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Bush Speach
Working Families e-Activist Network AFL-CIO

So when you’re listening to President Bush speak, think about what his previous proposals have really meant to working people like us:

• When Bush talks about health insurance, remember the disastrous Medicare drug prescription scam his team in Congress pushed through. It has stranded tens of thousands of seniors without needed medications and forced some 20 states to declare public health emergencies because President Bush put the interest of drug companies ahead of the interests of seniors.
  
  
• When the president talks about health care costs, remember that he and his allies in Congress refused to allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
  
  
• When Bush talks about taxes, remember the huge tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans he and congressional leaders already passed and the ever-growing debt they are leaving to our children and grandchildren.
  
  
• When Bush talks about opportunity, remember how the income disparity is growing as wages fall and the cost of living rises for working families.
  
  
• When Bush talks about education, remember that he and leaders in Congress have pushed higher education out of reach for many by cutting student loans.
  
  
• When Bush talks about keeping America safe, remember his administration’s utter failure to rescue desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina

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Former Army Intel Capt. Eric May Warns of Possible Impending Nuclear Strike in Texas
Greg Szymanski - arcticbeacon.com

"In the last week I have multi-checked with sources of mine in the Houston Police Department and confirmed that HPD has been running nuclear disaster drills," said Capt. May, who is trying to alert Americans of a Possible Nuclear Strike in the upcoming days, possibly to take place in the Texas City or Houston metro area.

"There is a very good chance the next attack could occur within the next 9 days and the target being the British Petroleum plant at Texas City, Texas," said Capt. May.

Reports have come in from local citizens that there are ongoing "SWAT" exercises happening in the area, involving numerous police and government agencies, including the HPD, the Pasadena Police Department and Homeland Security. Also, at least 11 different type of official police and government vehicles have been seen parked in the police lot.

Besides the suspicious mounting of police activity in the Houston metro-Texas City areas, credible reports have surfaced from Bank of America branch managers in Houston and the Los Angeles area that Homeland Security agents have been holding instructional meetings in the last two weeks, advising employees how to deal with customers in the case of a "pending national disaster."

Employees have been instructed to remain silent about the orders coming down from Homeland Security, saying it is for national security reasons. Employees in both the LA and Houston areas have come forward saying they have been instructed to remain silent and not to distribute valuables from safety deposit boxes, including gold, silver and firearms in the case of a national emergency.

(Editor's note ... Remember on the morning of 9/11, the Air Force was shut down in the New York and Washington areas to practice drills for possible attacks exactly the same as the ones that actually did happen at the same time. Also, the British military was practicing for a possible terrorist bombing in London again exactly the same as the one that actually did occur at the same time. What an eerie coincidence! Maybe no coincidence at all!)

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Tancredo: Deploy Troops to Stop Mexican Incursions
by Congressional Desk - 1-25-06
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=5127

Congressman Cites Mexican Military's Recent Armed Assistance in Transporting Drugs Into U.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) today called on the federal government and the governments of southern border states to immediately deploy troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in light of recent armed assistance Mexico's military has given to drug smugglers.

Mexican military officers and drug smugglers led a standoff against more than 30 U.S. law enforcement officials east of El Paso, yesterday. According to the FBI and local sheriffs, law enforcement was tipped off to three SUVs carrying drugs across the Rio Grande River. When the sheriffs arrived at the crossing, they saw a Mexican military vehicle equipped with mounted machine guns on the U.S. side of the river waiting to escort the SUVs into the U.S.

The caravan turned back to Mexico, but only one SUV made it back-one SUV got caught in the river and was set ablaze by the Mexican military, and the other was captured by the sheriffs and found to contain more than 1400 pounds of marijuana. When called for help, a Border Patrol agent told the sheriffs' dispatchers, "If you want to get your a** shot over a load of dope go ahead, but we're not coming." Apparently, some border patrol units showed up after the incident was over.

"Our border has literally turned into a war zone with foreign military personnel challenging our laws and our sovereignty," said Tancredo. "The Mexican military is using its overwhelming firepower to hold the U.S. Border Patrol and other law enforcement at bay. The only way to deal with this dangerous situation is to tap the resources of our own military. I call on President Bush and the Governors of border states to immediately deploy military personnel to defend our borders against the Mexican military."

In 2002, Congressman Tancredo visited Arizona's border with Mexico and was briefed about the repeated military incursions. Tancredo wrote a letter to Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., Juan José Bremer, asking about the incursions, to which Bremer responded: "Mexico has not had and does not have a policy of military incursions in any other Nation. every case. [is] unnoticed or accidental."

"The Mexican military has made hundreds of incursions into the U.S. over the last few years, yet Secretary Chertoff continues to call them 'accidents'. The systematic smuggling of contraband into the U.S. is no accident-it is a sanctioned activity used to grease the wheels of a corrupt military."

(Editor's note ... I thought Bush claimed he was on top of all security breeches against the United States. - The Protection President)

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Quotes for Our Times

"The Accumulation of All Powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of One, a Few, or Many, and whether Hereditary, Self-appointed, or Elective, may justly be pronounced the Very Definition of Tyranny."
Pres. James Madison

"When good people do nothing, Anarchy reigns... We the people are the rightful masters of Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution."
Abraham Lincoln

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Dusting off the Brown-Shirts and Jackboots
by Mike Whitney - Information Clearing House - 01/16/06

The spiking gold market is a sure sign that the dollar is headed for the dumpster. Large institutional investors are hastily moving boatloads of cash into precious metals that promise to retain their value while the hemorrhaging dollar goes the way of Icarus.

We're finally beginning to see the effects of Bush's profligate spending, "unsustainable" trade deficits, and the economic master-plan to reorder American society. And, don't think that that the poker-faced Sam Alito doesn't factor heavily in this new paradigm of class-division and elite rule.

He's the last vital part of the neocon strategy for tossing America's struggling middle class overboard and paddling pell-mell towards the shore of the new world order.

Gold had already doubled in less than a year when (two weeks ago) the bad news started to dribble in. Since then the news of America's burgeoning trade deficit with China, China's plan to move away from the weakening dollar, and finally, the saber-rattling over Iran, have the big-time investors scampering for the exits and gold prices headed through the ceiling.

Gold is the canary in the coalmine; it tells us when major investors see structural vulnerabilities in the system and begin to bail out. All I can say is, it took them long enough to figure it out. The Bush team has been spending $400 billion more than it takes in in tax revenues for 4 years, a practice it now wants to enshrine as "permanent tax cuts".

Huh? Question:
How can anyone argue that the plundering of America is not intentional when deficits are defended as a "permanent" function of government? Deficits are theft; and it is future generations that will have to pay for the criminal largesse of the Bush administration. Secretary of the Treasury John Snow announced just last week that the national debt would have to be raised to $9 trillion by February to keep the government operating. That means that Bush has generated a whopping $3 trillion dollars of debt in just 5 years.

Unbelievable!
This is a strategy that is clearly designed to undermine the dollar and shift middle class wealth to the lucky 1% that Bush serves. It conflates perfectly Greenspan's plan to sluice zillions into the economy through low interest rates and flawed lending practices ($0 down payments on homes; interest-only loans; ARMs) which create massive bubbles designed to purge the middle class of their hard-earned savings.

The stock market bubble alone moved $7 trillion from (mainly) middle class investors in retirement funds and IRAs into the pockets of the cigar-chomping plutocrats in Bush's inner circle.

With housing prices on a downward trajectory, energy going up, and the dollar destined for life-support; we can expect to see a growing line at the food-banks and homeless shelters.
No kidding.

America is marching in lockstep towards a depression that was planned at the highest levels of government. Deregulation has produced a trade deficit that requires an infusion of $2 billion dollars (or 6.8% GDP) every day just to keep the good-ship Bush afloat.

When the flow of borrowed money slows, the dollar will crash to earth like Humpty-Dumpty leaving wreckage strew throughout the American heartland.

Why else would Bush claim the extraordinary powers of a dictator?

In just months Bush has claimed that he has the right to incarcerate citizens without charging them with a crime, torture prisoners, unilaterally declare war, and spy on Americans.

Why?
Is Bin Laden somehow weakened by the steady erosion of civil liberties? Or, is the White House cabal anticipating massive civil disorder from their planned economic meltdown?

Even Greenspan has warned that the present path is "unsustainable", and darker days are just ahead. Regrettably, the administration has seized all the levers of power and is prepared for the worst. Alito is the final piece in the neocon puzzle; the cornerstone for an American police-state. If he is approved by the Senate, Bush will have his Federalist "rubber-stamp" on the high court and the Congress will be rendered powerless. No law will be able to check or balance the "unitary" authority of the executive.

It may be time to dust off the brown-shirts and jackboots; looks like they may be back in style.

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Introducing Hamas - the New Likud
by Professor Neve Gordon - Aron's Israel Peace Weblog

Bradley Burston from Ha'aretz makes a provocative analogy between the rise of the Likud and the rise of Hamas. Israelis have an expression "Rak Ha'Likud Yahol" - only the Likud can do it. Israeli and Palestinian societies share machismo attitudes where being "strong" is a critical value, and weakness is despised. So only "strong" (i.e. violent) leaders can be trusted when concessions are made.

Leaders of the uncompromising Likud were always seen as strong. So when Begin and Sharon made "far-reaching" concessions to the Palestinians, the vast majority of Israelis felt comfortable with those decisions. Post-Sharon the Israeli "consensus" is pretty close to the positions of the "far-left" of fifteen years ago. But only Sharon could drag Israelis along to that position.

If Hamas reaches an agreement with Israel, no Palestinian will claim they did it as a "tool" of Israel or America, or out of weakness. The bigger question is what kind of agreement is still possible given the facts on the ground of the settlement project? Perhaps the best that can be hoped for at this stage is the continuation of the hudna. But if calm continues, and both Israel and Palestine focus on internal development instead of armed conflict, there is hope in time of more far-reaching reconciliation between the two sides.

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Exxon Adds It All Up: $36 Billion
The New York Times, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News

MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 2006

Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. energy company, posted Monday the highest profit in U.S. corporate history, amplifying concerns over the good fortune of oil companies while soaring energy prices pressure consumers.

"This might be the best macroeconomic environment ever for oil," said Dave Pursell, a partner at Pickering Energy Partners, Houston-based research firm. "More than any of its peers, Exxon knocked the cover off the ball with its long, disciplined view of global projects."

Exxon's performance last year allowed it to surpass Wal-Mart as the largest company in United States, and by some measures Exxon became richer than some of world's largest oil-producing nations. For instance, its revenue of $371 billion surpassed the gross domestic product of $245 billion of Indonesia, an OPEC member and the world's fourth most populous country with 242 million people.

Exxon posted a net profit of $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter, up from $8.42 billion a year earlier. The result topped Exxon's previous record for quarterly profit, $9.92 billion in the third quarter of 2005.

"Exxon is the most efficient operator in a market characterized by rampant demand and lagging supply growth," said Derek Vogler, a fund manager at Country Trust Bank in Bloomington, Illinois.

Profit in 2005 reached $36.13 billion on revenue of $371 billion.

The annual profit easily surpassed the previous record of $25.3 billion, which Exxon had also set in 2004, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor's in New York. Only Ford Motor's profit of $22 billion in 1998 resemble Exxon's success in recent memory, Silverblatt said.

Political uncertainties in oil-rich nations also worked in Exxon's favor recently, as concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions and tension in Nigeria and Venezuela kept oil prices high.

Crude oil prices have doubled in the last two years, driven by strong demand in rising economies of Asia and in the United States. Oil for March delivery rose by 59 cents to close at $68.35 a barrel in New York trading.

The stellar earnings brought fresh criticism of the energy industry in Congress on Monday.

"The federal government has a responsibility to make sure that these companies continue to innovate instead of just profiting from the status quo," said Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York. "These companies should be investing in developing new sources of fuel and new technologies."

Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who sharply criticized oil executives appearing before the U.S. Congress in November, spoke on the subject again Friday. She called on the administration of George W. Bush and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to "put an end to gouging," then suggested that FTC stood for "Friend to Chevron."

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The Truth About Health Savings Accounts
by - Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel and Payson Schwin
The American Progress Action Fund

According to news reports, President Bush will use tomorrow's State of the Union address to promote "health savings accounts" as a solution to America's health care crisis. Health savings accounts (HSAs) were dramatically expanded in the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill. Generally speaking, they are tax-free savings accounts combined with high-deductible insurance policies that people obtain through their employers or buy independently from insurance companies. "In exchange for paying at least the first $1,050 of their medical expenses each year (or for families, a deductible of the first $2,100), consumers are supposed to benefit in two ways: lower monthly premiums and the ability to put pretax dollars into a savings account that grows tax-free." But, multiple studies have shown that HSAs are likely to increase the number of uninsured and increase health care costs, all while costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. In other words, President Bush is proposing to do for health care what he's already tried with Social Security -- placing more of the cost burden on individuals, while making the system more attractive to the wealthy but less effective for ordinary Americans who need health coverage most.

HSAs WILL NOT ADDRESS INCREASING RATE OF UNINSURED AMERICANS: According to the Commonwealth Fund, health savings accounts are "not likely to be an important contributor to expanding coverage among uninsured people" because most of uninsured Americans "do not face high-enough marginal tax rates to benefit substantially from the tax deductibility of HSA contributions." Another study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that Bush's proposal "would induce some currently uninsured individuals to purchase insurance, but also would encourage some employers to drop health insurance or to reduce the amounts they contribute toward their employees' health insurance costs, since employers would know their workers could get a tax deduction if they purchased coverage on their own. The number of people who would lose coverage due to actions that their employers would take would likely exceed the number of uninsured people who would gain insurance." [Commonwealth Fund, April 2005; Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 5/10/04]

LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME AMERICANS GAIN LITTLE OR NO TAX SAVINGS FROM HSAs: "Low- and middle-income uninsured people will gain meager or no tax savings" from health savings accounts, according to a Commonwealth Fund study. Currently, roughly 50 percent of uninsured adults pay no federal income taxes, meaning that "tax incentives for high-deductible health plans would have little impact on uninsured adults." Moreover, "uninsured people in the middle income tax bracket would see potential savings of just 3 percent to 6 percent on a typical high-deductible health plan premium of $2,000." [HealthDay News, 4/20/05; Commonwealth Fund, April 2005]

HSA USERS PAY MORE OUT-OF-POCKET COSTS: Individuals with "consumer-driven" health plans (CDHPs) and high-deductible insurance plans (HDHPs) are "more likely to spend a larger share of their income on out-of-pocket health care costs plus premiums than those in comprehensive health plans. According to one study, "more than two-fifths (42 percent) of individuals with HDHPs and 3 in 10 (31 percent) in CDHPs spent 5 percent or more of their income on out-of-pocket costs plus premiums in the past year, compared with about 1 in 10 (12 percent) in comprehensive health plans." [Commonwealth Fund/Employee Benefit Research Institute, December 2005]

HSAs COULD COST TAXPAYERS $41 BILLION OVER TEN YEARS: The health savings accounts envisioned by President Bush will cost American taxpayers roughly $41 billion over ten years, according to government studies. The Bush administration estimates that the provision of the Medicare drug bill that established health savings accounts will cost $16 billion over the next decade. President Bush has also proposed an additional tax deduction on the accounts, which both the Bush administration and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate will cost roughly $25 billion over the same period. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 5/10/04]

HSA USERS MORE LIKELY TO AVOID, SKIP, OR DELAY HEALTH CARE BECAUSE OF COSTS: Individuals with "consumer-driven" health plans (CDHPs) and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) -- both elements of health savings accounts -- "were significantly more likely to avoid, skip, or delay health care because of costs than were those with comprehensive insurance, with problems particularly pronounced among those with health problems or incomes under $50,000." According to one study, "about one-third of individuals in CDHPs (35 percent) and HDHPs (31 percent) reported delaying or avoiding care, compared with 17 percent of those in comprehensive health plans." [Commonwealth Fund/Employee Benefit Research Institute, December 2005]

HSA USERS MORE LIKELY TO HAVE DIFFICULTY PAYING MEDICAL BILLS: Individuals with high-deductible insurance plans (HDHPs), which are mandatory with health savings accounts, are "more likely than those with traditional medical coverage to have difficulty paying their medical bills. Forty-nine percent of consumers with deductibles above $500 per year wound up with outstanding medical debt, vs. 32% with regular coverage." [WebMD Medical News, 1/27/05]

HSAs WILL UNDERMINE EMPLOYER-BASED HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: The current policy of promoting high deductible plans (including the proposal for a new tax deduction for individual high-deductible policies) will weaken the employer-based health care system by providing employers with financial incentives to "cash-out" health benefits, sending employees to the individual market. This market cherry-picks the healthy and creates barriers to coverage for the sick. In other words, this policy undermines the purpose of insurance (whether health, homeowners, car, or any other type), which is to pool risk. With most health insurance -- employer coverage, Medicare, and most other countries' systems -- the healthy subsidize the unhealthy, to ensure that overall premiums are reasonable and that everyone covered by the plan receives the health benefits they need when they get sick. Outside factors such as heredity, the environment, and plain luck also play a role, even among those of us who eat healthfully, exercise faithfully, and keep stress to a minimum. [American Progress, 8/11/04; Commonwealth Fund, April 2005]

COST SAVINGS ARE ILLUSORY: HSAs are supposed to save costs by discouraging people from obtaining unnecessary health care. But about 70 percent of costs in the U.S. health system are for the top 10 percent most expensive people. These people's costs are well above the deductible and are usually require hospitalization or are chronically illy. A high deducible won't change their behavior. [New Yorker, 8/29/05]

HSA EXPERIMENTS HAVE FAILED IN OTHER COUNTRIES: Just as Americans learned of the pitfalls of Social Security privatization from experiences in Chile and the UK, so we can learn about the flaws of President Bush's health care proposals from South Africa and Singapore, which both implemented versions of HSAs. A study by the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed the health savings accounts enacted in Singapore and found they had "caused financial hardship for Singapore's citizens and...adversely affected the cost-effectiveness of its health care system." Likewise, in South Africa, which has "a decade's worth of experience with similar consumer-driven health plans," the cost of specialty care has increased 43 percent, the cost of hospital care is up 65 percent, and uninsured rates have "continued to grow rapidly." [Harvard School of Public Health, August 2001; "Medical Error," The New Republic, 11/7/05]

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Rights Groups Fault U.S. Vote in U.N. on Gays
Unity in Faith - Bush's people finding common ground with the Iranian mullahs.

by Warren Hoge - New York Times - 1-27-06

U.N. - Jan. 26, Human rights organizations and the co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus protested on Thursday a decision by the Bush administration to back a measure introduced by Iran denying two gay rights groups a voice at the United Nations.

In a vote Monday, the United States supported Iran's recommendation to deny consultative status at the United Nations' Economic and Social Council to the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians and the International Lesbian and Gay Association, based in Belgium.

Nearly 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have such status, which enables them to distribute documents to meetings of the council.

Among countries with which the United States sided were Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, nations the State Department has cited in annual reports for their harsh treatment of homosexuals.

Representative Tom Lantos, a California Democrat who is co-chairman of the caucus, wrote a letter to John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, saying the move was "a major setback" for "a core component of our nation's human rights diplomacy."

Matt Foreman, executive director of the Washington-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said, "It is an absolute outrage that the United States has chosen to align itself with tyrants - all in a sickening effort to smother voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people around the world."

Mark P. Lagon, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said in an interview that the vote did not stem from "being against gay rights groups" but was based on "the controversial history of the International Lesbian and Gay Association - an affiliate of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, was associated with it in the past and openly condoned pedophilia."

Scott Long, a Human Rights Watch director, said that the association had publicly expelled the man/boy group in 1994.

Martin Thümmel, the German delegate at the vote, protested that "those delegations that claim that this organization is supporting pedophilia are using this as a pretext in order to shirk the real issue of sexual orientation."

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Terminator Threat Looms
www.etcgroup.org

Indigenous peoples, farmer's organizations and civil society representatives are bracing to defend a de facto United Nations' moratorium on seed sterilization technology - the moratorium is now under attack by the multinational seed and biotech industry.

A meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity, where "suicide seeds" are on the agenda, gets underway in Spain next week. The UN moratorium - which recommends against the field-testing and commercial sale of seed sterilization technology - is under attack.

Delta & Pine Land (a multinational seed company) and the US Department of Agriculture recently won new patents on Terminator in Europe and Canada.

Terminator (a.k.a. "genetic use restriction technology" - GURTs) refers to plants that are genetically modified to produce sterile seeds at harvest. The technology was developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the US government.

If commercialized, Terminator would prevent farmers from saving seeds from their harvest, forcing them to return to the commercial market every year and marking the end of locally-adapted agriculture through seed selection.

The vast majority of the world's farmers routinely save seed from their harvest for re-planting.

Bombshell in Bangkok: Almost one year ago, the Canadian government and its seed industry allies made a scandalous bid to dismantle the United Nations' moratorium on Terminator seed technology at a February 2005 meeting of a scientific advisory body to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Bangkok.

A leaked memo revealed that the Canadian government was prepared to push for language allowing for field-testing and commercialization of Terminator. Ultimately, the Canadian government was forced to publicly distance itself from Terminator in response to citizen protests back home and due to key interventions from other governments that support the moratorium. Also, the governments of India and Brazil have banned it.

"The promise of increased profits is simply too enticing for industry to give up on Terminator seeds," explains Lucy Sharratt, coordinator of the international Ban Terminator Campaign.

"Terminator seeds will become a commercial reality unless governments take action to prevent it," agrees Hope Shand of ETC Group.

The Ban Terminator Campaign, launched in response to attacks on the CBD moratorium, seeks to promote government bans on Terminator technology at the national and international levels. It also supports efforts of civil society, farmers, Indigenous peoples and social movements to campaign against suicide seeds.

"Terminator technology is an assault on the traditional knowledge, innovation and practices of indigenous and local communities," said Debra Harry of the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism and member of the expert group that examined the potential impacts of GURTs (Terminator) on indigenous peoples, smallholder farmers and Farmers' Rights. "Field testing or commercial use of sterile seed technology is a fundamental violation of the human rights of Indigenous peoples, a breach of the right of self-determination," said Harry.

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Al Gore's Book - "Earth in the Balance"
from Buzz Flash

Al Gore is being lauded for his environmental work, which was profiled in a documentary that has received rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival.

In the documentary, Gore warns that we are facing "a true planetary emergency."

The former U.S. vice-president came to town for the premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary chronicling what has become his crusade since losing the 2000 presidential election: educating the masses that global warming is about to toast our ecology and our way of life.

An article in the New York Times ended with this quotation: "The film's first showings received standing ovations. 'Our primary objective is for as many people to see the movie as possible,' Gore said. 'I'll sell the movie door-to-door if that is what it takes.'"

Widely ridiculed by the right wing and the Busheviks when it was published, "Earth in the Balance" has proven itself even more prophetic with the passing of time. Gore didn't write this based on policy advisors. He wrote "Earth in the Balance" from a passionate conviction that the future of our environment is in grave danger. The Busheviks have only accelerated the peril that we face as inhabitants of this planet.

In retrospect, "Earth in the Balance" foreshadowed Gore's transformation into a seer about our modern political, economic and environmental crisis. In the book, he did an unusual thing for a then sitting vice president, he took the risk of telling the truth.

Now, because Gore, in speech after speech, is holding up the mirror to the horrors of the Bush Administration, he continues to be marginalized by the mainstream press, the right wing echo chamber, and even leaders of his own Democratic Party. Someone who dares to declare that the emperor wears no clothes endangers the status quo, and many of the Democratic Senators in Washington don't like to become involved in battles that require them to summon courage. They also like their cushy jobs and have forgotten that they serve the people, the nation, and the Constitution -- not just themselves.

What Gore said about the Sundance-premiered film equally applies to his book "Earth in the Balance": "The average person is ahead of politicians on this issue. People who care about it get disappointed by the lack of interest from the political system. We are beginning to see the critical formation of a mass movement in the public, which will make it impolitic for politicians to keep doing nothing.''

"Earth in the Balance" would have been a blueprint for beginning to salvage our environment were Gore to have been installed in the White House, as he was elected to do. But now, it summons us to understand how much further we have unfortunately traveled down the road to destroying it.

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Two Top Papers Ask:
Is the Earth Heading for Doom--
With an Assist from the White House?

by 'Editor & Publisher' staff - January 28, 2006

While most Americans remain preoccupied with war, terrorism, high gas prices--or the coming Pitt-Jolie baby--an issue that may dwarf all of those concerns receives major attention on the front page of the Sunday editions of The New York Times  and The Washington Post.

One story raises a nightmare global warming scenario for the end of the world, at least as we know it, while the other suggests that the Bush administration doesn't want anyone to know about that.

Here are the opening paragraphs of the two stories....

From The Washington Post article by Juliet Eilperin:

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.

This "tipping point" scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.

There are three specific events that these scientists describe as especially worrisome and potentially imminent, although the time frames are a matter of dispute:

• widespread coral bleaching that could damage the world's fisheries within three decades;
• dramatic sea level rise by the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to reverse;
• within 200 years, a shutdown of the ocean current that moderates temperatures in northern Europe.

The debate has been intensifying because Earth is warming much faster than some researchers had predicted. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, last week confirmed that 2005 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 1998. Earth's average temperature has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would "imply changes that constitute practically a different planet."

"It's not something you can adapt to," Hansen said in an interview. "We can't let it go on another 10 years like this. We've got to do something."

From The New York Times article by Andrew C. Revkin:

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," Mr. Acosta said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."

He said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.

Mr. Acosta said other reasons for requiring press officers to review interview requests were to have an orderly flow of information out of a sprawling agency and to avoid surprises. "This is not about any individual or any issue like global warming," he said. "It's about coordination."

Dr. Hansen strongly disagreed with this characterization, saying such procedures had already prevented the public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.

"Communicating with the public seems to be essential," he said, "because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic."

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Pentagon Forbids Our Troops from Using the Superior Armor They Bought for Themselves.
Why??... Money!!

'Occam's Hatchet' at The Daily Kos - reconstruction.us

In a comment thread two days ago, Margot linked to an article at Soldiers for the Truth  that stated that U.S. soldiers were recently ordered not to purchase or use alternative body armor. In view of what has come to light about the shortcomings of the standard government-issue armor, I was somewhat taken aback at her comment, and read the article she linked to. I was shocked, to say the least.

The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin [body armor] and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

It's pretty well understood among active service personnel that the Interceptor and Second Chance body armor issued by the Pentagon for our soldiers is sorely lacking. These soldiers are the ultimate "motivated consumers" when it comes to wanting a product that works well in real-life situations. Throughout the literature, one can find many reports of the operational superiority of Dragon Skin over the government-issue Interceptor and Second Chance armors. This article in Defense Review, and this transcript of a PBS story are just two examples; a quick Googling of "dragon skin body armor" will pick up more.

So - given that the Pentagon has been incompetent enough not to provide our combat troops with the best armor available - which in and of itself is inexcusable - why in the world would the U.S. military forbid our troops from supplying themselves with the best, most life-protective gear they can find?

The answer is not as glib as Rumsfeld's callous, "You go to war with the army you have." After reading the Soldiers for the Truth article, I did what I often do when it comes to the Bush administration: I asked myself, "Whenever something totally irrational threatens the safety of U.S. citizens, what is the underlying reason?" And, of course, the answer is simple: money.

Yep, it turns out that the company that has the exclusive contract to supply body armor to the Army and Marines is home to a very heavy-hitting Republican campaign donor. Foster Friess, individually and through various family members, has contributed more than $575,000 to Republicans in the previous three campaign cycles, and has chunked in $51,000 so far for 2006.

That $88,000,000 in Armor Holdings stock held by Friess Associates LLC? Before the Iraq war began, it would have been worth about $30,000,000. No wonder he's throwing money the Republicans' way.

When isn't Republican corruption so entirely predictable??

(Editor's note ... The ultimate Bush/GOP atrocity has become even more atrocious.)

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Sludge Wars
from an article by John Meyers - News Tribune (Duluth, MN)

"It's disgusting to think that everything we pour down our drains and flush down our toilets, in our homes and hospitals and paper mills, is ending up on our local farms in the form of treated sewage sludge," said Inese Holte a longtime opponent. "The farmers will take it because they are hurting and it's free."

It's the ultimate recycling," said Lauri Walters, environmental program coordinator for the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District in Minnesota. "We're giving nutrients back to the land that we took out of it."

Not everyone agrees, and it's not just the "yuck" factor that's driving their opinions. Opponents say treated human waste is unproven, environmentally unsafe, and unhealthy for animals and people.

They contend that excess nutrients can pollute waterways, and that bacteria, diseases, heavy metals and other chemicals are being poured onto farm fields without proper oversight.

It is dubbed 'biosolids, to cover the undesirable connotations that come with the term 'sewage sludge'.

Recycling sewage sludge on fields has become the disposal method of choice for most of the 15,000 municipal wastewater plants across the United States. More than 60 percent of the 5.6 million dry tons of sludge produced nationally ends up on fields -- 3.4 million tons total, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA promotes spreading it as fertilizer, calling it the preferred disposal option. Incineration is less favored because it requires the consumption of fuels that contribute to air pollution. And burying the stuff takes up space in hard-to-permit landfills.

"I couldn't operate if I had to buy commercial fertilizer," farmer Mike Salzar said, noting the difference would be thousands of dollars each year, his margin between profit and loss.

Sludge opponents aren't convinced the substance is safe. They point to a 2002 National Academies of Science report that found EPA regulation of sludge is based on "outdated science." Moreover, the report said, federal oversight is lax, with little guarantee that what's inside the sludge is as harmless as claimed. "Additional scientific work is needed to reduce persistent uncertainty about the potential for human health effects," it said.

While supporters say the process works, opponents say there's no guarantee that each batch of sludge spread on a field is safe. They point to dozens of incidents nationally, even worldwide, where people claimed sludge made them sick. And they worry that the current technology won't work to keep things like the SARS virus, pharmaceuticals and other problem substances out of the sludge spread on fields.

"My wife and I began to become concerned about sewage sludge during the summer of 1999, when sludge was applied to hay fields on two properties adjacent to ours," Tom Richards said. "When the wind blew from the right directions, the odor was nauseating, to say the least, and was something we were forced to deal with for months until winter set in."

Many cases of staphyloccoccal infections have been blamed on field-spread sewage sludge exposure.

There have been a few high-profile cases in recent years that sludge opponents cite as ample evidence sludge is unsafe. In Augusta, Ga., a farmer was awarded $550,000 by a jury this year after hundreds of his cows died. The farmer blamed contaminated sewage sludge spread on his field, apparently because of high levels of the metal molybdenum.

In 1994, 11-year-old Tony Behun of Osceolla Mills, Pa., rode a motorbike through a field where sludge had been recently spread. He developed a fever and lesions on his arm, fell into a coma, and died within a week.

One of those opponents is microbiologist David Lewis, a former EPA scientist who has blasted the agency for inadequate regulation. Lewis says Behun's and possibly other people's sickness and death are tied to exposure to sludge.

"The science is so bad, it clearly puts public health and safety at risk," he told the Washington Post. Lewis, an award-winning EPA scientist, was fired from the agency this year, he says, because of his criticism of EPA sludge policy.

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America's Top Bin Laden Expert:
Osama's Dead, the Tape is Phony.
ABC News

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story? section=local&id=3828678

Op-Ed by Kevin Barrett - http://mujca.com

As a Ph.D. Islamologist and Arabist I really hate to say this, but I'll say it anyway: 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam. The war on terror is as phony as the latest "Bin Laden tape."

It's a tough thing to admit, because I know on which side my bread is buttered-and dropping Islam from the 9/11 equation is dropping my slice of bread butter-side-down. The myth that 9/11 had something to do with Muslims has poured millions, if not billions, into Arabic and Islamic studies. I finished my Ph.D. last year, so all I have to do is keep my eyes in my pocket and my nose on the ground, parrot the party line, and I'll be on the fast track to tenure track.

The trouble is, it's all based on a Big Lie. Take the recent "bin Laden" tape-please! That voice was no more bin Laden than it was Rodney Dangerfield channeling my late Aunt Corinne from Peoria. I recently helped translate a previously unknown bin Laden tape, a real one from the early 90's, back when he was still alive. I know the guy's flowery religious rhetoric. The recent tape wasn't him.

The top American bin Laden expert agrees. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's Religious Studies department, has just published a book of translations of bin Laden's speeches. He says the recent tape is a fake, and that bin Laden has been dead for years.

Ersatz Bin Laden tapes, "verified" by the CIA, are nothing new. Every "Bin Laden" statement since 2001 has been blatantly bogus. The last we heard from the real Bin Laden came in his post-9/11 statements to Pakistani journalists: "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation... I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States... I had no knowledge of these attacks..."

Then on December 13th, 2001, as George Bush was whining about the "outrageous conspiracy theories" that were spreading like wildfire, the first and shoddiest of the "Bin Laden speaks from beyond the grave" tapes appeared. The video's sound and picture quality were horrible. It showed a big guy with a black beard, doing a passable imitation of Bin Laden's voice, claiming foreknowledge, if not responsibility, for the 9/11 attacks, and chortling over their success. The trouble was, the big guy clearly was not Bin Laden. He was at least 40 or 50 pounds heavier, and his facial features were obviously different.

The "Fatty Bin Laden" tape was widely ridiculed, and I have yet to meet an informed observer who considers it authentic. (If you haven't figured this out yet, go back and look at the images from the tape, and compare them to other images of Bin Laden.) But the media let the fraud pass without asking the hard questions: Why was the US government waving this blatantly fake "confession" video in our faces?

Perhaps due to the widespread hilarity evoked by "Fatty Bin Laden," the next "Osama from beyond the grave" message had no images-it was an audio tape delivered to al-Jazeera in fall, 2002. The CIA verified it as authentic, and then got a rotten egg in the face when the world's leading voice identification experts at IDIAP in Switzerland reported that "the message was recorded by an impostor."

Every "bin Laden" message since then has been equally phony. They are released at moments when the Bush Regime needs a boost-and the American media goes along with the fraud. Remember the bogus bin Laden tape that made headlines right before the 2004 presidential elections? If you didn't figure out that it was a CIA-produced commercial for George Bush, I have some great bridges to sell you. Walter Cronkite, bless his heart, opined that Karl Rove was behind that tape. But the rest of the media just kept pretending that the Emperor was clothed.

And the fraud continues. Last week's "bin Laden" tape has been ridiculed by America's top bin Laden expert-yet the US media keeps right on holding a transparent fig leaf in front of the Emperor's crotch! Professor Lawrence believes that this phony tape was designed to distract world opinion from the horrific massacre of Pakistani civilians by an errant CIA drone. But it may have another, more sinister purpose: To prepare public opinion for another false-flag 9/11 style attack designed to trigger a US-Israeli nuclear attack on Iran.

As our top Bin Laden expert Professor Lawrence informs us, the real Bin Laden, who insisted that he had nothing to do with 9/11, has been dead for quite some time--probably 1since 2001. The fake messages have been fabricated by al-CIA-duh to support the Bush regime and its phony "war on terror." It is time for Americans to rise up in revolt against the fake-terror masters who are looting US taxpayers, torching our Constitution, demolishing our economy, and threatening nuclear Armageddon.

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Collapse of U.S. Economy Imminent
by 'Notepad' - http://www.bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=9995

Treasury Secretary, John Snow-"U.S. Government is on the verge of collapse."1-22-06

'No Matters' wrote: Consider these five important points:

In its attempt to establish a world empire dominating every nation on the planet, the U.S. has exhausted its ability to finance the expansion and the country now faces imminent financial collapse. From all indications, it looks like 2006 will spell the end for America.

-Point #1 The U.S., Great Britain and Israel are preparing to attack Iran. As it appears the main reason for invading Iraq was to stop it from selling oil in Euros, likewise Iran has plans to dump the dollar come March 2006.

-Point #2 U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow issued a warning recently that the U.S. Government is on the verge of collapse - as the statutory debt limit imposed by Congress of $8.184 trillion dollars would be reached in mid-February - the government would then be unable to continue its normal operations. Considering the current total U.S. debt stands at $8.162 trillion dollars, once the official debt ceiling ($8.184 trillion) is reached, the U.S. government's credit abroad (its borrowing power) is gone. Those countries (mainly China) who presently keep America afloat by holding U.S. Treasury Notes, will most likely no longer continue doing so.

-Point #3 Bank Of America and Compass Bank managers (probably all other U.S. banks too) have been instructing their employees in the last few weeks on how to respond to customer demands in the event of a collapse of the U.S. economy - specifically telling the employees that only agents from the Department Of Homeland Security will have authority to decide what belongings customers may have from their safe deposit boxes - and that precious metals and other valuables will not be released to U.S. citizens. The bank employees have been strictly prohibited from revealing the banks' new "guidelines" to anyone. (however, employees have been talking to friends and family)

The next time you visit your bank, ask them about it - then ask yourself, why is this information being kept secret from customers and the public - what's really going on?

-Point #4 FEMA has activated and is currently staffing its vast network of empty internment camps with armed military personnel - unknown to most Americans, these large federal facilities are strategically positioned across the U.S. landscape to "manage" the population in the event of a "terrorist" attack, a civilian uprising, large-scale dissent, or an insurrection against the government. Some of these razor-wired facilities have the capacity of detaining a million people.

-Point #5 The Patriot Act and the US Senate's vote to ban habeas corpus (Nov 14th) - along with George W. Bush having signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act, have together pretty much destroyed any notions of freedom and justice for Americans.

-Summary: The U.S. economy is broken, the United States is bankrupt - the unchecked spending by this administration, the illegally waged wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, the cost of unprecedented weapons and military build-up - have all contributed to an irreversible emergency which is threatening our nation's existence and our very lives.

Hospitals are closing, major corporations are declaring bankruptcy and/or moving their companies overseas, the monopolized news media spews nothing but lies, and our fearless leaders have turned out to be only ruthless criminals hell-bent on destabilizing our country and robbing us all.

Be aware - we stand at the threshold of total ruin - the international bankers and war profiteers care little for our lives and families - these demons worship money and all things vile and evil - they have very much to gain from war, misery, disease, famine, chaos and death (our deaths).

We are right on the edge - the Treasury is already overextended - the U.S. government cannot (and will not) care for its own citizens' needs, nor secure our borders against illegal aliens - plus, the whole "terrorist" thing is a cruel hoax perpetrated against a trusting citizenry - and only designed to instill fear and garner support for the genocide taking place in Iraq.

Should America (along with British & Israeli forces) launch a war against Iran, or another country, without yet paying for, or even recovering from the current losses in Iraq and elsewhere - the costs of such of an invasion will overwhelm an already crippled economy and push the U.S. over the edge into oblivion.

-Question: Considering the U.S. Treasury Notes that China currently holds (which keeps the U.S. economy going)...

Do you think China will continue to support a country's economy (the U.S.) whose military launches a nuclear strike against its neighbor (Iran) - thus delivering a blanket of radioactive fallout over western Chinese provinces - killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of its citizens?

I think not.

Factoring in the aforementioned points of "preparation" engineered by U.S. authorities, I'd say there's a stinking rat in the woodpile ...can you smell it too?

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Fighting the Theft of New Orleans
by BC Publishers Glen Ford and Peter Gamble

I don't think it's right that you take our properties. Over my dead body. I didn't die with Katrina." - Lower 9th Ward resident Caroline Parker.

The overwhelmingly Black New Orleans diaspora is returning in large numbers to resist relentless efforts to bully and bulldoze them out of the city's future. "Struggle on the ground has intensified enormously. A number of groups are in motion, moving against the mayor's commission," said Mtangulizi Sanyika.

Mayor Ray Nagin's commission has presented residents of flood-battered, mostly African American neighborhoods with a Catch-22, carefully crafted to preclude New Orleans from ever again becoming the more than two-thirds Black city it was before Hurricane Katrina breached the levees. Authored by Nagin crony, real estate development mogul and George Bush fundraiser Joseph Canizaro, the plan would impose a four-month moratorium on building in devastated neighborhoods like the lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East. During that period, the neighborhoods would be required to come up with a plan to show how they would become "viable" by reaching an undefined "critical mass" of residents.

But the moratorium, itself, discourages people from rebuilding their neighborhoods - just as it is intended to do - thus creating a fait accompli: residents will be hard pressed to prove that a "critical mass" of habitation can be achieved.

"It's circular reasoning," said the AALP's Sanyika. They talk about "some level of neighborhood viability, but no one knows what that means. What constitutes viable plans? What kinds of neighborhoods are viable? Everywhere you turn people are trying to rebuild, but there is this constraint."

The commission is empowered only to make recommendations, but with the help of corporate media, pretends their plan is set in stone. "They keep pushing their recommendations as though they are the gospel truth," said Sanyika, who along with tens of thousands of other evacuees has been dispersed to Houston, five hours away.

The city council has attempted to block Nagin's collaboration with corporate developers - a hallmark of his tenure - voting to give itself authority over where to place FEMA trailers. (Only about 5,000 of a projected 25,000 trailers arrived, say community activists.) Nagin vetoed the bill, but the council overrode him. The council has also endorsed equitable development of neighborhoods, rather than shrinking the city. - but the question is, who wields power in post-Katrina New Orleans, where only one-third of the city's previous population of nearly half a million has returned?

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As Profits Soar, Companies Pay U.S. Less for Gas Rights.
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS - The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - At a time when energy prices and industry profits are soaring, the federal government collected little more money last year than it did five years ago from the companies that extracted more than $60 billion in oil and gas from publicly owned lands and coastal waters.

Shifting Numbers on Price Reports (January 23, 2006) If royalty payments in fiscal 2005 for natural gas had risen in step with market prices, the government would have received about $700 million more than it actually did, a three-month investigation by The New York Times has found.

But an often byzantine set of federal regulations, largely shaped and fiercely defended by the energy industry itself, allowed companies producing natural gas to provide the Interior Department with much lower sale prices - the crucial determinant for calculating government royalties - than they reported to their shareholders.

As a result, the nation's taxpayers, collectively, the biggest owner of American oil and gas reserves, have missed much of the recent energy bonanza.

The disparities in gas prices parallel those uncovered just five years ago in a wave of scandals involving royalty payments for oil. From 1998 to 2001, a dozen major companies, while admitting no wrongdoing, paid a total of $438 million to settle charges that they had fraudulently understated their sale prices for oil.

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Halliburton Cited in Iraq Contamination
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - January 23, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Water supplied to a U.S. base in Iraq was contaminated and the contractor in charge, Halliburton, failed to tell troops and civilians at the facility, according to internal documents from the company and interviews with former Halliburton officials.

Although the allegations came from Halliburton's own water quality experts, the company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney denied there was a contamination problem at Camp Junction City, in Ramadi.

''We exposed a base camp population (military and civilian) to a water source that was not treated,'' said a July 15, 2005, memo by William Granger, the official for Halliburton's KBR subsidiary who was in charge of water quality in Iraq and Kuwait.

''The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River,'' Granger wrote in one of several documents.

The Associated Press obtained the documents from Senate Democrats who are holding a public inquiry into the allegations Monday.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who will chair the session, held a number of similar inquiries last year on contracting abuses in Iraq. He said Democrats were acting on their own because they had not been able to persuade committee chairmen in the Republican-run Senate to investigate.

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Dishonest Economic Fantasies Screwing Over Ordinary Citizens
David Siortia - Huffington Post

In my book Hostile Takeover that comes out this Spring, I make the point that if you want to really understand the political/media Establishment's bias on economic issues, you have to look at what dishonest, highly-questionable assumptions are regularly portrayed as concrete factual axioms. The biggest and most dangerous assumption that we can see from our current political/media Establishment - and that we can see in today's newspapers - is the one that basically says the so-called "free" market is the only way to address society's challenges (I put "free" in quotes because many supposedly "free" market policies like our current trade deals are chock full of highly restrictive protections for Big Money interests - these policies are not "free" market, they are corporate socialism). These assumptions also portray anyone who challenges this "free" market fundamentalism as out of the mainstream, even as polls show most Americans question that fundamentalism). We see these biased assumption everywhere, and they come not from a Republican or Democratic bias in the media, but from an overall economic bias from the entire Establishment.

Let's take a second and look at the New York Times coverage of economic "globalization," both present and past. We can use the Times not to single it out (these trends can be seen in most Establishment media/political communication outlets), but because the paper is arguably the most important news outlet in the world.

The first place to look at the Times is in the writing of the paper's most famous and revered columnist, Thomas Friedman, who is (incredibly) portrayed on chat shows as either an objective centrist, or even slightly left of center. Yet he is the man who recently urged America to basically eliminate or drastically cut Medicare and Social Security; the man who chastises other countries for having strong worker protections; the man whose entire book, The World is Flat, is one giant glossy justification for shipping U.S. jobs overseas and driving wages into the ground; the man who, thanks to his unflagging efforts to shill for corporate America's agenda, gets billed by elitist rag sheets like Fortune Magazine as "The Oracle of the Global Century." Thanks to the Times, Friedman has become so influential that politicians (including Democrats) regularly regurgitate his exact language when endorsing the outsourcing of U.S. jobs.

But the bias of its top columnist pales in comparison to the more troubling bias of the Times' "news" reporting - more troubling because it is billed as objective journalism. For instance, take a look at the disdainful tone with which the paper addresses the recent election of working class populists in Latin America. The paper labeled as "radical" one Latin American leader's proposal to reject corporate-written trade policies that have driven his country into sustained poverty.

Polls have consistently shown the public's growing opposition to America's current corporate-written trade policy. America's trade deficit continues to skyrocket, real wages continue to stagnate and higher paying jobs are shipped overseas - all aided and abetted by a corporate-written economic and trade policies that actually encourage these trends. Yet the Times states as fact that the Democratic Party - the party that desperately needs to start winning the very working-class constituencies decimated by these policies - has nothing to gain by articulating anything other than more "free" trade.

Similarly, polls show that on major economic issues like energy and health care, the public rejects free market fundamentalism, and wants the government to play a strong role regulating the market. Parts of the economy with strong market intervention by the government such as publicly-owned energy facilities and Medicare have managed to provide quality services to the general public, while helping stabilize the economy. Yet the Times states as fact that progressives are rightfully "reproached" for demanding anything other than free market fundamentalism, and offers not even a mention of all the factual data about wage, pension and health care cuts encouraged by neoliberal trade/economic policies that clearly call into question all the assumptions.

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Top Dems Announce Push for Public Financing of Elections
by David Siorta - OpEdnews.com

As the GOP corruption scandals have unfolded over the last year, many (including me) have urged Democrats to get serious about truly reforming America's political system by pushing public financing of elections, instead of offering relatively tiny changes to lobbying/ethics rules. And now, in a major new announcement, some of the most senior and powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill are launching a big push for passage of such a proposal.

Reuters reports that senior Democratic Reps. David Obey (WI) and Barney Frank (MA) will "offer legislation this month requiring that general elections for the 435 House seats be financed purely with public funds." In his statement announcing the push, Obey said, "You can talk all you want about nibbling at the margins about ethics and House rules and all the rest, but unless we deal with the nexus between politics and money, damned little is actually going to change over time."

He's absolutely right, of course. The way lobbyists and Big Money interests are able to corrupt our political process is by buying access with campaign contributions. The real problem afflicting our political system is not the (albeit disgusting) tactics of these Big Money interests or the loose rules governing those tactics, but the fact that our laws force politicians to rely on campaign contributions from these interests in the first place. Address that problem and give politicians an alternate way to run for office that allows them to be independent of corporate campaign cash, and you've gone a long way towards giving ordinary Americans their government back.

Republicans, of course, are clearly frightened of public financing. They have built their power by trading legislation for campaign cash from Big Money interests. And their reaction to the Obey-Frank proposal shows their fear. A senior House Republican aide had nothing to say except "This is exactly the wrong place to go...What's wrong with people just choosing candidates to give money to?" The fact that the GOP apparently sees nothing wrong with a system that allows people like Jack Abramoff "choosing" to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates in exchange for legislative favors shows just how out of touch and politically tone deaf that party has become. And that's one of the big political reasons why pushing public financing is so important for Democrats: because it makes the GOP defend the current corrupt system that polls show Americans want radically reformed.

The fact is, under our current process, campaigns are financed by a tiny minority of very wealthy interests - not by a large swath of the public giving small contributions. In exchange for those massive contributions, Big Money interests receive all sorts of rewards. That is what our current system is really all about - paying to play. And that is what public financing would prevent.

Make no mistake about it - public financing of elections is a very mainstream proposal. The conservative state of Arizona, for instance, passed a public financing system for state elections. So did the moderate state of Connecticut, after a corruption scandal ravaged the government there. And mainstream newspapers like USA Today have correctly endorsed the concept.

Let's be clear - a handful of House progressives have long been pushing for public financing of elections. For instance, Obey (who I used to work for on the Appropriations Committee) has been pushing public financing proposals for years. And Massachusetts Rep. John Tierney (D) has a terrific public financing bill already introduced in this Congress. For too long, these proposals have been ignored by the political Establishment and the media. But clearly now there is a good chance the bills will generate a lot more attention, and have a lot more juice behind them, thanks to the DeLay/Abramoff scandals. That is, if Democrats as a whole step up to the plate and get serious.

The critical question, then, is this: will the Democratic Party establishment have the guts to take up this cause as its official position? Or, will it be content to offer nibble-at-the-edges proposals which do nothing to attack the real problem, and whose distinctions are easily blurred by the Republicans?

Right now, there are some powerful Democrats who may feel threatened by clean elections - Democrats like Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) who has risen to his current position by creating his own operation to rake in corporate campaign contributions. Public financing of elections would threaten that operation because it would (at least partially) divorce political power from the ability to shakedown Big Money interests for cash.

This is the big question facing the Democratic Party, especially with polls showing the public sees both political parties as equally corrupt. The only way for Democrats to really put corruption on the front burner as campaign issue in 2006 is to offer bold proposals that clearly contrast with the GOP, and that would seriously change our pay-to-play system. Get in touch with your Member of Congress today and tell them to co-sponsor the upcoming Obey-Frank legislation and co-sponsor the current Tierney legislation.

Whether the party embraces the courageous efforts of these lawmakers and supports public financing will be a very public indication of whether the party is serious about regaining the majority.

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Sen. McCain Wants to Steal Your Right to Organize and Petition Congress
DownsizeDC.org

When politicians break the law, other politicians impose new laws on you. It's happened before. It's happening again. The excuse this time is the Abramoff scandal.

Because some politicians may have broken the bribery laws Senator John McCain wants to punish you for their sins.

We have a rule here at Downsize DC. We avoid mention of partisan labels and political personalities. That's not what we're about. We're about issues and principles. But we must make an exception in Senator McCain's case.

McCain is very popular with the media and much of the public. But we don't agree with the public's media-driven perception of him. We think McCain is so bad that we don't much care who we offend by saying so. If the approaching death of the First Amendment and representative government has a poster-child, it's Senator John McCain.

Downsize DC exists in part because of him. The passage of his campaign finance law, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, followed by the narrow defeat of our suit against it in the Supreme Court, were two of the main factors that led us to create DownsizeDC.org.

BCRA means incumbents and establishment candidates will always have too much money, while non-establishment challengers and minor party candidates will never have enough. Voters can endorse the establishment's approved candidates, but nothing more. BCRA convinced us that change was no longer possible through partisan political campaigns. The American ballot-box is a sham.

Do other means of change remain open? Citizen lobbying was the only option we saw still available. A massive army of citizen lobbyists could compel Congress to submit to reasonable reforms. We're convinced it's possible, but only if it remains legal.

Does Senator McCain want to outlaw citizen lobbying? Not in so many words. But he does want to regulate it to death, so that it might as well be illegal. His regulatory approach would create a dramatic "chilling effect" on citizen lobbying.

That's exactly what he did with campaign finance. That's what he wants to do with political speech on the Internet. And now, that's what he plans to do with lobbying too. I want to remind you that Senator McCain was a key figure in the Keating-Five scandal of the 1980s. He also used tactics to pass BCRA that were gross examples of the very thing BCRA was supposed to prevent. John McCain is a prime example of many of the things he publicly rails against. But few know this because the issues involved are complex (purposely so), and because the mainstream media is complicit in his schemes.

Senator McCain is a political opportunist of the worst kind. Whenever the media obsesses over some controversy, real or imagined, John McCain is always Johnny-on-the-spot with legislation he claims will fix the problem. But McCain's so-called solutions always regulate the innocent public, while shielding incumbent office holders. Such is the case with his approach to the Abramoff scandal.

In the Abramoff case the anti-bribery laws apparently worked. Violators are being investigated. Abramoff has copped a plea that includes testifying against former Congressional staffers, Congressional spouses, and sitting office-holders. In fact, one of the potential culprits in the Abramoff scandal is now co-sponsoring McCain's bill to "freeze out" public lobbying.

Prosecutions are coming in the Abramoff case. As far as we can see, no new laws are needed. But "Keating-Five McCain," motivated by his obsessive need for more TV time, thinks otherwise. And as has been the case with him in the past, his proposed new law seeks to further insulate incumbent office holders from the public.

Buried within McCain's new legislation is a provision that would lay the groundwork for regulating you and your use of organizations like DownsizeDC.org. Needless to say, we intend to fight McCain's latest Incumbent Protection Act. We hope to begin this campaign soon.

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Peak Oil is a Corrupt Globalist Scam
Another Point of View to Consider

by Steve Watson, Alex Jones & Paul Watson

They make the profits on creating artificial scarcity.

"Peak oil" is pure military-industrial-complex propaganda.

Publicly available CFR and Club of Rome strategy manuals from 30 years ago say that a global government needs to control the world population through neo-feudalism by creating artificial scarcity. Now that the social architects have de-industrialized the United States, they are going to blame our economic disintegration on lack of energy supplies.

Globalization is all about consolidation. Now that the world economy has become so centralized through the Globalists operations, they are going to continue to consolidate and blame it on the West's "evil" overconsumption of fossil fuels, while at the same time blocking the development and integration of renewable clean technologies.

In other words, Peak oil is a scam to create artificial scarcity and drive prices up. Meanwhile, alternative fuel technologies which have been around for decades are intentionally suppressed.

This year in particular we have seen a strong hike in oil prices and are being told to simply get used to it because this is the way it is going to be. In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita gas prices have shot up amid claims of vast energy shortages. Americans are being asked to turn off lights, change thermostat settings, drive slower, insulate homes and take other steps. Meanwhile the oil companies continue to make record profits.

Even The New York Times pointed out that the recent "energy crisis" seems to be purely tactical:

"To Mr. Bush's critics, the call for conservation smacked of showmanship, or of shutting the garage door after the S.U.V. had been stolen. After all, the president has spent the past weeks dropping into the hurricane region from the fuel-guzzling Air Force One, which the Air Force estimates costs $40,000 an hour to fly."

Flying in the face of the so called peak oil crisis are the facts. If we are running out of oil so quickly then why are reserves being continually increased and production skyrocketing?

in the 1980s OPEC decided to switch to a quota production system based on the size of reserves. The larger the reserves a country said it had the more it could pump.

Earlier this year Saudi Arabia reportedly increased its crude reserves by around 200 billion barrels. Saudi Oil Is Secure and Plentiful, Say Officials.

“These huge reserves enable the Kingdom to remain a major oil producer for between 70 and 100 years, even if it raises its production capacity to 15 million barrels per day, which may well happen during the next 15 years,”

Is this the normal course of behaviour if we are currently at the peak for oil production? The answer is no, it's the normal course of action for increasing production.

There have also been reports that Russia has vastly increased its reserves even beyond those of Saudi Arabia. Why would they do this if they believed there would be no more oil to get hold of? It seems clear that Russia is ready for unlimited future production of oil.

There is a clear contradiction between the peak oil theory and the continual increase in oil reserves and production.

New untapped oil sources are being discovered everywhere on earth. The notion that there are somehow only a few sources that the West is trying to monopolize is a complete myth, promulgated by those raking in the massive profits. After all how do you make huge profits from something available in abundance?

A Wall Street Journal Article by Peter Huber and Mark Mills describes how the price of oil remains high because the cost of oil remains so low. We are not dependent on the middle east for oil because the world's supplies are diminishing, it is because it is more profitable to tap middle east supplies. Thus the myth of peak oil is needed in order to silence the call for tapping the planet's other plentiful reserves.

Richard Branson has even stated his intention to set up his own refinery because the price of oil is artificially being kept high whilst new sources are not being explored and new refineries not being built.

"Opec is effectively an illegal cartel that can meet happily, nobody takes them to court," Branson has said. "They collude to keep prices high."

So if more refineries were built and different resources tapped, the oil prices would come down and the illegal cartel OPEC would see profits diminish. It is no wonder then that the argument for peak oil is so appealing to OPEC. If no one invests to build refineries because they don't believe there is enough oil, then who benefits? OPEC and the oil elites of course.

It seems that every time there is some kind of energy crisis, OPEC INCREASES production. The remarkable thing about this is that they always state that they are doing it to ease prices, yet prices always shoot up because they promulgate the myth that they are putting some of their last reserves into the market. Analysts seem confused and always state that they don't believe upping production will cut prices.

In a recent report the International Monetary Fund projected that global demand for oil by 2030 would reach 139 million barrels a day, a 65 percent increase.

"We should expect to live with high and volatile oil prices," said Raghuram Rajan, the IMF's chief economist. "In short, it's going to be a rocky road going forward."

Yet independent analysts and even some within OPEC seem to believe that the demand for oil is diminishing. Why the contradiction?

The peak oil and demand myth is peddled by the establishment-run fake left activist groups, OPEC and globalist arms such as the IMF.

Rolling Stone magazine even carried an article in its April issue heavily biased towards making people believe the peak oil lie.

The Scientific evidence also flies in the face of the peak oil theory. Scientific research dating back over a hundred years, more recently updated in a Scientific Paper Published In 'Energia' suggests that oil is abiotic, not the product of long decayed biological matter. Oil, for better or for worse, is not a non-renewable resource. It, like coal, and natural gas, replenishes from sources within the mantle of earth. No coincidence then that the Russians, who pioneered this research have pumped expenditure into deep underground oil excavation.

We have previously scientifically exposed the scam behind peak oil. Here is a 1 hour+ audio clip featuring Alex Jones' comments on peak oil and then the analysis of respected scientific commentator Dr. Nick Begich who presents evidence to suggest the idea of Peak oil is artificial.

A dangerous fallout precedent being set is that people on both the left and right believe wars are being fought in order to tap the last reserves of oil on the planet. The "coalition of the willing", whoever they may be for any given war, will not pay particular attention to refuting this claim because it allows them a reason to start and continue said war.

Even though many will see it as immoral, many will subconsciously attach it as a reason for the war. In reality the war is purely for profit, power and control, oil can be a part of that, but only if the peak oil claim is upheld.

If we continue to let the corrupt elite tell us we are wholly dependent on oil, we may reach a twisted situation whereby they can justify starvation and mass global poverty, perhaps even depopulation, even within the western world due to the fact that our energy supplies are finished.

Peak oil is just another weapon the globalists have in their arsenal to move towards a new world order where the elite get richer and everyone else falls into line.

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Bush's War on Veterans
by Mary Shaw - opednews.com

Our brave veterans made sacrifices while Dubya's congressman dad pulled enough strings to get his boy out of harm's way and into the elite Texas Air National Guard to avoid Vietnam.

After all, our brave veterans made those sacrifices while Dick Cheney arranged for five separate deferrals because he had "other priorities".

After all, our brave veterans made those sacrifices while Congressman Tom DeLay managed to draw a high draft number and then orchestrate some convenient deferrals, while stating that he really wanted to serve, but that all the slots were taken by blacks and Hispanics.

After all, our brave veterans made those sacrifices while House Speaker Dennis Hastert avoided duty due to bad knees - the same knees that didn't stop his college wrestling career.

And so on.

OK, so these guys don't have what it takes to earn the title of veteran. But they do seem to have what it takes to be hypocrites and punish those veterans who actually had the nerve to serve, while at the same time praising them for their selfless sacrifices.

Yes, these self-proclaimed "compassionate conservatives" are punishing our veterans.

Some examples:

Earlier this year, Republican leaders in Congress blocked $2 billion in emergency funding for veterans' health care from the $82 billion supplemental funding bill. They felt that the money would be better spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we're producing more and more injured soldiers for whom we cannot afford adequate medical care.

Then the Bush administration requested a mere 2.7 percent increase in Veterans Affairs (VA) spending, even though the VA's Under Secretary testified last year that the VA health care system needs a 13 to 14 percent increase annually to maintain their current level of services.

Thousands of veterans of the first Gulf War are suffering the effects of exposure to depleted uranium (DU), or have died from that exposure, yet the U.S. government denies the effects and continues to ship DU munitions for use in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some wounded U.S. soldiers have returned home from the current war in Iraq only to learn that they are being referred to credit agencies for "failure to pay" for lost equipment, and for charges for military housing.

And about one-fourth of all homeless Americans are veterans. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Two percent of them are female. Most of these cases are attributed to lingering effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse, compounded by a lack of family and social support networks.

This is how our government treats those who have so bravely fought for their country.

It's no wonder that the military recruiters are finding it so difficult to meet their quotas, even in the "red states".

The Bush administration would be wise to consider the words of George Washington, our first Commander-in-Chief, who said: "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."

(Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She currently serves as Philadelphia Area Coordinator for Amnesty International.)

(Editor's note ... I don't hear Sen. John McCain's outraged voice condemning these Republican atrocities against veterans. I thought he was the self-proclaimed friend of veterans. Or, is he afraid that rocking the Republican boat will hurt his chances of winning the GOP presidential nomination?)

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20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
by Angry Girl - Nightweed.com

Did you know....

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it!

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

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US: Rewriting Coal Policy; Friends in the White House Come to Coal's Aid.
by Christopher Drew and Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Claire Hoffman
The New York Times - August 9th, 2004

In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government.

Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official -- Mr. Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease.

The reintroduction of the coal dust measure came after the federal agency had abandoned a series of Clinton-era safety proposals favored by coal miners while embracing others favored by mine owners.

The agency's effort to rewrite coal regulations is part of a broader push by the Bush administration to help an industry that had been out of favor in Washington. As a candidate four years ago, Mr. Bush promised to expand energy supplies, in part by reviving coal's fortunes, particularly in Appalachia, where coal regions will also help decide how swing states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio vote this year.

The president has also made good on a 2000 campaign pledge to ease environmental restrictions that industry officials said were threatening jobs in coal country. That promise led many West Virginia miners, who traditionally voted Democratic, to join coal operators in supporting Mr. Bush. It helped him win the state's five electoral votes, ultimately the margin of victory.

Safety and environmental regulations often shift with control of the White House, but the Bush administration's approach to coal mining has been a particularly potent example of the blend of politics and policy.

In addition to Mr. Lauriski, who spent 30 years in the coal industry, Mr. Bush tapped a handful of other industry executives and lobbyists to help oversee safety and environmental regulations.

In all, the mine safety agency has rescinded more than a half-dozen proposals intended to make coal miners' jobs safer, including steps to limit miners' exposure to toxic chemicals. One rule pushed by the agency would make it easier for companies to use diesel generators underground, which miners say could increase the risk of fire.

The Bush administration's efforts to change the rules have led to battles with labor unions and environmentalists. Congress and the courts have stepped in to temporarily block some of the initiatives, including the coal dust measure.

''They generally want to do whatever the industry wants,'' said Representative Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat and member of the House Resources Committee who has been a critic of the administration's regulation of the industry. ''You don't even have to change the law. You can change the regulations and don't do enforcement.''

Incidentally, over the last six years, coal companies have donated $9 million to federal political candidates and party organizations, and 90 percent has gone to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

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Peak Oil And The End Of Empire
By Charles Sullivan - earthdog@highstream.net
OpEdnews.com - Flybynews.com

All of the oil that exists is the product of complex ecological processes: the decomposition of prehistoric plants and animals over eons of time. There will never be any more oil than there is now. There will only be less; and eventually there will be none. Peak oil refers to the time when the rate of extraction from a specific location (or the whole world) is at a maximum. Beyond the peak of extraction follows a steady and continuous decline. In the U.S. peak oil was reached in the early seventies of the last century. Since that time extraction of all U.S. oil reserves has been steadily declining, while demand has gradually increased. As more of the world becomes industrialized and taps into the world's oil pipeline, the more rapidly it is depleted. Once it's gone, it's gone. There will never be any more..

Peak oil is a concept that is well understood by most governments. The end of cheap oil means the collapse not only of the U.S. economy but also the global economy. Alarm over peak oil is almost certainly the hidden reason that the U.S. invaded Iraq. It is the reason we are building fourteen permanent military bases in that country. The U.S. has no intentions of ever leaving Iraq as long as one drop of our precious oil lies beneath their sand. How our oil got beneath their sand must have some cryptogamous connection to the ideology of manifest destiny that has driven this nation to unthinkable crimes against nature and humanity. It is the basis for World War Three, which we may already have initiated with the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Widespread resource wars will be the very predictable result of the rush to extract the world's last remaining and dwindling oil reserves.

Peak oil is almost certainly the underlying cause for the events of 9/11. The American people are not being told the truth. There is a high probability that Oil men in high places of the U.S. government orchestrated those events in order to get the American People behind the invasion of first Afghanistan, then Iraq; and probably Iran, Syria or North Korea will be next. Dick Cheney appears to be a likely suspect, perhaps with the aid of Poppy Bush and his CIA connections. They intend to get average American's used to the idea of war that will not end in our lifetimes. The age of cheap oil is nearing an end and the financiers of war and empire are scared stiff. They will do anything to have access to the last dregs of oil that can be sucked out of the earth, no matter which nations sit atop them. The second largest reserves of oil happen to lie beneath Iraq. The U.S. connections to the House of Saud are too well documented to warrant discussion here.

We must wake up to what kind of people we are dealing with. This government is not only more criminal and corrupt than we imagine-it is more criminal and illicit than we can imagine. Bush and company make the mafia look like boy scouts. Let me try to convey some idea of what I mean. The collection of thugs and criminals now running the country are the greatest and most dangerous organized crime syndicate in the world. And they possess the greatest arsenal of weapons, many of them nuclear, that the world has ever seen. They have an unparalleled propensity for violence. They are not who you think they are; and they are not doing what you think they are doing.

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