The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election 2004

RICHARD HAYES PHILLIPS : LYRIC POETRY WEBSITE Ohio Recount

MiddleEast.org - Mid-East Realities AIPAC offices are raided to collect evidence to be destroyed. Almost-ignored action guarantees no evidence remains to indict pentagon staff for using manufactured "intelligence" to start illegal war.

The first "Burning Times" Award: Governor Mike Johanns of Nebraska How the new secretary of agriculture got his job.

The New York Review of Books: On War

Yahoo! News - IF IT'S 2005, IT MUST BE TIME FOR ANOTHER WAR: "Powell's claims that Iran obtained schematics for an atomic bomb from Pakistan are even older [than the discredited "intelligence" about Iraq], dating to 1996. Moreover, the Iran sourcing--the National Council for Resistance in Iran (NCRI)--makes Ahmed Chalabi look like a Boy Scout. The NCRI, a front organization for the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), is a bizarre, Shiite, pro-Baathist (yes, you read that right) guerilla army infamous for crushing the 1991 Kurdish uprising on Saddam's orders. Better yet, it's designated as a 'known terrorist organization' by Powell's own State Department."

Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says (washingtonpost.com): "Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals 'can result in pregnancy'...; that 'A 43-day-old fetus is a thinking person; HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears; [and] Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.'

"Some course materials cited in Waxman's report present as scientific fact notions about a man's need for 'admiration' and 'sexual fulfillment' compared with a woman's need for 'financial support.' One book in the 'Choosing Best' series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. 'Moral of the story,' notes the popular text: 'Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess.'"

And then there are the statements that are wrong just for the sake of being wrong, without any apparent policy justification, like "twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual."

Yahoo! News - Europe's Central Bank Seen Holding Rates: "U.S. military has announced that troops stationed in Europe would receive a 31 percent cost of living increase to help provide some relief"

New DEA Statement Has Pain Doctors More Fearful (washingtonpost.com): "the new DEA position is at odds with a set of guidelines negotiated over several years by DEA officials and a group of leading pain-management experts."

Something's fishy in Ohio

As the oil-for-food program scandal deepens, let's remember the conditions the U.S. had created in Iraq before the program was initiated: "International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002."

CBC News Indepth: Continental Divide?

The New York Times > National > Colleges Can Bar Army Recruiters: "Howard J. Bashman, who helped write a supporting brief on behalf of students who favored the law, said the decision would hurt the military and the public.

'A ruling of this sort will cause the military to end up with a lower quality of lawyer,' Mr. Bashman said. 'These lawyers are involved in targeting decisions and in decisions about how prisoners have to be treated.'"

So, presumably, had Harvard Law School permitted military recruiters on campus at the time, perhaps 1982 alum and Air Force Academy dropout Alberto Gonzales might've gone back into the military, and things might've been MUCH different.....

The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: The Great Indecency Hoax ABC began apologizing before anyone complained. Overhyped news items about sex sell better than advertising, especially in the more-moral-than-thou Red States.

Times Community Newspapers: "Under the current system, incumbents are likely to face a real challenge only from within their own party, according to Shogun, and most likely by someone with an even more extreme political view than their own."

Congressman Ney is at center of influence peddling scandal

U.S. threatens to cut aid over court / Congress wants immunity accords for Americans

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Two more top spies quit troubled CIA "Goss and his minions can do a great deal of damage in short order."

Ummmm, Dallas 21, Chicago 7: "The UN atomic agency is expected to let South Korea off the hook for making small amounts of weapons-grade plutonium"

The Columbus Dispatch - Election More voting questions raised

Yahoo! News - Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained: "Some of us are going to die there, and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training,' he said. 'So I don't care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American public to know what is going on. My men are guilty of one thing: volunteering to serve their country. And we are at the end of our rope."

www.GovExec.com - I Spy Mismanagement (11/24/04)

Clear Channel billboard pictures Bush with the "L" word. You know, the English word that translates "Fuhrer" or "Duce."

From last night's "60 Minutes": Military analyst John "Pike says the military is trying to minimize the casualty count" by failing to include up to 30,000 wounded and ill in its casualty counts. "It’s an effort Pike believes is misguided, because he says that even if Americans understood the full human cost of the war, public support would not weaken.

'I think that all of the public opinion polling that we're seeing suggests that the public is prepared to sustain far higher casualties than politicians give them credit for,' says Pike."

One still holds out a faint hope that by "full human cost," he means the direct cost to US servicemembers, not the conservatively estimated 16,000 Iraqi civilians killed or the 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from wasting due to malnutrition.

Remember Afghanistan? "[T]his year Afghanistan has established a double record -- the highest drug cultivation in the country’s history, and the largest in the world....The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is slowly becoming a reality as corruption in the public sector, the die-hard ambition of local warlords, and the complicity of local investors are becoming a factor in Afghan life.

The soldiers' story: the war the video cameras do not see

Oakland Tribune Online - Local & Regional News: "The UC Berkeley report has not been peer reviewed, but a reputable MIT political scientist succeeded in replicating the analysis Thursday at the request of the Oakland Tribune and The Associated Press. He said an investigation is warranted.....'Seven professors later, nobody's been able to poke a hole in our model,' Mangels said. 'Our results still hold up.'"

Surprising Florida Presidential Election Results: "Pinpointing Precincts with Vote-Counting Errors"

Outsourcing the Pentagon - The Center for Public Integrity

U.S. ELECTION: Democracy in Question

UC DATA Home Page Working Paper: The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections

Boston.com / News / Politics / Presidential candidates / Media accused of ignoring election irregularities

Landscape After Battle

VotersUnite!
Summaries of voting problems nationwide, with links. 327 entries so far.

Attack on Fallujah can't be justified

White House Orders Purge of CIA 'Liberals,' Sources Say Ignorance is strength

Consortiumnews.com "Contrary to assertions in the flawed Post article, the most surprising numbers actually don’t come from small rural counties in [Florida], but rather from large counties, including Orange county (mentioned above), Hillsborough (Tampa), Brevard (Cape Canaveral), Duval (Jacksonville), Polk (next to Orange county), and heavily Democratic Leon (Tallahassee) and Alachua (Gainesville)."

ExxonSecrets Organizations: "Documenting Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change skeptics"

Business 2.0 :: Online Article :: Marketing Focus :: Does a Bush Win Mean U.S. Brands Lose?: "'This is undoubtedly the worst thing that could have happened,' Anholt says of the president's reelection. 'Bush has presided over a period of unparalleled decline in the popularity of the United States. Global disapproval of U.S. foreign policy has become so intense that it is spilling over and contaminating the image of U.S. brands and culture.' "

CounterPunch: "America's Best Political Newsletter" Voter Intimidation in Tampa
Dispatches from the Gound

Columns: The man behind all the bad decisions

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales's Texas Execution Memos

David Swanson: Media Black Out on Vote Fraud Allegations

AlterNet: The Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket: "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward"

KR Washington Bureau | 10/18/2004 | As election approaches, U.S. troops experience difficulties voting: "U.S. service members based in Iraq and across the globe can't be confident that their votes will be counted in this year's presidential election"

In Court Clerks' Breach, a Provocative Precedent (washingtonpost.com): "The Vanity Fair sources do not deny the importance of in-chambers confidentiality, a lifetime obligation spelled out in the written code of conduct that all law clerks pledge to uphold when they come to the court. They simply felt bound by a higher duty.

'We feel that something illegitimate was done with the Court's power [in Bush v Gore], and such an extraordinary situation justifies breaking an obligation we'd otherwise honor,' one clerk told the magazine. 'Our secrecy was helping to shield some of those actions.'"

t r u t h o u t - GOP Faces 'Civil War' over Bush's Faith-Based Rule: "And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. 'You think he's an idiot, don't you?' I said, no, I didn't. 'No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!' In this instance, the final 'you,' of course, meant the entire reality-based community."

Hiding Behind the Skirts of the Very People He Betrays, Insulting the Intelligence of America

Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us?: "Here is a small sample of who has been getting 'reparation' awards from Iraq: Halliburton ($18m), Bechtel ($7m), Mobil ($2.3m), Shell ($1.6m), Nestl� ($2.6m), Pepsi ($3.8m), Philip Morris ($1.3m), Sheraton ($11m), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321,000) and Toys R Us ($189,449). In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that Saddam's forces damaged their property in Kuwait - only that they 'lost profits' or, in the case of American Express, experienced a 'decline in business' because of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait."

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page: "The important point to realize is that these abuses aren't aberrations"

toledoblade.com: "They didn't take the box of petty cash or other computers. They bypassed portable radios, a television, and a microwave.
And a pop machine, illuminating an otherwise dark room in what would seem to be a beacon to any ordinary burglar, remained untouched.
Instead, what overnight thieves took from Lucas County Democratic Headquarters were financial data, volunteer rolls, Election Day strategy, and other sensitive information just three weeks before voters head to the polls"

Halliburton's Interests Assisted by White House "[A]n environmental engineer and 30-year EPA veteran in Denver, last week sought whistle-blower protection in an 18-page statement sent to the agency's inspector general and members of Congress. The statement alleges that the study's findings were premature, may endanger public health and were approved by an industry-dominated review panel that included a current Halliburton employee."

BBC NEWS Business BBC lifts the lid on secret BAE slush fund £60m slush fund used by the UK's leading arms maker, BAE Systems, to grease the wheels of the biggest arms deals in British history

New investigation uncovers more racism, voter intimidation and faulty poll machines - [Sunday Herald]

Capitol Hill Blue: Politically-Timed Terror Alerts: The Real Terror Threat: Some believe the most potent weapon in the Bush campaign arsenal isn't an advertising nest egg the size of a Third World nation's gross national product, but the fear card. If the race tightens between now and Nov. 2, they say, another "high" alert might be forthcoming.

News: "The Republicans, naturally, deny the investigations are politically motivated. But even they acknowledge that a chill has spread through Orlando's overwhelmingly Democratic black voting community after a flurry of unannounced visits by armed state police to at least 52 homes whose mostly elderly residents had signed up for an absentee ballot with Mr Thomas's help.
The Republicans have been hard put to explain what exactly the two men have done wrong. The media has aired official allegations ranging from vote fraud to campaign finance irregularities to racketeering, but no charges have been brought, despite exhaustive investigations. A grand jury examining allegations concerning the firefighters' union concluded that no laws had been broken, which has not deterred the FDLE from pursuing the case."

Insiders Worked Both Sides of Gaming Issue (washingtonpost.com): "Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant Michael Scanlon quietly worked with conservative religious activist Ralph Reed to help the state of Texas shut down an Indian tribe's casino in 2002, then the two quickly persuaded the tribe to pay $4.2 million to try to get Congress to reopen it."
...then exploit the financial crisis they were helping to create for the tribe by securing both the multimillion-dollar fee and $300,000 in federal political contributions, which the tribe paid.

KR Washington Bureau | 09/25/2004 | Iraqi civilian casualties mounting

Bush acceptance speech marked by anticipation:This one from the RNC slipped under the radar: Senator George Voinovich said that we were now "engaged in the fourth world war."
Is he admitting that the US's dozens of proxy wars against socialist and populist nations and movements in the '60s, '70s and '80s were, in fact, a unified World War III? Or what?

Followed by a goon shadow

White House Guide to Understanding the Terror Alert Colors

Close race means more voters registering - zanesvilletimesrecorder.com: "The number of new voters has spiked significantly in Perry County, too, said Janie Dailey, director of the board of elections there. 'We've registered 1,500 new voters since the beginning of the year.'"

As of the 2000 census, the population of Perry County aged 18 and over was 24,494.

Demonstration of 5 voting system hacks using real software Black Box Voting Will a chimp steal the election? (Includes video of chimp)

MSNBC - Political Humor

MSNBC - The Story That Didn't Run: CBS plays for the Bush team.
"In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush's National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same "60 Minutes" broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger."

Peer News: "EPA ISSUES PRE-ELECTION GAG ORDER TO STAFF"

Why Americans Back the War: "To the mounting horror of the world, the United States of America is relentlessly bringing about the systematic destruction of a small, unthreatening nation for no good reason. Why has this not gripped the conscience of this country?
The answer goes beyond Bush to the 60-year history of an accidental readiness to destroy the earth, a legacy with which we Americans have yet to reckon. The punitive terror bombing that marked the end of World War II hardly registered with us. Then we passively accepted our government's mad embrace of thermonuclear weapons. While we demonized our Soviet enemy, we hardly noticed that almost every major escalation of the arms race was initiated by our side "

Pentagon Restricts Overseas Voters

Paul Craig Roberts: Attention Deficit America: "Speaking of Phony Documents..."

Insuring Controversy (washingtonpost.com): "While the costs of running a practice, including insurance premiums, have risen in recent years, physicians incomes do not appear to have dropped." That's the word from Page 3 of this story about how primary care doctors are asking their patients (whose health insurance premiums and co-payments aren't even mentioned in the story) for "donations" on top of their medical bills.

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Scamming the Media, Parlock Style

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Eclipsed in Iraq

Tami Longaberger speaks out about state of company - zanesvilletimesrecorder.com: "'We continue to right-size the business,' she said," after announcing an additional 215 layoffs, a week after 784 workers were laid off.

And you thought "downsizing" was a euphemism.

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | When the Rabbits Get a Gun Osama bin Laden went to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, home of the holiest sites of Islam. The royal family was not to be found anywhere on bin Laden's list of friends at the time. A shrewd observer of local politics, bin Laden knew that the Saudi government enjoyed having the Palestinians living in squalor, bereft of homeland and hope, because it distracted the fundamentalists within Saudi Arabia from focusing on the inequities within their own country. With the crooking of a single oil-rich finger, the Saudi royals could solve the Palestinian problem. Their refusal to do so fed bin Laden's rage, for in his mind, they were aiding and abetting what he saw as an intolerable Israeli apartheid.

17,000 GIs Not Listed as Casualties: "17,000 GIs Not Listed As Casualties "

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Far graver than Vietnam: "Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale "

No justice for Hicks in flawed trial: QC: "One member [of the tribunal] admitted during the hearing he had previously said the inmates at Guantanamo Bay were all terrorists."

U.S. Plans to Divert Iraq Money (washingtonpost.com)

The Daily Telegraph | Journalists 'get terror tip-offs'

Robert Novak Believes in Revealing Confidential Sources, After All:
"'HUNT: Robert Novak, you're saying CBS should reveal its source?
NOVAK: Yes.
HUNT: You do? You think reporters ought to reveal sources?
NOVAK: No, no. Wait a minute.
HUNT: I'm just asking.
NOVAK: I'm just saying in that case.'"

Yahoo! News - U.N. Agency to Study Environment in Iraq: "The British government has given the agency detailed information on locations where it used 1.9 tonnes of depleted uranium in the south of Iraq, but the U.S. government hasn't come forward with the same information despite requests from the United Nations."

Guardian | Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row: "Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq."

USNews.com: A review of President Bush's National Guard years raises issues about the time he served (9/20/04): Left-wing whackos at US News & World Report? "The White House has said that Bush's service should be calculated using 12-month periods beginning on his induction date in May 1968. Using this time frame, however, Bush still fails the Air Force obligation standard."

CounterPunch: "America's Best Political Newsletter" In This Election Reality is Off the Table

Yahoo! News - Pat Oliphant

Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Be very afraid

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page: "The Dishonesty Thing"

Foreign Policy In Focus Special Report: A Secure America in a Secure World

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Return to parallel earth

Boston.com / News / Politics / Presidential candidates / George W. Bush / 'CYA' memo

Invoking 9/11 May Temper Views on Iraq War (washingtonpost.com): "'I think the administration is testing the theory that you can fool all of the people some of time,' said Richard C. Holbrooke, a senior foreign policy adviser."

TIME.com: A Web Of Intrigue -- Sep. 13, 2004: "U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials insist that U.S. intercepts of Iranian communications prove that secrets about U.S. code-breaking were gravely breached"

TIME.com: A Web Of Intrigue -- Sep. 13, 2004

TheStar.com - Why would Israel need a spy in Pentagon?

AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Bush Crusade: "Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script."

Conyers Calls for Hearings on Spy Case: "U.S.district attorney in charge of the probe, Paul McNulty, has ordered the FBI not to move forward with arrests that they were prepared to make last Friday "
....Mr. McNulty was only assigned the case by Attorney General Ashcroft last Friday when federal agents came to Aipac’s offices in Washington to request files and hard drives. “Ashcroft wanted to make sure this case was being handled properly,” the source familiar with the probe said. “I would not expect any action on this for at least three weeks.” This source added that a grand jury is now being selected, but it was likely the charges,initially reported as espionage, would be scaled back to the mishandling of classified information.

TimesDispatch.com | Lawyers ask judge for access to papers McNulty is leading the pentagon investigation.

AlterNet: Unmitigated Gall

George Jr Sent Out of Texas by Father as a 'Drunken Liability'

Change at CDC Draws Protest (washingtonpost.com): "the move has drawn protests from virtually every occupational health and safety organization in the country, including some representing labor and others more aligned with corporate management -- groups that usually are at policy loggerheads but that have shared interests in good science."