG Switzerland
$1.530 Billion - Chiron Diagnostics Corp Bayer AG Germany
$1.100 Billion - Other $30.301 Billion
- Total $60.302 Billion
Computer and Office Equipment
- IBM Corp-Hard Disk Drive Hitachi Ltd Japan
$2.050 Billion - Kingston Technology Corp Softbank Corp Japan
$1.071 Billion - Amdahl Corp Fujitsu Ltd Japan
$0.925 Billion - Maxtor Corp Hyundai Electn Industries Co South Korea
$0.228 Billion - Quantum-Recording-Head Bus Matsushita Kotobuki Electn Ind Japan
$0.200 Billion - Proxima Corp ASK AS Norway
$0.083 Billion - Other $28.337 Billion
- Total $32.894 Billion
Machinery
- United States Filter Corp Vivendi SA France
$6.318 Billion - Westinghouse-Conven Power Gen Siemens AG Germany
$1.525 Billion - Rexnord Corp BTR Dunlop Holdings(BTR PLC) UK
$0.815 Billion - Progressive Tool & Industry Co Fiat SpA Italy
$0.630 Billion - Detroit Diesel DaimlerChrysler AG Germany
$0.581 Billion - Pinnacle Automation Inc FKI PLC UK
$0.425 Billion - Ingersoll-Rand-Drilling Bus Atlas Copco AB Sweden
$0.225 Billion - Other $13.588 Billion
- Total $24.106 Billion
Metal and Metal Products
- Triangle Industries Inc Pechiney SA France
$3.658 Billion - Lucent Tech-Optical Fibre Unit Furukawa Electric Co Ltd Japan
$2.127 Billion - Inland Steel Co Ispat International NV Netherlands
$1.427 Billion - AlliedSignal Laminate Systems Rutgers AG Germany
$0.815 Billion - Cargill Inc-Cert Steel Asts Gerdau Ameristeel US Inc Canada
$0.266 Billion - Other $14.722 Billion
- Total $23.015 Billion
Investment & Commodity Firms,Dealers,Exchanges
- PaineWebber Group Inc UBS AG Switzerland
$12.243 Billion - Aetna-Fin'l Svcs & Int'l Bus ING Groep NV Netherlands
$4.933 Billion - PIMCO Advisors Holdings LP Allianz AG Germany
$1.930 Billion - Scudder Stevens & Clark Inc Zurich Versicherungs GmbH CH
$1.667 Billion - AIM Management Group Inc Invesco PLC UK
$1.599 Billion - Dain Rauscher Corp Royal Bank of Canada Canada
$1.354 Billion - First Boston Inc Credit Suisse First Boston Switzerland
$1.100 Billion - Brinson Partners Inc Schweizerischer Bankverein Switzerland
$0.750 Billion - Warburg Pincus Asset Mgmt Credit Suisse Asset Management CH
$0.650 Billion - Dillon Read & Co(UBS AG) SBC Warburg(Swiss Bank Corp) CH
$0.600 Billion - Other $39.379 Billion
- Total $66.205 Billion
Commercial Banks, Bank Holding Companies
- Bankers Trust New York Corp Deutsche Bank AG Germany
$9.082 Billion - Republic New York Corp,NY,NY HSBC Holdings PLC{HSBC}UK
$7.703 Billion - Banknorth Group Inc,ME Toronto-Dominion Bank Canada
$3.813 Billion - Centura Bank Inc,NC Royal Bank of Canada Canada
$2.320 Billion - Mellon Fin-Retail Banking Bus Citizens Financial Group,RI UK
$2.100 Billion - Other $18.572 Billion
- Total $43.590 Billion
Motion Picture Production and Distribution
- MCA Inc Matsushita Electric Industrial Japan
$7.406 Billion - Columbia Pictures Entmnt Sony USA Inc(Sony Corp) Japan
$4.792 Billion - MGM/UA Communications Co Pathe Communications Corp Luxembourg
$1.709 Billion - All American Communications Pearson PLC UK
$0.500 Billion - RCA Columbia Home Video Columbia Pictures Entmnt Japan
$0.350 Billion - Other $3.546 Billion
- Total $18.303 Billion
Chemicals and Allied Products
- Nalco Chemical Co Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux SA France
$4.063 Billion - American Cyanamid Agri Product BASF AG Germany
$3.900 Billion - Quantum Chemical Corp Hanson PLC UK
$3.220 Billion - Loctite Corp Henkel KGaA Germany $1.289 Billion
- Merck-Crop Protection Business Novartis AG Switzerland
$0.910 Billion - Other $37.249 Bil.
- Total $50.630 Billion
Rubber and Miscellaneous Plastic Products
- Firestone Tire & Rubber Co Bridgestone Corp Japan
$2.533 Billion - Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Co Michelin SA France
$1.500 Billion - Gates Corp Tomkins PLC UK
$1.400 Billion - Johnson Controls-Plastic Div Schmalbach-Lubeca AG Germany
$0.650 Billion - General Tire Inc(GenCorp) Continental AG Germany
$0.625 Billion - Other $9.716 Billion
- Total $16.424 Billion
Food and Kindred Products
- Bestfoods Unilever PLC UK
$25.065 Bil. - Ralston Purina Co Nestle SA Switzerland
$10.479 Bil. - Miller Brewing(Philip Morris) South African Breweries PLC UK
$5.574 Billion - Pfizer Inc-Adams Cadbury Schweppes PLC UK
$4.200 Billion - Gerber Products Co Sandoz AG Switzerland
$3.686 Billion - Dr Pepper/Seven-Up Cos Inc Cadbury Schweppes PLC UK
$2.367 Billion - Slim-Fast Foods Co Unilever NV Netherlands
$2.300 Billion - Snapple Beverage Group Inc Cadbury Schweppes PLC UK
$1.450 Billion - Beringer Wine Estates Holdings Fosters Brewing Group Ltd Aust
$1.447 Billion - Tropicana Products Inc Joseph E Seagram & Sons Inc Canada
$1.200 Billion - Other $26.150 Billion
- Total $83.917 Billion
Credit Institutions
- Household International Inc HSBC Holdings PLC{HSBC} UK
$15.294 Billion - CIT Group Inc Tyco International Ltd Bermuda
$9.341 Billion - AT&T Capital Corp(AT&T Corp) Investor Group UK
$2.129 Billion - Genstar Corp Imasco Enterprises(Imasco) Canada
$1.842 Billion - Peoples Bank-Credit Card Bus Royal Bank of Scotland Group UK
$0.518 Billion - HealthCare Financial Partners Heller Financial Inc Japan
$0.485 Billion - Other $2.584 Billion
- Total $32.193 Billion
Electric, Gas, and Water Distribution
- UnifiCorp Scottish Power PLC UK
$12.600 Billion - Niagara Mohawk Holdings Inc National Grid Group PLC UK
$8.048 Billion - American Water Works Co Inc RWE AG Germany
$7.726 Billion - LG&E Energy Corp PowerGen PLC UK
$5.426 Billion - New England Electric System National Grid Group PLC UK
$4.217 Billion - Tejas Gas Corp Shell Oil Co Netherlands
$2.166 Billion - United Water Resources Inc Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux SA France
$1.845 Billion - Gas Transmission NW Corp TransCanada Corp Canada
$1.703 Billion - Other $11.892 Billion
- Total $55.622 Billion
Business Services
- Ernst & Young-Consulting Bus Cap Gemini SA France
$11.774 Billion - LHS Group Inc Sema Group PLC UK
$4.338 Billion - Nielsen Media Research Inc VNU NV Netherlands
$2.788 Billion - ACNielsen Corp VNU NV Netherlands
$2.341 Billion - Sensormatic Electronics Corp Tyco International Ltd Bermuda
$2.203 Billion - Shared Medical Systems Corp Siemens Corp Germany
$2.058 Billion - Safety-Kleen Corp Laidlaw Environmental Services Canada
$1.804 Billion - Combustion Engineering Inc Asea Brown Boveri Sweden
$1.795 Billion - MCI Communications Corp-Whl Cable & Wireless PLC UK
$1.750 Billion - Experian Corp Great Universal Stores PLC UK
$1.700 Billion - Manpower Inc Blue Arrow PLC UK
$1.328 Billion - Primark Corp Thomson Corp Canada
$1.081 Billion - Island ECN Inc Instinet Corp(Reuters Group) UK
$0.543 Billion - Zenith Computer Group(Zenith) Cie des Machines Bull France
$0.496 Billion - Knight-Ridder Information Inc MAID PLC UK
$0.420 Billion - Pinkerton's Inc Securitas AB Sweden
$0.383 Billion - Other $72.510 Billion
- Total $109.312 Billion
This hollowing out of American industry is leaving us with a very dim future, indeed!
*************************************************************************
Monday, December 26, 2005
Bush Attempts to Censor the News
BuzzFlash.com
Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security [excuse us, which he considers damaging to his poll numbers] -- and -- The admission by two columnists that they accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff may be the tip of a large and rather dirty iceberg.
*************************************************************************
BuzzFlash.com
Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security [excuse us, which he considers damaging to his poll numbers] -- and -- The admission by two columnists that they accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff may be the tip of a large and rather dirty iceberg.
*************************************************************************
Iraqis Want US Out as Soon as Possible: US Commander
National Nine News
According to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Marine General Peter Pace, "Iraqis themselves would prefer to have coalition forces leave their country as soon as possible." Pace said in a Christmas Day interview on Fox News Sunday, "They don't want us to leave tomorrow, but they do want us to leave as soon as possible."
An opinion survey conducted in Iraq in October and November by ABC News and a pool of other US and foreign media outlets showed that despite some improvements in security and living standards, US military operations in the country were increasingly unpopular.
Two-thirds of those polled said they opposed the presence of US and coalition forces in Iraq, up 14 points from a similar survey taken in February 2004.
Nearly 60 percent disapproved of the way the United States has operated in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, with most of those expressing "strong disapproval," the poll found.
*************************************************************************
National Nine News
According to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Marine General Peter Pace, "Iraqis themselves would prefer to have coalition forces leave their country as soon as possible." Pace said in a Christmas Day interview on Fox News Sunday, "They don't want us to leave tomorrow, but they do want us to leave as soon as possible."
An opinion survey conducted in Iraq in October and November by ABC News and a pool of other US and foreign media outlets showed that despite some improvements in security and living standards, US military operations in the country were increasingly unpopular.
Two-thirds of those polled said they opposed the presence of US and coalition forces in Iraq, up 14 points from a similar survey taken in February 2004.
Nearly 60 percent disapproved of the way the United States has operated in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, with most of those expressing "strong disapproval," the poll found.
*************************************************************************
All the President's Confessions
Bush's advocacy of lawlessness lies at the heart of the right-wing agenda to remake America.
By G. Pascal Zachary - AlterNet
Presidents past have denied breaking the law, even when they have, because following the law is their prime directive, their sole basis for democratic legitimacy. Because rule of law is fundamental to the moral basis of the presidency, presidents must even uphold laws they don't agree with. In this regard, presidents are unlike other citizens. They do not have the option to perform acts of civil disobedience.
Why then is President Bush insisting on his duty, and even his right, to disregard the laws covering domestic spying laws that demand the government seek a judge's authority before spying on Americans on U.S. soil and is boasting about it?
The president had options. Many commentators and critics have noted that he could have asked Congress to approve his spying program. He did not. Instead he chose lawlessness.
He is positioning himself as the nation's chief advocate of lawlessness. Bush's advocacy of lawlessness lies at the heart of the right-wing agenda to remake America. For example, the attacks on federal courts (and the judges themselves) by Tom DeLay and other right-wingers are expressions of the new conventional wisdom that there is a higher law than the law of the land, and that law is the right-wing agenda.
Bush will be quite pleased to go down in history as the man who broke the law to satisfy the dictates of the right-wing ascendancy in America. His greatest legacy will be the promotion of a culture of lawlessness. After Bush, 'Might' will become 'Right' in America. Laws will be bent to reflect the new ethos of lawlessness.
*************************************************************************
Bush's advocacy of lawlessness lies at the heart of the right-wing agenda to remake America.
By G. Pascal Zachary - AlterNet
Presidents past have denied breaking the law, even when they have, because following the law is their prime directive, their sole basis for democratic legitimacy. Because rule of law is fundamental to the moral basis of the presidency, presidents must even uphold laws they don't agree with. In this regard, presidents are unlike other citizens. They do not have the option to perform acts of civil disobedience.
Why then is President Bush insisting on his duty, and even his right, to disregard the laws covering domestic spying laws that demand the government seek a judge's authority before spying on Americans on U.S. soil and is boasting about it?
The president had options. Many commentators and critics have noted that he could have asked Congress to approve his spying program. He did not. Instead he chose lawlessness.
He is positioning himself as the nation's chief advocate of lawlessness. Bush's advocacy of lawlessness lies at the heart of the right-wing agenda to remake America. For example, the attacks on federal courts (and the judges themselves) by Tom DeLay and other right-wingers are expressions of the new conventional wisdom that there is a higher law than the law of the land, and that law is the right-wing agenda.
Bush will be quite pleased to go down in history as the man who broke the law to satisfy the dictates of the right-wing ascendancy in America. His greatest legacy will be the promotion of a culture of lawlessness. After Bush, 'Might' will become 'Right' in America. Laws will be bent to reflect the new ethos of lawlessness.
*************************************************************************
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Conservative Business Magazine, Barron's, Excoriates Bush for Committing a Potentially Impeachable Offense.
Unwarranted Executive Power: The pursuit of terrorism does not authorize the president to make up new laws.
By THOMAS G. DONLAN
As far back as 2002, the Department of Justice said in a legal brief,"The Constitution vests in the president inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that Constitutional authority." Attorney General Gonzales last week declined to declassify relevant legal reviews made by the Department of Justice.
Perhaps they were researched in a Star Chamber? Putting the president above the Congress is an invitation to tyranny. The president has no powers except those specified in the Constitution and those enacted by law. President Bush is stretching the power of commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy by indicating that he can order the military and its agencies, such as the National Security Agency, to do whatever furthers the defense of the country from terrorists, regardless of whether actual force is involved.
Surely the "strict constructionists" on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary eventually will point out what a stretch this is. The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power. There's not much fidelity in an executive who debates and lobbies Congress to shape a law to his liking and then goes beyond its writ.
Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.
It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law.
Some ancillary responsibility, however, must be attached to those members of the House and Senate who were informed, inadequately, about the wiretapping and did nothing to regulate it.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, told Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 that he was "unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities." But the senator was so respectful of the administration's injunction of secrecy that he wrote it out in longhand rather than give it to someone to type. Only last week, after the cat was out of the bag, did he do what he should have done in 2003 -- make his misgivings public and demand more information.
Published reports quote sources saying that 14 members of Congress were notified of the wiretapping. If some had misgivings, apparently they were scared of being called names, as the president did last week when he said: "It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."
Wrong. If we don't discuss the program and the lack of authority for it, we are meeting the enemy -- in the mirror.
*************************************************************************
Unwarranted Executive Power: The pursuit of terrorism does not authorize the president to make up new laws.
By THOMAS G. DONLAN
As far back as 2002, the Department of Justice said in a legal brief,"The Constitution vests in the president inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that Constitutional authority." Attorney General Gonzales last week declined to declassify relevant legal reviews made by the Department of Justice.
Perhaps they were researched in a Star Chamber? Putting the president above the Congress is an invitation to tyranny. The president has no powers except those specified in the Constitution and those enacted by law. President Bush is stretching the power of commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy by indicating that he can order the military and its agencies, such as the National Security Agency, to do whatever furthers the defense of the country from terrorists, regardless of whether actual force is involved.
Surely the "strict constructionists" on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary eventually will point out what a stretch this is. The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power. There's not much fidelity in an executive who debates and lobbies Congress to shape a law to his liking and then goes beyond its writ.
Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.
It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law.
Some ancillary responsibility, however, must be attached to those members of the House and Senate who were informed, inadequately, about the wiretapping and did nothing to regulate it.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, told Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 that he was "unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities." But the senator was so respectful of the administration's injunction of secrecy that he wrote it out in longhand rather than give it to someone to type. Only last week, after the cat was out of the bag, did he do what he should have done in 2003 -- make his misgivings public and demand more information.
Published reports quote sources saying that 14 members of Congress were notified of the wiretapping. If some had misgivings, apparently they were scared of being called names, as the president did last week when he said: "It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."
Wrong. If we don't discuss the program and the lack of authority for it, we are meeting the enemy -- in the mirror.
*************************************************************************
Congressman Ron Paul Reiterates Danger Of Foreign Troops Being Used For Martial Law
Republican Congressman Ron Paul recently appeared on nationally syndicated radio and again reiterated his deep concern that foreign troops are mobilizing outside and inside America to be used as assets in a martial law takeover by the Bush administration.
"It's a horrible precedent and it's all part of the NAFTA scheme and globalization and world government," Paul told the Alex Jones Show.
"Obviously they shouldn't be permitted. What I'd like to see is that we don't have our troops in foreign countries and if we needed a national guard that they were back here at home, that's the bigger problem. Then if there were foreign troops on our soil maybe our state officials could deal with that with their own national guard."
Paul elaborated on his fear that after the next crisis the government, in line with their own public statements, will use military assets to police Americans on a regular basis.
"They're putting their back up against the wall and saying, if need be we're going to have martial law."
"We've heard all these statements by the President, by the administration, why they need more militarism at the federal government to keep people in check so nobody knows how this will turn out but I do know that the only thing we can do about it is try to alert the American people to what's going on so they can be prepared."
Paul offered his take on why the government seemed to be acting in a deranged and reckless manner on every issue.
"It's almost like they're going overboard that they lose their rationality and that's part of the reason why they usually fail too is they get overly bold and I think our government is overly bold thinking they are invincible and they feel invincible with their finances. Our government controls the reserve currency of the world, they literally have the ability to print gold."
************************************************************************
Republican Congressman Ron Paul recently appeared on nationally syndicated radio and again reiterated his deep concern that foreign troops are mobilizing outside and inside America to be used as assets in a martial law takeover by the Bush administration.
"It's a horrible precedent and it's all part of the NAFTA scheme and globalization and world government," Paul told the Alex Jones Show.
"Obviously they shouldn't be permitted. What I'd like to see is that we don't have our troops in foreign countries and if we needed a national guard that they were back here at home, that's the bigger problem. Then if there were foreign troops on our soil maybe our state officials could deal with that with their own national guard."
Paul elaborated on his fear that after the next crisis the government, in line with their own public statements, will use military assets to police Americans on a regular basis.
"They're putting their back up against the wall and saying, if need be we're going to have martial law."
"We've heard all these statements by the President, by the administration, why they need more militarism at the federal government to keep people in check so nobody knows how this will turn out but I do know that the only thing we can do about it is try to alert the American people to what's going on so they can be prepared."
Paul offered his take on why the government seemed to be acting in a deranged and reckless manner on every issue.
"It's almost like they're going overboard that they lose their rationality and that's part of the reason why they usually fail too is they get overly bold and I think our government is overly bold thinking they are invincible and they feel invincible with their finances. Our government controls the reserve currency of the world, they literally have the ability to print gold."
************************************************************************
Saturday, December 24, 2005
GOP Hitting Limits of Aggressive Tactics
Forget about being bipartisan, it's time for Democrats to stick together.
By Ronald Brownstein - Times Staff Writer
Democrats have had to exert great effort to contest conservative priorities, and were unable to highlight any of their own.
"This is still the Republican era and they are still in total control of the choices," Yale University political scientist Stephen Skowronek said. "What we've seen are the difficulties of concerted action on [the GOP] agenda, but you don't see any alternative agenda."
In the budget debate, for instance, the question was how much to cut spending on Medicaid — not whether to expand it, as many Democrats prefer, to cover more of the increasing number of Americans without health insurance.
Yet Republicans remain stymied on many fronts by their inability to attract the defections among moderate Senate Democrats that the White House expected after Bush's reelection last year. That problem largely doomed Bush's top domestic priority this year: restructuring Social Security.
"There's a recognition in the Democratic caucus that the only way we are going to compete … is if we stick together," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
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Forget about being bipartisan, it's time for Democrats to stick together.
By Ronald Brownstein - Times Staff Writer
Democrats have had to exert great effort to contest conservative priorities, and were unable to highlight any of their own.
"This is still the Republican era and they are still in total control of the choices," Yale University political scientist Stephen Skowronek said. "What we've seen are the difficulties of concerted action on [the GOP] agenda, but you don't see any alternative agenda."
In the budget debate, for instance, the question was how much to cut spending on Medicaid — not whether to expand it, as many Democrats prefer, to cover more of the increasing number of Americans without health insurance.
Yet Republicans remain stymied on many fronts by their inability to attract the defections among moderate Senate Democrats that the White House expected after Bush's reelection last year. That problem largely doomed Bush's top domestic priority this year: restructuring Social Security.
"There's a recognition in the Democratic caucus that the only way we are going to compete … is if we stick together," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
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Israel Ready to Strike Iran by End of March
Al Jazeera - December 22, 2005
In October, a Russian rocket carried Iran's first spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit. This launch accelerated Israel's plans to strike Tehran's nuclear facilities; the Jewish state is now getting ready for an attack by the end of March.
Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack. However, Iran's satellites won't be as efficient as the more powerful Israeli and American space spys.
Moreover, Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs.
A strike against Iran would be popular in Israel, where everyone agrees that Iran cannot be allowed to have the kind of nuclear weapons that Israel itself possesses in such bristling abundance. By the late 1990s, the U.S. intelligence community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 nuclear weapons, including missiles and bombs, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Israel did its homework. The March deadline also comes with an International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's NUCLEAR PROGRAM, which could lead to UN sanctions against Tehran, as Israel and the United States want. According to the Sunday Times, SHARON had already ordered Israel's special forces to be at the "highest stage of readiness" for the strike. Commenting on the report, a top White House official said that the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda, and the question "what next?" would have to be answered in the next few months. (Meaning: Sure, March could work for us.)
Only a fool would believe that the Bush administration gave up its ambitions for "full-spectrum dominance" in the Middle East just because Iraq turned into a disaster. To Washington, Iraq has always been a step towards Iran; which was never punished for removing the U.S.'s puppet, the shah, and seizing the American Embassy in Tehran. In fact, Iran is the first step to Washington's ultimate goal; planting U.S.-controlled hands on Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil, thus halting the political rise of China and India, and ensuring a "new American century" of unchallenged profit and privilege. For the elite, of course; as always, those back home have to deal with the bills and the body bags from these war games.
The United States and Israel have already begun a covert war against Iran. With defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, BUSH and SHARON will have little trouble gaining support for such an attack. In the next few months, we'll see the usual charade of "diplomacy" as military plans are being final.
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Al Jazeera - December 22, 2005
In October, a Russian rocket carried Iran's first spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit. This launch accelerated Israel's plans to strike Tehran's nuclear facilities; the Jewish state is now getting ready for an attack by the end of March.
Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack. However, Iran's satellites won't be as efficient as the more powerful Israeli and American space spys.
Moreover, Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs.
A strike against Iran would be popular in Israel, where everyone agrees that Iran cannot be allowed to have the kind of nuclear weapons that Israel itself possesses in such bristling abundance. By the late 1990s, the U.S. intelligence community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 nuclear weapons, including missiles and bombs, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Israel did its homework. The March deadline also comes with an International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's NUCLEAR PROGRAM, which could lead to UN sanctions against Tehran, as Israel and the United States want. According to the Sunday Times, SHARON had already ordered Israel's special forces to be at the "highest stage of readiness" for the strike. Commenting on the report, a top White House official said that the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda, and the question "what next?" would have to be answered in the next few months. (Meaning: Sure, March could work for us.)
Only a fool would believe that the Bush administration gave up its ambitions for "full-spectrum dominance" in the Middle East just because Iraq turned into a disaster. To Washington, Iraq has always been a step towards Iran; which was never punished for removing the U.S.'s puppet, the shah, and seizing the American Embassy in Tehran. In fact, Iran is the first step to Washington's ultimate goal; planting U.S.-controlled hands on Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil, thus halting the political rise of China and India, and ensuring a "new American century" of unchallenged profit and privilege. For the elite, of course; as always, those back home have to deal with the bills and the body bags from these war games.
The United States and Israel have already begun a covert war against Iran. With defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, BUSH and SHARON will have little trouble gaining support for such an attack. In the next few months, we'll see the usual charade of "diplomacy" as military plans are being final.
*************************************************************************
A Cruel Christmas by Carol Wolman, MD
opednews.com
I have a large practice, with many patients who are elderly or on disability, and who rely on a check of about $800/month to survive. Rent takes at least half of this. People on SSI do not receive food stamps, so their survival is marginal, and they are $100/month away from homelessness. Their medical expenses and necessary pharmaceutical drugs are covered by MediCare and MediCal.
The US government magnanimously awarded a raise of $10/month to SSI recipients, and here in California, Gov. Ahnold quickly deducted the same amount from the state's portion of the payment, even though the CA state treasury is now in the black. So these disabled people do not get their cost-of-living increase.
About two weeks ago, MediCare notified its beneficiaries and pharmacies, but not physicians, that patients would have to cough up a co-pay for their drugs, and some would no longer be covered. This set off a panic among this population.
Yesterday, 3 days before Christmas, NPR announced that as of January 1st, due to the MediCal cuts in the Federal budget- MediCal no longer will cover prescription drugs. This means that many of my patients may have to pay several hundred dollars per month to keep taking life-saving medications. They will no longer be able to afford rent. Of course, these budget cuts go to subsidize tax cuts for the rich!
Merry Christmas! Judgment will surely descend on this wicked land! If only Jesus would truly soften the hearts of the legislators toward the poor and elderly!
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opednews.com
I have a large practice, with many patients who are elderly or on disability, and who rely on a check of about $800/month to survive. Rent takes at least half of this. People on SSI do not receive food stamps, so their survival is marginal, and they are $100/month away from homelessness. Their medical expenses and necessary pharmaceutical drugs are covered by MediCare and MediCal.
The US government magnanimously awarded a raise of $10/month to SSI recipients, and here in California, Gov. Ahnold quickly deducted the same amount from the state's portion of the payment, even though the CA state treasury is now in the black. So these disabled people do not get their cost-of-living increase.
About two weeks ago, MediCare notified its beneficiaries and pharmacies, but not physicians, that patients would have to cough up a co-pay for their drugs, and some would no longer be covered. This set off a panic among this population.
Yesterday, 3 days before Christmas, NPR announced that as of January 1st, due to the MediCal cuts in the Federal budget- MediCal no longer will cover prescription drugs. This means that many of my patients may have to pay several hundred dollars per month to keep taking life-saving medications. They will no longer be able to afford rent. Of course, these budget cuts go to subsidize tax cuts for the rich!
Merry Christmas! Judgment will surely descend on this wicked land! If only Jesus would truly soften the hearts of the legislators toward the poor and elderly!
*************************************************************************
Three Knocks on the War on Terror
By Mick Youther - OpEdnews.com
Terroists have not attacked America again, because they don't need to-- There is nothing they can do that could compare to the damage the Bush Administration is inflicting on America—to our reputation, our environment, our domestic programs, our quality of life.
1. It has been pointed out by a number of people that terror (or terrorism) is a tactic, and you cannot declare war on a tactic. Bush’s declaration of a “War on Terror” after 9/11 is comparable to FDR declaring a “War on Surprise Attacks” after Pearl Harbor.
2. “We’re fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here,” is catchy, but what does it mean? Does the Bush Administration actually believe that terrorists march forward in a line like the Redcoats in the Revolutionary War; and if we can just hold that line “over there”, the terrorists won’t be able to get “over here”?
President Bush insists that, by sacrificing thousands of lives in Iraq, he is somehow protecting our liberty and freedom and making us safer here at home—he just never explains how. He cites the train bombings in Madrid as an example of what happens to countries that refused to “fight them over there”. Bush’s logic is impeccable, except Spain did join us in Iraq and did not leave until long after Bush had declared “Mission Accomplished”; and London’s subways were bombed even though Britain is still fighting the terrorists “over there”.
3. The Department of Homeland Security is a waste, a fraud, a sham—a government boondoggle of the worst kind; because it not only wastes taxpayer money, it offers Americans a false sense of security.
“Since 2001, the federal government has distributed more than $8 billion to help police, firefighters and other ‘first responders’ pay for equipment and training to prepare for terrorist attacks... Unfortunately, these grants have been allocated using a flawed formula that distributes funds widely but does not account for threat levels, vulnerability or the consequences of an attack.” --Co-Chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Kean and Hamilton, 9/11/05
Republicans in Congress know if Homeland Security money went where it is most needed, too much of it would go to the big cities where all those darned Democrats live. So, rather than distribute money based actual security needs, Congress treats Homeland Security money as just another big piece of pork. This leads to money going to the wrong places and being spent on the wrong things. The District of Columbia used federal domestic security money to buy leather jackets and send sanitation workers to self-improvement seminars. Newark, NJ, purchased air-conditioned garbage trucks, and Columbus, OH, bought armor for its fire department dogs. “These are not the priorities of a nation under threat,” said Kean and Hamilton.
Another problem is a lack of prioritization of security threats. Congress sets security-related deadlines without differentiating between banning toenail clippers on airplanes and monitoring the cargo entering our ports (The CIA believes this is most likely means of moving weapons of mass destruction into the United States).
Each year, foreign cargo ships visit U.S. ports some 50,000 times carrying millions of shipping containers. Only 4 to 6 percent of these containers are currently inspected. In spite of this, the Bush Administration’s 2003 and 2004 budgets provided no money for port security grants.
“For the cost of two F-22 fighter jets and three days of combat in Iraq, the nation's ports could be secured against terror.” --Retired Coast Guard Commander Stephen Flynn, The Progress Report, americanprogressaction.org, 12/1/04
Most of America’s security problems are a direct result of White House actions or inactions. The Republicans may control Congress, but the White House has effectively controlled the Republicans since Bush was appointed President in 2000. Now, four years after 9/11; the hodgepodge of “security” measures they have put into place is laughable.
They inspect our shoes for bombs before we can board a plane that is carrying tons of un-inspected cargo. They maintain a terrorist watch-list that keeps Yusuf Islam (a.k.a. Cat Stevens) from entering the U.S., while hundreds of thousands of people illegally cross our southern border every year. They declared war to keep Saddam from giving (non-existent) nuclear weapons to terrorists, but they have done next to nothing to assure that terrorists don’t get their hands on one of the 30,000 nuclear warheads left in the Soviet arsenal.
Recent reports indicate that the Bush Administration believes the best way to protect Americans is to spy on non-violent peace activists, environmentalists, and anyone else who happens to disagree with them—never mind the ports, railways, nuclear power plants, chemical plants, refineries, dams, bridges, etc. They will take care of themselves.
“The government should only address those activities that the market does not adequately provide -- for example, national defense or border security. (Did he say border security?) ... For other aspects of homeland security, sufficient incentives exist in the private market to supply protection.” --President Bush's 2002 National Homeland Security Strategy
In BushWorld, the government never has to worry about domestic security. The private sector will solve all our problems—even terrorism. Benevolent corporations will voluntarily spend whatever is necessary to guard their facilities, secure their hazardous materials, and protect our nation’s infrastructure from the evil-doers. They will also meet strict voluntary environmental and safety standards—while guaranteeing their employee pension and healthcare plans.
Back in the real world, we have an administration that failed to prevent the “surprise” attacks on 9/11—despite specific warnings from numerous countries and agents in our FBI. Four years later, Hurricane Katrina blew away all illusions that this administration had done anything to increase our nation’s ability to respond to a crisis. Last year, I watched an interview with three security experts. When they were asked, “Why hasn’t the U.S. been attacked again?”—they had no idea.
My theory: Until they acquire a nuclear weapon, there is no reason for terrorists to attack America again. There is nothing they can do that could compare to the damage the Bush Administration is inflicting on America—to our reputation, our environment, our domestic programs, our quality of life. The Bush Administration continues to stretch our military, stretch the budget, and stretch the truth—every time they claim to be doing everything they can to keep Americans safe.
*************************************************************************
By Mick Youther - OpEdnews.com
Terroists have not attacked America again, because they don't need to-- There is nothing they can do that could compare to the damage the Bush Administration is inflicting on America—to our reputation, our environment, our domestic programs, our quality of life.
1. It has been pointed out by a number of people that terror (or terrorism) is a tactic, and you cannot declare war on a tactic. Bush’s declaration of a “War on Terror” after 9/11 is comparable to FDR declaring a “War on Surprise Attacks” after Pearl Harbor.
2. “We’re fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here,” is catchy, but what does it mean? Does the Bush Administration actually believe that terrorists march forward in a line like the Redcoats in the Revolutionary War; and if we can just hold that line “over there”, the terrorists won’t be able to get “over here”?
President Bush insists that, by sacrificing thousands of lives in Iraq, he is somehow protecting our liberty and freedom and making us safer here at home—he just never explains how. He cites the train bombings in Madrid as an example of what happens to countries that refused to “fight them over there”. Bush’s logic is impeccable, except Spain did join us in Iraq and did not leave until long after Bush had declared “Mission Accomplished”; and London’s subways were bombed even though Britain is still fighting the terrorists “over there”.
3. The Department of Homeland Security is a waste, a fraud, a sham—a government boondoggle of the worst kind; because it not only wastes taxpayer money, it offers Americans a false sense of security.
“Since 2001, the federal government has distributed more than $8 billion to help police, firefighters and other ‘first responders’ pay for equipment and training to prepare for terrorist attacks... Unfortunately, these grants have been allocated using a flawed formula that distributes funds widely but does not account for threat levels, vulnerability or the consequences of an attack.” --Co-Chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Kean and Hamilton, 9/11/05
Republicans in Congress know if Homeland Security money went where it is most needed, too much of it would go to the big cities where all those darned Democrats live. So, rather than distribute money based actual security needs, Congress treats Homeland Security money as just another big piece of pork. This leads to money going to the wrong places and being spent on the wrong things. The District of Columbia used federal domestic security money to buy leather jackets and send sanitation workers to self-improvement seminars. Newark, NJ, purchased air-conditioned garbage trucks, and Columbus, OH, bought armor for its fire department dogs. “These are not the priorities of a nation under threat,” said Kean and Hamilton.
Another problem is a lack of prioritization of security threats. Congress sets security-related deadlines without differentiating between banning toenail clippers on airplanes and monitoring the cargo entering our ports (The CIA believes this is most likely means of moving weapons of mass destruction into the United States).
Each year, foreign cargo ships visit U.S. ports some 50,000 times carrying millions of shipping containers. Only 4 to 6 percent of these containers are currently inspected. In spite of this, the Bush Administration’s 2003 and 2004 budgets provided no money for port security grants.
“For the cost of two F-22 fighter jets and three days of combat in Iraq, the nation's ports could be secured against terror.” --Retired Coast Guard Commander Stephen Flynn, The Progress Report, americanprogressaction.org, 12/1/04
Most of America’s security problems are a direct result of White House actions or inactions. The Republicans may control Congress, but the White House has effectively controlled the Republicans since Bush was appointed President in 2000. Now, four years after 9/11; the hodgepodge of “security” measures they have put into place is laughable.
They inspect our shoes for bombs before we can board a plane that is carrying tons of un-inspected cargo. They maintain a terrorist watch-list that keeps Yusuf Islam (a.k.a. Cat Stevens) from entering the U.S., while hundreds of thousands of people illegally cross our southern border every year. They declared war to keep Saddam from giving (non-existent) nuclear weapons to terrorists, but they have done next to nothing to assure that terrorists don’t get their hands on one of the 30,000 nuclear warheads left in the Soviet arsenal.
Recent reports indicate that the Bush Administration believes the best way to protect Americans is to spy on non-violent peace activists, environmentalists, and anyone else who happens to disagree with them—never mind the ports, railways, nuclear power plants, chemical plants, refineries, dams, bridges, etc. They will take care of themselves.
“The government should only address those activities that the market does not adequately provide -- for example, national defense or border security. (Did he say border security?) ... For other aspects of homeland security, sufficient incentives exist in the private market to supply protection.” --President Bush's 2002 National Homeland Security Strategy
In BushWorld, the government never has to worry about domestic security. The private sector will solve all our problems—even terrorism. Benevolent corporations will voluntarily spend whatever is necessary to guard their facilities, secure their hazardous materials, and protect our nation’s infrastructure from the evil-doers. They will also meet strict voluntary environmental and safety standards—while guaranteeing their employee pension and healthcare plans.
Back in the real world, we have an administration that failed to prevent the “surprise” attacks on 9/11—despite specific warnings from numerous countries and agents in our FBI. Four years later, Hurricane Katrina blew away all illusions that this administration had done anything to increase our nation’s ability to respond to a crisis. Last year, I watched an interview with three security experts. When they were asked, “Why hasn’t the U.S. been attacked again?”—they had no idea.
My theory: Until they acquire a nuclear weapon, there is no reason for terrorists to attack America again. There is nothing they can do that could compare to the damage the Bush Administration is inflicting on America—to our reputation, our environment, our domestic programs, our quality of life. The Bush Administration continues to stretch our military, stretch the budget, and stretch the truth—every time they claim to be doing everything they can to keep Americans safe.
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Friday, December 23, 2005
OHIO ON VERGE OF SECEDING FROM CONSTITUTION WITH NEW POLICE STATE BILL
CLEVELAND CHANNEL 5 - The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country.
The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.
WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID. "It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society," said Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot Act. There are many others who oppose the bill as well. "The variety of people who opposed to this is not just a group of the usual suspects.
We have people far right to the left opposing the bill who think it is a bad idea," said Al McGinty, News Channel 5's terrorism expert. . . WEWS was told that Taft is expected to sign the bill into law, but legal experts expect it will be challenged in courts.
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CLEVELAND CHANNEL 5 - The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country.
The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.
WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID. "It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society," said Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot Act. There are many others who oppose the bill as well. "The variety of people who opposed to this is not just a group of the usual suspects.
We have people far right to the left opposing the bill who think it is a bad idea," said Al McGinty, News Channel 5's terrorism expert. . . WEWS was told that Taft is expected to sign the bill into law, but legal experts expect it will be challenged in courts.
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New Documents Show FBI Spying on Domestic Activist Groups
Democracy Now
Newly released documents show counterterrorism agents at the FBI have been monitoring domestic organizations active in causes as diverse as peace, the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief. The documents came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. Groups under FBI surveillance include Greenpeace, PETA and the Catholic Worker.
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Democracy Now
Newly released documents show counterterrorism agents at the FBI have been monitoring domestic organizations active in causes as diverse as peace, the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief. The documents came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. Groups under FBI surveillance include Greenpeace, PETA and the Catholic Worker.
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Vast US Effort Seen on Eavesdropping
By Charlie Savage - Boston Globe Staff
The National Security Agency, in carrying out President Bush's order to intercept the international phone calls and e-mails of Americans suspected of links to Al Qaeda, has probably been using computers to monitor all other Americans' international communications as well, according to specialists familiar with the workings of the NSA.
The agency captures 2 million pieces of communications an hour from satellites, fiberoptic lines, and Internet switching stations, and then uses a computer to check for names, numbers, and words that have been identified as suspicious. "They have a capacity to listen to every overseas phone call," said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which has obtained documents about the NSA using Freedom of Information Act requests.
Among the risks, he said, is that the spy agency's computers will collect personal information that has no bearing on national security, and that intelligence agents programming those computers will be tempted to abuse their power to eavesdrop for personal or political gain.
The NSA's system of monitoring e-mails and phone calls to check for search terms has been used for decades overseas, where the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches does not apply. But, Rotenberg said, the mere fact that spy computers are monitoring the calls and e-mails of Americans may violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether automated surveillance of phone calls and e-mails, without a warrant, is constitutional.
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By Charlie Savage - Boston Globe Staff
The National Security Agency, in carrying out President Bush's order to intercept the international phone calls and e-mails of Americans suspected of links to Al Qaeda, has probably been using computers to monitor all other Americans' international communications as well, according to specialists familiar with the workings of the NSA.
The agency captures 2 million pieces of communications an hour from satellites, fiberoptic lines, and Internet switching stations, and then uses a computer to check for names, numbers, and words that have been identified as suspicious. "They have a capacity to listen to every overseas phone call," said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which has obtained documents about the NSA using Freedom of Information Act requests.
Among the risks, he said, is that the spy agency's computers will collect personal information that has no bearing on national security, and that intelligence agents programming those computers will be tempted to abuse their power to eavesdrop for personal or political gain.
The NSA's system of monitoring e-mails and phone calls to check for search terms has been used for decades overseas, where the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches does not apply. But, Rotenberg said, the mere fact that spy computers are monitoring the calls and e-mails of Americans may violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether automated surveillance of phone calls and e-mails, without a warrant, is constitutional.
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Daschle: Congress Denied Bush War Powers within U.S.
As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons" who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text," Daschle wrote. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."
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As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons" who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text," Daschle wrote. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
From "It Was Legal" To "I Am Lazy":
The George Bush Domestic Spy Story
By David Sirota
Another day, yet another new and wholly different explanation from the Bush administration about its illegal domestic spying operation.
In just the last 5 days, we've seen 3 separate explanations rolled out from the White House. First they claimed it was legal all along, then when that didn't fly, they said they had to do it because of a need for speed.
Now that that has been debunked, they are actually claiming they were just too lazy to do "the paperwork." On top of this, they also first told us that the surveillance was only targeted at international calls – but now today, we learn that isn't true either, and that Americans are under surveillance on purely domestic calls.
Let's just walk through the shenanigans, shall we?
When the story first broke, the administration was clearly in panic mode, and offered up the positively ridiculous claim that the President has the authority to break the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because Congress passed a resolution right after 9/11 saying he should fight Al Qaeda. Of course, the resolution said nothing about violating the U.S. Constitution, or violating statutes protecting Americans' civil liberties – and, as Thinkprogress documents, in passing the resolution, Congress explicitly told the White House that the resolution did not authorize any extra-legal behavior. And, incredibly, the White House didn't request changes to those statutes when it passed the original Patriot Act because it knew Congress wouldn't go along. So instead of asking for changes to the law, they just broke the law.
When their "it was legal all along" argument didn't hold water, President Bush called a press conference claiming that he needed to break the law because the operations he was ordering "require quick action." He cited how terrorists in the information are able to move fast, and claimed that the process for getting a warrant would slow down law enforcement's efforts to catch them.
But then that was debunked too, as observers noted that the special FISA court Bush was legally required to get a warrant from actually allowed the White House to conduct surveillance, and get a warrant retroactively, thus not slowing down the process. Additionally, the FISA court has rejected just 4 warrant requests in a quarter century – meaning it basically gives away warrants, as long as you can show even a shred of minimum cause. As Colin Powell noted on ABC's Nightline last night:
"It didn’t seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go and get the warrants. And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it [begin surveillance]. The law provides for that. And three days later, you let the court know what you have done, and deal with it that way.”
Now, with two swings and misses, the White House is offering up perhaps the most pathetic rationale possible: we were lazy, and we just didn't feel like upholding the law. The administration is trotting out Michael Hayden, who was NSA director when the surveillance began and is now Bush's deputy director of national intelligence. The Washington Post reports that Hayden told reporters that "getting retroactive court approval is inefficient because it 'involves marshaling arguments' and 'looping paperwork around.'"
So now we really see what it's come to. The law is just a nuisance to these people. They don't feel like "marshaling arguments" or doing the "paperwork" that the law requires – the law, mind you, that was written to protect people's civil liberties, and the arguments/paperwork that are specifically required to make sure there is a check on Presidents whose henchmen are conducting surveillance operations on political enemies (ie. as the New York Times has reported, "civil rights, anti-war, environmental, animal cruelty, and poverty relief" groups).
We are supposed to feel OK about all of this because, as the New York Times noted, "Mr. Bush and his senior aides have emphasized since the disclosure of the program's existence last week that the president's executive order applied only to cases where one party on a call or e-mail message was outside the United States" (as if that means law breaking is acceptable). But even this inadequate explanation has been exposed as a lie. As the Times noted, the illegal surveillance program "has captured what are purely domestic communications."
Throughout all of this, the media and insulated elitists in the political chattering classes have obediently portrayed the controversy in "he said, she said" terms, or terms that simply justify law-breaking. As the President promises to continue breaking the law, Katie Couric banters back and forth with Tim Russert about how the only people who care about this are "constitutional scholars" – not the American people. Bloviators like William Kristol write fawning congratulations to President Bush for trampling the constitution, and go on Fox News demanding to know why President Bill Clinton hadn't trampled the Constitution when he was in office. And the Democratic Leadership Council, undermining congressional Democrats who are courageously raising questions, actually says Bush' law-breaking is entirely justified, even though we haven't been given one justification that holds water.
Yet in the media/punditry's desperate, mob-like rush to kiss the fat white ass of power even as it farts the most foul-smelling lies right in their face, none of these people have answered or even asked the very simple question: If the president is permitted to break this law with absolutely no concrete justification at all, what law isn't he allowed to break? Can he walk into a 7-11 and rob it? Can he steal taxpayer money and pocket it as his own? Or how about executing his political enemies? Can he do that?
These may sound like hyperbolic questions – but they cut to what this really is about. Does the "rule of law" which President Bush has talked so much about actually mean anything in the United States of America?
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The George Bush Domestic Spy Story
By David Sirota
Another day, yet another new and wholly different explanation from the Bush administration about its illegal domestic spying operation.
In just the last 5 days, we've seen 3 separate explanations rolled out from the White House. First they claimed it was legal all along, then when that didn't fly, they said they had to do it because of a need for speed.
Now that that has been debunked, they are actually claiming they were just too lazy to do "the paperwork." On top of this, they also first told us that the surveillance was only targeted at international calls – but now today, we learn that isn't true either, and that Americans are under surveillance on purely domestic calls.
Let's just walk through the shenanigans, shall we?
When the story first broke, the administration was clearly in panic mode, and offered up the positively ridiculous claim that the President has the authority to break the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because Congress passed a resolution right after 9/11 saying he should fight Al Qaeda. Of course, the resolution said nothing about violating the U.S. Constitution, or violating statutes protecting Americans' civil liberties – and, as Thinkprogress documents, in passing the resolution, Congress explicitly told the White House that the resolution did not authorize any extra-legal behavior. And, incredibly, the White House didn't request changes to those statutes when it passed the original Patriot Act because it knew Congress wouldn't go along. So instead of asking for changes to the law, they just broke the law.
When their "it was legal all along" argument didn't hold water, President Bush called a press conference claiming that he needed to break the law because the operations he was ordering "require quick action." He cited how terrorists in the information are able to move fast, and claimed that the process for getting a warrant would slow down law enforcement's efforts to catch them.
But then that was debunked too, as observers noted that the special FISA court Bush was legally required to get a warrant from actually allowed the White House to conduct surveillance, and get a warrant retroactively, thus not slowing down the process. Additionally, the FISA court has rejected just 4 warrant requests in a quarter century – meaning it basically gives away warrants, as long as you can show even a shred of minimum cause. As Colin Powell noted on ABC's Nightline last night:
"It didn’t seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go and get the warrants. And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it [begin surveillance]. The law provides for that. And three days later, you let the court know what you have done, and deal with it that way.”
Now, with two swings and misses, the White House is offering up perhaps the most pathetic rationale possible: we were lazy, and we just didn't feel like upholding the law. The administration is trotting out Michael Hayden, who was NSA director when the surveillance began and is now Bush's deputy director of national intelligence. The Washington Post reports that Hayden told reporters that "getting retroactive court approval is inefficient because it 'involves marshaling arguments' and 'looping paperwork around.'"
So now we really see what it's come to. The law is just a nuisance to these people. They don't feel like "marshaling arguments" or doing the "paperwork" that the law requires – the law, mind you, that was written to protect people's civil liberties, and the arguments/paperwork that are specifically required to make sure there is a check on Presidents whose henchmen are conducting surveillance operations on political enemies (ie. as the New York Times has reported, "civil rights, anti-war, environmental, animal cruelty, and poverty relief" groups).
We are supposed to feel OK about all of this because, as the New York Times noted, "Mr. Bush and his senior aides have emphasized since the disclosure of the program's existence last week that the president's executive order applied only to cases where one party on a call or e-mail message was outside the United States" (as if that means law breaking is acceptable). But even this inadequate explanation has been exposed as a lie. As the Times noted, the illegal surveillance program "has captured what are purely domestic communications."
Throughout all of this, the media and insulated elitists in the political chattering classes have obediently portrayed the controversy in "he said, she said" terms, or terms that simply justify law-breaking. As the President promises to continue breaking the law, Katie Couric banters back and forth with Tim Russert about how the only people who care about this are "constitutional scholars" – not the American people. Bloviators like William Kristol write fawning congratulations to President Bush for trampling the constitution, and go on Fox News demanding to know why President Bill Clinton hadn't trampled the Constitution when he was in office. And the Democratic Leadership Council, undermining congressional Democrats who are courageously raising questions, actually says Bush' law-breaking is entirely justified, even though we haven't been given one justification that holds water.
Yet in the media/punditry's desperate, mob-like rush to kiss the fat white ass of power even as it farts the most foul-smelling lies right in their face, none of these people have answered or even asked the very simple question: If the president is permitted to break this law with absolutely no concrete justification at all, what law isn't he allowed to break? Can he walk into a 7-11 and rob it? Can he steal taxpayer money and pocket it as his own? Or how about executing his political enemies? Can he do that?
These may sound like hyperbolic questions – but they cut to what this really is about. Does the "rule of law" which President Bush has talked so much about actually mean anything in the United States of America?
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Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute Director, Reveals Nuclear Plant Pollution
By Sue Sturgis - The Independent, (Raleigh-Durham area)
It's true that reactors don't emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide, but it's not true that nuclear plants are emissions-free. In fact, they routinely release radioactivity through leaks in the fuel rods, pipes, tanks and valves, according to NIRS. They also routinely release contaminated water in order to limit the presence of radioactive and corrosive chemicals that damage reactor parts. Entering the outside environment through plants' stacks and water discharge pipes, the radioactive pollution includes more than 100 different chemicals produced only in reactors and atomic bombs--substances including cesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90 and tritium, an isotope of helium.
By breathing radiation-contaminated air, drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food, humans ingest these chemicals. They in turn release fast-moving subatomic particles into our bodies that smash into and break molecules, leading to cancer, birth defects and genetic mutations. Some of these substances seek out specific targets. Radioactive iodine, for example, aims for the thyroid. Strontium mimics calcium and goes for the bones. Tritium behaves like water, dispersing throughout the body and entering cells where it can disrupt DNA.
"The thing about radiation is that you can't see it and you can't smell it, so when the nuclear industry says they do not pollute, people can't provide evidence through their senses to challenge that," says Olson, who suffered health problems after being accidentally exposed to radiation while working in a medical school laboratory. "Yet all nuclear power reactors release radioactivity to the air and to the water."
And make no mistake about it--nuclear power is a choice, not a necessity. The choice is between spending $13 billion for more polluting nuclear power plants or aggressively pursuing energy conservation along with cleaner, more economically efficient sources of power such as solar, wind and biomass.
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By Sue Sturgis - The Independent, (Raleigh-Durham area)
It's true that reactors don't emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide, but it's not true that nuclear plants are emissions-free. In fact, they routinely release radioactivity through leaks in the fuel rods, pipes, tanks and valves, according to NIRS. They also routinely release contaminated water in order to limit the presence of radioactive and corrosive chemicals that damage reactor parts. Entering the outside environment through plants' stacks and water discharge pipes, the radioactive pollution includes more than 100 different chemicals produced only in reactors and atomic bombs--substances including cesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90 and tritium, an isotope of helium.
By breathing radiation-contaminated air, drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food, humans ingest these chemicals. They in turn release fast-moving subatomic particles into our bodies that smash into and break molecules, leading to cancer, birth defects and genetic mutations. Some of these substances seek out specific targets. Radioactive iodine, for example, aims for the thyroid. Strontium mimics calcium and goes for the bones. Tritium behaves like water, dispersing throughout the body and entering cells where it can disrupt DNA.
"The thing about radiation is that you can't see it and you can't smell it, so when the nuclear industry says they do not pollute, people can't provide evidence through their senses to challenge that," says Olson, who suffered health problems after being accidentally exposed to radiation while working in a medical school laboratory. "Yet all nuclear power reactors release radioactivity to the air and to the water."
And make no mistake about it--nuclear power is a choice, not a necessity. The choice is between spending $13 billion for more polluting nuclear power plants or aggressively pursuing energy conservation along with cleaner, more economically efficient sources of power such as solar, wind and biomass.
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Tom Delay Lived Opulent Lifestyle from Campaign Contributions
By LARRY MARGASAK and SHARON THEIMER - Associated Press Writers
Over the past six years, the former House majority leader or his associates have visited places of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting there aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests.
Public documents reviewed by The Associated Press tell the story: at least 48 visits to golf clubs and resorts with lush fairways; 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.
The meals and trips for DeLay and his associates were paid with donations collected by the campaign committees, political action committees and children's charity the Texas Republican created during his rise to a top spot in Congress.
Put them together and a picture of an opulent lifestyle emerges.
Palmas del Mar, the Caribbean vacation spot, has casino gambling, horseback riding, snorkeling, deep-sea fishing and private beaches.
"Delay was very friendly. We always see the relaxed side of politicians," said Daniel Vassi, owner of the French bistro Chez Daniel at Palmas del Mar. Vassi said DeLay has eaten at his restaurant every year for the past three, and was last there in April with about 20 other people, including the resort's owners.
The restaurant is a cozy and popular place on the yacht-lined marina at Palmas del Mar. Dishes include bouillabaisse for about $35.50, Dover sole for $37.50 and filet mignon for $28.50. Palmas del Mar is also a DeLay donor, giving $5,000 to his Americans for a Republican Majority PAC in 2000.
Since he joined the House leadership as majority whip in 1995, DeLay has raised at least $35 million for his campaign, PACs, foundation and legal defense fund. He hasn't faced a serious re-election threat in recent years, giving him more leeway than candidates in close races to spend campaign money.
AP's review found DeLay's various organizations spent at least $1 million over the past six years on top hotels, restaurants, golf resorts and corporate jet flights for their boss and his associates.
The spending shows how political power can buy access to the lifestyles of the rich and famous. While it's illegal for a lawmaker to tap political donations for a family vacation, it is legal to spend it in luxury if the stated purpose is raising more money or talking politics.
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By LARRY MARGASAK and SHARON THEIMER - Associated Press Writers
Over the past six years, the former House majority leader or his associates have visited places of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting there aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests.
Public documents reviewed by The Associated Press tell the story: at least 48 visits to golf clubs and resorts with lush fairways; 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.
The meals and trips for DeLay and his associates were paid with donations collected by the campaign committees, political action committees and children's charity the Texas Republican created during his rise to a top spot in Congress.
Put them together and a picture of an opulent lifestyle emerges.
Palmas del Mar, the Caribbean vacation spot, has casino gambling, horseback riding, snorkeling, deep-sea fishing and private beaches.
"Delay was very friendly. We always see the relaxed side of politicians," said Daniel Vassi, owner of the French bistro Chez Daniel at Palmas del Mar. Vassi said DeLay has eaten at his restaurant every year for the past three, and was last there in April with about 20 other people, including the resort's owners.
The restaurant is a cozy and popular place on the yacht-lined marina at Palmas del Mar. Dishes include bouillabaisse for about $35.50, Dover sole for $37.50 and filet mignon for $28.50. Palmas del Mar is also a DeLay donor, giving $5,000 to his Americans for a Republican Majority PAC in 2000.
Since he joined the House leadership as majority whip in 1995, DeLay has raised at least $35 million for his campaign, PACs, foundation and legal defense fund. He hasn't faced a serious re-election threat in recent years, giving him more leeway than candidates in close races to spend campaign money.
AP's review found DeLay's various organizations spent at least $1 million over the past six years on top hotels, restaurants, golf resorts and corporate jet flights for their boss and his associates.
The spending shows how political power can buy access to the lifestyles of the rich and famous. While it's illegal for a lawmaker to tap political donations for a family vacation, it is legal to spend it in luxury if the stated purpose is raising more money or talking politics.
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The United States of America Is Back to Lexington and Concord.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
Dick Cheney has put it on the table as bluntly and thuggishly as a mobster setting down a crowbar. Cheney has said that he, Bush and Rumsfeld are out to seize as much power as they can in the name of a "robust" executive branch. It ain't no executive branch Cheney is after; it's a dictatorship.
As we've said before, call it the Franco regime, the Stalin regime, the Pinochet Regime, the Brezhnev regime, the Bush regime -- they are all the same in terms of dictatorial powers that deny democracy.
Is the American Constitution going to be put through the shredder until there is nothing left but strips of paper to throw out in the trash? Or are some patriotic heroes going to rescue America?
Right now the "Centrist Democrats" are still sitting back acting as if there's no immediate crisis. Their consultants warn them not to appear too radical! As if the dismembering of democracy by Cheney and Bush is not radical! As if the brazen seizure of illegal dictatorial powers is not radical! As if the conduct of an unnecessary war costing thousands of lives, fomenting a new generation of terrorists, and bankrupting America is not radical!
The Bush dictatorship -- and it has clearly and publicly crossed the threshold now -- is not going to tiptoe away. Dictatorships don't. They hang on until they are displaced from positions of power.
If the Democrats don't start yelling fire soon, we'll just be left with the burning hulk of what once was a great democracy. We are on the verge of irreversibly becoming just another dictatorship "ism."
The terrorists have an ally in Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. Cheney and Bush have accomplished what Osama never dreamed of achieving: bringing down the American democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship.
And what's more the Busheviks are totally inept at making the right strategic moves in actually confronting the threat of terrorism.
They are like all dictators, arrogant, elitist losers who seize permanent power because they could not hold onto it based on accomplishment -- because they only have a record of ruin to run on.
Meanwhile the John Kerrys of the world act as if they have all the time in the world to "win the next election." As if there were a chance of a fair one in a de facto dictatorship.
The satirist Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver's Travels") would tell us this. For the most part, we are left with a party composed of Democratic fools living in a political world of GOP knaves.
God help us all!
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A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
Dick Cheney has put it on the table as bluntly and thuggishly as a mobster setting down a crowbar. Cheney has said that he, Bush and Rumsfeld are out to seize as much power as they can in the name of a "robust" executive branch. It ain't no executive branch Cheney is after; it's a dictatorship.
As we've said before, call it the Franco regime, the Stalin regime, the Pinochet Regime, the Brezhnev regime, the Bush regime -- they are all the same in terms of dictatorial powers that deny democracy.
Is the American Constitution going to be put through the shredder until there is nothing left but strips of paper to throw out in the trash? Or are some patriotic heroes going to rescue America?
Right now the "Centrist Democrats" are still sitting back acting as if there's no immediate crisis. Their consultants warn them not to appear too radical! As if the dismembering of democracy by Cheney and Bush is not radical! As if the brazen seizure of illegal dictatorial powers is not radical! As if the conduct of an unnecessary war costing thousands of lives, fomenting a new generation of terrorists, and bankrupting America is not radical!
The Bush dictatorship -- and it has clearly and publicly crossed the threshold now -- is not going to tiptoe away. Dictatorships don't. They hang on until they are displaced from positions of power.
If the Democrats don't start yelling fire soon, we'll just be left with the burning hulk of what once was a great democracy. We are on the verge of irreversibly becoming just another dictatorship "ism."
The terrorists have an ally in Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. Cheney and Bush have accomplished what Osama never dreamed of achieving: bringing down the American democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship.
And what's more the Busheviks are totally inept at making the right strategic moves in actually confronting the threat of terrorism.
They are like all dictators, arrogant, elitist losers who seize permanent power because they could not hold onto it based on accomplishment -- because they only have a record of ruin to run on.
Meanwhile the John Kerrys of the world act as if they have all the time in the world to "win the next election." As if there were a chance of a fair one in a de facto dictatorship.
The satirist Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver's Travels") would tell us this. For the most part, we are left with a party composed of Democratic fools living in a political world of GOP knaves.
God help us all!
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Poor get chilly federal reception
By Annette Fuentes
I got a delivery of heating oil the other day and prepared for the worst. The Energy Department predicts a nearly 26% jump in heating costs this winter compared with last. It's going to be a long, chilly winter. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., was thinking the same thing in October when he wrote a letter, co-signed by 11 colleagues, to CEOs of nine oil companies. Reed asked the companies, flush with profits about 35% higher than last year's, to donate 10% of those profits to help low-income people pay their heating bills. ExxonMobil alone reported almost $10 billion in profits during just one quarter this year.
Reed got a response from the American Petroleum Institute, the lobby representing oil and natural gas companies. The API said oil companies were already doing their share by paying taxes on their profits. If low-income Americans need more assistance, then Congress should use some of those taxes the oil companies paid to the government to increase heating assistance.
Only one CEO responded: Felix Rodriguez of Citgo, owned by a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Rodriguez has brokered deals to sell heating oil at discounted rates to poorer communities in Massachusetts and the Bronx, N.Y., where fuel was delivered last week to three non-profit housing groups. Reed is working on a deal with Citgo for his state. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the Bush administration, has trumpeted Citgo's charitable actions, most recently in ads published in U.S. newspapers proclaiming "How Venezuela Is Keeping the Home Fires Burning in Massachusetts."
Chavez might be trying to embarrass the Bush administration, but what's really embarrassing is how little help Americans will receive this winter from their own government. The federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has helped the poor and elderly pay their heating bills since 1982. That first year, the program was funded with $1.9 billion and served more than 7 million households.
This year, the program's final allocation was $1.9 billion in block grants and $298 million for the emergency funds. In other words, the program's block grant is almost the same today as it was 23 years ago. And because of inflation, that 1982 funding level would equal more than $3 billion in today's dollars.
Funding hasn't kept pace with cost increases or needs. While the number of eligible households rose more than 49% from the program's inception until 2000, funding increased only 22%. A dozen states are acting to fill the gap, pouring $280 million from their own budgets into heating assistance programs.
Like I said, it's going to be a long, cold winter.
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By Annette Fuentes
I got a delivery of heating oil the other day and prepared for the worst. The Energy Department predicts a nearly 26% jump in heating costs this winter compared with last. It's going to be a long, chilly winter. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., was thinking the same thing in October when he wrote a letter, co-signed by 11 colleagues, to CEOs of nine oil companies. Reed asked the companies, flush with profits about 35% higher than last year's, to donate 10% of those profits to help low-income people pay their heating bills. ExxonMobil alone reported almost $10 billion in profits during just one quarter this year.
Reed got a response from the American Petroleum Institute, the lobby representing oil and natural gas companies. The API said oil companies were already doing their share by paying taxes on their profits. If low-income Americans need more assistance, then Congress should use some of those taxes the oil companies paid to the government to increase heating assistance.
Only one CEO responded: Felix Rodriguez of Citgo, owned by a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Rodriguez has brokered deals to sell heating oil at discounted rates to poorer communities in Massachusetts and the Bronx, N.Y., where fuel was delivered last week to three non-profit housing groups. Reed is working on a deal with Citgo for his state. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the Bush administration, has trumpeted Citgo's charitable actions, most recently in ads published in U.S. newspapers proclaiming "How Venezuela Is Keeping the Home Fires Burning in Massachusetts."
Chavez might be trying to embarrass the Bush administration, but what's really embarrassing is how little help Americans will receive this winter from their own government. The federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has helped the poor and elderly pay their heating bills since 1982. That first year, the program was funded with $1.9 billion and served more than 7 million households.
This year, the program's final allocation was $1.9 billion in block grants and $298 million for the emergency funds. In other words, the program's block grant is almost the same today as it was 23 years ago. And because of inflation, that 1982 funding level would equal more than $3 billion in today's dollars.
Funding hasn't kept pace with cost increases or needs. While the number of eligible households rose more than 49% from the program's inception until 2000, funding increased only 22%. A dozen states are acting to fill the gap, pouring $280 million from their own budgets into heating assistance programs.
Like I said, it's going to be a long, cold winter.
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Did Emanuel miss key votes because he was on vacation? - by David Siorta
Yesterday, I pointed out that on the most important budget vote of the year, 6 Democrats were absent, and the bill passed by 6 votes. One of those 6 was Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chairman of the House Democrats campaign committee, who the Washington Post notes, "has excoriated fellow Democrats for missing tough votes." Now, a story in the Chicago Sun Times raises serious questions about exactly why he missed the vote.
In the Sun Times' story about how Emanuel encouraged Democrats to vote for the GOP's disgusting immigration bill, reporter Lynn Sweet reports that she called Emanuel's office for a comment on Tuesday, and was told that Emanuel is "on vacation." The budget vote, remember, was very early in the morning on Monday - so it is technically possible that Emanuel started his vacation afterwards - but then, why did he miss the vote? And more interestingly, why did he miss every House roll call vote on that Monday? Was he on vacation?
The Washington Post reports that when asked, Emanuel's spokeswoman said "Emanuel had a family obligation." Is that code for "on vacation?"
This is a really important question that Emanuel needs to answer - and I should say, it is still possible he had a good reason, and if he does, then I will stand down (though it better be a pretty compelling reason considering Republican Rep. Joe Barton managed to make the vote 4 days after being hospitalized for a heart attack). Democrats should know whether the guy who is supposed to be leading the charge to take back the House was loafing around on vacation when the most important votes of the year were being cast - votes where, the more Democrats who vote for against the bills, the more vulnerable Republicans have to vote for it and potentially open themselves up to criticism on the campaign trail.
So we're waiting, Congressman Emanuel, for a real explanation. Because it's time to know whether vacation is more important than stopping a bill that slashed an incredible $40 billion out of Medicaid, child care assistance, and other key priorities. It's time to know, in short, whether Democrats are serious about taking back the majority, or just playing lip service to the concept.
(Editor's note ... It is beginning to look like the two major parties are no different from each other as charged by Ralph Nader and others.)
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Yesterday, I pointed out that on the most important budget vote of the year, 6 Democrats were absent, and the bill passed by 6 votes. One of those 6 was Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chairman of the House Democrats campaign committee, who the Washington Post notes, "has excoriated fellow Democrats for missing tough votes." Now, a story in the Chicago Sun Times raises serious questions about exactly why he missed the vote.
In the Sun Times' story about how Emanuel encouraged Democrats to vote for the GOP's disgusting immigration bill, reporter Lynn Sweet reports that she called Emanuel's office for a comment on Tuesday, and was told that Emanuel is "on vacation." The budget vote, remember, was very early in the morning on Monday - so it is technically possible that Emanuel started his vacation afterwards - but then, why did he miss the vote? And more interestingly, why did he miss every House roll call vote on that Monday? Was he on vacation?
The Washington Post reports that when asked, Emanuel's spokeswoman said "Emanuel had a family obligation." Is that code for "on vacation?"
This is a really important question that Emanuel needs to answer - and I should say, it is still possible he had a good reason, and if he does, then I will stand down (though it better be a pretty compelling reason considering Republican Rep. Joe Barton managed to make the vote 4 days after being hospitalized for a heart attack). Democrats should know whether the guy who is supposed to be leading the charge to take back the House was loafing around on vacation when the most important votes of the year were being cast - votes where, the more Democrats who vote for against the bills, the more vulnerable Republicans have to vote for it and potentially open themselves up to criticism on the campaign trail.
So we're waiting, Congressman Emanuel, for a real explanation. Because it's time to know whether vacation is more important than stopping a bill that slashed an incredible $40 billion out of Medicaid, child care assistance, and other key priorities. It's time to know, in short, whether Democrats are serious about taking back the majority, or just playing lip service to the concept.
(Editor's note ... It is beginning to look like the two major parties are no different from each other as charged by Ralph Nader and others.)
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Monday, December 19, 2005
The Big Unanswered Question In Bush's Domestic Spying Scandal
Where's the Warrant?
By David Sirota
In the last 72 hours since the revelation that President Bush ordered illegal domestic surveillance operations, we have seen how the Republican spin machine has mastered the art of turning any and all controversies into questions of national security. You know the drill: those who are criticizing Bush's orders are billed as weak, soft on national security, or against domestic efforts to stop terrorism. Meanwhile, Bush is portrayed as the tough fighter of terrorism, willing to make the tough choices to defend America's national security. In short, his crimes are portrayed as badges of honor.
There's just one problem: this isn't a question of whether America supports domestic surveillance operations against terrorists or not. This is a question of whether America supports those operations without requiring a warrant.
The truth is that domestic surveillance operations happen all the time. They are such a part of our culture, they are a regular topic of television shows and movies (think Serpico or Stakeout). But they are also governed by the U.S. Constitution's 4th Amendment, which explicitly protects citizens against "unreasonable search and seizures" and requires the executive branch to obtain a warrant from the objective judiciary branch in order to do surveillance operations.
So the question reporters should be asking the White House isn't why the president thinks there should be domestic efforts to track and stop terrorists. The vast majority of Americans think that. The question reporters should be asking is "Why did the President order domestic surveillance operations without obtaining constitutionally-required warrants?" That is behavior that most Americans who believe in the Constitution likely do not support at all.
Make no mistake about it - this is an especially poignant question considering that, under the Patriot Act's weakened standards, the government can now circumvent the traditional (and more rigorous) judicial system and obtain a warrant directly from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Remember, this is a court almost completely skewed in favor of the government. As Slate Magazine correctly noted, getting a warrant from that judge requires "no need for evidence or probable cause" and the judge has almost no authority to reject the government's request for a warrant, unless the government's request are extraordinarily outlandish. It is why, as Josh Marshall reports, the government's own data shows that "in a quarter century, the FISA Court has rejected four government applications for warrants." It is also why Members of Congress of both parties have tried to repeal the Patriot Act sections that allow the administration to use FISA warrants for domestic surveillance.
In his defense, the President has tried to deflect attention by repeatedly saying he needed to order these operations to protect Americans. Fine – but it still doesn't answer the real question. If the surveillance operations he ordered were so crucial and so important to protecting our country, how come he didn't get a warrant? Surely something so critical to our security would have easily elicited a warrant from a FISA court already inclined to issue warrants in the first place, right?
And that gets us right back to the most important question: why would the President deliberately circumvent a court that was already wholly inclined to grant him domestic surveillance warrants? The answer is obvious, though as yet largely unstated in the mainstream media: because the President was likely ordering surveillance operations that were so outrageous, so unrelated to the War on Terror, and, to put it in Constitutional terms, so "unreasonable" that even a FISA court would not have granted them.
This is no conspiracy theory - all the signs point right to this conclusion. In fact, it would be a conspiracy theory to ignore what we know and say any differently.
Two years ago, the New York Times reported that the administration is using the FBI to "collect extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators." Then, just a few months ago, the Times reported that the FBI "has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups." And just this past week, NBC News obtained a 400-page Pentagon document outlining the Bush administration's surveillance of anti-war peace groups. The report noted that the administration had monitored 1,500 different events (aka. anti-war protests) in just a 10-month period.
These are exactly the kind of surveillance operations even a government-tilted FISA court would reject, and it raises yet more questions: Are these anti-war peace groups the targets of Bush's warrantless, illegal surveillance operations? Who else has the President been targeting? Has it been his partisan political enemies a la Richard Nixon? Or has he been invading the privacy of unsuspecting citizens in broad sweeps with no probable cause at all?
The answers to these questions will get us away from the silly and partisan "strong on national security" vs. "weak on national security" and get us to the real questions at hand. This controversy has to do with whether America believes in the Constitution's separation of powers between an executive and a judicial branch – the separation that quite literally differentiates our form of government from any old dictatorship, where when the monarch snaps his fingers, the secret police immediately target the unsuspecting citizen. That's about as un-American as you get –and that's why we need to know whether those who hold high office in this country think they can turn our democracy into their autocracy.
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Where's the Warrant?
By David Sirota
In the last 72 hours since the revelation that President Bush ordered illegal domestic surveillance operations, we have seen how the Republican spin machine has mastered the art of turning any and all controversies into questions of national security. You know the drill: those who are criticizing Bush's orders are billed as weak, soft on national security, or against domestic efforts to stop terrorism. Meanwhile, Bush is portrayed as the tough fighter of terrorism, willing to make the tough choices to defend America's national security. In short, his crimes are portrayed as badges of honor.
There's just one problem: this isn't a question of whether America supports domestic surveillance operations against terrorists or not. This is a question of whether America supports those operations without requiring a warrant.
The truth is that domestic surveillance operations happen all the time. They are such a part of our culture, they are a regular topic of television shows and movies (think Serpico or Stakeout). But they are also governed by the U.S. Constitution's 4th Amendment, which explicitly protects citizens against "unreasonable search and seizures" and requires the executive branch to obtain a warrant from the objective judiciary branch in order to do surveillance operations.
So the question reporters should be asking the White House isn't why the president thinks there should be domestic efforts to track and stop terrorists. The vast majority of Americans think that. The question reporters should be asking is "Why did the President order domestic surveillance operations without obtaining constitutionally-required warrants?" That is behavior that most Americans who believe in the Constitution likely do not support at all.
Make no mistake about it - this is an especially poignant question considering that, under the Patriot Act's weakened standards, the government can now circumvent the traditional (and more rigorous) judicial system and obtain a warrant directly from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Remember, this is a court almost completely skewed in favor of the government. As Slate Magazine correctly noted, getting a warrant from that judge requires "no need for evidence or probable cause" and the judge has almost no authority to reject the government's request for a warrant, unless the government's request are extraordinarily outlandish. It is why, as Josh Marshall reports, the government's own data shows that "in a quarter century, the FISA Court has rejected four government applications for warrants." It is also why Members of Congress of both parties have tried to repeal the Patriot Act sections that allow the administration to use FISA warrants for domestic surveillance.
In his defense, the President has tried to deflect attention by repeatedly saying he needed to order these operations to protect Americans. Fine – but it still doesn't answer the real question. If the surveillance operations he ordered were so crucial and so important to protecting our country, how come he didn't get a warrant? Surely something so critical to our security would have easily elicited a warrant from a FISA court already inclined to issue warrants in the first place, right?
And that gets us right back to the most important question: why would the President deliberately circumvent a court that was already wholly inclined to grant him domestic surveillance warrants? The answer is obvious, though as yet largely unstated in the mainstream media: because the President was likely ordering surveillance operations that were so outrageous, so unrelated to the War on Terror, and, to put it in Constitutional terms, so "unreasonable" that even a FISA court would not have granted them.
This is no conspiracy theory - all the signs point right to this conclusion. In fact, it would be a conspiracy theory to ignore what we know and say any differently.
Two years ago, the New York Times reported that the administration is using the FBI to "collect extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators." Then, just a few months ago, the Times reported that the FBI "has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups." And just this past week, NBC News obtained a 400-page Pentagon document outlining the Bush administration's surveillance of anti-war peace groups. The report noted that the administration had monitored 1,500 different events (aka. anti-war protests) in just a 10-month period.
These are exactly the kind of surveillance operations even a government-tilted FISA court would reject, and it raises yet more questions: Are these anti-war peace groups the targets of Bush's warrantless, illegal surveillance operations? Who else has the President been targeting? Has it been his partisan political enemies a la Richard Nixon? Or has he been invading the privacy of unsuspecting citizens in broad sweeps with no probable cause at all?
The answers to these questions will get us away from the silly and partisan "strong on national security" vs. "weak on national security" and get us to the real questions at hand. This controversy has to do with whether America believes in the Constitution's separation of powers between an executive and a judicial branch – the separation that quite literally differentiates our form of government from any old dictatorship, where when the monarch snaps his fingers, the secret police immediately target the unsuspecting citizen. That's about as un-American as you get –and that's why we need to know whether those who hold high office in this country think they can turn our democracy into their autocracy.
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Sunday, December 18, 2005
How the media "authorize" the abuse of government power
by David Siorta
The story of President Bush deliberately breaking the law to create a domestic spy operation is a lot of different things: it is a tale of power abuse, arrogance, and contempt for the law by an out-of-control president. But it is also a story of how today's major media behave with near total deference to power and its own profit motive. What we are watching, even in the seemingly small details of the coverage, is no less than the media's complicity in helping establish a quasi-legal framework for what was a clearly illegal abuse of government power. It is in the clearest sense the media being used as tools of state power in overriding the very laws that are supposed to confine state power.
You might be thinking, "How is that possible? Didn't the New York Times print the story exposing the surveillance program, and doesn't that show the media challenges power?"
Well, not really, when you consider that the Times actually held the story for a year. As the Washington Post reports, the Times' essentially held the story because of exactly what I said: deference to power, and its own bottom line. First, deference: the Times editors now tell us they held the story because the White House told them to. Then, profit: we learn that what changed between now and a year ago was that a Times reporter, James Risen, is about to publish a book about the entire affair and thus publishing the story now will mean maximum pre-sale buzz in January when the book is released - a key for any big book sales.
But even more interesting than these big embarrassing clues about the media's motives are the very small ones. Notice, for instance, that in describing the President's clearly illegal behavior, the media are parroting the White House's terminology - terminology specifically crafted to make it sound as if Bush was operating on quasi-legal grounds.
So for instance, the Times tells us Bush "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans." The paper also refers to "the powers granted the N.S.A. by President Bush." "Authorized" and "granted." The word "authorize" is defined as "to grant power or authority to," and the word "grant" is the act of giving something one has. The media's use of these terms, then, is the media trying to make the public assume as fact that Bush actually had the power or authority to grant in the first place.
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by David Siorta
The story of President Bush deliberately breaking the law to create a domestic spy operation is a lot of different things: it is a tale of power abuse, arrogance, and contempt for the law by an out-of-control president. But it is also a story of how today's major media behave with near total deference to power and its own profit motive. What we are watching, even in the seemingly small details of the coverage, is no less than the media's complicity in helping establish a quasi-legal framework for what was a clearly illegal abuse of government power. It is in the clearest sense the media being used as tools of state power in overriding the very laws that are supposed to confine state power.
You might be thinking, "How is that possible? Didn't the New York Times print the story exposing the surveillance program, and doesn't that show the media challenges power?"
Well, not really, when you consider that the Times actually held the story for a year. As the Washington Post reports, the Times' essentially held the story because of exactly what I said: deference to power, and its own bottom line. First, deference: the Times editors now tell us they held the story because the White House told them to. Then, profit: we learn that what changed between now and a year ago was that a Times reporter, James Risen, is about to publish a book about the entire affair and thus publishing the story now will mean maximum pre-sale buzz in January when the book is released - a key for any big book sales.
But even more interesting than these big embarrassing clues about the media's motives are the very small ones. Notice, for instance, that in describing the President's clearly illegal behavior, the media are parroting the White House's terminology - terminology specifically crafted to make it sound as if Bush was operating on quasi-legal grounds.
So for instance, the Times tells us Bush "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans." The paper also refers to "the powers granted the N.S.A. by President Bush." "Authorized" and "granted." The word "authorize" is defined as "to grant power or authority to," and the word "grant" is the act of giving something one has. The media's use of these terms, then, is the media trying to make the public assume as fact that Bush actually had the power or authority to grant in the first place.
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