Buy Nothing Day : Adbusters

McKinney: Republicans seek to silence dissent on Iraq war: "The US invasion and occupation has destabilized Iraq and Iraq will only return to stability once this occupation ends"

Abramoff Partner Pleads Guilty

Under U.S. Design, Iraq's New Army Looks a Good Deal Like the Old One We won't get fooled again

EWG Issues || PFCs: Teflon Pollution from perfluoronated chemicals PFOA PFOS: "Former DuPont Top Expert: Company Knew, Covered Up Pollution of Americans' Blood for 18 Years"

How U.S. Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball' - Los Angeles Times: "U.S. bungling in the Curveball case was worse than official reports have disclosed.

The White House, for example, ignored evidence gathered by United Nations weapons inspectors shortly before the war that disproved Curveball's account. Bush and his aides issued increasingly dire warnings about Iraq's biological weapons before the war even though intelligence from Curveball had not changed in two years.

At the Central Intelligence Agency, officials embraced Curveball's account even though they could not confirm it or interview him until a year after the invasion. They ignored multiple warnings about his reliability before the war, punished in-house critics who provided proof that he had lied and refused to admit error until May 2004, 14 months after the invasion. "

What I Knew Before the Invasion: by Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2001 and 2002

ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog: ISIS Against The Gray Lady: "This made it sound like the US had proof Iran was designing a nuclear weapon, which it does not. Look at it this way: Just because Ford puts seat-belts in its automobiles, doesn't mean they know how to build people."

Research Dispels Bush Claims That Tax Cuts Create Jobs - Yahoo! News: "Changes in tax policy suggest no evidence of their impact on job creation or destruction...Since 1950, significant tax increases and decreases have both been followed by job losses and job gains, say the researchers.

Based on statistical analysis of changes in tax polices and rates of job growth in the past 60 years, the report points out that tax reduction does, however, disproportionately lead to economic disparity between the rich and poor....

Last year, one million people fell below the poverty line, a disproportionate number of them children, while the number of billionaires rose to 374, the study says, adding that the number of people living in poverty rose from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.7 percent in 2004."

Stock Market News and Investment Information | Reuters.com: "they've targeted the most vulnerable in our communities -- children, the aged, the blind and disabled -- for spending cuts that pave the way for tax cuts for the rich"

RollingStone.com: The Man Who Sold the War : Politics

Bill Christison: Evidence Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars: "The new wars would be the start of a world war initiated by Bush and radical Christianity against what he calls radical Islam, but in truth the wars would be waged against all Islam."

eSchool News online - School radio station fights for survival See: Theocracy

Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force: "In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force."

Review of 'Plan B' Pill Is Faulted: "the agency had allowed politics to trump science"

CJR Daily: Archives: "Telegraphing the beginning of a communications effort is a tactic the Bush team has used in the past, especially when it comes to Iraq,' Bash wrote. Or, put another way, I, along with my colleagues in the press, have been used in the past to preview assorted White House public relations plans and talking points.
And I'm told -- and I'm telling you -- that I and my colleagues in the press will be similarly used in the near future. Or, in Bash's own words: 'it is unclear which administration officials will participate in this 'aggressive' response, which senior officials indicate will be unveiled in interviews and other public events.' (Emphasis ours)."

Scotsman.com News - International - Rice insists Palestinian state would make Israel safer place ...not to mention the US.

96 bishops decry 'unjust and immoral' situation in Iraq - UMC.org

Herald.com | 11/13/2005 | Senate measure would undercut court's authority: "For almost eight centuries the ''great writ'' of habeas corpus has been a bedrock principle of English and American law, from the Magna Carta to today's jails and courts. It's the means for a prisoner to contest his imprisonment before a judge.
That's one reason legal experts were stunned when the Senate, after an hour of debate and no hearings, voted Thursday to adopt a measure that, if it becomes law, would overturn the Supreme Court's extension of habeas corpus protection to 500-plus detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba."

Libby May Have Tried to Mask Cheney's Role: "White House aides privately wonder whether Libby was seeking to protect Cheney from political embarrassment"

Media Tangled in Lobbyist Case: "The case sheds light on how AIPAC, one of Washington's most influential lobbies, devotes considerable energy to working the press."

The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election 2004 Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats?

Group Trains Air Force Cadets to Proselytize Religious extremists training to use nuclear weapons.

Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Why the US will lose: "The United States...was oblivious to the simple truth that society is not just a political movement that can be conquered, or a number of individuals who may be apprehended, bribed or even killed. It is all the living people in a given country. Like other live societies, Iraqi society possesses huge capabilities -- a sophisticated legacy, ancient civilisations and an experienced patriotic movement. American strategists, while building their model for Iraq, missed or disregarded the fact that social movements are based on solid realities and lived experience, and cannot just be created on the whim of a political decision or through insidious forms of pressure. The Iraqis' experience of US policies explains the failure of the occupation forces in controlling Iraqi society through ethnic intrigue and repressive measures. "

Zogby International: "Despite the lack of realism, however, West Wing viewers would prefer watching Sunday night?s debate to the real thing by a 67% to 28% margin. In fact, 77% of respondents say that real presidential debates are too predictable, while just 19% consider them a critical factor in their voting decision."

IRS Warning to Pasadena Church Part of Wider Effort - Los Angeles Times: "The agency has looked into other nonprofits for allegedly promoting political candidates."
Just coincidence that none of them were Republican.

Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning - Los Angeles Times Separation of church and state

US intel on Iraq-Qaeda ties 'intentionally misleading': document - Yahoo! News

Press Gaggle by National Security Advisor Steve Hadley and Senior Administration Official Will tonight's Mystery Guest sign in please?
I have to give a photo ID to fly Delta, but apparently nobody knows who's on Air Force One.
Is this the first time an unnamed source spoke at a White House briefing?

TomDispatch - Tomgram: Mark Engler on the War Woes of Business: "Making the World Unsafe for Microsoft and Mickey Mouse"

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: A Cheney-Libby Conspiracy, Or Worse? Reading Between the Lines of the Libby Indictment

Youths in Rural U.S. Are Drawn To Military No Child Left Behind

Senate approves billions in spending cuts - Yahoo! News: "more aptly called the 'Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act"

Democracy Now! | Al Sharpton: "Jim Crow Had Sons...He's a Little More Polished But the Results Are the Same"

Democracy Now! | Joseph Lowery Calls on Condoleezza Rice to Extend Voting Rights Act

Democrats: It's the War -- In These Times

Internet Archive: Details: Despotism

KR Washington Bureau | 10/31/2005 | Cheney's new security adviser linked to bogus information on Iraq

What the 'Shield' Covered Up: "the coverup worked"

FT.com / Middle East & Africa / Iraq - US "had no policy" in place to rebuild Iraq

The Progress Report - American Progress Action Fund: "Samuel Alito's America"

A patriot crashes the party: Instead, he says, the speech was the same old "fear-based mentality."

"And if we're operating out of fear," Palumbo says, "all we're going to do is shoot into the dark."

Fiction Genre Fits Big Pharma - Los Angeles Times: "According to the proposal, PhRMA would pay Phoenix a six-figure sum for the marketing and production of a written-to-order fictional thriller. The plotline was what Hollywood would term high-concept - a group of shadowy terrorists conspires to murder thousands of Americans by poisoning the medicine they're importing from Canada to beat U.S. drug prices. "

Forex News Update - FX Analytics - Oct. 26 2005: "At the end of the day confidence in how the US is governed is reflected in part in the premium in the yield curve. If it turns out, through this investigation, that the justification for the war in Iraq was deliberately enhanced as in facts twisted, exaggerated or misconstrued, it would be a serious setback for global confidence, investor and otherwise, in the world's single superpower."

- toledoblade.com -: "A federal grand jury has indicted Tom Noe, the former Toledo-area coin dealer at the center of a state investment scandal, of illegally laundering money into President Bush's re-election campaign."

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel (10/27/05): "Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction"

Gary Leupp: Dialectics of the Plame Affair: "Around May 2002 Rumsfeld, Cheney and their underlings created an alternative intelligence body, the secret of Office of Special Plans, staffed with neocon agents including Douglas Feith, William Luti, Abram Shulsky, David Wurmser, and Michael Ledeen, supplementing it with the White House Iraq Group (formed in August 2002), including Libby, Andrew Card, Karl Rove, and Karen Hughes. The ... 'lie factory,' relying on Ahmed Chalabi and other Iraqi informants despised by the CIA as known liars to stovepipe cherry-picked 'intelligence' to the president, American people and the world in justification of a war on Iraq."

Herald.com | 10/23/2005 | Publix wary of tomatoes More background in the story than the particular incident at issue: evidence of the importance of buying organic.

List of Foiled Plots Puzzling to Some: "the White House overstated the gravity of the plots "

Miers' Answer Raises Questions - Los Angeles Times: "Are they trying to set her up?"

FT.com / World / US - Bush backs away from timetable for setting up Palestinian state Surprised?

Democracy Now! | Robert Fisk: War is the "Total Failure of the Human Spirit"

FT.com / World / US - Cheney cabal hijacked US foreign policy Financial Times now officially part of the radical left.

Rice Declines to Give Senators Timeline for Iraq Withdrawal "Permanent instability or civil war in Iraq could set back American interests in the Middle East for a generation -- increasing anti-Americanism, multiplying the threats from tyrants and terrorists and reducing our credibility."

Gosh, Dick, what could make you say such things? Here, better drink this kool-aid from the RNC...

Niger Uranium Forgery Mystery Solved?- by Justin Raimondo: "Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi"

Operation Mockingbird - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lawmaker's Abramoff Ties Investigated Bob Ney makes the Washington Post front page. Will media in Ohio again ignore it?

Let those dopers be - Los Angeles Times: "our draconian approach to drug use is the most injurious domestic policy since slavery"

Venezuela Attorney General Accuses CIA of Judge�s Murder - Prensa Latina AFP's somewhat longer report on this story is on the top wire headlines on Le Monde. "La Prensa Latina" is one of two sources that have the story in English.

Poll: Americans Favor Bush's Impeachment If He Lied about Iraq | AfterDowningStreet.org: "50% agreed with the statement:
'If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him.'"

Documents Show Air Force May Have Pushed Christianity - Los Angeles Times "In June, a Pentagon investigation found that Christian professors at the Air Force Academy used their positions to promote Christianity, and documented instances of religious slurs, jokes, and disparaging marks directed at non-Christian cadets. Yet the investigation found no "overt religious discrimination" at the school."

Herald.com | 10/10/2005 | Blind Eye | Research cuts stifle hurricane forecasts

Direction of Country Neo-Con Kool-aid losing its effect. 66% say US on wrong track.

And 59% say we should leave Iraq ASAP(scroll down).

Democracy's Power Fades as Iraq Panacea - Los Angeles Times It's the occupation, stupid.

The Jewish Exponent - Philadelphia, PA: "AIPAC is committed to paying for the legal defense of Rosen and Weissman because of an indemnification clause in employee contracts. AIPAC employees sign an agreement that protects them from legal harm until all appeals are exhausted, according to a source close to the defense of Rosen and Weissman who has firsthand knowledge of the clause.... It has been previously reported that AIPAC's bill for the pair's defense had topped $1 million."

Of course, not having seen the particular indemnity clause, it would be very unusual for an employer to defend an ex-employee from liability for acts that were done outside the scope of their employment. In other words, AIPAC doesn't want to take the risk that Rosen and Weissman might claim that they were doing exactly what their employer hired them to do.

This also leaves the question: if Abbe Lowell's defense of Rosen has already cost that much, how much is he charging Jack Abramoff... and who's paying Abramoff's legal bills?

Think Progress - Right-Wing House Twists Arms, Thwarts Democracy To Pass Oil Industy Windfall Watch the QT video. (Server slow)

Internet Archive: Details: George Bush Don't Like Black People

Reuters Business Channel | Reuters.com Plame investigation generates 22 indictments?

Salon.com News | Saving Ohio Ad Viewing Required.
According to several knowledgeable sources, the Blade's chief political columnist, Fritz Wenzel, was told of Noe's potential campaign violations as early as January 2004. But according to Blade editors, Wenzel never gave the paper the all-important tip in early 2004.

Wenzel says that he heard allegations of Noe's misdeeds only in spring 2004 and that he promptly informed his editors of them.

Wenzel, who worked for years as a GOP political operative in Oregon before the Blade hired him, quit the Blade in May 2005 to take a job as a paid political consultant to Jean Schmidt, the Republican congressional candidate who in August narrowly defeated Democratic challenger (and Iraq war vet) Paul Hackett.

Defense Analyst Guilty in Israeli Espionage Case

Troops receive light sentences for violent crimes against Iraqis: "Of the 1,038 separate charges, fewer than one in 10 involved crimes against Iraqis.... Charges involving Iraqi victims were three times more likely to be dismissed or withdrawn by the Army than cases in which the victims were soldiers or civilian military employees, the examination found."

Buffalo News - Rumors of rescue copters under fire unfounded: "representatives from the Air Force, Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security and Louisiana Air National Guard say they have yet to confirm a single incident of gunfire at helicopters"

- toledoblade.com - On Oct. 22, 2002, Mr. Noe extended a $40,000 loan to the county party he once chaired.

The party’s candidate fund bought $40,000 worth of television air time that next day for Maggie Thurber’s successful run for county commissioner.

Mr. Noe gave a separate $25,000 loan to the county party in October, 2004. It repaid only $2,000 of the combined $65,000 in loans.

At the time of the loans, Mr. Noe’s wife, Bernadette Noe, chaired the county party. Mr. Haynam said that the Noes told the party they always intended for the $65,000 to be contributions, even though Mrs. Noe approved the $2,000 repayment.

Attytood: UPDATED: New Supreme Court nominee's ties to Bush's National Guard scandal

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "The Israelis suggested that the investigators pass on their questions in writing and Israel will give a written reply. "

- toledoblade.com -: "He was such a prolific Republican fund-raiser he was named a 'Pioneer' by the Bush-Cheney re-election committee for raising between $100,000 and $250,000 for the President."
raising = stealing

ABC News: One killed in apparent suicide bomb outside stadium

Miller's Big Secret: "New York Times reporter Judith Miller sat in jail for 12 weeks to protect the confidentiality of a very senior White House aide -- even though the aide repeatedly made it clear he didn't want protecting"

Generals Conclude U.S. Troops Exacerbate Iraq Campaign - Los Angeles Times: "The U.S. generals running the war in Iraq presented a new assessment of the military situation in public comments and sworn testimony this week: The 149,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are increasingly part of the problem."

PEACE NOT WAR: Jukebox

KR Washington Bureau | 09/29/2005 | U.S. paying a premium to cover storm-damaged roofs: "The government is paying contractors an average of $2,480 for less than two hours of work to cover each damaged roof - even though it's also giving them endless supplies of blue sheeting for free."

Saudi Women Have Message for U.S. Envoy - New York Times: "Many in this region say they resent the American assumption that, given the chance, everyone would live like Americans. "

The Progress Report - American Progress Action Fund: "Brown's Revisionist History"

Officer Criticizes Detainee Abuse Inquiry - New York Times: "Army investigators seemed more concerned about tracking down young soldiers who reported misconduct than in following up the accusations and investigating whether higher-ranking officers knew of the abuses."

Bangkok Post Tuesday 27 September 2005 - Find the Brownie

Bush removal ended Guam investigation - The Boston Globe: "His replacement, Leonardo Rapadas, was confirmed in May 2003 without any debate. Rapadas had been recommended for the job by the Guam Republican Party. Fred Radewagen, a lobbyist who had been under contract to the Gutierrez administration, said he carried that recommendation to top Bush aide Karl Rove in early 2003.
After taking office, Rapadas recused himself from the public corruption case involving Gutierrez. The new US attorney was a cousin of ''one of the main targets,' according to a confidential memo to Justice Department officials."

Untangling a Lobbyist's Stake in a Casino Fleet "It was a gangland-style hit straight out of "Goodfellas."

A man in a BMW was driving down a quiet side street after an evening meeting at his Fort Lauderdale office when a car slowed to a stop in front of him. A second car boxed the BMW in from behind, then a dark Mustang appeared from the opposite direction. The Mustang's driver pulled alongside and pumped three hollow-point bullets into the BMW driver's chest.

The dead man was Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, a volatile 51-year-old self-made millionaire, a Greek immigrant who had started as a dishwasher in Canada and ended up in Florida, where he built an empire of restaurants, hotels and cruise ships used for offshore casino gambling. Boulis's slaying, still unsolved four years later, reverberated all the way to Washington. Months earlier he had sold his fleet of casino ships to a partnership that included Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff."

Herald.com | 09/27/2005 | Arrests made in Boulis slaying: "Both are being charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder."

When Abramoff talks, people listen.

NOLA.com: T-P Orleans Parish Breaking News Weblog#082732: "Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated
Widely reported attacks false or unsubstantiated "

Missteps Hamper Iraqi Oil Recovery - Los Angeles Times: "In an interview, one senior U.S. official managing part of the restoration effort jokingly described his knowledge level as 'Oil for Dummies.' "

Maybe he knows something about disaster relief?

The 'myth' of Iraq's foreign fighters | csmonitor.com

Tyco Exec: Abramoff Claimed Ties to Administration Abramoff, Rove, their mutual secretary, and Tyco's general counsel who's recently been nominated as Deputy Attorney General. Mind boggled yet?

Fiscal Policy: Why 'Stupid' Fits: "The idea seems to be that to help Katrina's poor and suffering victims, other poor and suffering people will have to sacrifice."

Bloomberg.com: U.S.: "If a Democratic administration had pursued the fiscal policies and put the nation in the fiscal posture it's now in, the business community would be outraged and on the ramparts"

"the question is, Who is making policy in this country? Is it these six trade groups, or is it the elected representatives of the people?"

Think Progress - Progressives Can Do Better "it’s possible to cut far more unnecessary federal spending ($688 billion), accomplish it in half the time (just five years), and do it while upholding the principles of fiscal responsibility and concern for the common good."

GAO: Abstract: "GAO found numerous problems in DOD's processes for recording and reporting costs for [the global war on terrorism], raising significant concerns about the overall reliability of DOD's reported cost data. As a result, neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing and details on how appropriated funds are being spent, or have historical data useful in considering future funding needs."

Pentagon has yet to deliver Halliburton documents: "To add insult to injury, the Army in July gave KBR a $4.97 billion one-year contract to provide logistics support for U.S. troops in Iraq, a move that came in the midst of criticism aimed at Halliburton and the government's contracting practices. Additionally, Halliburton had already earned $9.1 billion from logistics work in Iraq.

In the past year, Halliburton stock has more than doubled. It went up from $31.40 to $66.44, according to Morningstar.com."

Mirror.co.uk - News - EXCLUSIVE: UP IN FLAMES: "'There will be a cloud of smoke above Little Rock soon - of burned food, of anger and of shame that the world's richest nation couldn't organise a p**s up in a brewery.'"

U.S. Newswire : Releases : "Former GSA Official Charged with Making False Statements, Obstructing Federal Investigation"

- toledoblade.com -: "Unless we change the system, we're going to get the same results. If we elected all Democrats -- same system, same results"