Palace Revolt

Newsweek, MSNBC.com
They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it.
James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people who came to my office, or my home, or called my cell phone late at night, to quietly tell me when I was about to make a mistake; they were the people committed to getting it right—and to doing the right thing—whatever the price. These people," said Comey, "know who they are. Some of them did pay a price for their commitment to right, but they wouldn't have it any other way."
These Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror. Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, Goldsmith and the others fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law. They did so at their peril; ostracized, some were denied promotions, while others left for more comfortable climes in private law firms and academia. Some went so far as to line up private lawyers in 2004, anticipating that the president's eavesdropping program would draw scrutiny from Congress, if not prosecutors. These government attorneys did not always succeed, but their efforts went a long way toward vindicating the principle of a nation of laws and not men....
Cheney staffer David Addington has long believed that the executive branch was pitifully weakened by the backlash from Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Fearful of investigative reporters and congressional subpoenas, soldiers and spies had become timid—"risk averse" in bureaucratic jargon. To Addington and Cheney, the 9/11 attacks—and the threat of more and worse to come—were perfect justification for unleashing the CIA and other long-blunted weapons in the national-security arsenal. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who disdains lawyers, was ready to go. So, too, was CIA Director George Tenet—but only if his spooks had legal cover, so they wouldn't be left holding the bag if things went wrong.
Addington and a small band of like-minded lawyers set about providing that cover—a legal argument that the power of the president in time of war was virtually untrammeled. Addington found an ally in an OLC lawyer whose name—John Yoo—would later become synonymous with the notion that power is for the president to use as he sees fit in a time of war. Shortly after 9/11, Yoo wrote, in a formal OLC opinion, that Congress may not "place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response." The brainy, pleasant and supremely self-confident Yoo became Addington's main man at Justice, a prolific author of legal opinions granting the president maximum power during wartime.
An August 2002 OLC memo, signed by the then head of the OLC—Jay Bybee—but drafted by Yoo, gave the agency what it needed. The controversial document, which became famous as the "torture memo" when it leaked two years later, defined torture so narrowly that, short of maiming or killing a prisoner, interrogators had a free hand. What's more, the memo claimed license for the president to order methods that would be torture by anyone's definition—and to do it wholesale, and not just in specific cases. READ ARTICLE

Tax Breaks for the Wealthy
On January 1, Congress allowed two tax breaks that benefit the wealthy to become effective. The cuts eliminated current provisions of the tax code that limits the amount of personal exemptions and itemized deductions that Americans with high incomes can take. Over the course of the next five years the tax cuts will cost approximately $27 billion, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ironically, Republicans in Congress, only two weeks before the cuts took effect, voted to reduce domestic spending on programs affecting the poor and the middle class by $39 billion over the next five years.

Audit: U.S.-led occupation squandered aid
Iraqi money gambled away in the Philippines. Thousands spent on a swimming pool that was never used. An elevator repaired so poorly that it crashed, killing people. A U.S. government audit found American-led occupation authorities squandered tens of millions of dollars that were supposed to be used to rebuild Iraq through undocumented spending and outright fraud. In some cases, auditors recommend criminal charges be filed against the perpetrators. In others, it asks the U.S. ambassador to Iraq to recoup the money.
Dryly written audit reports describe the Coalition Provisional Authority's offices in the south-central city of Hillah being awash in bricks of $100 bills taken from a central vault without documentation. It describes one agent who kept almost $700,000 in cash in an unlocked footlocker and mentions a U.S. soldier who gambled away as much as $60,000 in reconstruction funds in the Philippines.
"Tens of millions of dollars in cash had gone in and out of the South-Central Region vault without any tracking of who deposited or withdrew the money, and why it was taken out," says a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is in the midst of a series of audits for the Pentagon and State Department.
Much of the first audit reports deal with contracting in south-central Iraq, one of the country's least-hostile regions. Audits have yet to be released for the occupation authority's spending in the rest of Iraq. The audits offer a window into the chaotic U.S.-led occupation of Iraq of 2003-04, when inexperienced American officials - including workers from President Bush's election campaign - organized a cash-intensive "hearts and minds" mission to rebuild Iraq's devastated economy. But the corruption and incompetence documented in the reports reveal that much of the effort, however well-intentioned, was wasted. The failure of the rebuilding effort has been borne out most vividly by the rise of a virulent anti-American insurgency that has claimed most of the 2,237 U.S. military lives lost since the war began. In some cases, auditors could find no trace of cash, much of which came from Iraqi oil revenues overseen by the occupation authority.
"Those deficiencies were so significant that we were precluded from accomplishing our stated objectives," the auditors said of U.S. officials in Hillah being unable to account for $97 million of the $120 million in Iraqi oil revenues earmarked for rebuilding projects.

An October 2005 audit found documentation for the spending of just $8 million of that money. Negligence proved deadly in at least one case. Three Iraqis plummeted to their deaths in an elevator in the Hillah General Hospital that was certified to have been replaced by a contractor who received $662,800. Also in Hillah, occupation officials spent $108,140 to replace pumps and fix the city's Olympic swimming pool. But the contractor merely polished the old plumbing to make it look new and collected his money. When the pool was filled, the water came out a murky brown and the pool's reopening had to be canceled. The reports did not identify the contractors involved. Auditors have asked the U.S. ambassador to recover a total of $571,823 that the reports describe as overpaid funds.
In some cases, cash simply disappeared. Two occupation authority field agents responsible for paying contractors left Iraq without accounting for more than $700,000 each. When auditors confronted their manager and asked where the money was, the manger tried to clear one of the agents through false paperwork. "This appears to be an attempt to remove outstanding balances by simply washing accounts," the auditor said. The two agents were not identified and there was no word on whether the pair were referred for prosecution. One report describes mismanagement of more than 2,000 small contracts in south-central Iraq worth $88 million. Occupation staffers or those they supervised handed out millions to companies that never submitted required competitive bids or that were paid for unfinished work. Other examples cited in the reports:

• -Only a quarter of $23 million entrusted to civilian and military project and contracting officers to pay contractors ever found its way to those contractors.
• -One contractor was paid $14,000 on four separate occasions for the same job.
• -Of $7.3 million spent on a police academy near Hillah, auditors could account for just $4 million. They said $1.3 million was wasted on overpriced or duplicate construction or equipment not delivered. More than $2 million was missing.
• -U.S. personnel "needlessly disbursed more than $1.8 million" of the estimated $2.3 million spent for renovating the library in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.
• -The library contractor delivered only 18 of 68 personal computers called for and did not install Internet wiring or software. The computers worked only as stand-alones.
• -The U.S.-led security transition command spent $945,000 for seven armored Mercedes-Benzes that were too lightly armored for Iraq. Auditors were able to account for only six of the cars.
• -At one point, several paying agents kept cash inside the same filing cabinet in the Hillah vault. One agent took $100,000 from another's stack of cash to clear his own balance. "This was only discovered because the other paying agent had to make a disbursement that day and realized that he was short cash," the report says.

Hamas Asks World Community Not to Cut Off Aid
Leaders of Hamas are calling on the international community not to follow through with threats to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority following Hamas victory in last week's election. The group pledged that all international aid would be used for social relief and not for violence. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya spoke to reporters earlier today. "With the trust that was given to us by the Palestinian people, through a democratic, honest (election) process witnessed by hundreds of foreign observers and thousands of local ones, we call on you and the liberal world to respect the results of democracy and to respect the Palestinian will in accordance with the ballot boxes and to deal with the Palestinian people accordingly," Haniya said. Haniya's comment come as western leaders are meeting in London.
The United States, Israel and the European Union have all threatened to cut off ties and funding to the Palestinian government if Hamas forms the new government. On Sunday the newly elected German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU will not fund the Palestinian Authority unless Hamas agrees to recognize the right of Israel to exist. However former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said the international community must find a way to continue supporting the Palestinian people. He said "Regardless of the government, I would hope that potential donors find alternative means to be generous to the Palestinian people [even] if the donor decides to bypass the Palestinian government completely."

Momentum Grows for Filibuster to Block Alito Confirmation
On Capitol Hill, support for Senate Democrats to block the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice nominee Samuel Alito is growing. Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy first announced their support for a filibuster last week. Since then Hillary Rodham Clinton, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Dick Durbin, Barack Obama and others have expressed support for the filibuster even though Obama predicted that the effort would fail. At least four Democrats have indicated they will vote to confirm Alito -- Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

Veteran Who Spoke Out About War's Psychological Affects Commits Suicide
In Ohio, a 35-year-old veteran of the Iraq war was buried on Saturday - a week after he committed suicide. Army Reservist Douglas Barber was a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War and had publicly spoken out about the psychological toll war takes on veterans. A month before he died he appeared on Doug Basham's radio show. Barber reportedly spent two years fighting the military to get counseling and for the VA to recognize his disability. Just days before he shot himself, Douglas Barber wrote, "We cannot stand the memories and decide death is better. We kill ourselves because we are haunted by seeing children killed and families wiped out."
Meanwhile a new report from UPI is estimating 19,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress since 2002. Overall 40,000 veterans from the two wars have exhibited some signs of mental health disorders.

50,000 Soldiers Forced to Stay in Military Under Stop-Loss Program
Reuters is reporting the U.S. Army has now forced about 50,000 soldiers to continue serving after their voluntary stints ended under a controversial policy called "stop-loss."

NASA Attempts to Silence Agency's Top Climate Scientist
The top climate scientist at NASA has accused the Bush administration of trying to stop him from speaking out about the links between greenhouse gases and global warming. The scientist, James Hansen, told the New York Times that NASA officials have ordered the public affairs staff to review all of his upcoming lectures, papers, writings and requests for interviews from journalists.

Enron Conspiracy Trial Begins Today
The trial of former Enron Chairman Ken Lay and President Jeffrey Skilling begins today in Houston. Lay faces seven charges of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. Skilling faces 31 charges of conspiracy, securities fraud, lying to auditors and insider trading. Four years ago Enron filed for bankruptcy after years of defrauding its own employees and investors. The bankruptcy put over 4,000 people out of work. Thousands of Enron employees lost their lifesavings. The trial could become a political liability for President Bush because he was closely linked to the Texas-based firm. Ken Lay and other Enron employees gave Bush some $600,000 in political donations. According to the Center for Public Integrity this made Enron Bush's top career donor - a distinction the company maintained until last year.

2005: Halliburton's Most Profitable Year Ever
Halliburton has reported it made a company-record $2.4 billion last year - making 2005 the company's most profitable year in its 86 year history. The company - which was once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney - has seen its stock value double over the past year. Last week Halliburton subsidiary KBR won a $385 million contract to build and operate new detention facilities in case of an "emergency influx of immigrants" into the country.


Pentagon Seeks Power to Wage Electronic Information War
A newly declassified Pentagon document shows Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has personally approved wide-ranging plans for the military to increase its ability to fight an electronic information war. The document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum". It states that US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems".
According to the BBC, this means the US military is seeking the capability to knock out any telephone, networked computer, or radar system on the planet.
The same document also raises new questions about the U.S. military's use of propaganda overseas. By law, the military is barred from directing propaganda toward American audiences. But the Pentagon acknowledges in the report that the U.S. public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.

Bush Nominates Abramoff Prosecutor to Federal Judgeship
The case of disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff has taken a surprising turn. The chief prosecutor investigating the lobbying scandal has been forced to step down because President Bush has nominated him for a federal judgeship. The prosecutor - Noel Hillman - is being removed just at time that the probe is expanding into what could turn out to be one of the largest Congressional scandals in a century. Already Abramoff has admitted to bribing members of Congress and defrauding Native American clients.

Abramoff and al-Arian: Lobbyist's "Charity" a Front for Terrorism
...Indeed, it was this terror funding of Israeli far right militiamen that tripped Abramoff up, since the FBI discovered that he had misled Indian tribes into giving money to the Jabotinskyites, and then began wondering if he had defrauded the tribes in other ways. The Indian leaders were furious when they discovered they had been used to oppress another dispossessed indigenous people, the Palestinians, calling it "Outer Limits bizarre" and saying that they would never have willingly given money to such a cause.
More indications that Abramoff may have been more than a lobbyist, but in fact was an agent for Israel.

Abramoff Tied to South African Apartheid-Era Assassin
The scandal is also making news in South Africa. That's because in the mid-1980s Jack Abramoff helped launch the pro-aparthed International Freedom Foundation. According to the South African Mail & Guardian, the IFF was promoted as an independent think tank but it was actually part of an elaborate South African military intelligence operation set up to combat sanctions and undermine Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. While Abramoff headed the IFF in Washington, in South Africa it was run in part by Craig Williamson, a notorious military intelligence officer known for carrying out a series of bombings and assassinations. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted Williamson amnesty for his role in the 1982 bombing of the ANC's office in London and for ordering the assassination of at least two anti-apartheid campaigners. Abramoff first visited South Africa in 1983 at a time when he was head of the College Republicans National Committee. Two years later Abramoff helped organize an international conference of right wing groups uniting the U.S.-backed Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, leaders of the Afghan mujahedin, Nicaraguan contras and Laotian guerrillas. As part of Abramoff's work with South Africa, he also made the film Red Scorpion that was filmed in occupied Namibia and reportedly funded by the South African military.

FEMA strikes again

FEMA Workers Accused of Bribery
NY Times
Two FEMA disaster assistance employees working in New Orleans were arrested yesterday on federal bribery charges, accused of accepting $10,000 each in exchange for letting a contractor submit inflated reports on the number of meals it was serving at a Hurricane Katrina relief base camp there.
(Wait, isn't that the same thing Halliburton/KBR was doing in Iraq at Camp Anaconda?)
The charges against Andrew Rose and Loyd Hollman, both of Colorado, came after they told a contractor hired on a $1 million deal to provide meals in Algiers, La., that he could submit falsified invoices for extra meals, a Justice Department statement said.
The two were arrested hours after accepting envelopes containing $10,000 apiece. These were supposed to be down payments in what the two had said should be a $2,500 weekly bribe for each, officials said.
"No one — whether citizen or public official — will be permitted to illegally profit at the expense of the communities and citizens who so desperately need FEMA funds and assistance in the wake of this region's terrible disaster," said Jim Letten, the United States attorney.

US diplomat flees Venezuela rather than face charges of CIA espionage
Prensa Latina: The naval attache of the US Embassy in Venezuela, John Correa, has left the country after his participation in an espionage case involving several Venezuelan low-ranking officers was revealed. When he realized the espionage network had been discovered, Correa organized the escape of several of the officers involved to Miami, and then he fled when Venezuelan authorities called him up for a meeting, according to a report on Friday's VEA newspaper.
Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel confirmed some low-ranking officers were leaking top secret information to the Pentagon through Correa who, making use of his diplomat status, recruited the Venezuelan officers for US intelligence services.Quoting reliable sources, VEA daily indicated the leaked information dealt with kinds of weapons and operating capacity of Venezuelan naval units, as well as classified information of the armed forces.
It was also disclosed that Correa was member of the Central Intelligence Agency with the highest rank in Venezuela, and was linked to the April 2002 coup ... he incited insubordination among Venezuelan officers in public incidents at the Altamira Plaza as well.

BYU professor's group accuses U.S. officials of lying about 9/11
By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret Morning News
Last fall, Brigham Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones made headlines when he charged that the World Trade Center collapsed because of "pre-positioned explosives." Now, along with a group that calls itself "Scholars for 9/11 Truth," he's upping the ante.
"We believe that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11," the group says in a statement released Friday announcing its formation. "We believe these events may have been orchestrated by the administration in order to manipulate the American people into supporting policies at home and abroad."
Headed by Jones and Jim Fetzer, University of Minnesota Duluth distinguished McKnight professor of philosophy, the group is made up of 50 academicians and others. They include Robert M. Bowman, former director of the U.S. "Star Wars" space defense program, and Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist for the Department of Labor in President George W. Bush's first term. Most of the members are less well-known.
The group's Web site (www.ST911.org) includes an updated version of Jones's paper about the collapse of the Twin Towers and a paper by Fetzer that looks at conspiracy theories. The government's version of the events of 9/11 — that the plane's hijackers were tied to Osama bin Laden — is its own conspiracy theory, says Fetzer, who has studied the John F. Kennedy assassination since 1992.
"Did the Bush administration know in advance about the impending attacks that occurred on 9/11, and allow these to happen, to provoke pre-planned wars against Afghanistan and Iraq? These questions demand immediate answers," charges a paper written collectively by Scholars for 9/11 Truth. The group plans to write more papers, and present lectures and conferences.
"We have very limited resources and no subpoena powers," Fetzer said. "What you have is a bunch of serious scholars taking a look at this and discovering it didn't add up. We don't have a political ax to grind."
Fetzer has doctorates in the history and philosophy of science. "One of the roles I can play here," he said, "is to explain why a certain line of argument is correct or not."
In his original message to potential members last month, Fetzer warned that joining the group might make them the subject of government surveillance and might get them on various lists of "potential terrorists."
The group's charges include:

• Members of the Bush administration knew in advance that the 9/11 attacks would happen but did nothing to stop them
• No Air Force or Air National Guard jets were sent to "scramble" the hijacked planes, which were clearly deviating from their flight plans, although jet fighters had been deployed for scramblings 67 times in the year prior to 9/11. The procedure for issuing orders for scrambling was changed in June 2001, requiring that approval could only come from the Secretary of Defense, but Donald Rumsfeld was not alerted soon enough on 9/11, according to Scholars group.
• The video of Osama bin Laden found by American troops in Afghanistan in December 2001, in which bin Laden says he orchestrated the attacks, is not bin Laden. The Scholars for 9/11 Truth compared the video with a photo of the "real" bin Laden and argue that there are discrepancies in the ratio of nose-length to nose-width, as well as distance from tip-of-nose to ear lobe.
• The Scholars group hopes that media outlets around the world will ask experts in their areas to examine the group's findings and assertions. If this were done, they argue, "one of the great hoaxes of history would stand naked before the eyes of the world."
• The group also asks for an investigation of the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, following up on points made in Jones's paper, "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" That paper, recently updated, has been posted on Jones's BYU Web site since last November.
• Jones argues that the WTC buildings did not collapse due to impact or fires caused by the jets hitting the towers but collapsed as a result of pre-positioned "cutter charges." Proof, he says, includes:

• • Molten metal was found in the subbasements of WTC sites weeks after 9/11; the melting point of structural steel is 2,750 degrees Fahrenheit and the temperature of jet fuel does not exceed 1,800 degrees. Molten metal was also found in the building known as WTC7, although no plane had struck it. Jones's paper also includes a photo of a slag of the metal being extracted from ground zero. The slag, Jones argues, could not be aluminum from the planes because in photographs the metal was salmon-to-yellow-hot temperature (approximately 1,550 to 1,900 degrees F) "well above the melting temperatures of lead and aluminum," which would be a liquid at that temperature
  • Building WTC7 collapsed in 6.6 seconds, which means, Jones says, that the steel and concrete support had to be simply knocked out of the way. "Explosive demolitions are like that," he said. "It doesn't fit the model of the fire-induced pancake collapse."
  • No steel-frame, high-rise buildings have ever before or since been brought down due to fires. Temperatures due to fire don't get hot enough for buildings to collapse, he says.
  • Jones points to a recent article in the journal New Civil Engineering that says WTC disaster investigators at NIST (the National Institutes of Standards and Technology) "are refusing to show computer visualizations of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers."

Neither Jones nor other members of the Scholars group suggests who would have planted the explosives, but they argue that the devices could have been operated by remote control. Jones says he has received thousands of e-mails from people around the world who either support his ideas or think he's "nutty," and he still gets about 30 e-mails a day on the topic.He continues to do research on cold fusion, which he prefers to call metal-catalyzed fusion "to distinguish it from the claims" of former University of Utah chemistry professors B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishmann, "which we do not accept as verified." He reports that his metal-catalyzed fusion work is going well, with three scientific papers published last year.


Houston PD Running Nuclear Disaster Drills As Build-Up Of Numerous Law Enforcement Agencies Seen In Nearby Texas City

Sources inside the Houston Police Department (HPD) have confirmed officers in recent weeks have been taking part in nuclear disaster drills, adding more fuel to the fire that the city is being targeted by the "enemies within" the Bush administration for a nuclear attack.

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.

India changes tune, defends Iran
India on Friday distanced itself from US-led calls to isolate Iran at next week’s meeting of the IAEA after controversial remarks on the issue by Washington’s envoy to Delhi enraged the nation as seldom seen before. The Indian foreign ministry, facing a barrage of criticism for apparent obsequiousness towards Washington that ranged from allies in the Left Front to former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, appeared to have rowed back from its recent bonhomie with the United States.
“During the past two weeks, India has been undertaking active consultations with all key members of the IAEA Board of Governors and with Iran, in order to avoid confrontation and to promote the widest possible consensus on handling the Iran nuclear issue,” a spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry said.
He explained that in all the consultations, India has urged “that Iran’s right to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy for its development consistent with its international obligations and commitments should be respected”. The spokesman said: “Iran’s willingness to work together with the IAEA to remove any outstanding issues, about its nuclear programme should be welcomed.” In this regard, the agency should be allowed to proceed according to its work programme and submit a detailed report, he said.
India, he said, also welcomes all initiatives, “including from Russia, which could enable a consensus to be reached on this issue and urges further intensive negotiations.

British troops in Basra losing control of the area
British troops are facing a showdown with the governor of Basra after he threatened to end co-operation with the Army and called for mass demonstrations unless the British command freed a group of senior policemen it arrested on charges of plotting deadly attacks. The dispute with the Iraqi official came against a backdrop of increasing roadside bombings, assassinations and kidnappings in the Shiite port city, where thousands of British troops are based. In the city market yesterday, witnesses said that they had seen a man step out of a police vehicle to plant a bomb that killed one woman and wounded three other people.
Mohammed al-Waeli, the city governor, demanded the immediate release of five police officers who were among 14 people arrested on Tuesday in a series of British-led raids in the city. “Basra’s provincial council and all government offices will suspend all kinds of dealings with the [British] forces at all levels if they don’t release the detainees,” the governor said, adding that the British should hand control of the region’s security to local forces. In an open letter to the citizens of Basra, General John Cooper, the commander of the British-led multinational force in the south, described those arrested as “the most dangerous and corrupt people in Basra”. He said that both sides must work together to secure Iraq’s second-largest city, whose police have been largely infiltrated by militias and have even been used as death squads by Islamist parties. These parties, many of which are believed to have strong ties to neighbouring Iran, exert broad control over all areas of city life, enforcing strict Muslim codes of dress and behaviour with beatings and shootings.
The governor’s call for demonstrations outside the British consulate in Basra raised the spectre of riots last September, in which supporters of militias attacked British armoured vehicles as troops tried to free two British agents arrested by police while collecting intelligence about corruption.
(Wait a minute, weren't the British agents caught with Iraqi clothing & fake beards & a car filled with explosives?)

Democracy in action

Found on "Friends of Liberty--the voice of the right" website:
By John Newby

Are Concentration Camps Coming to U.S.?
KBR Awarded Homeland Security contract worth up to $385M.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co, (HAL), said Tuesday it has been awarded a contingency contract from the Department of Homeland Security to supports its Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the event of an emergency. The maximum total value of the contract is $385 million and consists of a 1-year base period with four 1-year options. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005. The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to expand existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs, KBR said. The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster, the company said.

Several items about this concern me greatly. First, instead of paying $385+ million for the next five years to build detention centers or so they say; why not stop the flow at the borders which would be much cheaper? On the other hand, if the illegals are the real problem and reason for building detention centers; why not cancel all jobs for illegals, stop all government payments to illegals and their off-spring and watch the illegal problem dry up.

India Protests U.S. Nuke Statement

India on Thursday protested a suggestion by the U.S. ambassador that a landmark nuclear deal between the two countries would fall apart unless New Delhi backed Washington's effort to bring Iran before the U.N. Security Council because of its atomic program.

U.S. posts wrong photo of ‘al-Qaida operative’After year and a half, wrong man's photo removed from wanted page.

Hamas, Son of Israel
mid all the howls of pain and gnashing of teeth over the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, one fact remains relatively obscure, albeit highly relevant: Israel did much to launch Hamas as an effective force in the occupied territories. If ever there was a clear case of "blowback," then this is it.
Divide & conquer?

Cheney And Netanyahu Pushing For War Against Syria
Cheney's war scheme against Syria also implicates Abramoff, according to a Jan. 11, 2006 story by Justin Raimondi, posted on antiwar.com. "One investigator, eager to obtain information about the neo-con-sponsored Reform Party of Syria, led by one Farid Ghadry, the Syrian version of Ahmed Chalabi" Raimondi wrote, "stumbled on the Abramoff connection: 'When repeated calls to [Ghadry's] organization went unanswered, I visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the RPS. Reform Party of Syria is in the office of super-Zionist lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Middle Gate Ventures, Abramoff's political advisory company, partners with RPS."

Hamilton Bank, Ex-CIA Operatives, & 9-11 Hijackers
Researchers and investigators have uncovered links between a Miami bank that collapsed in 2002 amid a fraud scandal that was highlighted by billions of dollars in questionable cash and fraudulent loans and money movements linked to the Bush family and businesses linked to funding pilot training for the 9-11 hijackers.

Venezuelan General Links U.S. Embassy to Spy Case
A high-ranking Venezuelan army commander charged the U.S. Embassy on Thursday with trying to persuade a group of Venezuelan military officers to hand over state secrets to the Pentagon.

Studio that scrubbed Abramoff/Bush photo earned $140,000 from 2004 campaign
A photograpy studio which admitted to scrubbing at least one photograph of President George Bush and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was paid more that $140,000 by the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2004.

Another Payola Scandal... This Time Fox News Columnist On Big Tobacco Payroll
A January 2001 Philip Morris budget report lists Milloy as a consultant and shows that he was budgeted for $92,500 in fees and expenses in both 2000 and 2001. Asked about Milloy's tobacco ties, Paul Schur, director of media relations for Fox News, said, "Fox News is unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed."

I'm getting mixed signals

Duke Professor Skeptical of bin Laden Tape

He thinks bin Laden is dead and has doubts about the tape. Lawrence recently analyzed more than 20 complete speeches and interviews of the al Qaida leader for his book. He says the new message is missing several key elements."There's nothing in this from the Koran. He's, by his own standards, a faithful Muslim," Lawrence said. "He quotes scripture in defense of his actions. There's no quotation from the Koran in the excerpts we got, no reference to specific events, no reference to past atrocities."
While the CIA confirms the voice on the tape is bin Laden's, Lawrence questions when it was recorded. He says the timing of its release could be to divert attention from last week's U.S. air strike in Pakistan. Lawrence believes faulty Pakistani intelligence led to the strike and the civilian deaths, and the tape was leaked by Pakistani authorities to divert attention from their mistake.
"It led to a failed military operation where America got blamed, but the people who are really to blame are the ones who provided the intelligence," Lawrence said. "I think this is an effort to say we're not going look at this terrible incident that happened."
Another element that Lawrence takes issue with in bin Laden?s latest message is its length - - only 10 minutes. Previously, the shortest was 18 minutes.

Photograph shows Bush meeting now-Governor of Marianas Islands, who helped Abramoff get millions

On the heels of a Time Magazine article revealing the existence of photographs of President George W. Bush with fallen conservative superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, RAW STORY has found another photograph of Bush with a leading Abramoff client. The President appears in a snapshot with Beningo Repeki Fitial, then-Speaker of the House for the Northern Marianas Islands. Fitial is vice president of Tan Holdings – the family conglomerate which owns numerous clothing factories on the islands that were a routine stop for Abramoff-flown lawmakers. Tan Holdings was one of the firms which made up the Saipan Garment Manufacturers’ Association, an Abramoff client. He was also, incidentally, chairman of the Bush for President Committee for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The White House could not be immediately reached for comment. When speaking to Time, a spokesman said, “The President stopped by a meeting with 21 state legislators and two tribal leaders. Available records show that Mr. Abramoff was not in attendance." The White House omitted Fitial’s attendance. Fitial was photographed at a May 9, 2001 event hosted by Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative anti-tax group led by longtime Abramoff friend and conservative heavyweight Grover Norquist, and the photograph appeared in a circular produced by the group. Norquist led Abramoff’s successful campaign to become chairman of the national College Republicans in the 1980s.
Two Tan family companies gave $25,000 each to the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the 2002 elections, and that Marianas donors contributed $36,000 to President Bush’s reelection campaign. What’s also known is that the garment manufacturer’s association paid Abramoff’s Greenberg Traurig lawfirm $460,000 in 2001 to represent them in Washington. Furthermore, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas themselves spent an additional $1.1 million that year on Abramoff’s team.
Both the islands and the garment manufacturers lobbied for the same goal, according to their federal lobbying reports: to “prevent enactment of legislation to impose federal controls over local labor and immigration rules.” Abramoff’s work for the islands and the manufacturers stifled several efforts to impose U.S. minimum wage laws on the islands, which are a U.S. protectorate, and yielded at least $2 million in federal funds.
The Marianas minimum wage—albeit weakly enforced—was $3.05 in 1998. Saipan's regulatory limbo has helped to fortify the bottom lines of popular U.S. clothing brands; Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Calvin Klein and Liz Claiborne have all benefited from the island's dearth of labor laws.

Congressional Hearing Spells Out Clear Case For Impeachment
"He is claiming absolute power that no one in American history has ever claimed. This cannot stand," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. "If you’re dealing with what appears to be a criminal conspiracy by the president, the vice president, the attorney general and others, you cannot ask the attorney general and the people under him to fairly investigate. Obviously, they will dismiss this out of hand because they will not admit how real this is."
"I want to be absolutely clear, what the president ordered in this case was a crime," said Jonathan Turley. "This type of violation should be a textbook example of an impeachment violation," ..."If you believe the president violated criminal provisions of the law, I don’t see how it wouldn’t qualify. ... If the president commits a criminal act, you are obligated to hold impeachment hearings,’’
"The implausibility of the president’s claim seems to be self-evident," said Bruce Fein, a Washington attorney who worked in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration. "I don’t think any more needs to be said about the fact that he is violating FISA.The Constitution was based on the principle that ’trust me’ isn’t good enough."
President Bush’s argument that he has executive power to authorize such surveillance "flies in the face of both common sense and legal precedent," said Rep. John Conyers Jr. "The president of the United States is violating our nation’s laws by authorizing the National Security Agency to engage in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens. If we let domestic spying programs continue, if we let our president convince us that we are at war, so that he can do what he wants, we will allow to stand the principle that the president alone can decide what laws apply to him."
Congressman Wexler- "I am eager to hear from this distinguished panel because I can simply not understand how the Administration can justify brazenly skirting existing safeguards that were put in place after Watergate to deter wanton domestic spying on American citizens. It is outrageous that law-abiding Americans like the peace activists and retirees who make up the Truth Project in my congressional district are considered to be a credible threat to this country...This Administration has groundlessly circumvented judicial review and taken America down a frightening path to a police state, which preys on a culture of fear while casually disregarding existing civil liberties...Following the September 11 attacks, the President addressed this Congress and told the American people that the terrorists hate our "democratically elected government. ... They hate our freedoms." Why then did the President circumvent this democratically elected government and disregard those very freedoms?"
complete transcript of hearing PDF:
http://www.bradblog.com/Docs/nsabrieftranscript12006.pdf

The End of 'Unalienable Rights'

In its legal analysis, the Justice Department added, “The president has made clear that he will exercise all authority available to him, consistent with the Constitution, to protect the people of the United States.” While the phrase “consistent with the Constitution” sounds reassuring to many Americans, what it means in this case is that Bush believes he has unlimited powers as Commander in Chief to do whatever he deems necessary in the War on Terror. Since the War on Terror is a vague concept – unlike other wars the United States has fought – there also is no expectation that Bush’s usurpation of traditional American freedoms is just a short-term necessity. Instead it is a framework for future governance.

Protesters Sue for Speech Spot

Organizers planning a protest during President Bush's State of the Union address next week say they have been denied a permit to hold the demonstration around the U.S. Capitol Reflecting Pool because that area has been reclassified as part of the security perimeter for the day of the speech.

Hamas Victory Is Bush's Nightmare
Mr. President, meet militant Islam
Hamas's stunning victory in the Palestinian elections represents not just another setback in American foreign policy, but a real debacle. Ever since Khomeini took power in Iran, the U.S. and many of the Western nations have feared the creation of a militant Muslim presence stretching from Iran across the Middle East. With Hamas's democratic victory yesterday, the people of Palestine have spoken, and what they want is George Bush's nightmare.
As things now stand, Iran remains under Shiite control. The recent elections in Iraq have resulted in a Shiite-dominated central government there. (That government is almost sure to shrivel as the country breaks into three parts--the southernmost is Shiite, and has control over important oil reserves.) With Hamas in power in the Palestinian territory, there is yet another militant Muslim group with a grip on the wheel of state.
Hamas is widely condemned here and by the European Union as a terrorist group. Israel will not work with it. However, a spokesman for the European Union told the BBC this morning that it would recognize and work with a peaceful elected victor, whatever its politics.
Hamas says it will work with Fatah, the party that had been in control, but Fatah refused. Jibril Rajoub, a senior Fatah official, told Reuters: "Fatah rejects participating in a government formed by Hamas. Hamas has to take up its responsibilities. Fatah will act as a responsible opposition." Another Hamas official, Mushir al-Masri, warned that Hamas would not hold peace talks with Israel, the BBC reported this morning. "Negotiations with Israel is not on our agenda," he said. "Recognizing Israel is not on the agenda either now."

Click to listen to interviews from Democracy Now!

Hamas Wins Sweeping Victory in Palestinian Parliamentary Elections In the Occupied Territories, unofficial results indicate Hamas has won a sweeping victory in the first Palestinian parliamentary elections in a decade. Israel and the United States have said they would not deal with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas. We speak with Mouin Rabbani, senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group about the surprise result.

How Israel and the United States Helped to Bolster Hamas As Hamas wins an upset victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, we take a look at the little-known rise of the militant group with investigative journalist Robert Dreyfuss, author of the new book "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam." In it, Dreyfuss reveals how the U.S. looked the other way when Israel's secret service supported the creation of Hamas.

Israeli Government Destroys more Houses in the Unrecognized Villages of the Naqab

Residents of the unrecognized villages - Israeli citizens - cannot build their houses legally, lacking any government planning policy in their villages and the government even acknowledges that this "illegal" building is done out of necessity. Nevertheless home demolitions are carried out in order to make the population abandon the land and force them into the government established 'concentration towns' to vacate the lands for Jewish settlements. The townships however are unable to absorb the entire population of the unrecognized villages.

The Man Behind The Vaccine Mystery

Just before President Bush signed the homeland security bill into law an unknown member of Congress inserted a provision into the legislation that blocks lawsuits against the maker of a controversial vaccine preservative called "thimerosal," used in vaccines that are given to children.

The gift that keeps on giving

Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets
A death sentence here and abroad

At an April press conference, a group of New York Army National Guard vets raised their hands when asked if they have health problems. The soldiers, all from the 442nd Military Police Company, are complaining of headaches and fatigue after what they think is exposure to depleted uranium during their recent tour in Iraq.

“Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” - Henry Kissinger, quoted in “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam”

This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months. Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer.
This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff. In simple words, DU “trashes the body.” When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Fulk was more specific: “I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.”
Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes. This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.
Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry. Kerry’s father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project and was a CIA agent.
Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very quickly. They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant, which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust. The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968, and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs.
The medical profession has been active in the cover-up - just as they were in hiding the effects from the American public - of low level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power plants. A medical doctor in Northern California reported being trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the 2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from the 2003 war for mental problems only.
Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were also threatened with jail.
Dr. Janette Sherman, a former and long-standing member of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), reported that she finally quit some time after being invited to lunch by a new PSR executive administrator. After the woman had pumped Dr. Sherman for information all through lunch about her position on key issues, the woman informed Dr. Sherman that her last job had been with the CIA.

Audit Describes Misuse of Funds in Iraq Projects

A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their deaths in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe. Agents from the inspector general's office found that the living and working quarters of American occupation officials were awash in shrink-wrapped stacks of $100 bills, colloquially known as bricks.
One official kept $2 million in a bathroom safe, another more than half a million dollars in an unlocked footlocker. One contractor received more than $100,000 to completely refurbish an Olympic pool but only polished the pumps; even so, local American officials certified the work as completed.
That casual arrangement led to a dispute when one official for the provisional authority, while clearing his accounts on his way out of Iraq, grabbed $100,000 from another official's stack of cash, according to the report. Whether unintentional or not, the move might never have been discovered except that the second official "had to make a disbursement that day and realized that he was short cash," the report says.
(And they are saying they don't have the money to finish Iraqi reconstruction projects--this is why).

Whistleblower suspended by Pentagon oversight committee
A senior fraud investigator for the Pentagon who has crusaded against military contractor overcharges for seven years has been suspended for "insubordination."
Kenneth Pedeleose, 45, an industrial engineer and 11-year veteran of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), who has uncovered excessive costs on Lockheed Martin Corp. aircraft, claimed his suspension is reprisal for disclosing overcharges and for disrupting a cozy relationship between the agency and Lockheed Martin -- the country's largest defense contractor.
DCMA previously attempted to suspend Pedeleose in 2003 after officials claimed he had made threats against fellow employees. The agency later acknowledged that he had made no such threats and reinstated him.
Pedeleose's suspension, which is effective Jan 25, is "for the offense of refusal to cooperate with an agency investigation, insubordination and failure to follow instructions," according to a copy of the suspension notice.
"The overall seriousness of your misconduct warrants a heavy disciplinary penalty," said the letter from Steven Bogusz, deputy director for DCMA's regional headquarters in Boston, to Pedeleose.

City demands warrant in FBI investigation
Law enforcement and Newton Free Library officials were embroiled in a tense standoff for nearly 10 hours last week when the city refused to let police and the FBI examine library computers without a warrant.

Mike "Brownie" Brown Was Paid To Aid Investigation Of Katrina Response, Now Refuses To Cooperate
For nearly 2 months after Mike Brown was forced to resign from FEMA for his incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, he continued to collect his full $148,000 salary as a “consultant.” Why was Brown retained? According to a FEMA spokeswoman, it was so he could fully cooperate with the investigations into what went wrong:
FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews confirmed that Brown is still on FEMA’s payroll as a consultant. She said he works from home, where he is “pulling all the documentation together” to aid in the investigations into the government’s response to Katrina.
Now that Brown has cashed his checks, he is refusing to cooperate with the Senate investigation:
While FEMA has been helpful, Mike Brown — the former FEMA director who resigned amid intense criticism of his agency’s response — has refused to answer even the simplest questions, [Sen. Joe] Lieberman added.
Brown continues to talk about the issue, but only for a fee. He recently keynoted a storm response conference and provided “insight and perspective on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.” Senators investigating the issue could have attended for the low price of $375.

The "I" Word Again

Impeachment hearings: The White House prepares for the worst

The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress.
"A coalition in Congress is being formed to support impeachment," an administration source said.
Sources said a prelude to the impeachment process could begin with hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February. They said the hearings would focus on the secret electronic surveillance program and whether Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law limits the government surveillance to no more than 72 hours without a court warrant. The president, citing his constitutional war powers, has pledged to continue wiretaps without a warrant.
Administration sources said the charges are expected to include false reports to Congress as well as Mr. Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to engage in electronic surveillance inside the United States without a court warrant. This included the monitoring of overseas telephone calls and e-mail traffic to and from people living in the United States without requisite permission from a secret court. The hearings would be accompanied by several lawsuits against the administration connected to the surveillance program. At the same time, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that demands information about the NSA spying.
Sen. Arlen Specter, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and Pennsylvania Republican, has acknowledged that the hearings could conclude with a vote of whether Mr. Bush violated the law. Mr. Specter, a critic of the administration’s surveillance program, stressed that, although he would not seek it, impeachment is a possible outcome. "Impeachment is a remedy," Mr. Specter said on Jan. 15. "After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution. But the principal remedy under our society is to pay a political price."
Mr. Specter and other senior members of the committee have been told by legal constitutional experts that Mr. Bush did not have the authority to authorize unlimited secret electronic surveillance. Another leading Republican who has rejected the administration's argument is Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.
On Jan. 16, former Vice President Al Gore set the tone for impeachment hearings against Mr. Bush by accusing the president of lying to the American people. Mr. Gore, who lost the 2000 election to Mr. Bush, accused the president of "indifference" to the Constitution and urged a serious congressional investigation. He said the administration decided to break the law after Congress refused to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government," Mr. Gore said.
"I call upon members of Congress in both parties to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of American government that you are supposed to be under the constitution of our country."


Impeachment proponents in Congress have been bolstered by a memorandum by the Congressional Research Service on Jan. 6. CRS, which is the research arm of Congress, asserted in a report by national security specialist Alfred Cumming that the amended 1947 law requires the president to keep all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed" of a domestic surveillance effort. It was the second CRS report in less than a month that questioned the administration's domestic surveillance program.
The latest CRS report said Mr. Bush should have briefed the intelligence committees in the House and Senate. The report said covert programs must be reported to House and Senate leaders as well as the chairs of the intelligence panels, termed the "Gang of Eight."

White House Asked to Reveal Details About Abramoff Contacts
Congressman Henry Waxman of California has called on the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform to subpoena the White House for all records, including photographs, between the White House and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Three weeks ago Abramoff admitted to defrauding at least four Native Americans tribes of tens of millions of dollars, bribing government officials and evading taxes. At the time the White House vowed to give a "thorough report" regarding Abramoff's White House contacts. However the White House is now refusing to say how many times Abramoff met President Bush or White House staffers or the number of times he visited the White House. According to a count by the Associated Press, Abramoff and his associates had nearly 200 contacts with the White House during just the first 10 months of Bush's presidency. Time Magazine is reporting it has seen five photos of the president and Abramoff together.

Bush Administration Seeks to Squelch State of the Union Protest at Capitol on January 31
The Bush administration has expanded the special security zone around the Capitol, effectively denying a meaningful public space for a protest called by World Can’t Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime during the State of the Union address on January 31, 2006. This action, one of many held simultaneously that night at 8pm EST in cities and towns across the country, calls for symbolically “drowning out Bush’s lies” and demands “BUSH STEP DOWN.”

Palestinian Groups Accuse U.S. of Meddling in Elections
On Sunday the Washington Post reported the U.S. has clandestinely funneled $2 million into public service projects ahead of the elections in an effort to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority and its governing Fatah party. Officials from Hamas have questioned whether the aid violates rules barring Palestinian political parties from receiving funds from foreign sources. Independent candidate Mustafa Barghouti warned the Bush administration's efforts could backfire and end up helping Hamas in the elections. Barghouti said, "Every time the United States says it doesn't want Hamas, they boost Hamas. Let us do our elections entirely on our own. These interventions run counter to our efforts, and they hurt the Palestinian people. This effort was completely counterproductive."

U.S.: Insurgent Attacks in Iraq Increased by 30% in 2005
In Iraq, the U.S has admitted that insurgents carried out over 34,000 attacks during 2005. This marks an increase of nearly 30 percent over the previous year. Despite the spike, U.S. officials have attempted to put a positive spin on the news. A military spokesperson said the numbers "tells me the coalition and the Iraqi forces have been very aggressive in taking the fight to the enemy."

What's wrong with this picture?
Military Jury: No Jail Time For Interrogator Who Killed Iraqi
A military jury in Colorado ruled last night an Army interrogator who killed an Iraqi general would not have to serve any time in jail. The interrogator -- Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. - killed the Iraqi man after putting a sleeping bag over his head, wrapping him in electrical cord, sitting on his chest and covering his mouth. Over the weekend the military jury convicted Welshofer of negligent homicide which carries a maximum prison term of three years. But the jury chose instead to fine him $6,000 and ordered him to spend the next 60 days restricted to his home, office and church. The Los Angeles Times reports soldiers and officers inside the courtroom broke out in applause after the jury announced Welshofer would not be jailed for the killing.
Peace Activist Gets 6 Months in Jail For Recruiting Station Protest
In upstate New York, a peace activist has been sentenced to six months in jail for pouring blood inside a military recruiting station in March 2003 in order to protest the invasion of Iraq. The man, Daniel Burns, 45, was one of a group now known as the St. Patrick's Four. The other three members will also be sentenced this week.

Cast your vote

UPDATE:
MSNBC's Impeachment poll: Vote HERE

Live Vote

Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment? * 212,273 responses-- still the same ratio: Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial. 86% No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors." 4% No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching. 8% I don't know. 2%

Graft by FEMA shafting Katrina victims

TRAILER CASH
New Orleans Times-Picayune
If FEMA could distribute the fortune spent on trailers directly to those in need of housing, the recipients might find a much nicer place to live, and even have money left over for home repairs. But there's a catch: That's illegal. Those displaced by Hurricane Katrina and seeking a temporary trailer don't get to kick the tires or discuss financing plans, but a look at the ultimate sticker price might make them wish they could: $59,800.
That's the cost to taxpayers for the trailer's 18-month "life cycle," according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If FEMA offered the cash instead to hurricane victims, they might be able to spend the $3,322 per month in New Orleans on some housing more enticing than a box on wheels.
For example, quite a bit less would command the first floor of a building on Prytania Street in Uptown with two bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths, or a four-bedroom house in Kenner. A smidgen more would land them a sprawling, five-bedroom ranch in the tranquil woods of Madisonville, according to current listings. The seeker would do even better if he could cash in what FEMA will pay for the life cycle of the larger mobile homes being used for housing in some areas. That pricier option comes in at $76,800 for the same 18-month period.
The cost includes the purchase, transportation, installation, maintenance, cleaning and disposal of the trailers, FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said.
Of course, if FEMA were to make $60,000 available to households that otherwise would occupy a trailer, homeowners might not opt to spend the money on rent. For example, the family could buy its own trailer and still have considerable cash on hand to contribute to rebuilding their wrecked home. Generally, the types of trailers FEMA buys retail for between $16,000 and $20,000, recreational vehicle dealers said. FEMA officials also acknowledge that if they made direct cash payments of nearly $60,000 during 18 months to individuals or households instead of installing trailers, such an approach would have no effect on the agency's bottom line. It would, however, be illegal -- current rules prohibit FEMA from writing such checks. The amount of money FEMA can grant directly to an individual or household is capped at $26,200. Trailer costs do not count against the total individual assistance, officials said.
An extrapolation of the numbers provided by FEMA provides an estimate of how expensive the trailers will prove as a temporary housing solution. In Orleans Parish, officials have estimated that they need at least 30,000 trailers to ease the housing crunch. That would translate to a final price tag of roughly $1.8 billion, and doesn't include the costs of tens of thousands more trailers needed throughout the metro area
While the figures are surprising, they are considerably lower than those being bandied about the city these days. City Councilman Eddie Sapir said a developer and some others had whispered fantastic per-trailer FEMA sums to him.
"By the time the contractor is paid, the mileage to haul it here is paid, the gas is paid, everything, it's around $120,000," Sapir said. In fact, Sapir made that charge at the City Council meeting Thursday, suggesting that the federal government was paying outrageous amounts for trailers when handing over the cash would be a better use of taxpayer dollars -- not to mention, a more efficient use. "I'm just a country boy, but what I don't understand is why they don't just give the people $121,000 and let them start rebuilding their homes," Sapir said. On Friday, he declined to say who provided him with the figures but insisted he wanted only to spark discussion, not point fingers. "What I really want is for things like this to be checked out, and if I'm all wrong, great," he said Friday. "But if the house only costs $75,000 to rebuild, we could be saving money." Even though Sapir's math doesn't match FEMA's numbers, the real numbers stunned some local housing experts.
"My God, that's unbelievable," said Jo Ann Centanni, an agent with Coldwell Banker, when told the trailer bill comes out to about $3,300 a month. "You can rent a four-bedroom house for less than that.
Centanni's own experience is a case in point. The Lakeview home she shared with her husband was obliterated in the post-Katrina floodwaters. But they managed to land a townhouse in Metairie for $1,700 a month, a fraction of the FEMA trailer cost.
Other professionals echoed her opinion. Asked if she could set a client up in style for $3,300 a month, Theresa DeJarnette at Prudential Gardner Realtors purred, "Oh, yeah." Just recently, DeJarnette said, she handled a lease in the 4600 block of Prytania Street, which she described as, "a big, old, charming, classic New Orleans house." The cost: $2,600 a month. At the moment, she has a unit available in the 7400 block of Freret Street for $3,000 a month.
The statistics associated with the trailers also seem dramatic compared with other FEMA payouts. For instance, the trailer costs dwarf the agency's rental reimbursement payments, a program that has begun to produce considerable grumbling from New Orleanians who lost their houses. For those lucky enough to find apartments, FEMA's first three-month allocation was $2,358, or $786 a month, but many residents say they are finding it difficult to receive a second allocation.

All's Not Quiet on the Military Supply Front
NY Times
DHB Industries might have remained anonymous if not for a spate of recent events.(The $10 million Bat Mitzvah attracted some unwanted attention as well, I am sure.) The quality and adequacy of vests supplied to soldiers in Iraq has come into question over the last year, culminating in a Pentagon study, first reported by The New York Times this month, that said that 80 percent of the Marines who died in Iraq from upper-body wounds might have survived if they had had body armor covering more of their torsos.
(It was the military, and not manufacturers, that determined the specifications for the vests DHB supplied the Marines, said DHB.)

Israeli links to 9/11? -

An article by reporter Jim Galloway, published on The Austin American-Statesman on Nov. 25, 2001, stated that the FBI had evidence suggesting that the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence, along with some rogue American and foreign spy agencies, may be deeply involved in or even entirely responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks as well as other acts of terrorism against the United States.

Voice of the White House January 20, 2006 It has been known, officially, that bin Laden died of kidney failure in a Pakistani hospital in August of 2002 and obviously isn’t making any tapes now. A live bin Laden, however, is a good boogeyman with which to terrify the American public into slavishly believing our government is trying to protect them.

Larry Franklin, convicted spy

Larry Franklin has been sentenced to 12 years for his role in the AIPAC spy scandal. Since the Zionists have assured us that there is no AIPAC spy scandal, and it is just anti-Semitism, you have to wonder what the twelve years are for. The kicker is that he doesn't have to report to jail, but gets some time in the great outdoors to consider whether he'd like a lower sentence in return for cooperating in nailing AIPAC. If he goes to court and tells Americans what AIPAC has been up to, that will be the end of the 'special relationship' between Israel and the United States. It goes without saying that he can't be allowed to go to court. So what will it be, 'accident' or 'suicide'?

Interview with former UN diplomat, Denis Halliday

27 years as diplomat in UN, and rose to Secretary General in charge of humanitarian operations in Iraq. He left his post in disgust because of actions taken by the American coalition. He believes "...the blind support of the United States for Israel is a tragedy..." for both the Palestinians and Israelis.

Iran's Bomb

The Iranians are just as sensible and levelheaded as anyone else. Don't buy the propaganda that they are all a bunch of crazies. They've been around a lot longer than we have. I would trust them with nuclear weapons as much as – perhaps even a hair more than – I trust Bush. Americans must stop allowing politicians and propagandists to scare them into reckless behavior.

VOICES OF REASON:

War not the only option on Iran
As the drums of war continue to beat in regard to Iranian nuclear capability, there are some glaring omissions in disclosure by the administration — namely that Iran has mutual defense treaties signed with both Russia and China. If we launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran, can we be certain that Russia, with its advanced nuclear arsenal, will remain neutral or will it honor its treaty?
If we use tactical nukes, as extolled by Dick Cheney, will Russia respond in kind? Will energy-starved China, and its 1.6 billion people, see a U.S. attack on Iran as an attack on its national security? China has huge natural gas and oil contracts with Iran, and we seem incapable of handling the 26 million people in Iraq.
It's been said that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you will tend to see every problem as a nail. Maybe this is a problem of perception, and President Bush sees his only tool to be the military. That would make every problem a war just waiting to happen. It seems like a good time for cooler heads to prevail. Let's hope we find some, and soon.
-Larry Wohlgemuth, Ankeny.

Think bigger on nukes ban
Nearly every recent newspaper and news broadcast includes a piece on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Ironically, very few of these mention the 800-pound gorilla in the room: Israel's nuclear arsenal of 200 to 300 nuclear weapons. Historically, a principal reason why countries embark on nuclear-weapons programs is the nuclear capability of their adversaries.
Examples include the Soviet Union, China, Pakistan and, in reaction to Israel's nuclear capacity, Iraq, Libya and Iran.
It is unfortunate that the United States and the European Union are pressuring Iran alone to abandon its nuclear ambitions rather than pushing forcefully to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. Of course, it might also be helpful if the United States would take more seriously its treaty obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which calls for "nuclear disarmament."

Mystery firm linked to US lobbyist scandal
The Standard, China's Business Newspaper

US government investigators probing Washington's explosive Congressional bribery scandal centered on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff recently visited Hong Kong, according to a witness interviewed by the authorities. The investigators reportedly are chasing convoluted money trails leading to Abramoff and government officials he sought to influence. Among the likely subjects of interest here is a previously unknown company called Rose Garden Holdings.
In May 2002, Abramoff notified the US Senate that Rose Garden had hired him and Greenberg Traurig, his firm at the time, to represent Rose Garden's "interests before federal agencies and [the] US Congress." Abramoff recorded Rose Garden's address as a luxury flat in Tai Hang, above Causeway Bay, and its business as international trade. Over the next year and a half, the records show, Rose Garden paid Greenberg Traurig US$1.4 million (HK$10.92 million) for putting its case to the Senate, House of Representatives and US Department of Labor. Hong Kong's Companies Registry has no record of Rose Garden Holdings; nor does the telephone directory. The apartment listed by Abramoff as Rose Garden's premises has been owned since 1992 by Luen Thai Shipping and Trading, according to the Land Registry.

Luen Thai Holdings and its controlling shareholders, the Tan family, were leading beneficiaries of Abramoff's Washington lobbying. Luen Thai officials and spokesmen referred queries about Abramoff and Rose Garden to chief executive Henry Tan, but Tan declined through his secretary to be interviewed, citing his travel schedule.
Luen Thai Holdings, which held a HK$669.4 million initial public stock offering in 2004, was built on the business of sewing together clothing for top US brand-names such as Liz Claiborne, with the assistance of young women from China and other Asian countries on the US-controlled Pacific island of Saipan. The foundations of the company's profitable niche are loopholes in US law that allow free migration to the island, set its minimum wage below mainland US levels and allow clothing sewn there to carry the "Made in USA" label and be exempt from quotas and tariffs.
Before the Tan family had friends in Washington, they made enemies. In 1991, the US Labor Department sued six Tan companies for paying 1,350 mainly Chinese workers less than Saipan's minimum wage and forcing them to work up to 90 hours a week without required overtime pay. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration levied more than $240,000 in fines against the six Tan companies the following year for violations including locking and blocking factory and dormitory fire doors and other unsanitary and hazardous conditions in the factories and dorms. After the charges were made public, clothing giant Levi Strauss & Co and retailer The Gap halted purchases from the Tans.
US Representative George Miller, a Democrat from California, launched committee hearings into labor abuses on the island and ways to close the loopholes surrounding Saipan. The Tans settled the overtime suit without admitting any wrongdoing by agreeing to pay the workers $9 million. They also settled the health and safety charges by pledging $1.3 million in repairs and paying a $76,000 penalty.
After this episode - and ones with other island manufacturers - Saipan's government hired Abramoff to fend off repeated threats to the island's status in Washington. Abramoff took up the garment makers' cause enthusiastically, taking congressmen and their staff and families to Saipan to enjoy its tropical pleasures and hear the manufacturers' case for protection. Abramoff and his staff trumpeted the clothiers' agenda to administration officials, targeting unsympathetic ones for retribution.
A syndicated US newspaper columnist last month admitted receiving payments from Abramoff for writing favorable stories about Saipan and other clients.
Between 1995 and 2002, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, centered on Saipan, paid Abramoff at least $8 million, according to commonwealth audits and Senate records. But the high-priced help became a lightning rod for controversy on the cash-strapped islands. Twice the government dropped Abramoff's services. Rose Garden's hiring of Abramoff came four months after the government, now under a new governor, ended his contract for the last time. During the previous suspension, four business organizations in Saipan joined to publicly form a new group that paid Abramoff $2.4 million.
If Abramoff reported "Rose Garden Holdings" as his client, using its name as a front for Luen Thai or other Saipan business interests, he may have violated the US Lobbying Disclosure Act. Jan Witold Baran, a Washington lawyer specializing in lobbying law, said the law requires identification of the entity directing and funding lobbying activity.
Juan Babauta, who was succeeded on January 8 as Northern Marianas governor by a former Tan Holdings executive, told the Saipan Tribune just before he left office: "The Jack Abramoff investigation is obviously turning in the direction of the CNMI."
According to an investigation published by The Washington Post three weeks ago, records obtained by the newspaper reveal that Saipan garment makers, including Tan, contributed $500,000 to an organization called the US Family Network between 1996 and 2001. Much of the organization's funding was spent supporting other groups linked to Abramoff or indicted Congressman Tom DeLay. A series of e-mail messages between Abramoff and Willie Tan, Henry's brother who heads up the family's ventures on site in Saipan, recently obtained by Washington journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, appear to show another financial link. According to a copy posted on Marshall's Web site, Abramoff billed Tan $223,679 in 2000 toward the annual rental of skyboxes in three Washington-area stadiums and arenas. Abramoff made frequent use of the skyboxes to entertain congressmen. The e-mails indicate receipt of a first quarterly payment of $55,919.75 and show Tan directing a company finance executive to make the second quarterly payment.

Next: A Remake of "Network"

When George Clooney won a Golden Globe for best supporting actor in "Syrianna" he thanked former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff: ''Just because ... I want to get this thing rolling. ... Who would name their kid Jack -- with 'off' at the end. No wonder the guy's screwed up.''

What Makes Americans Susceptible to Manipulation?
by Andrew Bard Schmookler
One question has been especially troubling me: Why will so many Americans buy images of national leaders that are so at odds with so much evidence? This question is crucial because the American democracy was founded on the notion that the truth will out in the deliberations of a free people.
Fear is surely a factor, especially so since our country came under attack three years ago. When we’re afraid, we lose our tolerance for ambiguity. Black-and-white thinking is in: you’re either for us or against us. When in the grip of fear, we crave certainty, because uncertainty magnifies the feeling of vulnerability. The more afraid we are, the more we shift into a part of the brain where rational analysis does not govern.
It is when people do not think critically that they are most manipulable, and fear is but one force that’s eroded America’s capacity for critical thought. Over recent generations, the most mighty of our educational institutions –advertising—has systematically worked to teach us to mistake appealing image for the reality, the sizzle for the steak.
But there are still older paths in the American psyche that have been available for adept political manipulators.
One of the most powerful ways of by-passing critical rationality in America has long been the posture of religious piety and moralism. That’s how the Music Man sells River City on a boy’s band.
That’s the way that the wolf of unbridled self-aggrandisement hides behind the sheep’s clothing of false righteousness. (That’s how political leaders who are only serving their lust for power and their greed can get legitimacy and compliance.)
There is another venerable template in American political culture: the pattern of rhetoric by which governing elites inflame peripheral issues to distract their followers from seeing the truth of their exploitation. What’s not noticed is that while the leaders just keep these hot-button moral issues festering, unresolved, they make sure that the agenda of the rich and powerful (the regressive tax cuts, the dismantling of environmental regulation, etc.) actually gets accomplished. While the con itself is not new, the scope of today’s successful deception of the American people is unprecedented.
The powerful used to just take what they wanted by the sword. The rise of democracy required the powerful to trade in the sword for the con job: just manipulate the people into choosing against their own true interests. It is only when the people can see through the lies that they reclaim the power that is their birthright as citizens of this American democracy.

The Gun is Smoking - 2004 Ohio Precinct-Level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount

The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) is the first mathematical team to release a valid scientific analysis of the precinct-level 2004 Ohio presidential exit poll data. NEDA's analysis provides virtually irrefutable evidence of vote miscount.

Another Undeclared War?
Is the United States about to launch a second preemptive war, against a nation that has not attacked us, to deprive it of weapons of mass destruction that it does not have?

US Refuses to Apologize For CIA Bombing in Pakistan
The US government has refused to express regret over last week’s CIA bombing in Pakistan. The attack killed a reported 17 people, including women and children. The U.S. has said little about the bombing but it is believed to have been carried out by a CIA Predator drone. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack told reporters only: "The United States clearly values innocent human life. And that is why we're fighting the war on terror." Meanwhile, Pakistani officials said Tuesday the strike had killed up to 5 suspected militants.

10,000 Demonstrate Against US in Lebanon
In Lebanon, nearly 10,000 students marched on the US embassy near Beirut to denounce what they called Washington’s interference in their country. The students chanted slogans including “America out” and “death to America.” The protest came three days after police clashed with anti-US demonstrators at a smaller protest in downtown Beirut. The US has sided with anti-Syrian groups in Lebanon, and pushed for the disarmament of Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the US embassy denied a report in a Lebanese newspaper that said it had pushed for the firing of Shi’ite ministers, including two from Hezbollah. The embassy said that the story had been invented in order to provoke tensions in Lebanon.

Uranium revelation upsets isle activists
Several environmental and native Hawaiian groups are accusing the Army of misleading the public after the groups discovered that a heavy metal known as depleted uranium was recovered at Schofield Barracks' range complex. During a news conference yesterday, the groups said the Army has repeatedly assured the public that the heavy metal was never used in Hawaii.

New Orleans Demolitions To Require Advance Notice
In New Orleans, a federal judge has approved a settlement that forces the city to give residents at least seven days advance notice of any house demolitions. The settlement resolves a lawsuit launched by residents last month following newspaper reports the city planned to demolish over 2500 homes without notice.
Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, has increased its count of people displaced from the Gulf Coast by hurricanes Katrina and Rita to 2 million people, an increase by nearly a third. FEMA attributed the increase to an earlier reporting error. FEMA says it’s paying rental assistance to over 685,000 families, an increase of 32 percent over a month ago.

Bush Intelligence Assessment Called Niger Claim “Unlikely”
The New York Times is reporting a high-level Bush administration intelligence assessment concluded in early 2002 that the sale of enriched uranium from Niger to Iraq was “unlikely.” The claim, since discredited, that Iraq sought to purchase the uranium played a key role in the Bush administration’s attempts to justify the invasion of Iraq. The Times reports a secret memo by State Department intelligence analysts concluded the sale was improbable for several reasons, including that it would have required Niger to send "25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers" filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border. (Uranium sales are also under French control & oversight). A Bush administration official interviewed by the Times would not say whether President Bush saw the memo before he made the Niger claim in his infamous State of the Union address in January 2003 – over 10 months after the intelligence assessment was made.

2002 Memo Doubted Uranium Sale Claim
The analysts' doubts were registered nearly a year before President Bush, in what became known as the infamous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address, said that Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
We now know that the documents that Bush's claims rested on were forgeries, and the fact that they were forgeries is the smoking gun proving that the lies told about Iraq were not innocent mistakes, but deliberate lies.

White House Refuses To Reveal Details of Abramoff Meetings
The Bush administration is refusing to reveal details of its meetings with scandal-plagued lobbyist Jack Abramoff. On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Scott McClellan acknowledged Abramoff had "a few staff-level meetings" with White House officials. But he would not say with whom Abramoff met, which interests he was representing or how he got access to the White House.
Especially the part about "You got any Arab types hanging out on your Casino ships we could frame in a phony terror attack?"

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Oregon Suicide Law
In this country, the Supreme Court has voted to protect Oregon’s one-of-a-kind assisted suicide law, blocking a Bush administration initiative that would have punished doctors who help put terminally ill patients to death. The court ruled former Attorney General John Ashcroft acted improperly when he invoked a federal drug law to pursue Oregon doctors for over-prescribing lethal doses of prescription medicines. Oregon’s landmark law has been used to end the lives of over 200 people. The ruling marked the first loss for Chief Justice John Roberts, who was by joined in his dissent by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

HISTORY CORNER:
Listen to an interview from "Democracy Now!"
Hugh Thompson's Crewmember Remembers Helping to End the My Lai Massacre
On March 16, 1968, Thompson and two other crewmembers landed their helicopter in front of U.S. troops firing on Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai. They pointed their guns at their fellow service members to prevent more killings, and helped evacuate the villagers.
Thompson and Lawrence Colburn later testified at the court martial hearings for the massacre of over 300 civilians at My Lai. Only one U.S. soldier, platoon commander Lieutenant William Calley, was convicted. He was court-martialed and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the massacre. Many around the country viewed Calley as a scapegoat. "Rallies for Calley" were held all over the country and Jimmy Carter, then governor of Georgia, urged citizens to leave car headlights on to show support for Calley. President Richard Nixon later commuted Calley’s sentence to three years of house arrest. Thompson, on the other hand, was shunned for years by fellow soldiers. He received death threats and was once told by a congressman that he was the only American who should be punished over My Lai. Although the My Lai massacre became one of the most infamous atrocities of the Vietnam War, little was known about Hugh Thompson’s actions for decades.
In 1998, Thompson and his two crewmembers, Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta, were awarded the Soldier’s Medal, the highest US military award for bravery not involving conflict with an enemy. Andreotta’s award was posthumous. He was killed in Vietnam less than a month after My Lai.

Son Thang: An American War Crime
review of book by Gary Solis
Son Thang, a Vietnamese village, the location of a Marine "killer team" expedition which culminated in the brutal killing of 16 women and children. Son Thang, often referred to as the Marine My Lai, had unexpected outcomes and interesting twists, including the involvement of two young officers who later acquired a fair amount of notoriety themselves: Oliver North, noted for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, and James Webb, who later served as the secretary of the Navy.
On the night of February 19, 1970, a five-man patrol from Company B, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines entered the hamlet of Son Thang, about 20 miles south of Danang. The patrol was known as a "killer team,'' (death squad?) sent to hunt down and kill the enemy in an area heavily infiltrated by Viet Cong guerillas. In the previous week nine men from B Company were killed in the vicinity; that morning one Marine had died after he set off a booby-trap. The patrol found no enemy soldiers in the hamlet. Not a shot was fired at them. Nevertheless, they roused three of the hamlet's huts. Four Vietnamese emerged - an old woman, a younger woman and two girls, one of whom was blind. Schwarz went inside to search and found no one there. At about this time, Herrod shot one of the older women and then, according to some accounts, gave orders to kill all of these Vietnamese. All four females were killed by point-blank firing. The four bodies were later identified as those of a fifty-year-old, a blind twenty-year-old, a sixteen-year-old and a five-year-old.
Four of the soldiers testified that they were under orders by their patrol leader to shoot the villagers. Civilian trial lawyers and character witness testimony by a young Oliver North helped acquit the leader of all charges. Of the other team members, only the two who were also defended by civilian, rather than marine, lawyers were found innocent.
The most important achievement of Solis' Son Thang is to make clear that Americans, like others, commit war crimes.

Illegal wiretap operations challenged in court

Bush Administration Sued Over NSA Wiretaps
The Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union are filing separate lawsuits today challenging President Bush's order for the National Security Agency to conduct domestic spy operations without legally required court warrants.

NYT: NSA Handed Thousands of Tips to FBI
The New York Times reveals today that after the Sept. 11th attacks the NSA began sending a flood of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of possible terrorists. This forced the FBI to send out hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips every month. According to the Times virtually all of the tips led to dead ends or innocent Americans.


Al Gore: Bush "Repeatedly and Persistently" Broke Law
On Monday, former Vice President Al Gore gave a major speech in Washington accusing Bush of "repeatedly and persistently" breaking the law by authorizing the NSA wiretaps. Gore called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the abuses. Gore said Bush's illegal spying program threatened "the very structure of our government."

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): "Impeachment is a Remedy"
Republican Senator Arlen Specter, the head of the Judiciary Committee, has admitted impeachment is a possibility if Bush broke the law. Specter appeared on ABC's This Week on Sunday.

Thousands Protest in Pakistan Over U.S. Missile Strike
In Pakistan, thousands have rallied across the country to protest a U.S. missile strike that killed at least 17 people including women and children in a village near the Afghan border. In Karachi some 10,000 protested while chanting "Death to America" and "Stop bombing against innocent people." The U.S. has said little about the bombing but it is believed to have been carried out by a CIA Predator drone. Pakistan publicly claims it does not allow the U.S. to carry out attacks inside its borders but this is the third suspected U.S. missile strike in less than two months.

Walter Cronkite on Iraq: "We Should Get Out Now"
Famed TV newscaster Walter Cronkite has become the latest advocate for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Cronkite made headlines during the Vietnam War when he declared on air the war was unwinnable. At the time President Lyndon Johnson said "If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." When a reporter asked Cronkite over the weekend whether, given the chance, he would offer similar advice on Iraq. Cronkite said, "Yes. It's my belief that we should get out now."

Abramoff-Linked Legislator Steps Down From Committee Chairman
Republican Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio has temporarily stepped down as chairman of the House Administration Committee. Ney is identified in Abramoff's recent plea agreement as "Representative #1." Abramoff reportedly bought off Ney by having his Indian tribal clients give him donations in exchange for political favors. Newsweek is now reporting that federal prosecutors are also investigating whether Ney personally lobbied then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to relax sanctions on Iran. Ney made the request after returning from an expense-paid trip to London paid for by a thrice-convicted felon named Nigel Winfield. Winfield ran an airline spare parts company and was seeking to do business with Iran.

Texas Poll: Support for Delay Falls to 22%
In Texas, public opinion polls show former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay may face a tough time being re-elected. Just 22 percent of respondents in Delay's home district say they will vote for him in the upcoming election.

UK Scientist: World Past Point of No Return for Global Warming
In environmental news, British scientists have determined 2005 was the warmest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere and the second warmest year overall since the 1860s when reliable records began. This comes as the Independent of London has published a dire warning from the well-known scientist James Lovelock who believes the world has already passed the point of no return for global warming. Lovelock writes, "Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."


Articles On The M.L. King Murder New evidence has surfaced in the 1968 Martin Luther King murder case. It is supplied by an "insider" who claims to have been part of a "hit team" that had come out of the "Missouri Mafia" headquartered in the town of Caruthersville, a small town in the bootheel section of that state. In a yet-to-be-published book, former County Deputy Jim Green reveals his assigned role in the conspiracy, the name of the actual trigger man, and the long-suspected involvement of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Green also believes that he possesses the actual murder weapon, which he personally secreted away only hours after the murder.

Oklahoma City bombing: New evidence renews conspiracy debate

Kenneth Trentadue was no angel. In the 1980s, he did time for robbing banks. But in a strange twist, the circumstances behind his violent death 10 years ago in prison are playing out in federal court in a case that hints at a wider conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Bush's Unlikely Co-conspirators
At least seven House Democrats learned about the NSA's secret spying program four years ago. So why didn't anyone blow the whistle? Indeed, at least seven Democrats in the House were briefed by the Bush administration on the spy program as far back as four years ago. Among those briefed include Nancy Pelosi, South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle and West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller --who never blew the whistle publicly on the program. Pelosi, Daschle and Rockefeller each privately expressed dismay over the spying program -- in secret. They didn't go public with their concerns because they were bound by rules governing classified briefings of congressional members. These classified briefings were launched more than 20 years ago as a reform in the oversight of the nation's spy apparatus. But like many other reforms, classified briefings have become perverted and, in the hands of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, have become gags that prevent Congress members from doing their job.

from the ever-fascinating Wayne Madsen Report:

Why is John McCain so supportive of Bush and Cheney after being so viciously attacked by them in the 2000 campaign? The answer to this question may partially rest in Navy records detailing the events that took place on the USS Forrestal in "Yankee Station" in the Gulf of Tonkin at the end of July 1967. The neo-cons, who have had five years to examine every file within the Department of Defense, have likely accessed documents that could prove embarrassing to McCain, who was on board the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, and whose A-4 Skyhawk was struck by an air-to-ground Zuni missile that had misfired from an F-4 Phantom.

What have sealed Navy records given to the neo-cons to blackmail McCain? Plenty, according to eyewitness on the USS Forrestal.
According to an eyewitness to the Navy's worst fire disaster that killed 134 sailors and injured 62, McCain and the Forrestal's skipper, Capt. John K. Beling, were warned about the danger of using M-65 1000-lb. bombs manufactured in 1935, which were deemed too dangerous to use during World War II and, later, on B-52 bombers. The fire from the Zuni misfire resulted in the heavy 1000 pounders being knocked loose from the pylons of McCain's A-4, which were only designed to hold 500-pound bombs.
During the fighting of the fire and while VF-74 and VF-11 were still counting their dead, McCain was helicoptered off the Forrestal to the USS Oriskany, which suffered a major fire on October 27, 1966, that killed 44 sailors. In that event, thousand pound bombs were jettisoned away from the fire but the lessons of the Oriskany went unheeded by the Forrestal's officers, including McCain, who served with the VA-163 Saints on board the Oriskany when the fire on that vessel occurred. On October 26, 1967, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam during a bombing sortie from the Oriskany.

Aug. 29, 2005 -- Bush celebrating McCain's 69th birthday with a cake. Bush and his operatives may have more than a cake up their sleeves when it comes to McCain's Navy record prior to his time as a POW.
The unstable bombs had a 60-second cook-off threshold in a fire situation and this warning was known to both Beling and McCain prior to the disaster. On January 14, 1969, the USS Enterprise, steaming 75 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, suffered a major fire. In that episode, similar unstable 1000-pound bombs detonated, killing 27 sailors and injuring more than 100. At the time of the Enterprise disaster, the Commander-in- Chief of US Pacific Forces was Adm. John S. McCain, Jr.,Sen. McCain's father.
At the time of the Forrestal disaster, Admiral McCain was Commander-in-Chief of US Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) and was busy covering up the details of the deadly and pre-meditated Israeli attack on the NSA spy ship, the USS Liberty, on June 8, 1967.
The fact that both McCains were involved in two incidents just weeks apart that resulted in a total death count of 168 on the Forrestal and the Liberty, with an additional injury count of 234 on both ships (with a number of them later dying from their wounds) with an accompanying classified paper trail inside the Pentagon, may be all that was needed to hold a Sword of Damocles over the head of the "family honor"-oriented (McCain's persona is supported by his book about his father and grandfather, both Navy admirals, titled "Faith of My Fathers") and the "straight talking" McCain.
The Bush administration and neo-cons may have uncovered reams of documents that throw cold water on that public perception.

Goodbye, Ralphie-boy

More like red-handed hypocrisy, Time cover from 11 yrs ago. Ironically, not a moral crusade.
Abramoff Scandal Threatens Ralph Reed's Political Ascendancy
DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- Ralph Reed, candidate for lieutenant governor, had just finished his opening statement to the Dawson County Republican Party when retired pulp paper executive Gary Pichon sprang from his seat with a question that cut to the chase: "Did you accept any gifts, commissions or other payments of any kind from Mr. Abramoff, and are you likely to be a party in the unfolding investigation?"
Silence enveloped the 60 or so Republicans in the auditorium, and Reed's cheerful manner turned tense. "No," he replied. "No to all these."
As everyone knew, Pichon was referring to Jack Abramoff, whose outsize Washington lobbying scandal has reached down to Georgia. Abramoff and Reed -- the former executive director of the Christian Coalition -- have been friends for 25 years, and until recently it had been a mutually profitable association. Now it is proving highly inconvenient for Reed, and threatens to stall a career that has been emblematic of the modern GOP. Reed served as executive director of the College Republicans from 1983 to 1985 and led a revival of the Christian right in the 1990s. He founded a grass-roots lobbying firm in 1997, bringing in millions of dollars in fees, chaired the Georgia Republican Party in 2002 when the GOP took over the state, and served as Southeast director of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.

At age 44, he still has the choirboy looks that have been noted in dozens of profiles over the past 20 years. (Something tells me he won't for long). But the first major dent in Reed's carefully cultivated image came with the disclosure in the summer of 2004 that his public relations and lobbying companies had received at least $4.2 million from Abramoff to mobilize Christian voters to fight Indian casinos competing with Abramoff's casino clients. Similarly damaging has been a torrent of e-mails revealed during the investigation that shows a side of Reed that some former supporters say cannot be reconciled with his professed Christian values.
"After reading the e-mail, it became pretty obvious he was putting money before God," said Phil Dacosta, a Georgia Christian Coalition member who had initially backed Reed. "We are righteously casting him out."
Among those e-mails was one from Reed to Abramoff in late 1998: "I need to start humping in corporate accounts! . . . I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts." Within months, Abramoff hired him to lobby on behalf of the Mississippi Band of Choctaws, who were seeking to prevent competitors from setting up facilities in nearby Alabama. In 1999, Reed e-mailed Abramoff after submitting a bill for $120,000 and warning that he would need as much as $300,000 more: "We are opening the bomb bays and holding nothing back." In 2004, when the casino payments to Reed were disclosed, Reed issued a statement declaring "no direct knowledge of their [Abramoff's law firm's] clients or interests." In 2005, however, Senate investigators released a 1999 e-mail from Abramoff to Reed explicitly citing the client: "It would be really helpful if you could get me invoices [for services performed] as soon as possible so I can get Choctaw to get us checks ASAP."
One of the most damaging e-mails was sent by Abramoff to partner Michael Scanlon, complaining about Reed's billing practices and expenditure claims: "He is a bad version of us! No more money for him." Scanlon and Abramoff have pleaded guilty to defrauding clients.

Reed's records have been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors, and neither he nor his staff will discuss whether Reed has been interviewed or has been called as a witness to grand jury proceedings. No evidence has emerged that he is a target in the federal inquiry.
Random interviews on Main Street in heavily Republican Alpharetta suggested that even many people who follow politics casually are aware of the linkage between Reed and Abramoff.
"Ralph Reed? He's a politician," said David Loudenflager, a Republican who retired after working 32 years for the Arrow Shirt Company. "He was involved with Jack Abramoff and the Indians and all those. All these people running around telling you how good they are, and how right they are. You better be careful and hold on to your wallet."
After Reed first entered national politics as executive director of the Christian Coalition, he described to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot his tactics in mobilizing Christian conservatives to sway elections: "I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night."
These days, Reed rarely grants interviews, and he declined a request to speak for this article.
Over time, as new disclosures about his dealings with Abramoff have emerged, Reed has subtly moderated his response to inquiries. At the Dawson County GOP meeting, he told activists, "I was building my small business in 1999 when I was approached by a friend of almost 20 years from one of the most respected and prestigious law firms in the nation," without naming Abramoff. Of the work he did for Abramoff's firm, Reed said, "I agreed to do so having been assured that none of the funds used to pay my firm were derived from gambling activities." Reed said he helped close an illegal casino in Texas and prevented casinos from coming to Alabama. "Many marriages and lives were saved" and "many children were spared the consequences of gambling because of the work I did." But, he added, "if I had known then what I know now, I would not have done that work."
(Eat crow, you big fat self-righteous hypocrite!)

THE BIG FIX 2006: IS ABRAMOFF GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER?
Writing a quarter million dollars worth of checks (for no discernible purpose) to Mafia hit men who are later charged with the murder of the check-writer’s biggest enemy in the whole damn world is just another in a long line of "freak coincidences" in South Florida, a place where things have always been a little… different.
'Big Tony' Moscatiello and two second-rate mobsters were charged with the murder of Sun Cruz Casino magnate Gus Boulis in September. It is a case in which Jack Abramoff and his henchman Adam Kidan both have massive and totally obvious criminal exposure. Without an agreement to shield them from prosecution in the Boulis murder, neither man would seem to have any reason to accept a plea agreement...yet it is unmentioned in their announced deals with federal prosecutors. It is fast becoming unmentionable.

MARTIN LUTHER KING -
THE FATAL SHOT CAME FROM A DIFFERENT DIRECTION

According to the government, James Earl Ray shot Dr. Martin Luther King from that window. There is, needless to say, no physical evidence to prove this charge. James Earl Ray spent his life in prison based solely on a coerced confession which he immediately retracted. None of the ballistics tests, which were performed on the rifle James Earl Ray allegedly used, were able to link that rifle to the actual bullet that killed Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King's family does not think James Earl Ray was the killer, and recently won a civil court case proving there was a conspiracy.Now, thanks to writer Ted Wilburn, in a story which follows, new evidence has surfaced to prove that the government and the media have been lying to the public about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping
By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.

The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:

"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment.

The struggle continues

"We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.
So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools.
So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor."

Speaker Pressures Rep. Ney to Resign His Chairmanship

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is pressuring Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) to relinquish the chairmanship of the House Administration Committee in the wake of a guilty plea from lobbyist Jack Abramoff that tied Ney to a far-reaching conspiracy to bribe public officials, leadership aides said.

Abramoff Scandal Could End Netanyahu's Likud Takeover
By Wayne Madsen
The Jack Abramoff scandal could end Netanyahu's and Cheney's plans for Likud takeover in Israel. Informed sources in Washington report that Vice President Dick Cheney and his advisers David Addington and John Hannah are working behind the scenes to ensure that former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu succeeds acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. With elections scheduled for March 28, Cheney and his neo-con cabal are hoping that Olmert's Kadima Party -- formed by Ariel Sharon and his more moderate ex-Likud allies -- is defeated in the elections.
According to law enforcement sources, investigators are looking at Abramoff's possible connections to the defunct Oasis Casino in Jericho in the West Bank. Last week, Israeli police seized computers, cell phones, documents, and a PDA from the home of Schlaff's parents in Israel while he was visiting from Austria. Police also investigated money transfers to Gilad Sharon, Ariel Sharon's son, from South African businessman Cyril Kern and other transfers via BAWAG Bank in Austria. Sharon's other son, Omri, was also financially involved in the Oasis casino.
It is noteworthy that the Israeli Justice Ministry has postponed any indictments until after the March 28 elections. The neo-con media is ignoring Netanyahu's own role as Israel's Finance Minister during the casino scandals, choosing to repaint the radical right-winger as championing "clean government."
As with Indian casinos on reservations drawing huge numbers of gamblers from states where casinos are illegal, the Oasis casino was seen as attracting large numbers of Israelis since casinos are also illegal in Israel.
Although Netanyahu criticized the Oasis casino as providing funding for Palestinian terrorists, investigators are looking at Netanyahu's involvement in helping to steer $140,000 in tribal casino money away from Abramoff's Capitol Athletic Foundation (CAF) charity in Washington, DC to right-wing West Bank settlers in Beitar Illit on the West Bank so they could buy "security equipment" and sniper lessons. Records indicate a flow of money from CAF to Kollel Ohel Tiferet, a virtually unknown group in Israel. Netanyahu, as Finance Minister in Sharon's former Likud government, would have been aware of money transfers from Abramoff to various Israeli interests, including the settlers and casino interests.


US Lifts Longtime Drilling Ban on Alaskan Wildlife Habitat
The Department of Interior on Wednesday approved oil and gas drilling on Alaska land considered such sensitive wildlife habitat that it was first protected by former Interior Secretary James G. Watt under President Reagan, and by four Interior secretaries since.

More Stories Rolling In About Levees Being Blown In New Orleans
More information and stories are rolling in, ignored by the media and scoffed at by conservative radio hosts, suggesting U.S. government operatives purposely detonated and blew the New Orleans levees to racially cleanse the city making way for a huge land grab by rich developers.
Chuck, a long time New Orleans resident, added some very interesting background information as well as further accounts about the levee breaks from other New Orleans residents: "One more thing. I passed by the levee everyday before the storm. As far back as 9 months before Katrina hit, I saw Homeland Security vehicles riding up and down the street alongside the levee," he said. "I knew that they were Homeland Security vehicles because they were all white with tinted windows and had 'Government DHS' on their license plates. I couldn't figure out what they were doing there but now I think I know. Again, difficult to prove, but they were probably wiring the levee."
"She told me her husband conducted a job interview with a guy who lived right on the 17th Street canal. The guy he interviewed told him that the day after the storm someone from the Corps of Engineers knocked on his door and told him he had to leave because they were going to blow the levee. I personally believe that the London Ave. and the 17 the street levees were blown. It's hard to prove, though."
New Orleans bus driver, Ryan Washington, recently said he has heard numerous other stories just like the Adams account, recalling a massive explosion prior to a "three football field long hole" in the Industrial Canal caused massive flooding, resulting in death and destruction throughout New Orleans. Washington said another local resident, Michael Night, heard the same explosion but was unavailable for comment.
"I've talked to many people hearing the same massive explosions by the Industrial Canal," said Washington in a telephone conversation from his home in nearby Slidell. "I will get busy compiling the names as we need to get at the truth behind what really happened as rich land developers and the government have been trying to get their hands on the 9th Ward property ever since the same thing happened during Hurricane Betsy in 1965."
And also coming forward is Andrew W. Griffin, a former Louisiana based newspaper reporter for a Gannet-owned paper now at another paper in Norman. Oklahoma, said he talked to a number of people right after the Hurricane, claiming to hear explosions at the levees. "I am convinced the 17th Street Canal wall was deliberately destroyed. I even talked to some evacuees in the weeks following Katrina who said they heard explosions or knew people who had heard them," said Griffin in a recent email.

Here's some great stuff from Wayne Madsen Report:
Anti-leak policy enacted at Pentagon before and after 9-11.
According to a senior Pentagon official, the Pentagon issued a strict anti-leak policy to Pentagon employees prior to and just after 9-11. The order was particularly emphasized to Air Force employees at the Pentagon.
.
Media contact prohibition enacted by Pentagon just prior to 9-11
A U.S. Army Pentagon employee confirmed that the Army was also subject to an anti-leak policy around the time of 9-11. After the 9-11 events, employees were strictly prohibited from discussing aspects of the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon and the confiscation by the FBI of security video tapes from the Pentagon and surrounding facilities. The pre-911 Pentagon prohibitions on leaks to the media add to debate about how much pre-intelligence about the 9-11 attacks was known to the Bush administration.

Col. Westhusing's "suicide" coincided with fraud investigations
Serious questions remain concerning Col. Westhusing's "suicide" in Iraq. Army's chief ethics expert was murdered, according to Carlyle Group insider. According an informed source within The Carlyle Group business consortium, Col. Ted Westhusing, the Army's top military ethicist and professor at West Point, did not commit suicide in a Baghdad trailer in June 2005 as was widely reported in the mainstream media five months later. At the time of his death, Westhusing was investigating contract violations and human rights abuses by US Investigations Services (USIS), formerly a federal agency, the Office of Federal Investigations (OFI), which operated under the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). In 1996, OFI, which conducted background investigations for civil service personnel, was privatized. The 700 government employees of OFI became employee-owners as part of USIS. In January 2003, the New York investment firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe, described by a Carlyle insider as a virtual shadow operation for The Carlyle Group, bought USIS for $545 million. With 5000 current and former employees of USIS sharing $500 million, the deal made them wealthy with the stroke of a pen. However, upper management within USIS became much wealthier than the rank-and-file. Insiders report that the twelve top managers at USIS became multimillionaires as a result of their cashing in of their Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). Many of these instant millionaires already had a close relationship with The Carlyle Group.
Carlyle had been a shareholder in USIS since 1999 and with the buy-out deal via the Welsh, Carson, Anderson,and Stowe deal, Carlyle became the major shareholder.USIS continues to have a virtual exclusivity deal to perform background security investigations for OPM. The company bills itself as "one of the largest Intelligence and Security Services companies in North America.”With the Iraq invasion, USIS obtained lucrative Pentagon private security contracts in Iraq.
At a 2004 job fair in Falls Church, Virginia, USIS was advertising for "interrogators" and "protection specialists" for "overseas assignments." While he was in Iraq training Iraqi police and overseeing the USIS contract to train police as part of the Pentagon's Civilian Police Assistance Training Team, Westhusing received an anonymous letter that reported USIS's Private Services Division (PSD) was engaged in fraudulent activities in Iraq, including over-billing the government. In addition, the letter reported that USIS security personnel had murdered innocent Iraqis. After demanding answers from USIS, Westhusing reported the problems up the chain of command. After an "investigation," the Army found no evidence of wrongdoing by USIS. That decision signed Col. Westhusing's death sentence. USIS and Carlyle have powerful allies in the administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Princeton roommate of Carlyle Chairman Emeritus and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. Former President George H. W. Bush, former Secretary of State James Baker, and former British Prime Minister John Major are Carlyle international advisers. George W. Bush was formerly employed by a Carlyle subsidiary and the Bin Laden business cartel was a one-time investor in the firm. Westhusing, who, according to friends and colleagues, showed no signs of depression, left a suicide note the Army concluded was in his handwriting. However, Westhusing's family and friends have thrown cold water on the Army's investigation.

Col. Ted Westhusing:Chalk up another victim of the Bush crime family
Wayne Madsen Report can report that based on information obtained from Carlyle insiders, Col. Westhusing's death was not caused by suicide. The fact that Westhusing was investigating one of the most politically and financially powerful firms in the world resulted in higher-ups wanting him out of the way. According to the Los Angeles Times, all of the witnesses who claimed Westhusing shot himself were USIS employees. In addition, a USIS manager interfered with the crime scene, including handling Westhusing's service revolver. The USIS manager was not tested for gunpowder residue on his hands. Westhusing's investigation threatened to unearth a network of fraudsters looting the US Treasury that included the Bush family and some of their closest financial partners. After Westhusing's murder, USIS management sent a vaguely-worded memo to employees about how to respond to derogatory information in the media or rumors about USIS. Management's attention, described as "psychotic" in nature, was on USIS's upcoming IPO (initial public offering), according to a well-placed source.
USIS also owns Total Information Services of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a commercial personal data mining operation.
Coming Up: How Carlyle began on the net operating loss (NOL) financial backs of Native Alaskan tribal corporations.

What does Samuel Alito's "Unitary Executive," with presidential signing statements, look like?

Democrats running for Congress must be forced to sign an election manifesto pledging to impeach Alito from the Supreme Court for lying to Congress under oath, a crime. They must also pledge to impeach Bush, Cheney, and other cabinet officers who have committed crimes. If people like Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, and Joe Lieberman refuse to sign, they should be challenged in their primaries and dumped from the November slate.

The name has been changed to protect the guilty.
The National Security Agency's (NSA) illegal database code-named Firstfruits, which contains transcripts of the communications of and articles written by U.S. journalists about NSA has undergone a name change. Inside sources report that because of the "compromise" of the system, the name of the database has been changed from Firstfruits. However, the database continues to be maintained under a new cover term.


A Real-Life Patrick Bateman:
Millionaire 'thug' beat homeless, 'preyed on the weak'
A "thug" and "bully" who police said preyed on vulnerable people for fun is starting a five and a half year jail sentence. John Damon Gizzi, a millionaire builder from St Asaph, was caught for one attack after a listening device was installed in his Bentley. Gizzi, 34, previously admitted two charges of grievous bodily harm and one of actual bodily harm. He beat up two homeless men with wooden staves, Chester Crown Court heard. He also admitted conspiracy to sell contraband cigarettes and customs and excise tax evasion worth up to £750,000. Twenty two offences of mortgage fraud totalling £1.4m were also taken into consideration.
Appearing at Chester Crown Court last week, co-accused Dennis Fontenot, 32, from Liverpool, also pleaded guilty to causing grevious bodily harm with intent and conspiracy to sell counterfeit cigarettes. On Friday, he was sentenced to 18 months.
Simon Medland, prosecuting, told of an assault on a homeless man, at a boarded up cafe, owned by Gizzi, in Rhyl. He said: "It was fairly well known that people from the streets would use the shelter for warmth". On 23 March last year, Leslie Owen, was sleeping in the café when he was woken by Gizzi. "He recalls being woken up by what he describes as a blow to his head," said Mr Medland. "He could see that Mr Gizzi had a weapon. Mr Gizzi was under no conceivable threat from Mr Owen. The assault went on for quite a while."
Police during their investigation found the blood of another homeless man, who they discovered had been attacked by Gizzi two years before. Gizzi and Fontenot also admitted assaulting a third man in November 2004, who claimed he had been attacked with a baseball bat. This case was discovered after police listened into telephone conversations Gizzi made in his Bentley. The court heard a listening device had been fitted during a surveillance operation. Judge Elgan Edwards, recorder of Chester, took into account their guilty pleas, but said: "This kind of conduct, in your case Gizzi using violence towards people who may be a nuisance, is quite unacceptable. You should be making your livelihood not from crime, you have the intelligence to do it".
Lawyers representing the two men said their guilty pleas had saved a great deal of public money and they raised concern about the attention the case was attracting. But Judge Edwards said: "I want to make it abundantly clear that Mr Gizzi and Mr Fontenot will be sentenced on the basis of what they pleaded guilty to and not tittle tattle and rumour". Gizzi's barrister Duncan Bould said his parents and fiancee were standing by him.
Fontenot's barrister Gerry Baxter said his client was "very much the junior player, hired hand and acted as a courier". Detective Superintendent Chris Corcoran after the case said: "[He's] Gizzi's lieutenant, another bully, a thug". Gizzi lived in a £1.75m mansion in St Asaph and drove a £100,000 Bentley car. He was brought to justice after police mounted a surveillance operation around nine months ago.
Supt Barry Jones, said: "Both Gizzi and Fontenot were regarded as bullies, who felt they were above the law and almost untouchable. "As they serve their prison sentences the clear message is no-one is untouchable, especially in north Wales.
He added: "This has been a very, very important conviction."

Some damn fine political theater!

Weigh the facts

SEN. TED KENNEDY's Senate hearing opening statement on Samuel Alito:
I find Judge Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling. Under the President's spying program, there are no checks and balances. There is no outside review of the legality of this brazen infringement on the civil rights and liberties of the American people. Undeterred by the public outcry, the President vows to continue spying on American citizens. Ultimately, the courts will make the final judgment whether the White House has gone too far. Independent and impartial judges must assess the proper balance between protecting our liberties and protecting our national security.
I'm gravely concerned by Judge Alito's clear record of support for vast presidential authority unchecked by the other two branches of government. In decision after decision on the bench, he has excused abusive actions by the authorities that intrude on the personal privacy and freedoms of average Americans. And in his writings and speeches, he has supported a level of overreaching presidential power that, frankly, most Americans find disturbing and even frightening.

In fact, it is extraordinary that each of the three individuals this president has nominated for the Supreme Court -- Chief Justice Roberts, Harriet Miers, and now Judge Alito -- has served not only as a lawyer for the executive branch, but has defended the most expansive view of presidential authority. Perhaps that is why this president nominated them. But as Justice O'Connor stated, even a state of war is not a blank check for a president to do whatever he wants. The Supreme Court must serve as an independent check on abuses by the executive branch and a protector of our liberties, not a cheerleader for an imperial presidency.
There are other areas of concern. In an era when too many Americans are losing their jobs or working for less, trying to make ends meet, in close cases, Judge Alito has ruled the vast majority of the time against the claims of the individual citizens. He has acted instead in favor of government, large corporations and other powerful interests. In a study by the well respected expert, Professor Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School, Judge Alito was found to rule against the individual in 84% of his dissents. To put it plainly, average Americans have had a hard time getting a fair shake in his courtroom.
In an era when America is still too divided by race and riches, Judge Alito has not written one single opinion on the merits in favor of a person of color alleging race discrimination on the job; in 15 years on the bench, not one. And when I look at that record, in light of the 1985 job application to the Reagan Justice Department, it's even more troubling. That document lays out an ideological agenda that highlights his pride in belonging to an alumni group at Princeton that opposed the admission of women and proposed to curb the admission of racial minorities. It proclaims his legal opinion that the Constitution does not protect the right of women to make their own reproductive decisions. It expresses outright hostility to the basic principle of “one person, one vote,” affirmed by the Supreme Court as essential to ensuring that all Americans have a voice in their government.

Ground Zero Police Veteran Dies of Illnesses
A New York City Police officer has died in what his union calls the first police death linked to hazardous material from the rubble of the World Trade Center. Retired detective James Zadroga, who worked more than 450 hours at Ground Zero following 9/11, died Thursday from brain and respiratory complications. He was 34 years old. Zadroga, who was forced to pay his own medical bills, died owing $50,000 dollars for medical care. In a letter written before his death Zadroga wrote: "No one cares at the job. They tell me I'm fine, go back to work. But, truthfully, I haven't felt this bad in my life ... And what thanks do I get now that I'm sick?" His funeral will be held today.

Delay/Abramoff-Linked Lobby Firm To Close Following Indictments
The Washington Post is reporting the Alexander Strategy Group -- one of the country’s top lobbying firms – will close at the end of the month over ties to two indicted Republicans, the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former House majority leader Tom Delay. The company’s president, Edwin Buckham, a former aide to Delay, said the recent investigations and indictments of both men have given the company fatal publicity.
The firm employed Delay’s wife, Christine Delay, for four years and also worked closely with Abramoff. The company lobbied for close to 70 companies and groups, including Microsoft and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. It ranked 21st on the National Journal's 2005 lobbying list, pulling in $8 million dollars in revenue.

The Center for Responsive Politics is reporting family members of Jack Abramoff and his wife gave over $8,000 dollars to President Bush's re-election campaign. In all, Abramoff's family members have given $17,000 dollars to Republicans since 1996.
A new Washington Post/ABC News Poll shows 58% of US citizens believe Abramoff’s criminal case is evidence of widespread corruption in Washington rather than a limited individual case. Over 70% of Americans also say they don’t see much difference in the levels of ethics and honesty between Republicans and Democrats.

Report: Mines Paid Less Than 30% of Safety Penalties
On the heels of last week’s West Virginia blast that killed 12 miners, USA Today is reporting this country’s coals mines have been required to pay less than 30% of over $9 million dollars in safety violation penalties in the last seven years. According to government figures, nearly $5 million dollars of the fines levied by the Mine Safety and Health Administration have been reduced or held up on appeal.

Award-Winning Iraqi Journalist Arrested by US Troops
US troops have raided and arrested award-winning Iraqi journalist Ali Fadhil. Soldiers reportedly entered his home and fired bullets into the bedroom where he and his wife and children were sleeping. Fadhil was hooded and questioned for several hours. He says US troops gave him $1500 dollars for damage to his home and then dropped him off alone in a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood. In November, Fadhil won the Foreign Press Association award for young journalist of the year.
Fadhil was currently at work on a documentary about the US and British governments’ misuse of Iraqi funds. He says US troops have not returned several videotapes they took from him. The director of the documentary, Callum Macrae, said: "The timing and nature of this raid is extremely disturbing. It is only a few days since we first approached the US authorities and told them Ali was doing this investigation, and asked them then to grant him an interview about our findings.”

Bremer Criticizes Pentagon, Governing Council in New Memoirs
Paul Bremer, the former head of the US occupation authority in Iraq, has revealed senior military officials rejected his plea for over half a million troops following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In a new book, Bremer says he sent a memo to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld agreeing with a Rand Corporation study that said 500,000 troops would be needed to quell the growing Iraqi insurgency. (But Paul, they didn't WANT to quell it--it's supposed to be ongoing for the next 10 years while they siphon off anything of value there). Bremer says the Pentagon rejected his request, and then set him up to be blamed for his controversial decision to disband Iraq’s military. Bremer also criticizes the initial US-appointed Iraq Governing Council, writing: “They couldn’t organize a parade, let alone run a country.”

"The President does not know him..."

Bush trying to destroy all photos with Abramoff, distancing from DeLay
Aides to President George W. Bush are trying to identify all the photos that may exist of the President and lobbyist Jack Abramoff together, TIME’s Mike Allen and Matt Cooper report.
From TIME: Bracing for the worst, Administration officials obtained from the Secret Service a list of all the times Abramoff entered the White House complex, and they scrambled to determine the reason for each visit. Press secretary Scott McClellan said Abramoff might have attended large gatherings with Bush but added, “The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him.”
The President had scored 10 points higher than former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in the Representative’s district in 2004, and that was only after Bush had recorded a telephone message to help rally local Republicans. “I can’t believe I had to do robocalls for him,” the President said bitingly to an Oval Office visitor.
To people who know Bush well, the remark said it all about the longtime chill between the two pols—a distance that is only sure to grow with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s guilty plea. Both camps describe the two conservative Texans’ relationship as professional—an alliance, not a friendship.
DeLay is in the unique position of being the most prominent modern Republican politician in Texas to rise without the help of White House senior adviser Karl Rove. The two have never been close, reports TIME. “Karl thinks of him as someone a little bit too opinionated for his own good,” says an official close to both men. “And DeLay thinks of Karl as a former mail vendor, not some great guru.”
Even before DeLay’s announcement that he would abdicate his leadership post, the President’s inner circle always treated DeLay as a necessary burden.
“They have always seen him as beneath them, more blue collar. He’s seen as a useful servant, not someone you would want to vacation with,” says a Republican close to the President’s inner circle.
Although DeLay’s forfeiture of his leadership post makes things easier for the White House, the Abramoff saga will continue to be a problem, according to TIME. Republican officials say they are so worried about the Abramoff problem that they are now inclined to stoke a fight with Democrats over the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court in an effort to turn the page from the lobbying investigation.


Controversial lobbyist had close contact with Bush team
In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show. The access of Abramoff and his team to the administration came as the lobbyist was establishing himself as a GOP fundraiser.
Abramoff and his wife each gave $5,000 to Bush's 2000 recount fund and the maximum $1,000 to his 2000 campaign. By mid-2003, Abramoff had raised at least $100,000 for Bush's re-election campaign, becoming one of Bush's famed "pioneers."
Money also flowed from the Marianas to Bush's re-election campaign: It took in at least $36,000 from island donors, much of it from members of the Tan family, whose clothing factories were a routine stop for lawmakers and their aides visiting the islands on Abramoff-organized trips.
Two Tan family companies gave $25,000 each to the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the 2002 elections. Greenberg Traurig, too, was a big GOP giver. Its donations included $20,000 to the Republican National Committee for the 2000 elections and $25,000 each to the GOP's House and Senate fundraising committees in 2000 and again in 2002. The Marianas' lobbying paid off — it fended off proposals in 2001 to extend the U.S. minimum wage to island workers and gained at least $2 million more in federal aid from the administration.

My Lai Rescuer Hugh Thompson Dies at 62
And Hugh Thompson, the former Army helicopter pilot who helped rescue Vietnamese civilians from fellow US troops during the My Lai massacre, has died cancer. He was 62 years old. On March 16, 1968, Thompson and two others landed their helicopter in front of US troops firing on Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai. They pointed their guns at their fellow service members to prevent more killings, and helped evacuate the villagers. After many years of being ignored and even vilified, Thompson and his crew members were honored in 1998 with the Soldier's Medal, the highest military award for bravery not involving conflict with an enemy. (The enemy within?)

Booga-Booga Update:
HIV BOMBERS
Al-Qaeda is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror. Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe. Under the heading "HIV/Hepatitis" the document states: "There is evidence that terrorists might be deliberately recruiting volunteers with diseases that are spread by blood transference." Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments from a suicide bomber could penetrate the skin of a victim 50 metres away and infect them.

The Whitewashing of Ariel Sharon
From the beginning to the end of his career, Sharon was a man of ruthless and often gratuitous violence. The waypoints of his career are all drenched in blood, from the massacre he directed at the village of Qibya in 1953, in which his men destroyed whole houses with their occupants - men, women and children - still inside, to the ruinous invasion of Lebanon in 1982, in which his army laid siege to Beirut, cut off water, electricity and food supplies and subjected the city's hapless residents to weeks of indiscriminate bombardment by land, sea and air.

Fanatic Netanyahu stands waiting with a bomb for Iran

Norman Solomon suggests that Benyamin Netanyahu, a 56-year old member of the Likud Party, fluent in American idioms as he spend the early years of his life in the U.S., telegenic to many eyes -- and good at lying on camera, is awaiting the death of ailing Sharon to take over, with plans to attack Iran, while Ehud Olmert, 60, sits atop a brand-new party, the Kadima party, which Sharon created a few weeks ago, and expected to prove ephemeral without him. (Coincidentally, Netanyahu was in London on July 7, 2005, where he received a warning not to leave his hotel room 30 minutes before the bombs went off).

U.S. Military Seizes Iraqi Reporter for 'The Guardian'
American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the London daily, The Guardian, and TV's Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.
Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning, the newspaper reports. He was released hours later.

Belafonte Calls Bush 'Greatest Terrorist'
CARACAS, Venezuela - The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush ``the greatest terrorist in the world'' on Sunday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday. Some in the group attended Chavez's television and radio broadcast Sunday. ``No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution,'' Belafonte told Chavez during the broadcast.

Genetically modified food--New study shows unborn babies could be harmed
Women who eat GM foods while pregnant risk endangering their unborn babies, startling new research suggests. The study found that more than half of the offspring of rats fed on modified soy died in the first three weeks of life, six times as many as those born to mothers with normal diets. Six times as many were also severely underweight. And last May this newspaper revealed a secret report by the biotech giant Monsanto, which showed that rats fed a diet rich in GM corn had smaller kidneys and higher blood cell counts, suggesting possible damage to their immune systems, than those that ate a similar conventional one. The Monsanto soya is widely eaten by Americans. Six times as many of the offspring of those fed the modified soy were severely underweight compared to those born to the rats given normal diets. Within three weeks, 55.6 per cent of the young of the mothers given the modified soy died.

Dick Cheney rushed to hospital

Dick Cheney was rushed to hospital before dawn today after suffering shortness of breath and apparent fluid retention. He was released about four and a half hours later. A spokeswoman said that doctors found Mr Cheney's electrocardiogram unchanged and determined that he was retaining fluid because of medication he was taking for a foot problem. Mr Cheney, 64, has a long history of cardiovascular disease and suffered his fourth heart attack in 2000. He has undergone various medical procedures to tackle the problem. (His heart was 10 sizes too small)
President Bush made no reference to Mr Cheney's condition at a press opportunity at the White House this morning to support Samuel Alito, his Supreme Court nominee. He also ignored a shouted question about Mr Cheney's health from a reporter.

The question of credibility

Alito's Credibility Problem
by Senator Edward Kennedy
Every Supreme Court nominee bears a heavy burden to demonstrate that he or she is committed to the constitutional principles that have been vital in advancing fairness, decency and equal opportunity in our society. As Judge Samuel Alito approaches his confirmation hearings next week, the more we learn about him, the more questions we have about the credibility of his assurances to us. Consider these five areas:
1. 1985 job application : Alito was 35 when he applied for an important political position with Attorney General Ed Meese during the Reagan administration. Alito sought to demonstrate his "philosophical commitment" to Meese's legal outlook. He wrote that the 1964 Goldwater presidential campaign had been his original political inspiration, even though he was only 14 at the time. His views on the law, he said, were inspired by his "deep disagreement with Warren Court decisions." He strongly objected to "usurpation by the judiciary" of the powers of the president, and supported the "supremacy" of the elected branches over the judiciary. Not surprisingly, Alito got the job.
The views expressed there raise serious concerns about his ability to interpret the Constitution with a fair and open mind. When this embarrassing document came to light, he faced a difficult decision on whether to defend his 1985 views or walk away from them. When I and others met him a short time later, he appeared to be renouncing them -- "I was just a 35-year-old seeking a job," he told me. But now he's seeking another, far more important job. Is he saying that he did not really mean what he said then?

2. Membership in "Concerned Alumni of Princeton." In 1972, the year Alito graduated from Princeton University, a group of wealthy alumni formed Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP) to resist the growing influx of female, African American, Hispanic and even disabled students who were changing the face of Princeton "as you knew it." The university's most famous alumnus of the day, basketball star and later U.S. senator Bill Bradley, was invited into CAP initially but quickly found it "impossible to remain a member" because of CAP's "right-wing" views. A special committee of alumni, which included future Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, accused CAP of presenting a "distorted and hostile" view of the university. Alito joined CAP about that time, despite its purposes and reputation, and remained a member through 1985, when he cited his CAP membership as another qualification to join the Meese inner circle. Alito now says he can't remember anything at all about CAP.

3. Failure to recuse himself in the Vanguard case : In 1990, during the confirmation process on his nomination to the 3rd Circuit, Alito disclosed that his largest investment was in Vanguard mutual funds. To avoid possible conflicts of interest, he promised us that he would recuse himself from any case involving "the Vanguard companies." Vanguard continues to be on his recusal list, and his investments in Vanguard funds have risen from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands. Nevertheless, in 2002 he failed to recuse himself when assigned to sit on a case in which three Vanguard companies were named parties and listed prominently on every brief and on his own pro-Vanguard opinion in the case. In this case, he and the White House have floated many excuses, but none provided any sensible explanation for his failure to keep his promise or follow his "personal practice" of recusing himself whenever there was any possible ethical question about his participation in a case.

4. His pledge to be absolutely impartial where the government is concerned : While chairing his confirmation hearings in 1990, I asked Alito how he could remain neutral in the cases that would come before him as a 3rd Circuit judge after his more than a dozen years of service representing the U.S. government. He stated that he would be "absolutely impartial" in all his cases. But in case after case involving the actions of U.S. marshals, IRS agents and other government officials, he has sided with the government and against the citizens, even when his fellow judges have told him he was off-base.

5. His promise to leave his personal beliefs behind when he became a judge : That's what he told me in 1990 he would do. But has he? In November 2000, at one of many Federalist Society meetings he spoke at, he indicated that he was a true believer when it came to the society's longstanding theory of an all-powerful executive. His endorsement of presidential power and his criticism of the Supreme Court for undermining it made clear that his philosophical commitment in 1985 still drives him.

Alito's words and record must credibly demonstrate that he understands and supports the role of the Supreme Court in upholding the progress we've made in guaranteeing that all Americans have an equal chance to take their rightful place in the nation's future. "Credibility" has rarely been an issue for Supreme Court nominees, but it is clearly a major issue for Alito.


The Pimping of the Presidency
Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist Billed Clients for Face Time with G.W. Bush
BY LOU DUBOSE, The Texas Observer

our months after he took the oath of office in 2001, President George W. Bush was the attraction, and the White House the venue, for a fundraiser organized by the alleged perpetrator of the largest billing fraud in the history of corporate lobbying. In May 2001, Jack Abramoff’s lobbying client book was worth $4.1 million in annual billing for the Greenberg Traurig law firm. He was a friend of Bush advisor Karl Rove. He was a Bush “Pioneer,” delivering at least $100,000 in bundled contributions to the 2000 campaign. He had just concluded his work on the Bush Transition Team as an advisor to the Department of the Interior. He had sent his personal assistant Susan Ralston to the White House to work as Rove’s personal assistant. He was a close friend, advisor, and high-dollar fundraiser for the most powerful man in Congress, Tom DeLay. Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the President. From the same two clients he took to the White House in May 2001, Abramoff also obtained $2.5 million in contributions for a non-profit foundation he and his wife operated.

Abramoff’s White House guests were the chiefs of two of the six casino-rich Indian tribes he and his partner Mike Scanlon ultimately billed $82 million for services tribal leaders now claim were never performed or were improperly performed. Together the six tribes would make $10 million in political contributions, at Abramoff’s direction, almost all of it to Republican campaigns of his choosing. On May 9, 2001, when he ushered the two tribal chiefs into the White House to meet the President, The Washington Post story that would end his lobbying career and begin two Senate Committee investigations was three years away. (When the Post story broke in February 2004, however, Abramoff and Scanlon, a former Tom DeLay press aide, were already targets of a U.S. Attorney’s investigation in Washington.) MORE

Tom Delay quits House LeadershipRep. Tom DeLay, the defiant face of a conservative revolution in Congress, stepped down as House majority leader on Saturday under pressure from Republicans staggered by an election-year corruption scandal.


Disgraced Congressman 'Wore a Wire'In a week when legislators are focused on the question of who else might be brought down by ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s cooperation with prosecutors as he seeks lenient sentencing over his two federal guilty pleas this week, sources tell TIME that in a separate investigation, ex-Rep. Randy Cunningham wore a wire to help investigators gather evidence against others just before copping his own plea.

British lawyers linked to $1m payment for favours at US Congress
A British law firm is at the centre of the investigation into America's biggest influence-buying scandal in decades.
The London-based solicitors, James & Sarch, channelled $1 million (£565,000) into a conservative United States pressure group linked to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist. The firm, which was dissolved in 2000, made the payment by a single cheque in June 1998 to the US Family Network, a now-defunct organisation that had close ties to the embattled Republican Congressman, Tom DeLay, and was largely funded by groups associated with Abramoff. The revelations that the $1 million is thought to have originated from Russian oil and gas executives seeking to shape US legislation have fuelled pressure for a shake-up in the Republican leadership in Congress.
Abramoff, until recently the most prominent Republican operative in the lucrative lobbying industry, pleaded guilty last week to fraud and conspiracy charges after agreeing to work with federal prosecutors. The deal has sent shock waves through Washington and is expected to lead to further charges against prominent political figures.
Christopher Geeslin, the then president of the US Family Network, has said that he was told by Ed Buckham, who was the group's organiser and who was Mr DeLay's former chief of staff, that the $1 million was paid on behalf of Russian energy entrepreneurs. They were, Mr Buckham reportedly said, seeking Mr DeLay's support for legislation backing an International Monetary Fund bail-out of the Russian economy. The Congressman denies any wrongdoing. Mr Buckham did not return a request to comment.

Groups accuse Army of Misleading Public
Several environmental and native Hawaiian groups are accusing the Army of misleading the public after the groups discovered that a heavy metal known as depleted uranium was recovered at Schofield Barracks' range complex. During a news conference yesterday, the groups said the Army has repeatedly assured the public that the heavy metal was never used in Hawaii.
"These recent revelations, then, indicate that the Army is either unaware of its DU (depleted uranium) and chemical weapons use or has intentionally misled the public. Both possibilities are deeply troubling," said Kyle Kajihiro, program director of the American Friends Service Committee and member of DMZ-Hawaii/Aloha Aina. Some members of the various groups read about the depleted uranium in e-mails detailing documents submitted in federal court in December, showing that heavy metals were found at Schofield Barracks' range complex area during clearing efforts.

Cheaper than executions
Some prisoners would be set free, but the most dangerous would be locked away and left to take their chances and the dead buried in mass graves if an Asian bird flu epidemic hits New Zealand's jails.
Government planning documents reveal that low-security prisoners would be released, but the most dangerous prisoners would be left at the mercy of the killer disease. Entire prisons would be sealed - nobody would be allowed in or out for up to six weeks - and mass graves would be dug in prison compounds to dispose of bodies. The proposals, details of which were obtained by the Sunday Star-Times, are part of Corrections Department contingency plans to deal with an Asian bird flu pandemic hitting New Zealand and its 7500 prison population.

What whores always say:

Abramoff was only doing what came naturally
ONE of the most puzzling things about the corruption scandal engulfing the US Congress is that Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who this week pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges, did almost nothing to hide what he was doing. Abramoff flaunted his wealth and influence.
John McCain, who is rated in opinion polls as the most popular politician in the country and is a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, has been pushing for reform of lobbying rules for five years. Senator McCain says that Americans are "becoming disenfranchised from their own democratic process. The deck is stacked against them in the halls of Congress where lobbyists, lawmakers, policy experts and a few pundits have created a cosy circle of influence," he said. "It's a circle of influence few ordinary citizens can ever hope to enter."
Talk about a cosy circle of influence: since 1998, more than 40 per cent of retiring members of Congress have gone to work for lobbying firms, on average salaries of more than $500,000.
The drug companies, for instance, have more than 600 Washington lobbyists. The Centre for Responsive Politics says the pharmaceutical industry contributed $306 million to congressional campaigns in 2003 and 2004, 60 per cent of it to Republicans. In that period, Congress passed the Medicare bill, designed to provide government-subsidised prescription drugs to US retirees. The Medicare scheme that the Bush Administration insisted would cost about $400 billion over 10 years is now expected to cost more than double that. This is because the legislation prohibits the Federal Government from negotiating with the drug companies on prices, which means there is virtually no brake on the scheme's costs.
An analysis of voting on the Medicare bill shows that the drug companies contributed more than three times as much to the re-election campaigns of members of Congress who voted for the bill as of those who voted against it.

Jack Abramoff, “Super Zionist”
Abramoff’s sleaziness is so brazen and off the charts as to be quite remarkable. As Newsweek's Issikoff reported last May, Abramoff funneled $140,000 from a charity to benefit inner-city youths to rabid Zionist Israeli settlers in the West Bank colonial outpost of Beitar Illit. “Among the expenditures,” Issikoff notes, “purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other material described in foundation records as ’security’ equipment,” but as we know (consistently underplayed by the Zionist-friendly corporate media) this sort of equipment is used by the rabid land-grabbing settlers to attack and often kill Palestinians, including Palestinian children. In other words, Jack Abramoff—if the FBI allegations are correct—is guilty of facilitating mass murder of Palestinian Arabs, not surprising since that’s what “super Zionists” do and have done for more than sixty years.
It should be no secret to those who pay attention that extremely (and fanatically) strong supporters of Israel control the foreign policy of the United States government. Unfortunately, a whole lot of Americans don’t pay attention.

Reid to keep donations from Abramoff clients

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid has no plans to return about $61,000 in political donations from clients of Jack Abramoff, the super lobbyist who has pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges.

9th Ward Residents Confront Planned Demolitions in New Orleans
In New Orleans, residents of one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods by Hurricane Katrina angrily confronted demolition workers Thursday. City officials said they were using equipment to clear streets and sidewalks of debris in the Lower Ninth Ward. But the machinery stoked fears among residents who have been struggling against the city’s plans to demolish 2500 homes with 3,000 more to soon follow. Ishmael Muhammed, an attorney for the residents, said: "The difference between a home and debris is nothing in this community. Until you can figure out that issue, there can be no demolition."

Falwell Confirms Lewinsky Affair Linked to Israeli Lobby Intrigue

Television evangelist Jerry Falwell couldn’t resist bragging and finally admitting the truth: he and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu did conspire—at a critical time—to trip up President Bill Clinton and specifically use the pressure of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to force Clinton to abandon pressure on Israel to withdraw from the occupied West Bank.

Justice Dept asks court to abandon US system of justice

The Bush administration notified federal trial judges in Washington that it would soon ask them to dismiss all lawsuits brought by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, challenging their detentions, Justice Department officials said Tuesday.

Bush Guilty Of Treasonably Impeachable Offense

"The whole point of the McCain Amendment was to close every loophole," said Marty Lederman, a Georgetown University law professor, who served in the Justice Department from 1997 to 2002. "The President has re-opened the loophole by asserting the constitutional authority to act in violation of the statute."

Scooter Libby, Larry Franklin, the OSP and Sibel Edmonds - What's It All About?

For all those who have been trying to keep up with (and make sense of) the story of Sibel Edmonds, the woman who learned terrible things while translating for the FBI, blew the whistle and was promptly fired and gagged with the court invented "state's secrets privilege," there is good news. It seems clear at this point that the many scandals of the neoconservatives who lied us into Iraq, as Edmonds told me last August 13, are connected together. It seems more and more likely that her half-told portion is the puzzle piece to hold them all together, though many questions indeed remain.

Anger as Britain admits it was wrong to blame Iran for deaths in Iraq

MPs and soldiers' families have demanded an explanation from the Government after a U-turn over claims that Iran was complicit in the killing of British soldiers in southern Iraq.

Wal-Mart monkey biz
Wal-Mart stirred outrage yesterday when its Web site suggested that shoppers who wanted to buy a "Planet of the Apes" DVD would be interested in biopics of famous black Americans like Martin Luther King Jr. & Dorothy Dandridge.

The awful truth

Public Citizen: Bush Should Account for Abramoff Campaign Donations
In other news from Washington, Republican Party officials announced President Bush will donate to charity $6,000 in campaign contributions connected to lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The watchdog group Public Citizen has called on Bush to provide a full accounting of the sources of political contributions raised by Abramoff. In 2004, Bush designated Abramoff a "Pioneer" for raising over $100,000 for his campaign. (Why don't they just create a fund for the Native American tribes Abramoff ripped off?)

Read Wayne Madsen's updated GOP SCANDAL SCORECARD
a state-by-state list of corruption & scandals.

Running For Cover: Bush, Frist, Hastert, House Maj. Leader Blunt, Former Leader DeLay, Nay

As politicians led by President Bush scrambled to ditch campaign contributions from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich cautioned Republicans they risk losing control of congressional majorities if they try to put all the blame on lobbyists.

"You can't have a corrupt lobbyist unless you have a corrupt member (of Congress) or a corrupt staff. This was a team effort," Gingrich told a Rotary Club lunch in Washington on Wednesday. He called for systematic changes to reduce the enormous financial advantages that incumbents have in congressional elections.

CRONYISM REPORT:
Bush Defies Congress, Makes Series of Recess Appointments
President Bush defied Congress on Wednesday and made a series of controversial recess appointments. (This seems to be a trend, first Bolton, now these people). Bush tapped former Navy Secretary and defense contractor Gordon England to become deputy defense secretary to fill the post once held by Paul Wolfowitz.
He also appointed Dorrance Smith to become the Pentagon's chief spokesman assistant secretary for public affairs. In April Smith wrote a controversial article for the Wall Street Journal in which he claimed there is an ongoing relationship between al Qaeda, al-Jazeera and U.S. tv networks. (Oh yeah, those bastions of "Liberal" sentiments, ABCNNBCBS--is this just some sort of effort to stop them from reporting anything resembling real news?) He wrote "This partnership is a powerful tool for the terrorists in the war in Iraq."
Bush also appointed Julie Myers to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau at the Department of Homeland Security. She is the niece of former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard Myers and the wife of the chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Bush Reserves Right To Order Torture of Prisoners
Last week President Bush officially signed a bill outlawing torture of detainees. While the bill signing received significant press coverage, what Bush did following the signing has not. According to the Boston Globe, Bush quietly issued what is known as a signing statement in which he lays out his interpretation of the new law. In this document Bush declared that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. Legal experts say this means Bush believes he can waive the anti-torture restrictions. New York University Law Professor David Golove criticized Bush's move. He said ''The signing statement is saying 'I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it's important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me.' "

Gov't To Give FISA Judges Classified Briefing on Domestic Spying
The Washington Post is reporting that Justice Department and intelligence officials will give a classified briefing on Monday to members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. President Bush has admitted he has bypassed the court and ordered the National Security Agency to conduct domestic spy operations without the legally required court-approved warrants. Last week one judge on the FISA court resigned in protest over the secret spying program.


New laws penalize charities which help illegal immigrants & feed people in unauthorized locations. Perhaps the government believes they can manipulate these people with their funding. I guess this is why the Feds only want to fund "faith-based" charities. They may find that they will encounter unexpected resistance from real humanitarians:
Making Charity Illegal
The GOP's rush to crack down on illegal immigration takes ever more vindictive turns. New legislation has been introduced in the House that would make illegal immigration a felony. Apparently that includes priests and pastors ministering to immigrants, as the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has pointed out:

... the application of criminal penalties to individuals, including U.S. citizens, who assist aliens without legal status could jeopardize church programs which provide basic needs and life-saving assistance to these individuals. Current federal law does not require humanitarian groups to ascertain legal status of an individual prior to providing assistance. However, in our view, the provisions in Section 202 of the legislation would place parish, diocesan, and social service program staff at risk of criminal prosecution simply for performing their job. It also could apply to health care personnel or U.S. citizens who provide urgent or life-saving assistance to an undocumented individual.

Did the Good Samaritan check the immigration status of the "certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho"? Should he spend five years in jail for not doing so? Are we so desperate to keep out Hispanics looking for a better life that we would criminalize humanitarianism?
Update: Steve Benen, who is guest-blogging over at Kevin Drum's place, nicely captures the rather absurd politics of the House bill:

"Indeed, in a manner of speaking, this is a Republican "faith-based initiative" gone awry. For all the talk about empowering churches to create "armies of compassion," House Republicans have endorsed legislation that essentially tells ministries, "We want you to help those in need, but if one of the needy turns out to be in the country illegally, be prepared to go to jail."

Dallas: Volunteers fed up with feeding rules
City wants more homeless to seek help; groups worry they won't
Beginning Feb. 1, volunteers face fines of up to $2,000 for feeding homeless people outside designated areas. New city regulations aiming to stop makeshift soup kitchens like Mr. McIntyre's from setting up on streets, in camps and under bridges went into effect Sunday.
Groups that feed the homeless said they oppose being told by the city where they can feed people. Volunteers expressed so many concerns about the rules that the city postponed the changes. Mr. McIntyre and others worry; they say many homeless people will not go inside shelters, even for something to eat, because of paranoia, other mental illnesses or distrust.
His is one of an estimated 200 groups that take food to homeless people downtown, and some of them simply pull over on the street and hand sandwiches out of their cars. Dallas County has an estimated 6,000 homeless residents. "It's just another way to give us grief," Mr. McIntyre said, adding that his group works to pick up trash from its feedings. "What are [the homeless] going to do? Eat out of the Dumpster?"
Ben Allen, who showed up for the chicken noodle soup Mr. McIntyre's group served at South Ervay and Hickory streets recently, said he was not sure what he would do without the free meals being brought to him. He earns little income from work he picks up while staying at the Bunkhaus, a dormitory for day laborers near the group's feeding site. "I think it's good food, and they're real nice to bring it here," he said.
Garry Nelson, who coordinates a weekly meal for Servants of Our Lord, a ministry based in Mesquite, said his group plans to move to a private parking lot to avoid a citation. The city's ordinance allows groups to serve meals on private property if they have written permission from the owner. Mr. Nelson said that lately police have shown up at the organization's 6:30 a.m. Sunday meals and asked them to move off the streets despite little traffic at that hour. Mr. Nelson said he went through the food-handler class but refused to sign a paper promising to feed in the city's designated sites. "You're not going to corral all the homeless in a shelter; it's not going to happen," he said. "All of them know about the services, and they use them when they need them. But most of them don't care about that kind of stuff."
(Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?)

The scum rises to the top

Clip of Letterman tearing into O'Reilly on Letterman's website!
"...60% of what you say is crap."

Hastert donates Abramoff-linked money
Lawmakers rush to shed financial ties to tainted lobbyist

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert became the latest lawmaker to dump campaign contributions from clients of high-flying lobbyist Jack Abramoff, giving about $70,000 to charity Tuesday. The donation came after Abramoff pleaded guilty to corruption charges and agreed to cooperate with a federal corruption investigation in Washington.
"The speaker believes that while these contributions were legal, it is appropriate to donate the money to charity," a spokesman for the Illinois Republican, Ron Bonjean, said. Bonjean did not specify which group or groups would receive the money. Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion charges in an agreement with federal prosecutors that could have a wide-reaching effect in Washington. Abramoff is a former College Republican chairman with longstanding ties to top Republicans in Washington, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, conservative activist Grover Norquist and former Christian Coalition chief Ralph Reed. A source close to the probe said investigators are looking at about a half dozen members of Congress, while a senior government official told CNN the probe involves about two dozen lawmakers and staffers. Sources told CNN that Abramoff might have thousands of e-mails in which he describes the influence-peddling in which he was involved and explains what lawmakers were doing in exchange for the money he was putting into their campaign coffers.Abramoff's guilty plea comes as Democrats head into the 2006 congressional elections by blasting what they call a "culture of corruption" surrounding the Republican leadership.
About two-thirds of the more than $4.4 million in political donations from Abramoff, his clients and associates since 1998 went to Republicans, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign-finance watchdog group. A search of Federal Election Commission records since 1998 found no personal donations from Abramoff to Democrats.
Republican Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana told The Washington Post in December that he would return $150,000 in contributions from Abramoff, his clients and associates. Burns is up for re-election in November, and state Democrats have been hammering him over his ties to the lobbyist
DeLay's political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, has returned $5,000 from Abramoff, according to federal election records. The Texas congressman gave up his leadership post in September after his indictment on charges that he improperly steered corporate money into the state's 2002 legislative races -- a case unrelated to Abramoff's. DeLay's trial in Texas on money laundering charges is pending. He has pleaded not guilty.
And North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan said in December that he would return $67,000 in donations from Indian tribes Abramoff represented. Dorgan, the ranking Democrat on the Indian Affairs Committee that investigated Abramoff's dealings with his tribal clients, told a North Dakota newspaper that he would not keep any money that "could have been the result of any action Mr. Abramoff might have taken." He praised the Justice Department for securing Abramoff's plea agreement, saying in a written statement Tuesday that it "confirms much of the work that we have done and much of what we have found."

New York Times:
It's Not Personal, Jack, It's Strictly Business
by Maureen Dowd

WASHINGTON--The sight of Jack Abramoff striding out of federal court here yesterday, looking like a stocky gangster from a 40's movie in black fedora and trench coat, may seem like the strongest evidence so far of how graft and hubris have overwhelmed the capital.
It could have been a scene from "The Godfather," a favorite film of the felonious lobbyist. The Washington Post reported that he "did business with people linked to the underworld," bilked Indian tribes of tens of millions and then lavished a bundle in tribal gambling profits on greedy members of Congress.
The Post said Mr. Abramoff loved to amuse colleagues by imitating Michael Corleone as he rejected a corrupt politician's demand for a share of Mafia gambling money: "Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this: nothing." But just because this is a scale of amorality and blatant sale of government that astonishes even Washington cynics, why look on the dark side?
The Abramoff plea bargain may have left his former business partners and political pals panicking, wondering if the rat will rat them out. The Republican congressmen Tom DeLay and Bob Ney are among the sleazy solons caught up in the scandal, and the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, scrambled yesterday to launder $69,000 in dirty Abramoff contributions, donating the wad to charity. And then there's Ralph Reed, the choirboy Bible thumper who used his links to Christian groups to immorally play Indian tribes off against each other.
But looking at the big picture, in some ways the imperial presidency is working out quite well for everyone. Think about it: all those congressmen don't really need to do their jobs anymore. With the president able to make war more or less as he chooses, treat the enemy as he sees fit and snoop on Americans at will, our representatives have more time for the duty many are clearly best suited to: playing golf gratis in Scotland. (Remember how the White House press used to give poor Bill Clinton such a hard time about mere mulligans?)
Now that Dick Cheney has freed Congress from the bother of advising and/or consenting, lawmakers can work on new ways to game the system and wallow in the G.O.P.'s culture of corruption - while tut-tutting about the decline in American moral values.
Since the Republican-run Capitol doesn't have to worry about holding the Bush White House accountable for excesses in torture and spying and the other myriad ways it has placed itself above the law, congressmen have more leisure hours for Abramoff successors to treat them to some Redskins games and steak dinners. Checks and balances are now as quaint as the Geneva Conventions. Congress is complicit in putting its thumb on the scale for the executive branch.
The Post reported that W. had taken advantage of an innovation started years ago by Samuel Alito Jr. to shore up executive privilege. As a young Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, Mr. Alito created a strategy that has the president declare what laws mean when he signs them. Mr. Alito wanted the courts to focus as much on the president's interpretation of a law as on what he called "legislative intent." W. has issued at least 108 such statements, The Post said, rejecting "provisions in bills that the White House regarded as interfering with its powers in national security, intelligence policy and law enforcement." And since the imperial presidency is run by the vice president, W. has a lot of free time to do the things he likes to do. Confined with his wife and mother-in-law at the Crawford ranch, he spent his Christmas vacation mountain-biking and clearing brush.
He left the ranch for a brief visit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he kidded in a way that again showed his jarring lack of empathy with the amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan: "As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself - not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch. As a matter of fact, the colonel asked if I needed first aid when she first saw me. I was able to avoid any major surgical operations here, but thanks for your compassion, colonel."
W. also used the occasion to defend the Nixonian eavesdropping program that even made John Ashcroft and his deputy, James Comey, skittish. As The Times reported, Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales had to make an emergency trip to see the reluctant Mr. Ashcroft in the hospital in March 2004 to get the program recertified because Mr. Comey had balked.
You know you're in trouble when John Ashcroft is worried about overreaching.

Click on headlines to listen to these related interviews on Democracy Now!:
The Biggest Congressional Scandal in Over a Century? GOP Lobbyist Jack Abramoff Pleads Guilty to Three Felony Counts
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff admitted to defrauding at least four Native American tribes of tens of millions of dollars, bribing government officials and evading taxes. Abramoff has reportedly agreed to testify against several members of Congress who received favors or donations from him or his clients. Washington analysts say the corruption scandal could take down as many as twelve lawmakers. We speak with Peter Stone, a staff reporter for the National Journal, about the details of the case.
Congress on Edge As Abramoff Agrees to Testify About Widespread Corruption on Capitol Hill
We take a closer look at who benefited from their ties to Jack Abramoff inside Congress. The Wall Street Journal is reporting Abramoff says he has information that could implicate 60 lawmakers. One Republican lawmaker -- Congressman Robert Ney of Ohio -- has already been subpoenaed. We speak with researcher Judd Legum about the lawmakers involved
Native American Tribes Attempt to Recover After Being Defrauded of Tens of Millions by Abramoff
Former U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who served as chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that investigated the scandal, and Tigua tribal governor Arturo Senclair, of one of the Indian tribes defrauded by Abramoff, discuss the Native American tribes embroiled in the Abramoff scandal. They hired Abramoff to represent them in Washington regarding casino and gambling issues. As their lobbyist, Abramoff instructed the tribes to make political donations to certain politicians and recommended they hire former aide of Tom DeLay, Michael Scanlon, as their publicist.
Forced Abortions & Sweatshops: A Look at Jack Abramoff's Ties to the South Pacific Island of Saipan & How Tom DeLay Became An Advocate for Sweatshop Factory Owners
We speak with ABC News' Brian Ross who exposed in 1998 the horrific labor conditions in the U.S. territory of Saipan. At the time, Jack Abramoff was Saipan's hired gun on K Street and Tom DeLay was one of the island's chief advocates on Capitol Hill. DeLay backed the sweatshop owners even though it was exposed that the factory was forcing women to have abortions and treated workers like indentured servants. (isn't DeLay opposed to abortion??????)


U.S. military 'shuts down' soldiers' blogs
Nowadays, milbloggers "get shut down almost as fast as they're set up," said New York Army National Guard Spc. Jason Christopher Hartley, 31, of upstate New Paltz, who believes something is lost as the grunt's-eye take on Tikrit or Kabul is silenced or sanitized.

White House to withdraw funding for rebuilding Iraq
The US government is not planning to continue funding reconstruction projects in Iraq, in what appears to be a major climbdown from the White House's one-time pledge to build the best infrastructure in the region. According to officials cited in yesterday's Washington Post, the Bush administration will not be adding construction funds to the $18.4bn (£10.7bn) it has allocated since the 2003 invasion. In future it will be up to other foreign donors and the Iraqi government to do what it can to complete even basic tasks such as supplying reliable electricity and water to the country's 26 million people.
It is a badly kept secret that reconstruction has gone badly. Essential services have been very slow in coming back on line and roughly half the money earmarked for reconstruction has been diverted into the military effort against the insurgency. The newspaper quoted Brigadier General William McCoy, the commander overseeing construction projects, saying the US funding was never meant to be more than a "jump-start ... The US never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," he said.
If confirmed, the withdrawal of reconstruction funds from America would be a further signal that the Bush administration is looking at ways to lessen the US commitment to Iraq as it faces increasing political pressure to start finding a way out. It is also one further sign that US ambitions for Iraq have been thwarted by realities on the ground. Iraq's oil production, seen before and after the war as a key strategic asset, has been so hampered by infrastructural problems and sabotage that it remains significantly lower than it was at the time of the invasion. The output of Iraq's national electrical grid is also lower than it was prior to the invasion. The average Iraqi household has electricity for only half the day at best - and in Baghdad there is electricity for no more than six hours a day.
* The Lincoln Group - set up by Christian Bailey, an Oxford graduate - has been paying Sunni clerics for consultations on how to write pro-US propaganda that would persuade Sunnis to participate in elections and oppose the insurgency. The company received $100m from the US government to place the stories.

The $4bn industry that is America's guilty secret

...The other key ingredient is money, the colossal sums needed to fight election campaigns. In Britain, the curbs on such spending are strict. In America, by contrast, the sky's the limit. Total spending for the 2004 elections, presidential and congressional, reached $4bn. The trade-off is simple. Corporate and other donors provide cash in a bid to secure the legislation they want. The intermediaries between the two sides are lobbyists. And the more people a lobbyist knows on Capitol Hill, the more effective he or she is. Unsurprisingly, ever increasing numbers of them are former legislators. The Washington-based pressure group Centre for Public Integrity, says almost 250 former Congressmen and senior government officials are now active lobbyists.

Let's Stop a US/Israeli War on Iran
The "normal political forces" in both the U.S. and Israel have become badly distorted. Democracy has been seriously undermined in both. The cowboy-like personalities and aggressive tendencies of both countries' leaders tend to feed on each other. Domestic political difficulties and coming elections in both countries probably add to the macho inclination of the ruling elites to use force to remove any problems facing them. The glue binding these tendencies together is the ever-strengthening institutional link between defense establishments and military-industrial complexes in both countries, as well as, in the U.S, the growing power and influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) over both major political parties. The entire mix increases the probability, against all common sense, that this absurd war will actually happen. Nothing else more dangerous to the world, to the Middle East, to the oppressed Palestinians, or to the true interests of the United States is happening today -- anywhere. Americans who do not want an eruption of a new world war, started by our own government, ought to be strongly lobbying the Bush administration and all members of Congress against supporting any military action by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. Globally, people who oppose such a war should be lobbying their own governments in similar fashion.

Whistleblower from NSA speaks

National Security Agency Whistleblower Warns Domestic Spying Program Is Sign the U.S. is Decaying Into a “Police State”
Listen to interview on Democracy Now!:
Former NSA intelligence agent Russell Tice condemns reports that the Agency has been engaged in eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court warrants. Tice has volunteered to testify before Congress about illegal black ops programs at the NSA.
Tice said, “The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state."

Justice Dept. Investigates NSA Spy Leak
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the disclosure of the Bush administration’s secret program to spy on Americans and foreign nationals without court-approval warrants. Prosecutors say the investigation will focus on who may have leaked classified information to the New York Times, which broke the story last month.

Attorney Generals Held Up Parts of Spy Program in 2004
Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting a top Justice Department official held up approval of the secret spy program over concerns about its legality and oversight. In March 2004, acting Attorney General James Comey refused to sign on to the program's continued use. Comey was serving in place of then-Attorney General John Aschroft while Ashcroft was hospitalized. Comey's refusal prompted senior Presidential aides Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales to visit Aschroft in his hospital room to grant the approval. The Times reports Ashcroft expressed reluctance to sign off on the program. It is unclear if he eventually relented. Both Ashcroft and Comey's concerns appear to have led to a temporary suspension of parts of the program for several months, the Times says.

Bush Support Dropping Among Armed Forces
Meanwhile, a new poll by the magazine group Military Times shows support for President Bush among US armed forces has fallen over ten percent in the last year. The survey found support for Bush's overall policies at 60 percent, down from 71 percent. Support for the Iraq war for is at 54 percent - down from 63 percent. The Times says the poll found “diminished optimism that US goals in Iraq can be accomplished, and a somewhat smaller drop in support for the decision to go to war in 2003."

Four Demonstrators Killed in Oil-Cost Protest Near Kirkuk
Elsewhere in Iraq, armed forces have killed four Iraqis demonstrating against the country’s drastic increase in oil prices. It is unclear if the demonstrators were killed by US or Iraqi forces. The shootings occurred in the northern village of Rahinawa, near Kirkuk.
An unidentified relative of one of the dead said: "They killed my brother. I was standing in the streets about 10 metres away from him and they wouldn't let me go near his body. They dragged him out of his car with other residents and they were treating them like they weren't human beings."
Outrage has erupted across the country as Iraq has seen a five-fold increase in oil prices in recent weeks. (From 5 cents to 65 cents per gallon). The increase is attributed to the elimination of Iraq’s oil subsidies, as required by a debt relief deal Iraq’s interim government signed with the International Monetary Fund.
and, just by coincidence:
Chalabi Appointed Iraq Oil Minister
In related news, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi has been named interim oil minister. Chalabi was appointed to replace Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, who was forced out after publicly criticizing the IMF deal. This is the second time Chalabi has held the oil minister position.

Turkey Denies Reports US Seeks Bases To Strike Iran
In Turkey, the government is denying newspaper reports the United States has asked to use local military bases for possible attacks on neighboring Iran. Several newspapers have reported high-level U.S. officials have visited Turkey in recent months to prepare from Turkish-based strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. The officials have included the heads of both the CIA and FBI. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also expected to visit the country in the coming weeks. In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the reports have: "no connection with reality."

Lincoln Group Paid Sunni Scholars To Assist Pro-Military Propaganda
In other Iraq news, the New York Times has revealed controversial Pentagon contractor the Lincoln Group has been paying Sunni religious scholars for assistance with its propaganda efforts. The company is already under investigation over the disclosure it secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to publish American-authored articles favorable to the U.S. military. That investigation is reportedly complete; military officials told the Times an initial assessment concluded the military was "operating within our authorities and the appropriate legal procedures."

Happy New Year