San Antonio Current: "Xenophobia and religion color GOP convention "

Commission to hear complaint on funds raised for local GOP - zanesvilletimesrecorder.com

nbc4columbus.com - News - Blackwell Subpoenas Householder Over Contracts

The Globe and Mail: "Truth be known, however, the Iron Curtain's collapse was hardly Ronald Reagan's doing."

washingtonpost.com: Fewer Republicans Trust the News, Survey Finds They're just following orders, since Cheney told them only to believe Fox news. So there's no surprise CNN loses credibility points, but Fox gains none.

Ronald Reagan: Still the Teflon President?: " the overwhelming praise for a president who plunged the nation into its worst deficit ever, ignored and cut public money for the poor, while also ignoring the AIDS crisis, is a bit tough to take"

The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida: "Coincidentally, the state's elections supervisor, Ed Kast, announced Monday he was resigning that position to pursue other opportunities in the private sector."

Mail Pouch paintings: History or advertisments? - zanesvilletimesrecorder.com: "U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, R-St. Clairsville, said...[h]is advice to barn owners is civil disobedience. 'I would say don't do anything,' he said. 'Defy the state.' "

Democracy Now! | REMEMBERING THE DEAD-Ronald Reagan 1911-2004: Noam Chomsky, Helen Caldicott & Robert Parry on Iran-Contra, the Nuclear Race and Covert Wars from Central America to Africa

Consortiumnews.com "The unpleasant history was shunted aside or covered up. When declassified U.S. government documents led to a judgment by a Guatemalan truth commission that the Reagan administration had aided and abetted genocide, it was a one-day story. When a CIA inspector general confirmed that many contra units had engaged in drug trafficking and were protected by the Reagan administration, the mainstream press only grudgingly acknowledged the story."

Telegraph | News | Iraqi judge orders arrest of American aide to Chalabi: "computer files belonging to the British consultant investigating the oil-for-food scandal were destroyed by hackers and a back-up databank in his Baghdad office wiped out.
Claude Hankes Drielsma, a British businessman and long-time acquaintance of Mr Chalabi, accused America and Britain of mounting a 'dirty tricks' campaign to obstruct his inquiry."

AlterNet: Reagan Redux: " This would mean that Reagan's election was illegal, that the trading during the Iran-Contra scandal had a precedent, that Reagan and G.H.W. Bush's buildup of Saddam Hussein's military was motivated in part by a desire to counter weaponry and money that the United States had given Iran in exchange for Reagan's election, that our media has completely fallen down on the job, and that we're all a bunch of suckers."

Delays, Purge Hit Voter Rolls - from TBO.com: "For the second straight presidential election, Florida's law against former felons voting, a law grounded in Old South racism, may prevent thousands of people from voting. "

TheStar.com - Battling to understand our genocidal instinct: "'To get a war going you need the people on the top policy level to create the vision,' says Adelman. 'You need the people in the middle who administer the plan and give the orders. And you need the `little guys' who actually kill. They are usually not motivated at all. They need different kinds of inducements, like fear, peer pressure and drugs. It's a distasteful thing they are going to do, and it's hard work convincing them.'...

The line between those who commit crimes against neighbours and those who resist the urge to kill may be skepticism about authority."

Capitol Hill Blue: Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides: "President George W. Bush's increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader's state of mind."

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The Serious Implications Of President Bush's Hiring A Personal Outside Counsel For The Valerie Plame Investigation "This action by Bush is a rather stunning and extraordinary development. The President of the United States is potentially hiring a private criminal defense lawyer."

John Chuckman: Insanity in America: "The world is being led by a nation where more than one-quarter of the people have genuine mental problems."

Project:Denny's - Viewer Reviews - Oklahoma: "'We just went to Denny's in Stillwater, OK and the ASSistant manager was a total bitch.' - written prior to September, 1999
- James E. Sharp - sharpj@okstate.edu"

FindLaw for Legal Professionals: "Sharp had met with him and arranged for Pegg to pay a portion of Baxter's legal fees. Baxter then stated that Pegg had retained attorney Dick Hibey to represent Baxter in the case. Baxter further claimed that Sharp and Hibey helped him concoct a false story to help exculpate Pegg."

CBS News | Bush, Atty Powwow Over CIA Leak | June 2, 2004�19:50:41

Bikers for Bush

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: The Blame Game

BW Online | May 28, 2004 | Avoiding a Nasty Blast from the Past: "It all seems too familiar. An increasingly unpopular and expensive foreign military conflict, rising energy prices, and the threat of higher inflation. These factors, in Standard & Poor's opinion, may be causing investors to question whether the future investment climate may replicate the bad old days of the '70s. "

baltimoresun.com - Chalabi raid adds scrutiny to use of U.S. contractors

Cleveland.com: Search: "I have never lived in a state where money has such an influence on politics as in Ohio. It's the most heavy-handed state in terms of money in politics, and it's appalling. It's just an epidemic"

TIME.com: The Paper Trail -- Jun. 07, 2004: action on a multibillion-dollar Halliburton contract was coordinated with Cheney's office

Rise of the rural counties - zanesvilletimesrecorder.com: "Householder...is among the leaders in a revolution of political fund raising, where contribution limits are thwarted by routing money through county party funds....
Sam Miller, board co-chairman and treasurer of Forest City Enterprises, a $5.7 billion real estate development company based in Cleveland, donated $21,500 to the three counties through a series of small checks. Most were written on behalf of 10 members of the Ratner family, top executives of Forest City...."We divided it up amongst the family," he said. "I signed all those checks. I'm their political representative. They may not even know about the checks." "

Gen. Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.) Remarks at CDI Board of Directors Dinner, May 12, 2004 The books were cooked, in my mind. The intelligence was not there. I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee one month before the war, and Senator Lugar asked me: "General Zinni, do you feel the threat from Saddam Hussein is imminent?" I said: "No, not at all. It was not an imminent threat. Not even close. Not grave, gathering, imminent, serious, severe, mildly upsetting, none of those."

Threat Warning Called a Surprise to Agency: "The Homeland Security Department was surprised by the announcement by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that a terrorist attack was increasingly likely in coming months, officials said Thursday."

Suspicion Surrounds Death of Iraqi Scientist in U.S. Custody: "Alazmirli's case raises questions about whether similar ones exist - suspicious deaths that are not on any official U.S. lists - and what method the military is using to determine which cases are worthy of review."

The Miami Herald | 05/27/2004 | Absentee ballot law is a joke that isn't funny: "``Every vote should count.''
-- Jeb Bush, upon signing into law a measure doing away with witness signatures for absentee ballots
...The problem with doing away with the witness signature should be obvious to anyone who has lived in Miami. Absentee ballot fraud has long been a problem in South Florida, with candidates often buying ballots, or worse, stealing them from unsuspecting people in nursing homes and condominiums. A city of Miami election in 1997 was overturned after such fraud."

MoveOn PAC Former Vice President Al Gore delivered a major foreign policy address in New York City Wednesday, sponsored by MoveOn PAC, linking the Abu Ghraib prison abuses to deep flaws in President Bush’s Iraq policy and calling for the resignation of 6 members of the Bush Administration team responsible for the failed policy and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

As Ashcroft Warns of Attack, Some Question Threat and Its Timing

New Questions Arise About Touch-Screen Voting Machines: "Secretary of State Hood wrote to [county elections supervisor] Kaplan and said she was 'disturbed to have only recently learned that your office has been dealing with an equipment anomaly in the ES&S voting as early as May 2003.'...
On May 18, Kaplan responded to Hood, explaining that she 'must constantly strike a delicate balance between raising valid concerns, such as the ones in question regarding the audit trial mentioned in your letter, and not necessarily alarming the public.'"

Guardian Unlimited | World dispatch | 'Its best use is as a doorstop': "The book...takes some of the hoariest old prejudices about black people and applies them to Arabs....According to one professor at a US military college, The Arab Mind is 'probably the single most popular and widely read book on the Arabs in the US military'. It is even used as a textbook for officers at the JFK special warfare school in Fort Bragg....None of the academics I contacted thought the book suitable for serious study, although Georgetown University once invited students to analyse it as 'an example of bad, biased social science'."

Fear in the frame: "The fact that such horrific pictures emerge, day after day, should make us reflect on the deep, brutalising effects this war is having on many otherwise normal people....It is not just Bush, Blair, and Rumsfeld that should go -- it is the whole sickly zeitgeist that they have forced upon the world society that should be excised."

MSNBC - �The War on Terror Is Not Working�: "Our point here is that governments, in their response to these threats from armed groups, have resorted to many of the very same tactics that the armed groups themselves have undertaken. But in the case of the government, it's under the guise of fighting the war on terror or fighting an armed threat. By violating human rights themselves, those governments lend a degree of credibility to the use of those kinds of tactics in the first place."

MoveOn PAC: "George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.
He promised to 'restore honor and integrity to the White House.' Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon. "

The Sentinel Online - Archived Story: "This administration had no real mandate and they've taken us to the darkest place in our history"

TheStar.com - U.S. war policy 'grave error'

The Law: Who Would Try Civilians of U.S.? No One in Iraq And likely no one anywhere else, either.

News: "The US and British occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and made the world a less safe place"

How Public is Public Radio?

Joe Bageant: The Covert Kingdom: "Given fundamentalist Christianity's inherent cultural isolation, it is nearly impossible for most enlightened Americans to imagine, in honest human terms, what fundamentalist Americans believe, let alone understand why we should all care."

Newsday.com - World News: "the FBI had launched an investigation into who in the administration had passed the classified material to his Iraqi National Congress."

Report: Nearly 45 Percent of Businesses Near Los Angeles Schools Are Illegally Selling Tobacco to Children

Guardian | US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war: "When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history"

nbc4columbus.com - News - Blackwell Asks GOP Party For Householder's Resignation

CBS News | Poll: Iraq Taking Toll On Bush | May 24, 2004�20:28:35

DenverPost.com - NATION/WORLD President Bush has installed more than 100 top officials who were once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee.

The Washington Monthly: "Why exactly is Ahmed Chalabi hated by so many people? And exactly who is he hated by? Here's an Ahmed Chalabi timeline to help sort it out for you:"

CBS News | Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up' | May 21, 2004�16:24:19

toledoblade.com: "Subpoenas hint trouble for speaker of House"

toledoblade.com: "vendors that received the extra money paid kickbacks to Mr. Householder and his campaign aides."

toledoblade.com: "vendors that received the extra money paid kickbacks to Mr. Householder and his campaign aides."

Jeffrey St. Clair: When War is Swell, Bush and the Carlyle Group

ORGANIC FOOD FIGHT / Outcry over rule changes that allow more pesticides, hormones

Punishment and Amusement (washingtonpost.com): "'The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.' '"

Destruction Stuns Residents of Gaza (washingtonpost.com): "Israeli military bulldozers have destroyed more than 1,200 houses in the Rafah camp in the past 3 1/2 years, according to the U.N. relief agency. In the past week...450 people were added to the nearly 11,000 already made homeless by the bulldozers."

BW Online | May 31, 2004 | The Other U.S. Military: "The private contractor biz is hot, vast, and largely unregulated. Is it out of control?"

Talk on Hill heated about DeWine staffer's blog' of sexual trysts: "'Most of my living expenses are thankfully subsidized by a few generous older gentlemen,' wrote the staffer, who identified herself as 'The Washingtonienne.' 'I'm sure I am not the only one who makes money on the side this way: how can anybody live on $25K/year??' "

The New York Times > Washington > Material Given to Congress in 2002 Is Now Classified: "Families of the Sept. 11 victims - who are suing numerous corporate and Saudi interests whom they accuse of having links to the attacks - have sought to depose her as a witness, but the Justice Department has blocked the move by saying her testimony would violate 'the state secret privilege.'"

The Lost Washingtonienne (WONKETTE EXCLUSIVE, ETC., ETC.) Ohio republican Mike Dewine staffer blogs beltway sexcapades.

FAIR MEDIA ADVISORY: Campaign Double Standards

USATODAY.com - Get U.S. military out of Iraq

Military force trained for war, not restraint: "Last year, the US paid out £907,000 after a wave of negligence and wrongful death claims filed against American soldiers in Iraq. The US military confirmed that, up to November, 10,402 claims had been filed. There have been many more since."
Your tax dollars at work.

The Village Voice: Features: The Jesus Landing Pad by Rick Perlstein

Guardian | Hostilities force Bush into deep hole: "US forces appeared to have been sucked in by the insurgents' strategy: fighting back, killing civilians and in turn strengthening the rebels' support base"

Le Monde.fr : Pour services rendus en Irak, le trafiquant Viktor Bout décroche l'aide des Etats-Unis Notorious arms dealer gets a pass. This site describes and links to the Financial Times story. Sen. Russ Feingold wants answers, but Wolfowitz and Armitage aren't giving them. Frontline profiles Bout in May, 2002. I don't suppose someone like Bout would have access to shells laced with just a little bit of sarin.

MSNBC - Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings

sacbee.com -- Opinion -- Atrocities in Iraq: 'I killed innocent people for our government' : "[My commanding officer] came up to me and says: 'Are you OK?' I said: 'No, today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians.' He goes: 'No, today was a good day.'"

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: What the U.S. jobless rolls don't tell you

The New York Times > New York Region > 9/11 Tape Has Late Change on Evacuation: "Most tall buildings in the United States, including those at the trade center, were not designed for complete evacuation during a crisis...because staircases reduce the amount of rentable floor space."

Down but Not Out, Kucinich
Keeps Fighting

ACLU Was Forced To Revise Release On Patriot Act Suit (washingtonpost.com): "The second paragraph read: 'The provision under challenge allows an FBI agent to write a letter demanding the disclosure of the name, screen names, addresses, e-mail header information, and other sensitive information held by 'electronic communication service providers.' '
Justice lawyers said that both paragraphs violated a secrecy order."

Yahoo! News - FT says Bush should fire Rumsfeld over Iraqi prisoner scandal: "The world is too complex and dangerous for the pious simplicities and arrogant unilateralism of George W. Bush"

Yahoo! News - Congress Toughens War Oversight Role: "Since declaring a war on terror after Sept. 11, the Bush administration has enjoyed an almost complete absence of oversight hearings on White House conduct of the war."

Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate | BaltimoreChronicle.com "The most significant information that we were receiving did not come from counter-terrorism investigations, and I want to emphasize this. It came from counter-intelligence, and certain criminal investigations, and issues that have to do with money laundering operations."

Army Times - News - More News "This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war."

Media Beat: This War and Racism -- Media Denial in Overdrive

Dissension Grows In Senior Ranks On War Strategy (washingtonpost.com): "senior officers beginning to say that the United States faces the prospect of casualties for years without achieving its goal of establishing a free and democratic Iraq. "

Fair Use Press

IPA News Release: The Anti-War Origins of Mother's Day

People For the American Way | FDA Ruling Means More Abortions, Less Safety For American Women

The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Editorials: "Here's the result of the latest compassionate rule change from the Bush administration"

Guardian Unlimited | Cartoons

RollingStone.com: "election officials all over the country are erecting illegal barriers to keep young voters from casting ballots"

FAA Managers Destroyed 9/11 Tapes (washingtonpost.com)

The bad barrels that corrupt any good apples they touch: "Philip Zimbardo, a leader of the Stanford prison study, said that while the rest of the world was shocked by the images from Iraq, he was not surprised. 'I have exact, parallel pictures of prisoners with bags over their heads [from the 1971 study],' he said....At Stanford and in Iraq, he added, 'It's not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches.' "

Yahoo! News - Bush Asks Congress for $25B for Iraq War: "Bush 'has not been told that there is a resource problem,' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity."

Contractors Implicated in Prison Abuse Remain on the Job: "More than two months after a classified Army report found that two contract workers were implicated in the abuse of Iraqis at a prison outside Baghdad, the companies that employ them say that they have heard nothing from the Pentagon, and that they have not removed any employees from Iraq."

Letter to President Bush from Former U.S. Diplomats - Independent Media TV

The Village Voice: Cartoons: Sutton Impact: Widdle Baby Pwesident by Ward Sutton

Cheney Praises Fox News Channel (washingtonpost.com) "It is unusual for a president or vice president to single out a commercial enterprise for public praise."

Forbes, September 2003 Now Hear This
"Marketers have always dreamed of whispering into the ears of individual shoppers as they mill around the aisles and inch along checkout lanes.
"An HSS emitter can put a message to a single person standing in a crowd 200 feet away, without anyone on either side able to hear it. Motion-sensitive HSS emitters can flog Doritos on one end of the snack aisle and hawk Cracker Jack on the other."

OECD Observer: Climate change: The challenge continues: "Worldwide economic losses due to natural disasters increased from about US$40 billion per year in the 1990s to US$60 billion in 2003"

EditorandPublisher.com - Information Authority for the Newspaper Industry: "Hiding the death and destruction of this war does not make it easier on anyone except those who want to keep the truth away from the people"

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page: "a doctrine that makes the United States a sort of elected dictatorship: a system in which the president, once in office, can do whatever he likes, and isn't obliged to consult or inform either Congress or the public"

News: "Lawyers try to gag FBI worker over 9/11"

American attitudes: Program on International Policy Attitudes Americans Continue to Believe Iraq Supported Al Qaeda, Had WMD