Somebody stop this corruption!

House Blocks Measure to Investigate Abramoff-Linked Lawmakers
On Capitol Hill, the House blocked a measure proposed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to investigate members of Congress linked to Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The measure was tabled by a vote of 216 to 193. Abramoff was sentenced this week to 70 months in prison on fraud charges stemming from his purchase of a Florida casino. Abramoff is still awaiting sentencing on federal charges of bribing government officials and defrauding at least four Native American tribes out of tens of millions of dollars.

Pentagon blocked move to make water safer
The Pentagon stalled efforts to clean water supplies contaminated by a carcinogenic chemical despite evidence that it posed a significant health risk to millions of people, it was reported yesterday.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigated the solvent, trichloroethylene, extensively used on military bases, after significant quantities were found in water supplies. In its report, published in 2001, the EPA found it to be 40 times more likely to cause cancer than had been previously thought, and recommended tough safety standards to limit public exposure. There was also evidence the chemical played a role in birth defects.

Pentagon Spends $1.62B On Propaganda, Ads
The Pentagon hired agencies to do everything from designing Web sites, drafting a logo for the Air Force to placing ads for leisure travel, bowling and "football frenzy." The U.S. Army spent millions of dollars in media messages and staff to promote the "strategic perspective in the Global War on Terrorism."

New Orleans Levee Cost Estimate Rises to $10 Billion
The government has announced the reconstruction of New Orleans’ levees will cost around $10 billion dollars – nearly three times more than originally forecast. The higher costs mean several Gulf Coast areas may not be protected when hurricane season begins in two months. Louisana Democratic Congressmember Charlie Melancon criticized the revised cost, saying: “Now all of a sudden they say they made a $6 billion mistake?" The news comes as the Bush administration announced Thursday it may take up to 25 years to repair New Orleans.

Army Bans Use of Privately Bought Armor
The Pentagon has announced it will no longer allow soldiers to wear body armor other than what is given to them as part of their army service. Thousands of soldiers and their families have turned to purchasing extra armor amid complaints they have not been equipped with adequate protection. A secret Pentagon study last year concluded that up to 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from upper-body wounds could have survived had they been given extra body armor. The Pentagon says it is banning outside armor because of concerns soldiers are purchasing untested or insufficient gear.
Army officials told The Associated Press that the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies — including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor.

Imperial overreach is accelerating the global decline of America
It is clear that the US occupation of Iraq has been a disaster from almost every angle one can think of, most of all for the Iraqi people, not least for American foreign policy.
The promotion of the idea of the war against terror as the central priority of US policy had little to do with the actual threat posed by al-Qaida, which was always hugely exaggerated by the Bush administration, as events over the last four and a half years have shown. Al-Qaida never posed a threat to the US except in terms of the odd terrorist outrage. Making it the central thrust of US foreign policy, in other words, had nothing to do with the al-Qaida threat and everything to do with the Bush administration seeking to mobilise US public opinion behind a neoconservative foreign policy.
"A broad and energetic promotion of democracy in other countries that will not enjoy our long-term and guiding presence may equate not to peace and stability but to revolution ... There is no evidence that we or anyone can guide from afar revolutions we have set in motion. We can more easily destabilise friends and others and give life to chaos and to avowed enemies than ensure outcomes in service of our interests and security."

US debt clock running out of time, space
Sometime in the next two years, the total amount of US government borrowing is going to break through the 10-trillion-dollar mark and, lacking space for the extra digit such a figure would require, the clock is in danger of running itself into obsolescence.

Actor & Director Ed Asner Shares 9/11 Concerns
Award winning director, producer and actor Ed Asner is the latest high profile public figure to voice his support for Charlie Sheen's stance on 9/11 and share his own concerns about 9/11, the war in Iraq and the Neo-Cons

Venezuelan Government To Launch International 9/11 Investigation
The US government attempted to sabotage the trip by putting Rodriguez, who has been decorated at the White House itself, and Walter on a no fly list.

New York Admits To Routine Videotaping of Political Rallies
The city of New York has revealed undercover police officers have been routinely videotaping political demonstrations over the last two years. The city maintains the surveillance was legal under police authority expanded in 2003 to stop terrorist attacks. At a court hearing this week, one city attorney said the taping was necessary because rallies could become targets of terrorist attacks. But Jethro Eisenstein, a civil rights lawyers challenging the videotaping, said the policy was "Orwellian," and accused the city of adopting "a bullying view of the terrorism threat to block critical thinking."

Iraqi girl tells of US attack
Iman tells of screaming soldiers entering her house in the Iraqi town of Haditha spraying bullets in every direction. Fifteen people in all were killed, including her parents and grandparents. Her account has been corroborated by other eyewitnesses who say it was a revenge attack after a roadside bomb killed a marine.
Collective punishment is a war crime.

War deserter tells of atrocities
In Canada, a US soldier who fled to avoid serving in Iraq is having his asylum case heard in front of an immigration board. Josh Key, who served in Iraq for eight months, said he decided to desert military service after witnessing several atrocities commited by the US military. In an interview with the BBC, Key said: "The only people that were getting hurt was the innocent; that was innocent Iraqi people, as well as innocent soldiers."
Key, the father of four young children, told the hearing he joined the army for steady pay and medical coverage for his family. He said he initially went to Iraq as a willing participant because he believed U.S. intelligence claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But Key became disillusioned with the war during his service and decided to abandon his contract with the army during a two-week leave from Iraq in November 2003.

US to test 700-ton explosive
Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. (So when they destroy the bunkers full those weapons, they'll create mini-Chernobyls? What if they spent all this time thinking of ways to improve life on this planet?)

"If you start looking at them as humans, then how are you gonna kill them?"
They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.

US Media Bias: Covering Israel/Palestine

Why are “left wing” media outlets such as The New York Times and CNN not reporting the Palestinian side of the story? Well the simple answer is The New York Times and CNN are not liberal, nor honest. They cover injustices only when there is no risk of backlash from readers and advertisers. The media moguls are only “aware” and objective when it pays them to be. CNN and The New York Times must vet their content, so as not to be viewed as “pro-Palestinian,” in fear that advertisers will pull their ads or commercials, leading to a loss in revenue.

5 Justices appear to reject Admin. argument

Justices Hint That They'll Rule on Challenge Filed by Detainee
As the justices of the Supreme Court took their seats Tuesday morning to hear Osama Bin Laden's former driver challenge the Bush administration's plan to try him before a military commission, one question — perhaps the most important one — was how protective the justices would be of their jurisdiction to decide the case. The answer emerged gradually, but by the end of the tightly packed 90-minute argument, it was fairly clear: highly protective
At least five justices — Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens — appeared ready to reject the administration's argument that the Detainee Treatment Act, passed and signed into law after the court accepted the case in November, had stripped the court of jurisdiction.
Lawyers for the former Bin Laden driver, a Yemeni named Salim Ahmed Hamdan who is charged with conspiracy, argue that he cannot properly be tried before any military commission for that crime because conspiracy is not recognized as a war crime.
Solicitor General Paul D. Clement was on the defensive throughout his argument. His stolid refusal to concede that any of the government's positions, on the jurisdictional as well as ultimate questions of the case, might present even theoretical problems provoked the normally soft-spoken Justice Souter into an outburst of anger.
What appeared to trouble Justice Souter most was Mr. Clement's discussion with Justice Stevens about whether Congress's removal of the federal courts' jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from detainees at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, amounted to "suspending" the writ of habeas corpus. Suspending habeas corpus is an action, limited by the Constitution to "cases of rebellion or invasion," that Congress has taken only four times in the country's history. Habeas corpus is the means by which prisoners can go to court to challenge the lawfulness of their confinement, and its suspension is historically regarded as a serious, if not drastic, step.
Mr. Clement's position was that Congress had not in fact suspended habeas corpus, but that it might constitutionally have done so given "the exigencies of 9/11."

Addressing Justice Stevens, the solicitor general said, "My view would be that if Congress sort of stumbles upon a suspension of the writ, that the preconditions are satisfied, that would still be constitutionally valid."
Justice Souter interrupted. "Isn't there a pretty good argument that suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is just about the most stupendously significant act that the Congress of the United States can take," he asked, "and therefore we ought to be at least a little slow to accept your argument that it can be done from pure inadvertence? ...You are leaving us with the position of the United States that the Congress may validly suspend it inadvertently. Is that really your position?"
The solicitor general replied, "I think at least if you're talking about the extension of the writ to enemy combatants held outside the territory of the United States —— "
"Now wait a minute!" Justice Souter interrupted, waving a finger. "The writ is the writ. There are not two writs of habeas corpus, for some cases and for other cases. The rights that may be asserted, the rights that may be vindicated, will vary with the circumstances, but jurisdiction over habeas corpus is jurisdiction over habeas corpus."

Justice Breyer, in his questioning of Mr. Clement, practically begged the solicitor general to endorse an alternative approach that would allow the court to avoid "the most terribly difficult and important constitutional question of whether Congress can constitutionally deprive this court of jurisdiction in habeas corpus cases."
....
Justice Kennedy was questioning Mr. Clement on the government's position that even if the court had jurisdiction, it should abstain from ruling on the validity of the military commission until after Mr. Hamdan's trial. Justice Kennedy said he found the argument troubling, pointing out that Mr. Hamdan was arguing that because the commissions lacked the procedures required by the Geneva Conventions, they were invalid. "The historic office of habeas corpus is to test whether or not you're being tried by a lawful tribunal," Justice Kennedy said. "And he says, under the Geneva Convention, as you know, that it isn't."
Mr. Clement replied that Mr. Hamdan could raise that argument later, before the military commission itself. He predicted that the argument would fail and said that in any event, there was no reason "why that claim has to be brought at this stage."
Mr. Clement argued that the detainee law would allow a detainee to argue in federal court, after a conviction by a military commission, that the commission's procedures were illegal or unconstitutional.
Justice Ginsburg then asked him to "straighten me out." She said, "I thought it was the government's position that these enemy combatants do not have any rights under the Constitution and laws of the United States."
"That is true, Justice Ginsburg," the solicitor general answered.
Mr. Hamdan's lawyer, Mr. Katyal, appeared to get traction with his argument that conspiracy, with which Mr. Hamdan and nine other detainees awaiting military commissions have been charged, is not an appropriate crime for a trial before a military commission. If a majority agrees, this might provide a narrow way of resolving the case.
In many respects, the argument marked a resumption of the encounter between the court and the Bush administration two years ago, in cases that led to the court's rejection of the administration's claim to broad authority to proceed without judicial oversight. The administration was once again seeking "fundamentally open-ended authority," the "blank check" the court had rejected then, Mr. Katyal said.

US asked to cede control to Iraqis

Iraqis Accuse U.S. of Massacre At Shiite Mosque
Iraqi officials are accusing the U.S. military of massacring at least 16 Shiite worshippers during a raid on a Shiite mosque Sunday night.The Guardian newspaper reports the killings have opened the biggest rift yet between the United States and Iraqi Shiites. Shiite leaders have suspended talks over forming a new Iraqi government. Iraq’s Interior Minister called the U.S. raid unjustified and horrible.
The leading Shiite governing alliance is urging the U.S. to return full control of security to Iraqis.
The Baghdad provincial governor has suspended all cooperation with U.S. forces.
"The occupiers should be bought to account for this despicable crime,” said Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Shwaili. “It is committed by the occupiers against unarmed worshippers and we urge the Iraqi government to take an honest and positive stand towards this vicious attack against Islam and the worshippers."
Despite the political outcry, the U.S. military defended the raid on Monday. One official described it as a "hugely successful" operation against an insurgent hideout.
The U.S. has denied its troops killed any Iraqis and said the massacre was staged.

U.S. commanders in Iraq on Monday accused powerful Shi'ite groups of moving the corpses of gunmen killed in battle to encourage accusations that U.S.-led troops massacred unarmed worshippers in a mosque. Giving the first U.S. military briefing on Sunday's events in Baghdad, Chiarelli said the raid by about 50 Iraqi special forces troops backed by some 25 U.S. "advisers" had been the fruit of long intelligence work. But he said he did not know the religious affiliation of 16 "insurgents" who were killed.

US asked to cede Iraq control
IRAQ'S ruling parties have demanded US forces cede control of security as the government investigated a raid on a Shiite mosque complex that ministers said involved "cold blooded" killings by US-led troops.

80 Iraqis Die on Monday
Overall Monday saw the deaths of at least 80 Iraqis across the country. 40 died in a suicide car bombing at a joint U.S.-Iraqi military base near Mosul and Tal Afar. Writing in the Independent of London, journalist Patrick Cockburn says that there is a “growing sense among many U.S. soldiers that all Iraqis are their enemies."


New York Times Finally Reports On Secret Iraq Memo
In Washington the White House is denying reports that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed in January 2003 to attack Iraq regardless of whether diplomatic efforts at the United Nations succeeded or whether inspectors found weapons of mass destruction
According to the contents of a once-secret British memo, Bush penciled in the start date of the invasion to be March 10.
The contents of the memo first became public almost two months ago in the book “Lawless World” by British international law professor Philippe Sands. But the memo received little attention by mainstream media in this country until Monday when the New York Times ran a front-page article.

Senate Committee Approves New Immigration Bill
On Capitol Hill the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved an immigration bill that would allow the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in this country a chance to work here legally and eventually become U.S. citizens.

Judge Refuses to Delay April 22 Election in New Orleans
In New Orleans, a federal judge has refused to delay the city’s April 22nd mayoral election despite concerns from the NAACP and other groups that many Hurricane Katrina evacuees will be disenfranchised. Tens of thousands of Katrina evacuees will only be able to vote by absentee ballot. Efforts to set up satelittle polling stations in areas with large evacuee populations such as Houston have been blocked. The Associated Press recently reported there are more registered New Orleans voters currently living in Houston than actually living in New Orleans.

Amnesty: Over 150 Have Died Because of Taser Guns
In other news, Amnesty International is renewing its calls for a ban on Taser stun guns. The group estimates more than 150 people have now died in the United States over the past five years after being shot by police armed with Tasers.

Ex-Generals Call for Scalia To Be Recused From Gitmo Case
In Supreme Court news, a group of retired U.S. generals and admirals has asked Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself from a case that will decide whether the Bush administration can use military tribunals to try detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison.
Oral arguments in the case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, are scheduled for today. The generals are seeking Scalia’s recusal because he recently gave a speech in Switzerland, where he dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions. During the speech Scalia said he was "astounded" at the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to Guantanamo. Supreme Court Chief justice John Roberts has already recused himself from the case because he heard the case before when he was a federal judge.

U.S. Willing to Deploy Combat Troops to Colombia
On March 24, Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson told Colombia’s Radio Caracol that, while the United States would not initiate any unilateral military action to capture FARC leaders, it would intervene if invited by the Colombian government.

Iraq left to rebuild itself
"Having destroyed Iraq, the US now refuses to put it back together again," he said. "This decision reflects the disastrous reality of the US occupation for the Iraqi people as it is obvious there won't be peace until the US leaves. Meanwhile, the makeover of the Iraqi economy has been completed."

Virginia Training Manual Lists Property Rights Activists As Terrorists
A Virginia training manual used to help state employees recognize terrorists lists anti-government and property rights activists as terrorists and includes binoculars, video cameras, pads and notebooks in a compendium of terrorist tools.

US legislator group give Rice final say over UN
The US pays 22 per cent of the regular budget of about USD 1.8 billion annually excluding contribution to the peacekeeping which is determined seperately.

Card resigns as White House chief of staff
White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Joshua Bolten, President Bush announced Tuesday amid growing calls for a White House shakeup and Republican concern about Bush's tumbling poll ratings.
I wonder how close Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation is coming to this guy?

BALDWIN RAGES AT HANNITY

ACTOR Alec Baldwin stormed out of WABC's talk-radio studios Sunday night after a vicious verbal battle with Sean Hannity. The activist actor, who was road-testing his own potential talk show, called Hannity a "no-talent whore" an an "incredibly ignorant boob from Long Island. Hannity called Baldwin - a favorite punching-bag for conservatives - on the air just as he was beginning his show, and that's when the fur started to fly. "At first I thought this was a joke," Baldwin told his co-host, Brian Whitman. Hannity, furious that Baldwin allegedly broke a promise to appear on his show before Whitman's, wasted no time ripping into the liberal activist.
"Welcome to WABC, considering you were supposed to come on my program last week and you didn't show. What happened?" Hannity demanded.
"Why would I want to come on with a no-talent, former-construction-worker hack like you?" Baldwin answered.
"Are you the reckless, third-rate Hollywood actor who said our vice-president, while we're at war, is a terrorist? Are you the guy?" Hannity asked. "No wonder you didn't come on my program and defend it, you gutless coward."
Baldwin, who refused to answer pointed questions about several political statements, told Hannity he had no problem appearing with Hannity's Fox News Channel colleague, Bill O'Reilly. "Now, O'Reilly's show I did because O'Reilly has talent," Baldwin said, falling silent.
"I challenge you [to] come on my program, to say on my program that our president is a mass murderer. You don't have the courage," Hannity said.
"You won't talk to Sean?" Whitman pleaded.
"What's the point? What's there to say? Let's do to Sean what Sean would do to a caller. Sean, are you done, honey? Best of luck, Sean, you no-talent whore," Baldwin taunted.
"Coward," Hannity responded.

The New Dark Ages

Radioactive Tank No. 9 comes limping home
Across the plains of Kansas, destroyed, radioactive Abrams tanks, perched on railroad flatcars, rolled towards an uncertain future. Only one thing was certain. They would be radioactive forever. This would be their everlasting death mask. The Pentagon deceptively calls it "depleted uranium." The enduring vigorous stupidity of the U.S. military pretends that radiation is one of those things that if you can't see it, it can't hurt you. They are thoroughly delusional, of course. A National Academy of Sciences report released June 30, 2005, finds that there is no safe level of radiation. Any radiation is bad. Another explanation is that the U.S. Army and other branches of the military are far from stupid. They are, in fact, the most lethal and carefully planned military in the history of the world. The extensive use of weaponized uranium oxide gas, aerosols and dust is not an accident or an oversight. They did it on purpose. If this is true, they purposely used a genocidal weapon over at least a 15-year period. No, this is not a callous mistake of empire; it is a calculated act of genocide to weaken the oil- and gas-rich countries of Central Asia, including Iraq.

Bush Signs Statements to Bypass Torture Ban, Oversight Rules in Patriot Act
When President Bush signed a law banning torture he quietly signed a statement saying he could bypass it. Earlier this month, Bush signed the USA Patriot Act but signed a statement that said he did not consider oversight rules binding.

U.S. Accused of Killing 17 in Raid of Shiite Mosque
Conflicting reports are coming out of Baghdad over a U.S.-backed raid killed around 17 supporters of the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Iraqi police said U.S. troops raided a Shiite mosque. (That's why Iraqi police are showing up dead).
One eyewitness said, "American and Iraqi forces came after prayers with some other people and opened fire." The U.S. military has said none of its troops entered the mosque but admitted that U.S. special forces troops were at the scene advising Iraqi troops.

Khalaf, a 33-year-old security officer guarding oil pipelines, saw a US helicopter land near his home. American soldiers stormed out of the Chinook and advanced on a house owned by Khalaf’s brother Fayez, firing as they went. Khalaf ran from his own house and hid in a nearby grove of trees. He saw the soldiers enter his brother’s home and then heard the sound of women and children screaming.
“Then there was a lot of machine gun fire,” he said last week. After that there was the most frightening sound of all — silence, followed by explosions as the soldiers left the house. Once the troops were gone, Khalaf and his fellow villagers began a frantic search through the ruins of his brother’s home.
Abu Sifa was about to join a lengthening list of Iraqi communities claiming to have suffered from American atrocities. According to Iraqi police, 11 bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the house, among them four women and five children aged between six months and five years.
An official police report obtained by a US reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers said: “The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people.” The Abu Sifa deaths on March 15 were first reported last weekend on the day that Time magazine published the results of a 10-week investigation into an incident last November when US marines killed 15 civilians in their homes in the western Iraqi town of Haditha. The two incidents are being investigated by US authorities, but persistent eyewitness accounts of rampaging attacks by American troops are fuelling human rights activists’ concerns that Pentagon commanders are failing to curb military excesses in Iraq.

Sending mentally ill soldiers back to Iraq:
Reckless disregard for soldiers' welfare and for Iraqi lives
The military is putting pressure on mental health professionals treating these soldiers to minimize the extent of their problems and to declare them fit for return to Iraq and combat. Army doctors are reporting that they are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of the more serious post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Further, the article reports that professionals treating emotionally disturbed soldiers “are under pressure” to approve their redeployment to Iraq.


Sliding towards the vortex
"Have you noticed how Bush, Blair, and the right-wing columnists have shifted their rhetoric over the last few weeks? Not so long ago their whole Iraq dialogue was about evil Sunni Baathist terrorists. Now it’s all about evil Iranian Shiites and they’re saying the Tehran mullahs are supplying the roadside bombs used to target Coalition troops.
Of course, that’s sillier than absurd. In fact, the pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq are currently the Coalition’s only allies – apart from the Kurds – and the puppet Iraqi army is recruited mostly from their followers. The people fighting the occupation are Sunnis and Baathists. Every half-bright person in the world knows that."

IAEA tells US to bug off!
But reflecting exasperation, a senior agency official dropped such reservations Saturday as he called the U.S. claims that an agency briefing on the advances made by Iran on enrichment was a bombshell "pure speculation and misinformation."

FEMA Reneges On Promise to Reopen No-Bid Katrina Contracts
FEMA has broken a promise to reopen four multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts awarded to politically connected companies. Shortly after the hurricane hit, FEMA gave major no-bid contracts to Bechtel, Shaw Group, Fluor and the company CH2M Hill. FEMA vowed to rebid the contracts after legislators criticized the no-bid contracts because two of the companies had close political ties to the White House. The Shaw Group’s lobbyist was Joe Allbaugh. He is the former director of FEMA and a personal friend of President Bush. (He's also Mike "Brownie" Brown's old college roommate).The CEO of Bechtel, Riley Bechtel, previously served on Bush's Export Council.

South Dakota Activists Aim to Overturn Abortion Ban
In South Dakota, a petition drive has been launched to overturn the state’s new ban on abortion. The South Dakota Campaign For Healthy Families is aiming to collect enough signatures to bring the abortion question to a statewide referendum in November. The state’s governor recently signed legislation making South Dakota the first state to ban women from receiving abortions except in cases where it will save a woman’s life. Under the law doctors will face up to five years in prison and a five thousand dollar fine for performing an illegal abortion.

Abramoff Probe Widens to MurderStill left untouched: Why supposed 9-11 mastermind Mohammed Atta was a regular visitor on Abramoff's casino ship in the weeks before 9-11?

Jack Abramoff To Be Subpoenaed in Murder Case
Former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is expected to soon be subpoenaed to answer questions about the mob-style killing of Gus Boulis in 2001. Months before the killing Abramoff and a partner bought the Sun Cruz Casinos from Boulis. Abramoff has never been charged in the killing but a lawyer for one of the men accused of the crime wants to question Abramoff in court.

Meatpacker Sues Feds Over Mad Cow Test
A Kansas meatpacker sued the government on Thursday for refusing to let the company test for mad cow disease in every animal it slaughters. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef says it has Japanese customers who want comprehensive testing. The Agriculture Department threatened criminal prosecution if Creekstone did the tests, according to the company's lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. (Why is the Department of Agriculture nervous that consumers will discover with this additional testing?)


Barbara Bush Directed Katrina Donation to Son’s Company
Meanwhile it has been revealed that when First Lady Barbara Bush donated money for Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston, her donation came with specific instructions: part of it had to be spent on buying educational software from her son Neil Bush's company, Ignite Learning. (To benefit the REAL VICTIMS of Katrina).

Scalia: Guantanamo Detainees Have No Rights
Questions are now being raised as to whether Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia should recuse himself from an upcoming case about the U.S. military prison at Guantanano Bay. Newsweek is reporting Scalia recently gave a speech in Switzerland, where he dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions. During the speech Scalia said he was "astounded" at the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to Guantanamo. Scalia said "War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts." (I believe that in the past they were called "Prisoners of War" and were covered by the Geneva Conventions.)
Asked whether detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have protections under international conventions, Scalia replied, "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son, and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy."
On Tuesday the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a case that will decide whether the Bush administration can try Guantanamo detainees in special military tribunals. Two years ago Scalia recused himself from a case about the Pledge of Allegiance after he made public comments about the issue.

Justice Scalia flips the finger in church
(UPI) -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics. A Boston Herald reporter asked the 70-year-old conservative Roman Catholic if he faces much questioning over impartiality when it comes to issues separating church and state.
"You know what I say to those people?" Scalia replied, making the obscene gesture and explaining "That's Sicilian." The 20-year veteran of the high court was caught making the gesture by a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston's newspaper. "Don't publish that," Scalia told the photographer, the Herald said.

Gitmo holding M15 spies?

Guantanamo Bay Briton was MI5 spy, court is told
Daniel McGrory / London Times | March 24 2006
Flashback: Meet the world's most dangerous terrorists
Flashback: Terror Expert 7-7 Mastermind was working for British Intelligence
THE Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been forced into an embarrassing change of heart over its refusal to press for the release of a British resident held at Guantanamo Bay after the High Court was told yesterday that he had links to MI5. Bisher al-Rawi, 37, who has lived in Britain for more than 20 years, says that he was working for British Intelligence when he was picked up by the CIA during a trip to Africa.
The Government has said that as foreign nationals the men have no legal right to the assistance they are demanding. But the Foreign Office said yesterday that Mr al-Rawi’s case was now regarded as different. “The Foreign Secretary considered it appropriate to reconsider Mr al-Rawi’s request that he make representations to the US,” it said.
Mr al-Rawi, an Iraqi national, and his Jordanian business partner, Jamil el-Banna, who was granted refugee status in 2000, were picked up in Gambia three years ago and accused of trying to set up an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp. Both men claim that they were asked by British Intelligence to infiltrate an organisation run by a London-based radical cleric, Abu Qatada.

L.A. video catches hospital 'dumping' homeless patient at skid row

For many months, Los Angeles city officials have complained that regional hospitals are dropping off their indigent patients in the city's tough Skid Row area. On Wednesday, officials at a homeless shelter released a videotape that allegedly catches one hospital in the act. The incident has become part of an ongoing investigation that could result in criminal or civil penalties.

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement
When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

82% agree with Charlie Sheen that the U.S. government covered up the real events of the 9/11 attacks
Poll in left column, so far out of 19,136 votes, 82% of respondants said "yes".
CAST YOUR VOTE: http://www.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/23968.exclude.html

Sioux Tribal Leader to Allow Abortions on Tribal Land in S. Dakota
In South Dakota, the leader of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation has reportedly announced plans to allow Planned Parenthood to open a clinic on the reservation in defiance of the state's new ban on abortion. Cecilia Fire Thunder, who is a former nurse, said the clinic will be allowed to open because the state has no jurisdiction over tribal lands.

U.S. Rounds Up All Adult Males in Iraqi Village
Meanwhile to the west of Baghdad, over 1,000 U.S. troops have surrounded a village near Abu Ghraib. After the town was cordoned off, U.S. soldiers conducted house-to-house searches and rounded up the entire adult male population of the town. Soldiers handcuffed and then interrogated every man in the village. After questioning, each man was marked with an X on the back of their necks. One U.S. colonel defended the operation saying "What we're doing is building a Michelin guide to the area."

Los Angeles Prepares For Massive Protest Against Immigration Bill
In Los Angeles protest organizers are predicting as many as 500,000 people will demonstrate on Saturday against a new anti-immigrant law being considered by Congress. The House of Representatives has approved legislation that would criminalize 11 million undocumented immigrants and make it a crime for priests, nuns, health care workers and other social workers to offer them help.

Scientist discovers that evolution is missing from Arkansas classrooms

Teachers at his facility are forbidden to use the “e-word” (evolution) with the kids. They are permitted to use the word “adaptation” but only to refer to a current characteristic of an organism, not as a product of evolutionary change via natural selection. They cannot even use the term “natural selection.” Bob feared that not being able to use evolutionary terms and ideas to answer his students’ questions would lead to reinforcement of their misconceptions. But Bob’s personal issue was more specific, and the prohibition more insidious. In his words, “I am instructed NOT to use hard numbers when telling kids how old rocks are. I am supposed to say that these rocks are VERY VERY OLD ... but I am NOT to say that these rocks are thought to be about 300 million years old.” (Guess they can't be any older than when the Bible was first written????)

Sheen: "The worm is turning"

SHEEN: WHAT 9/11 HIJACKERS?

March 23, 2006-- NEW YORK POST
Charlie Sheen gave an interview on GGN Radio Network's conspiracy-minded "The Alex Jones Show," in which he suggested that the federal government was covering up what "really" happened on 9/11.
"It seems to me like 19 amateurs with boxcutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75 percent of their targets, that feels like a conspiracy theory. It raises a lot of questions," Sheen said. "A couple of years ago, it was severely unpopular to talk about any of this. It feels like from the people I talk to, and the research I've done and around my circles, it feels like the worm is turning."
Sheen said the collapse of the Twin Towers looked like a "controlled demolition." The out-there actor also expressed his disbelief over how one of the planes hit the Pentagon.
"Just show us how this particular plane pulled off these maneuvers . . . It is up to us to reveal the truth. It is up to us because we owe it to the families, we owe it to the victims, we owe it to everyone's life who was drastically altered, horrifically, that day and forever. We owe it to them to uncover what happened."

Another Civilian Massacre? U.S. Launches Investigation After Iraqi Police Accuse U.S. Troops of Murdering 11 Men, Women and Children Last Week
The U.S. military has launched an investigation into the killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces in a raid last week. Iraqi police have accused American troops of murdering 11 civilians in the assault. The dead included five children and four women and ranged in age from 6 months to 75 years old. Click on the above link to hear a Democracy Now interview with the Knight Ridder reporter who broke the story.

The Return of Black Bag Searches? Oregon Attorney on Why He Feels Federal Agents Broke into His Home and Office to Conduct Clandestine Searches
Attorney Thomas Nelson discusses his lawsuit against the National Security Agency and his evidence that the Bush administration's secret domestic surveillance is much broader than reported and may include secret physical searches.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what you believe happened to you?

THOMAS NELSON: Well, beginning in about January or February of last year, there were increasing indications that both my office in Portland, Oregon, and later my home, had been visited. A person with whom I share the office, another attorney, on several occasions found a person in the office, going into my office, who didn't appear to be authorized to do so. These events continued, including indications that our home had been visited in our absence, because of anomalies with the burglar alarm, to the point where the more I thought about it, the more I thought I should raise this to somebody.

My concerns were in part related to my prior representation of Brandon Mayfield, who had similar visits by law enforcement personnel when he was wrongly accused of being involved in the Madrid train bombing. He, of course, was exonerated. But in that interim, he and his family noted that his home and his office had been visited. They had concrete evidence of that, and ultimately the F.B.I. admitted to it. I assume that the same thing was happening to me, and I wanted at least to register an objection with the United States Attorney, who is responsible for conducting or overseeing those kinds of searches. Apparently, however, the N.S.A. was at that time conducting operations also, and I now believe that it was the N.S.A., not the F.B.I., that was involved.

NYPD Caught Lying About RNC Arrests in 2004
In New York, the police response to the Republican National Convention protests is continuing to come under criticism. For the first time a high-ranking police supervisor has admitted that police arrested about 400 people around Union Square even though the police never gave an order to disperse. The disclosure was made in a deposition made by Deputy Inspector James Essig. On Wednesday the New York Civil Liberties Union accused the police of lying about the circumstances surrounding the arrests of hundreds of protesters during the Republican National Convention.

Army Dog Handler Sentenced to Six Months For Abu Ghraib Abuse
An Army dog handler has been sentenced to six months in prison for abusing Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. The sergeant, Michael Smith, was photographed using un-muzzled dogs to terrify detainees. He could have been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison but he was given a far shorter sentence. Smith is the 10th low-ranking soldier convicted of taking part in the widespread abuse at Abu Ghraib. To date no high-ranking officer or anyone in civilian command has been held accountable for what happened at the prison.

New Report Criticizes New Medicare Prescription Program
In medical news, the Los Angeles Times reports one of the first independent studies of the new Medicare prescription benefit law has concluded that many low-income California seniors have access to a narrower range of drugs than when the state covered their medications.

Nearly 100 Disabled Activists Arrested At Nashville Protest
In Tennessee, the capitol building in Nashville was forced to close its doors to visitors after several hundred protesters, many of them in wheelchairs, blockaded nearby streets. Nearly 100 of the protesters were arrested during what was the second day of demonstrations organized by the group Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs, or ADAPT. ADAPT is opposing recent cuts to healthcare funding in the state that disenrolled 330,000 residents from the state's health insurance program.
Babs Johnson, a longtime member of ADAPT, speaking by cell phone from the midst of a protest on Tuesday: "The state spends 160 dollars on institutional placement for every dollar that goes into community services, and we want to change that."

New Orleans Remains Without Emergency Hurricane Shelter
In news on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, officials in New Orleans are warning that the city remains without any emergency hurricane shelters -- even though the hurricane season begins in about two months. Additionally, a new study estimates as many as a half million Katrina evacuees might need mental health counseling to deal with stress-related issues.

Court Rejects Giving Puerto Ricans Right to Vote for President
In Washington the Supreme Court has rejected an effort to give residents of Puerto Rico the right to vote in U.S. presidential elections. "No territory of the United States has ever been able to participate in the presidential elections of the United States of America," Puerto Rican political analyst Juan Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua. "That fact only serves to underscore that Puerto Rico is now in the thinking of the United States Supreme Court a miserable colony of the United States."

IRS Audited Greenpeace At Request of ExxonMobil-Funded Group
Wall Street Journal is reporting that a fake watchdog group, largely subsidized by ExxonMobil, was responsible for getting the IRS to audit the environmental organization Greenpeace. Two years ago the little known Public Interest Watch challenged Greenpeace's tax exempt status and accused the group of money laundering and other crimes. According to the Journal, tax records show ExxonMobil provided more than 95 percent of the funding of Public Interest Watch. John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA said "I believe organizations should be scrutinized and audited, but I just don't believe you should get targeted because you're a critic of Exxon Mobil."

Pentagon to Use Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman to Store Military Supplies
Military analyst William Arkin has revealed the Pentagon has developed a ten-year plan to store munitions and equipment in at least six countries in the Middle East and Central Asia in order to be prepared for future military conflicts. The countries include Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman as well as a classified Middle Eastern country west of Saudi Arabia. According to Arkin, the military will use the sites to store everything from missiles to pre-packaged ready to eat meals.

South Korean Farmers Protest Expansion of U.S. Base
Meanwhile in South Korea, a group of activists and farmers are planning four days of demonstrations outside the U.S. military base Camp Humpreys. The South Korean government has taken legal control over 2,000 acres of nearby farmland to enable the U.S. to triple the size of its base. Many local farmers are refusing to abandon their homes and land.

American Arrested for Bolivian Bombing
In Bolivia, an American man has been arrested along with an Uruguayan woman for bombing two hotels in La Paz. Two people died and at least seven were injured in the blasts. The attacks were denounced by the Bolivian government. President Evo Morales said "This American was putting bombs in hotels. The U.S. government fights terrorism, and they send us terrorists." Police initially identified the American as 24-year-old Claudio Lestad of New Orleans but he reportedly used several other names. Police said the he might be mentally ill.
(Or he might be a CIA operative).

GM Offers Buyouts to 113,000 Unionized Workers
In labor news, cut backs in the auto industry are continuing. General Motors has announced plans to offer early retirement buyouts to all of its 113,000 unionized workers here in the United States. The plan - which has the backing of the United Auto Workers - will also affect workers at the auto supplier Delphi. General Motors is trying to eliminate 30,000 hourly jobs by 2008.

Massive Food Shortage Forces Gaza Residents to Ration Food
In Gaza, the Guardian newspaper is reporting widespread bread rationing has been introduced because of a severe food shortage. Israel has cut off deliveries of flour and other essential items for most of the past two months. One UN official said food ration coupons are needed because stores lack flour, sugar, oil, milk and other basic items. It is estimated that two thirds of the bakeries and many restaurants in Gaza have been forced to close.

THE BIG FLIP-FLOP

Bush Says He Didn’t Link Saddam Hussein to 9/11
As poll numbers continue to show decreasing public support for his presidency and the war in Iraq, President Bush appealed Monday for patience. Speaking in Ohio, Bush said he could "understand people being disheartened" but implored Americans to see signs of progress. During the question period, the President was asked about the pre-war claim Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 attacks. Bush responded: "First-just if I might correct a misperception, I don't think we ever said, at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September 11th and Saddam Hussein."
Critics immediately lashed out at the President’s remarks. In a letter to Congress delivered three years ago today, President Bush wrote: “The use of armed forces against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”

Iraq: The big lie
Bush and Rumsfeld robotically repeat their Iraq talking points, ignoring the fact that their ambassador and generals are contradicting them
On the eve of the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq President Bush began the fourth of his series of speeches in his second term attempting to articulate his strategy for the war. None of his previous explanations had succeeded in bolstering public confidence, so he tried again. "The battle lines in Iraq are clearly drawn for the world to see," he said, "and there is no middle ground."
Yet Bush's speech provided a text contradicting his own key officials. The president contradicts U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, contradict the president.
At the same time, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld blithely contradicts the Joint Chiefs on the entire strategy. Rumsfeld explained that the current "war on terror" is just like the Cold War. "We had to steel ourselves against an expansionist enemy, the Soviet Union, that was determined to destroy our way of life," he said. "Though this era is different, and though the enemy today is different, that is our task today." Such is the "perspective of history," he claimed.
(Did you know that Rumsfeld & Cheney were the primary proponents for demonizing Russia during the Cold War when they worked under Ronald Reagan?)
Francis Fukuyama, neocon philosopher and signer of the original statement of the neocon Project for the New American Century, has produced a succinct synopsis of his disillusionment, "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy."
"I did not like the original version of Leninism and was skeptical when the Bush administration turned Leninist."
Fukuyama chastises the neocons for believing that all societies and cultures share universal aspirations and can rapidly undergo the same path of modernization. He describes the administration's "bureaucratic tribalism" as "poisonous," and blames its close-mindedness for its failures.

A Collapsing Presidency by Paul Craig Roberts
Neocons don’t believe in diplomacy. They believe in coercion. Neocons denigrate diplomacy as the epitome of weakness. Neocons slap down diplomacy before it can rise. The Iranians offered talks, and neocon National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley immediately slapped down the offer as "simply a device by the Iranians to try to divert pressure that they are feeling." The Bush neocons are bent on war with Iran. They don’t want any talks. In their books, neocons have demonized Muslims in the same way that the Nazis demonized Jews. Demonization makes talks impossible.

FBI Agent says Superiors obstructed, ignored warnings that could have prevented 9/11
This news from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui – An FBI agent testified Tuesday the government ignored warnings that could possibly have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Greg Samit, who arrested Moussaoui in August 2001, said he spent four weeks trying to convince his superiors Moussaoui posed a security risk. According to Samit, the warnings were made at least seventy times, and FBI officials were even told of a specific threat of a plane attack on the World Trade Center. But Samit said his efforts were stonewalled. Samit blamed his superiors’ "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism" for blocking "a serious opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks."
Kind of like how the administration tried obstructing and blocking the 9/11 investigation???

Actor Charlie Sheen Questions Official 9/11 Story
Charlie Sheen has joined a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it.

United States no longer leads the world
Highlighting the US’s opposition last week to the creation of a new UN Human Rights Council, Mrs Robinson said: "It illustrates the seismic shift which has taken place in the relation of the US to global rule of law issues. Today, the US no longer leads, but is too often seen merely to march out of step with the rest of the world."

For Sale By Bush Admin: 300,000 Acres Of National Wilderness
| The Huffington Post

Depleted Uranium In India, Spreading Worldwide
We are still waiting to see if any of the nations in Europe wake up to the fact that they got "peppered" with DU too, since the Aldermaston DU would have to have come across them to have made it to the UK.

Military probes killing of Iraqi family
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Tuesday it was investigating Iraqi police allegations that its soldiers shot dead a family of 11 in their home last week. Soldiers said they killed four people, including a militant.
The probe began a day after a magazine published allegations that U.S. Marines killed 15 civilians in another town last year. A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week.
Time magazine published accounts by townspeople saying troops went on a rampage after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, west of Baghdad, in November. The witnesses rejected an original U.S. account that the 15 also died in the bomb blast.
"I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head," one child said. "Then they killed my granny."

FORGET IRAN, THE PROBLEM'S AT HOME
The much greater threat to the US currency is the US current account deficit, which ballooned to 7% of gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2005. The announcement drove the euro up to 1.202 against the US dollar as skittish traders renewed their concerns about the world's fiat currency.

Religious fanaticism out of control
Two of the country's bigger pharmaceutical companies Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have developed and proven the safety of a vaccine that prevents a common sexually transmitted disease called human papillomavirus (HPV). Strains of HPV are known to cause cervical cancer in early adulthood. The vaccine needs to be administered to girls before they become sexually active, which is an average age of 17. (Frankly, this sounds like just another excuse to sell vaccinations. Have they been using teenaged guinea pigs in other countries to test it?)
And therein lies the rub for the religious base of the Republican Party that George Bush and company have installed in crucial posts in the health department. That base and George W. Bush himself steadfastly adheres to the proposition that kids need to practice abstinence. In their eyes, anything from promoting the use of condoms to giving young girls vaccinations against sexually transmitted diseases only encourages promiscuity among young people.

The words of a prophet -- still relevant

EDWARD R. MURROW

RTNDA Convention Speech
Chicago
October 15, 1958

EXCERPTS:

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.
I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.
For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive.
I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry's program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.
I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation. Heywood Broun once said, "No body politic is healthy until it begins to itch." I would like television to produce some itching pills rather than this endless outpouring of tranquilizers.

But this nation is now in competition with malignant forces of evil who are using every instrument at their command to empty the minds of their subjects and fill those minds with slogans, determination and faith in the future.
If we go on as we are, we are protecting the mind of the American public from any real contact with the menacing world that squeezes in upon us. We are engaged in a great experiment to discover whether a free public opinion can devise and direct methods of managing the affairs of the nation. We may fail. But we are handicapping ourselves needlessly.

Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.

We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of those who finance and program it.

The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And it promises its own reward: good business and good television. Perhaps no one will do anything about it. I have ventured to outline it against a background of criticism that may have been too harsh only because I could think of nothing better.

I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us.
We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small traction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure--exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation.

To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

Booby Trapped

Capture of a "suicide bomber"?
US Security Contractor arrested with booby-trapped car in Tikrit
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American described as a security contractor arrested by police in a northern Iraqi town was carrying weapons in his car, a provincial official said. Abdullah Jebara, the Deputy Governor of Salahaddin province, told Reuters the man was arrested in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on Monday. He was removed from the provincial government building by U.S. forces on Tuesday, Jebara said.
The Joint Coordination Center between the U.S. and Iraqi military in Tikrit said the man, whom it described as a security contractor working for a private company, possessed explosives which were found in his car. It said he was arrested on Tuesday. The man, driving a BMW, was stopped by police for violating a daytime curfew in Tikrit, a security source said. American security personnel rarely travel alone.
A spokesman for the major crimes unit in Tikrit said the man was first brought to their headquarters but they refused to take him into custody. The arresting police were told to take the man to the provincial council building, the spokesman said, where he was taken by American forces.
U.S. officials had no immediate comment.

The War Dividend: The British companies making a fortune out of conflict-riven Iraq
British businesses have profited by at least £1.1bn since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years ago, the first comprehensive investigation into UK corporate investment in Iraq has found.
Aegis, which provides private security has earned more than £246m from a three-year contract with the Pentagon to co-ordinate military and security companies in Iraq. Erinys, which specialises in the same area, has made more than £86m, a substantial portion from the protection of oilfields.
The evidence of massive investments and the promise of more multimillion-pound profits to come was discovered in a joint investigation by Corporate Watch, an independent watchdog, and The Independent.
The findings show how much is stake if Britain were to withdraw military protection from Iraq. British company involvement at the top of Iraq's new political and economic structures means Iraq will be forced to rely on British business for many years to come.
A total of 61 British companies are identified as benefiting from at least £1.1bn of contracts and investment in the new Iraq. But that figure is just the tip of the iceberg; Corporate Watch believes it could be as much as five times higher, because many companies prefer to keep their relationship secret. The waters are further muddied by the Government's refusal to release the names of companies it has helped to win contracts in Iraq.
Top 10 British firms profiting from Iraq

Judge Unexpectedly Halts Moussaoui Trial
An angry federal judge considered Monday whether to dismiss the government's death penalty case against confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui after a federal attorney coached witnesses in violation of her rules.

Chernobyl: A poisonous legacy
Twenty years after a blast in the nuclear plant at Chernobyl spread radioactive debris across Europe, it has been revealed that 375 farms in Britain, with 200,000 sheep, are still contaminated by fallout. After two decades, the legacy of the Chernobyl disaster is still casting its poisonous shadow over Britain's countryside. The Department of Health has admitted that more than 200,000 sheep are grazing on land contaminated by fallout from the explosion at the Ukrainian nuclear plant 1,500 miles away. Emergency orders still apply to 355 Welsh farms, 11 in Scotland and nine in England as a result of the catastrophe in April 1986. The revelation comes as Mr Blair prepares to make the case for nuclear power in a forthcoming government Energy Review.

WBAL Radio cancels Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh, one of the most popular and polarizing radio personalities of recent years, has been sacked in Baltimore. WBAL-AM Radio has canceled Limbaugh's syndicated call-in talk show, saying it wants to focus on local news and hosts. It is the first station to cancel the show, which is heard in nearly 600 markets, according to Limbaugh's syndicate, Premiere Radio Networks. According to Arbitron, which rates radio stations, Limbaugh's audience share on WBAL dropped 27 percent last fall compared to fall 2004.
Limbaugh, however, was No. 1 for his time slot among adult males, Beauchamp said. "But his ratings are not at the lofty level they once were. There's no doubt Rush is an American icon," he said. "It's not a personal thing, it's not a political thing. It's about being successful and giving listeners want they want."

The tide of public opinion is turning, and pretty close to D.C. at that.

THE ANNUAL FICTION REPORT
Last week, the U.S. came out with its annual human rights report for the world. The only difference between this year’s and those of the recent past is the elimination of Iraq as being the world’s most vile abuser of human rights. Otherwise, the same culprits are mentioned: China, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and a quickly ascending Venezuela.Here are a few statements from the report:

The Chinese government’s human rights record "remained poor and the government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses." The Chinese government displays a trend towards "increased harassment, detention and imprisonment of people seen as threats to the government." The report pointed out "opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were harassed, restrictive laws on the media, and the use of the judicial system for political ends."

The Chinese responded, "As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights situations in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but kept silent on the serious violations of human rights in the United States."
Hugo Chavez’ response was accurate, but much shorter than that of the Chinese. He called the U.S. report nothing more than "toilet paper."

Arming Iraq and the Path to War

This is an accurate chronology of United States' involvement in the arming of Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. It is a powerful indictment of the current Bush administration attempt to sell war as a component of his war on terrorism. It reveals our ambitions in Iraq to be just another chapter in the attempt to regain a foothold in the Mideast following the fall of the Shah of Iran. Excerpts:

• February 1982. Despite objections from Congress, President Reagan removes Iraq from its list of known terrorist countries.
• November 1983. A National Security Directive states that the U.S would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing its war with Iran.
• October 1983. The Reagan Administration begins secretly allowing Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt to transfer United States weapons, including Howitzers, Huey helicopters, and bombs to Iraq. These shipments violated the Arms Export Control Act.
• November 1983. George Schultz, the Secretary of State, is given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops are daily using chemical weapons against the Iranians.
• December 20 1983. Donald Rumsfeld, then a civilian and now Defense Secretary, meets with Saddam Hussein to assure him of US friendship and materials support.
• September 1988. Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State: "The US-Iraqi relationship is... important to our long-term political and economic objectives."
• December 1988. Dow chemical sells $1.5 million in pesticides to Iraq despite knowledge that these would be used in chemical weapons.

How did these stories fall thru the cracks?

US soldier's rape sentence cut due to Iraq stress
ROME (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy was given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others. (Wait--shouldn't that mean a stiffer sentence, to keep him away from the general public?) According to an Italian court document obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, James Michael Brown, a 27-year-old paratrooper from Oregon stationed in northern Italy, was sentenced to five years and eight months for rape in February 2004. Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian resident in the town of Vicenza. He raped her vaginally and anally and left her to wander the streets naked in search of help.
The crime would have earned him an eight-year sentence, but the judges reduced the penalty due to the "extenuating circumstances" of the psychological effects of Brown's year of service in Iraq, the document said. Brown, who is being held at a U.S. military prison in Mannheim, Germany, may never serve his rape sentence as, under Italian law, he may be allowed to return to the United States pending an appeal to the conviction.
In a detailed explanation of the reasons for the sentence, the judges said U.S. soldiers in Iraq faced "a guerrilla war against an invisible enemy, conducted using all means, to which there is still no end in sight, which is extremely wearing for the occupation troops. For about a year, the professional role of parachutist Brown was not just to kill and capture the enemy, but also to avoid unpredictable ambushes set using all kinds of methods. The prolonged psychological stress to which the accused was subjected and the lowered importance he ended up giving to the life and wellbeing of those around him can only have influenced the committing of the crimes."
Brown's lawyer, Antonio Marchesini, denied the soldier had used his term in Iraq as an excuse for rape. "Before it was accepted, there was a detailed examination of his personality," he told Reuters. Marchesini said he was "partially satisfied" with the ruling. He had hoped to further reduce the sentence due to his client's diminished responsibility. Brown is set to be discharged from the army, Marchesini said.

US probes possible third case of mad cow disease
The Department of Agriculture is investigating a possible third U.S. case of mad cow disease, officials said on Saturday, in a possible setback after months of work to reopen beef trade with Japan and South Korea. Americans generally have shrugged off the disease, always fatal in cattle, since it was first discovered in the United States in December 2003. Per-capita consumption of beef has climbed since then and is forecast at 66.9 pounds in 2006.
Japan and South Korea, traditionally two major export customers, have been slow to resume trade despite U.S. assurances that its beef is safe. Japan banned U.S. beef for two years, reopened trade for one month and then suspended it on Jan. 20 when inspectors found forbidden spinal material in a shipment of veal....Clifford said the latest suspect animal was tested as part of a stepped-up USDA program that targets older cattle or those with possible symptoms of mad cow disease. More than 640,000 cattle have been tested through the program since June 2004. U.S. beef exports are forecast at 905 million pounds (411 million kg) this year, down 64 percent from 2003.
"This inconclusive result does not mean we have found a new case of BSE," Clifford said in a statement, referring to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the formal name of the disease. It is believed that humans can contract a similar fatal brain disease by eating contaminated parts from infected cattle. More than 140 people in Britain and Europe have died from the human variation of mad cow disease. The two major U.S. safeguards against mad cow disease are a 1997 ban on using cattle parts in cattle feed and a requirement for meatpackers to remove from older cattle the brains, spinal cords and other nervous tissue most at risk of carrying the infective agent. (A misfolded protein, called a "Prion" It basically drills holes in the brain tissue, thus the "spongiform" in the disease name. Prions cannot be distroyed by sterlization (they have been found in tonsils and could not be killed on the surgical instruments using regular sterilization methods. Also, the mass cullings, such as in Britain, followed by burning or burying the carcasses, would have resulted into the Prions getting into the soil & groundwater).
"If it (the suspect animal) was born after the feed ban in the United States, it is a bigger problem," said Robb. "Because it would be harder to say our system is working well."
(What about all the beef people ate in the years before the feed ban? Did you know that people who die of Alzheimer's disease are not given autopsies?)
Both U.S. cases of mad cow disease -- the dairy cow in Washington state and a crossbreed beef cow in Texas in November 2004 -- were in animals born before the feed ban. Experts say say mad cow is spread through contaminated cattle feed. (Feed containing brains & spinal cords of other cattle--why except for profits, was this ever fed to grass-eating animals?)

10-year-old boy prisoner of Guantanamo Bay found innocent after two years of detainment
A single day forever changed the life of 12-year-old Asadullah Rahman. Struggling to remember the exact date he was captured by American soldiers, or when he was flown to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where the United States holds "enemy combatants" without charges, he presses his fingers to his temples to conjure memories that have grown fuzzy after months in detention. He was just 10 years old when American soldiers stormed the compound of the local Afghan commander who was holding him captive, he says. They grabbed his gun. There were handcuffs and blindfolds. Since then, he has seen the inside of three separate interrogation rooms.
On Jan. 29, after being released with two other young detainees, he returned to this village in eastern Afghanistan, a three-hour drive along dirt roads from Kabul. He was free but burdened with the uncomfortable distinction of being the youngest person ever jailed in America's war on terror.
"They should have arrested al Qaeda, not me," he said in the first interview since his release. "I was just innocent." The Pentagon claims he was a trained gunman conscripted to fight in an anti-U.S. militia.
U.S. military officials say that based on medical tests, they believe Asadullah is older than he claims, perhaps 13 to 15. The two other youngsters released with him, who are both 15, say he was about 13 when he was freed.
As proof of his youth, Asadullah points to a Polaroid hanging on his bedroom wall, too fresh to have faded, taken just before he was captured. In the photo, he looks like a child -- standing, flanked by his cousin and older brother, in a field of wildflowers. Today he is 5 feet tall and mostly muscle, with a tired smile, dense lashes and old-man eyes.

Met chief under fire for taping phone calls with Attorney General
Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has provoked Government anger after being caught secretly taping a private telephone conversation with the Attorney General. Lord Goldsmith was incensed over the breach of trust which, coincidentally, came as the men discussed whether the law could be changed to enable the use of bugged telephone calls in court cases. Sir Ian has also infuriated the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) by covertly recording conversations with three officials investigating the accidental shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes.

De Menezes family furious over UK police 'sex smear' on son
In what has to rank as one of the most pathetic attempts to smear the dead victim, Jean Charles de Menezes is named as a suspect in a rape case SIX MONTHS after he was gunned down by police.
The inquiry is in response to a call, more than six months after the Brazilian's death, from a rape victim who named Mr de Menezes as her attacker.Sources close to his family have reacted with fury to the allegations. They accuse the Metropolitan police of deliberately leaking the details of the rape inquiry in an attempt to deflect attention from the investigation into the shooting of Mr de Menezes, who was mistaken for a terrorist by armed officers.
A source told The Independent on Sunday: "This is a deliberate attempt to deflect the blame. First [the police] tried to say he was a terrorist and now this... he is no longer here to defend himself."

'Leprosy drug in Milosevic's blood'

Stuart said the drugs interfered with other medicine Milosevic was taking for high blood pressure and vascular disease. "They were counterproductive," said Stuart, a lawyer who has closely followed the proceedings. "What we do know is that this is the cause of death and you can't say that it was really a case of natural death."

Clinton Quiet About Past Wal-Mart Ties

With retail giant Wal-Mart under fire to improve its labor and health care policies, one Democrat with deep ties to the company — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — has started feeling her share of the political heat. In recent months, as the company has become a target for Democratic activists, she has largely steered clear of any mention of Wal-Mart. And late last year, Clinton's re-election campaign returned a $5,000 contribution from Wal-Mart, citing "serious differences with current company practices."
Hillary Clinton was paid $18,000 each year she served on the board, plus $1,500 for each meeting she attended. By 1993 she had accumulated at least $100,000 in Wal-Mart stock, according to Bill Clinton's federal financial disclosure that year.

Judge halts Moussaoui trial over prosecution 'misconduct'
An angry federal judge today halted the trial of confessed al-Qa'ida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, calling an unexpected recessed to consider whether US government violations of her rules against coaching witnesses should remove the death penalty as an option.
"I do not want to act precipitously," U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said in scheduling a special hearing on the case Tuesday, but she said that it was "very difficult for this case to go forward. In all the years I've been on the bench, I have never seen such an egregious violation of a rule on witnesses."
The stunning development came at the opening of the fifth day of the trial. The Government had informed the judge and the defence over the weekend that a lawyer for the Federal Aviation Administration had coached four witnesses from the government agency in violation of the rule set by US District Judge Leonie Brinkema. The rule was that no witness should hear trial testimony in advance.
"This is the second significant error by the government affecting the constitutional rights of the defendant and the criminal justice system in this country in the context of a death case," Brinkema told lawyers in the case outside the presence of the jury.
Moussaoui appeared bemused as the lawyers debated how to proceed. Leaving the courtroom, he said, "The show must go on."


Saddam-era judge stands by death sentences

A judge who served under Saddam Hussein admitted sentencing 148 men to death in the 1980s but said in court on Monday all had confessed to joining an Iranian plot to kill Saddam and their trials had been fair.

Gonzo defends Gitmo

Our Military's Failure of Accountability

Other military spokesmen have argued that more senior generals were not responsible because they did not know what was taking place at these prisons. That attitude is antithetical to the ethical fabric that holds a military organization together. The job of senior officers is to know what goes on in their command. Young men and women cannot be expected to respond without hesitation to orders in combat if they do not believe their superiors will be held responsible for capriciously or foolishly ordering them to risk their lives.

Gonzo defends Gitmo 08/03/2006. ABC News Online

Speaking on a visit to Britain, US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales insists the camp is consistent with the Geneva Convention, but he questions the relevance of the Convention in today's world. (Come on, Gonzo, you can't have it both ways!)

If the camp is so "consistent" with the Geneva Conventions, why is Amnesty International refused the opportunity of visiting with the prisoners? Mr. Gonzalez had better take a hard second look at the Geneva conventions before he makes this kind of ludicrous statement again. In WW2, the Red Cross was allowed to visit the Nazi camps: why is the Red Cross refused permission to visit Gitmo?

G.O.P. Senators Say Accord Is Set on Wiretapping - New York Times

Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight but allow wiretapping without warrants for up to 45 days.
Democrats called the deal an abdication of the special bipartisan committee's role as a watchdog, saying the Republicans had in effect blessed the program before learning how it worked or what it entailed.
"The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House," said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the panel.
Then I guess they'll be leaving along with the White House.

Vermont Towns Vote to Impeach
A single Vermont community's call for the impeachment of President Bush turned into a chorus Tuesday night, with town meetings across southern Vermont echoing the demand that Congress act to remove the president.As had been expected, voters in the town of Newfane, where the movement began, endorsed impeachment by a resounding margin. The paper ballot vote was 121-29 for the resolution that declared:

Whereas George W. Bush has:
1. Misled the nation about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
2. Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda;
3. Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;
4. Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and
5. Has directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law.

Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office.

Dubai--a strategic location to attack Iran from?

Dubai and the Straits of Hormuz
The importance of United Arab Emirates as a staging area for future hostilities cannot be overstated. No military strategy can hope to succeed without first establishing a beachhead across the straits in Iran so that the danger of blowing up oil tankers and blocking passage is removed. This tells us that plans for an attack may be on track for late March as originally threatened by Israel.

BOLTON TARGETS IRAN : AIPAC IN WAR-GASM
On Sunday he spoke before the Fifth columnists at AIPAC . The assembled rabble were whipped into a frenzy as their dog of war , in full throttle war-heat, promised that Iran was in the crosshairs.

Bush declares war on freedom of the press

Just how widespread, and uncontrolled, this latest government assault has become hit close to home last week when one of the FBI's National Security Letters arrived at the company that hosts the servers for this web site, Capitol Hill Blue.The letter demanded traffic data, payment records and other information about the web site along with information on me, the publisher. Now that's a problem. I own the company that hosts Capitol Hill Blue. So, in effect, the feds want me to turn over information on myself and not tell myself that I'm doing it. You'd think they'd know better.

Georgetown Law Students Turn Backs To Gonzales

Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown Law School today, justifying illegal, unauthorized surveilance of US citizens, but during the course of his speech the students in class did something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats and turned their backs to him.

GONZO at it again: Top News Article | Reuters.com

Gonzales said all detainees at the camp in eastern Cuba were granted an assessment by U.S. authorities, a right of reply and a separate, formal hearing of their case before a three-member tribunal with a right to appeal.
"We are aware of no other nation in history that has afforded such protection for enemy combatants," (HUH???? Please remember that the phrase "enemy combatants" is a fabricated phrase to mask the fact that these people are prisoners of war. ) he told the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Organizations across the world, from the United Nations to the Vatican, have decried U.S. use of indefinite detentions without charge at Guantanamo. In four years, only 10 detainees from the camp have been formally charged with a crime.
"Gonzales appears to be missing the point completely. He completely fails to acknowledge the numerous allegations of ill treatment coming from Guantanamo. If the conditions of detention for detainees are as great as he claims then why not allow the U.N. and human rights Organizations such as Amnesty to visit Guantanamo and speak directly to the detainees themselves?" human rights group Amnesty International asked.

A Place That Is Rougher and Bleaker Than Guantanamo

David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University law school in Washington, said, “The Bagram story raises serious questions about the Bush administration’s unwillingness to be bound by law. The administration chose Guantanamo in the first place because it thought it was a law-free zone. Now that the Supreme Court has said that the administration is actually accountable to legal limits at Guantanamo, it is turning to other avenues to avoid accountability. The only real solution is to conform its conduct to the law, not to continue to evade legal responsibility for its actions."

The true U.S. history of human medical experimentation
The United States claims to be the world leader in medicine. But there's a dark side to western medicine that few want to acknowledge: The horrifying medical experiments performed on impoverished people and their children all in the name of scientific progress. Many of these medical experiments were conducted on people without their knowledge, and most were conducted as part of an effort to seek profits from newly approved drugs or medical technologies.

NEWSPEAK DELUXE:
Two killed, four wounded in Basra shooting; some victims reportedly Britons
Two men were burned to death in their car after a shootout with Iraqi police in this southern city Monday, and security officials said the victims were British citizens. In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said he was aware of unsubstantiated reports of an incident involving non-Arabs. A third person in the car, also believed to be a British citizen, was wounded and rushed away by police, said police Capt. Mushtaq Kadhim. Two Iraqi policemen and two civilians also were wounded in the shooting, he said. Britain's Ministry of Defense said it was aware of reports of an incident in Basra and was trying to establish the veracity of the information. A ministry spokesman said no British military personnel were involved in any incident or injured Monday. There was no information available to suggest British diplomats were involved, the Foreign office spokesman said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity, according to British government policy.
According to Kadhim, the attack occurred about 9 p.m. after a police patrol chased two suspicious cars and forced them to stop in the Jazaer neighborhood of central Basra. As policemen surrounded the cars and asked those inside for identification, one of the vehicles sped away, Kadhim said. As the second car tried to follow, policemen opened fire, setting it on fire and killing two occupants. One person was wounded. Shortly after the shooting and as the car was still on fire, a British military force in two armored personnel carriers and four armored jeeps appeared at the scene of the conflict, but they quickly left. British troops are headquartered in Basra.
(Does this sound familiar to anyone?)

FLASHBACK 9/20/05:
UK Soldiers caught dressed as Iraqis, posing as "insurgents" driving car bomb, and killing local police
BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Angry crowds attacked a British tank with petrol bombs and rocks in Basra on Monday after Iraqi authorities detained two British undercover soldiers in the southern city for firing on police. "We can confirm that a shooting incident involving U.K. military personnel has taken place which is currently being investigated," a British military spokesman said in a statement.
Before the two British Special Forces men were freed by force on Monday, an Al Jazeera report suggested that the men were driving a booby-trapped car around Basra which was loaded with ammunition and explosives. The Al Jazeera report also indicates that the unrest in Basra was motivated by the perception that the two British soldiers were planning to detonate the explosives-packed car in the centre of Basra.

BBC's version:
UK soldiers 'freed from militia'
Two British soldiers whose imprisonment prompted UK troops to storm a Basra police station were later rescued from militia, the Ministry of Defence says. Brigadier John Lorimer said it was of "deep concern" the men detained by police ended up held by Shia militia.Basra governor Mohammed al-Waili said the men - possibly working undercover - were arrested for allegedly shooting dead a policeman and wounding another.The arrests sparked unrest in which Army vehicles were attacked. In a statement, Lorimer said that under Iraqi law the soldiers should have been handed over to coalition authorities, but this failed to happen despite repeated requests.
Since when do Shia militia control Iraqi jails and the Basra police station?
Who wrote the Iraqi law that says UK soldiers are above the law?

The reports stated two British commando special forces dressed as Iraqis have been caught by the Iraqis after they were found shooting and killing local policemen. And the Iraqis put them in jail. The British army then, came with tanks, destroyed the jail and freed the two british commandos. This report give crediblity to the 'conspiracy theorists' who have long claimed many terrorist acts in Iraq are, in fact, being initiated and carried out by US, British and Israeli forces. (How about the recent Mosque bombing??) The TRUTH is the British had to either rescue or kill these two commandos in order to keep these operations secret.

Perhaps this has something to do with P2OG:
Look Out ! Here Comes P2OG
Donald Rumsfeld's plan to fight terror is to create a lot more of it. In an L.A. Times column, military analyst William Arkin describes the Pentagon's plan to create an elite secret army, equipped with a vast array of equipment and resources, using "aggressive new 'off-the-books' tactics." He calls it, "the largest expansion of covert action by the armed forces since the Vietnam era.". The Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG) would carrry out "secret operations aimed at 'stimulating reactions' among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction – that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to 'quick-response' attacks by U.S. forces." Wait a minute – prod terrorists into action?! And just to make sure that we lose international support altogether, the brief declares the U.S. will hold "states/sub-state actors accountable" and "signal to harboring states that their sovereignty will be at risk."
Posted by lakshmi on November 5, 2002

What happened to Pat Tillman, really?

Defense Department Inspector General Recommends New Investigation of Ex-NFL Star's Death, Previously Found Caused by Friendly Fire--ABC NEWS
The Defense Department inspector general has directed the Army Criminal Investigative Division to open a criminal probe into the Afghanistan battlefield death of former NFL star Pat Tillman, Army officials confirmed. Officials initially portrayed Tillman's 2004 death in an Army Ranger unit as caused by enemy fire, but subsequent investigations determined the former pro football player died from friendly fire. The 27-year-old's death has been investigated four times — twice by the Army in Afghanistan, once by the U.S. Special Ops command, and a fourth time as part of a safety investigation.
Tillman was the former Arizona Cardinals star who quit pro football after 9/11 to join the Army Rangers with his brother, Kevin, who served in his unit. The Tillman family was told Friday and began notifiying national media outlets. The Tillman family has been very actively pressing the military to continue with its investigations into the circumstances surrounding his death. Their last resort was the Pentagon IG to review all the previous investigations.
Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson Discuss The Scripted Pat Tillman HoaxAnother Stage-Managed Psy-Op: The Tragic Death Of Pat Tillman
A Cover-Up as Shameful as Tillman's Death
The Tillman Scandal: 'Newsweek' Error Bad, Pentagon Lying OK?

Halliburton Eyed for Dubai Ports Deal
The Bush administration is working behind the scenes to defuse the Dubai Ports World controversy by having the UAE-based firm team up with an American company. According to the New York Daily News, which first reported the new White House strategy on Saturday, "one snag may be that sources say the U.S. company best equipped to partner with DP World is Halliburton, once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney." (how convenient for them)

Bill Frist threatens to re-structure the Intelligence Committee in order to block NSA hearings
Frist specifically threatened that if the Committee holds NSA hearings, he will fundamentally change the 30-year-old structure and operation of the Senate Intelligence Committee so as to make it like every other Committee, i.e., controlled and dominated by Republicans to advance and rubber-stamp the White House’s agenda rather than exercise meaningful and nonpartisan oversight.

Its Real:Prison Labor for the Military
We received an interesting news tip yesterday - and one that we find quite interesting. It has to do with official plans of the US Army to enact something called the "Civilian Inmate Labor Program." The general idea is that with troop manpower running low, and local demand for prisoner housing running high, the US Army can pick up some cheap labor from the Federal Bureau of Prisons and perhaps State prisons.
As you may recall, we reported a few weeks back that we've heard that troops are in such short supply in Iraq that ordinary seamen off Navy Trident subs are being given quickie training as sentries, rather than serving on strategic missile platforms, and off they go to Iraq. Now, with the receipt of the Army plans to use federal prisoners for labor, we have to ask what kind of picture this paints of the military's state of readiness?
Specifics of the program, outlined in official Army Regulation 210-35 at http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf include some of the following:

• The newest set of changes quietly went into effect 14 February 2005.
• The unclassified regulations describe their purpose as follows: "This regulation provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations."
  
• "(2) Under no circumstances will the following types of inmates be permitted in the Civilian Inmate Labor Program:
  
• (a) A person in whom there is a significant public interest as determined by the corrections facility superintendent in coordination with the installation commander.
  
• (b) A person who has been a significant management problem in their current corrections facility or in another facility.
  
• (c) A principal organized crime figure.
  
• (d) An inmate convicted of a sex offense or whose criminal history includes such conduct.
  
• (e) An inmate convicted of a violent crime or whose criminal history includes such conduct.
  
• (f) An inmate convicted of the sale or intent to distribute illegal drugs who held a leadership position in any drug conspiracy, or has been involved with drugs within the last 3 years while in prison.
  
• (g) An escape risk.
  
• (h) An inmate who poses a threat to the general public as determined by the corrections facility superintendent in coordination with the installation commander.
  
• (i) An inmate declared or found insane or mentally incompetent by a court, administrative proceeding, or physician, or under treatment for a mental disease or disorder.
  
• (j) An inmate convicted of arson.
  
• (k) A Federal inmate convicted while on active duty, presently serving a sentence for that conviction.
• 
  
• In short, this seems to be a low key program, perhaps driven in part by state facilities that are trying to find "creative ways" to offload minimum security inmates because of the huge number of prisoners in US prisons today. Nevertheless, some of the wording is troubling:
• Chapter 3 Establishing Civilian Inmate Prison Camps on Army Installations 3–1.
• Policy statement It is not Army policy to solicit offers from correctional systems to establish civilian inmate prison camps on Army installations. Nevertheless, the Army recognizes that these correctional systems may approach installations to lease land on which to build corrections facilities, or to lease unoccupied facilities. The Army will evaluate requests to establish civilian inmate prison camps on Army installations on a case by case basis. These prison camps will house minimum and low security inmates, as determined by the correctional systems. However, the Army’s primary purpose for allowing establishment of prison camps on Army installations is to use the resident nonviolent civilian inmate labor pool to work on the leased portions of the installation.

The regulations are not particularly complex, and are an interesting read if you have worries about the Army building prison camps at which a nonviolent civilian could be impressed. Has as kind of World War II-ish kind of ring to it, doesn't it?

Got milk?

WHITE HOUSE DELAYS RELEASE OF STUDY SHOWING TOXIC ROCKET FUEL IN MOST AMERICANS
Perchlorate, the explosive ingredient in solid rocket fuel, has contaminated drinking water and soil in at least 35 states, with most of the known contamination coming from military bases and defense contractors. Tests by EWG, academic scientists in Texas and Arizona, state officials in California and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have found perchlorate in milk, produce and many other foods and animal feed crops from coast to coast. Perchlorate is a thyroid toxin, and animal tests show that even small amounts can disrupt normal growth and development in fetuses, infants and children.

Midwest Oil fined for selling gas too cheaply

The state imposed a $140,000 penalty for what it called "willful, continuing, and egregious" violations of the price law. The price law was intended to prevent large oil companies from driving smaller competitors out of business, but some critics argue it fails to protect consumers. (Maybe they're uncomfortable about ripping off the public...And we're being told there's no such thing as "conspiracy") Midwest is a subsidiary of the Wisconsin-based Science and Technology Institute, led by Dr. R.C. Samanta Roy.

Chertoff Has 'Few Days Left,' Sources Say
In the aftermath of the public revelation of the presidential "teleconference" and mounting criticism of the performance of Michael Chertoff, Administration sources told HUMAN EVENTS today that the secretary of Homeland Security has "only a few days left" in the Bush Cabinet.

FEMA critic's shirt gets him tangled up in ticket
Barisich says he was ticketed after six DHS officers gathered at his truck. Boyd says he can't confirm the number. Barisich says he was told he would be arrested if he did not take the ticket.
"I said, 'Do you really want to arrest me? Am I the only one here who thinks this is asinine? You're harassing a person who just lost everything.'"

The Iranian Threat: The Bomb or the Euro?

Iran does not pose a threat to the United State because of its nuclear projects, its WMD or its support to "terrorists organizations" as the American administration is claiming, but rather in its attempt to re-shape the global economic system by converting it from a petrodollar to a petroeuro system. Such conversion is looked upon as a flagrant declaration of economic war against the US that would flatten the revenues of the American corporations and eventually might cause an economic collapse.

Resolution to Impeach Bush-Cheney Passes 7-3
by Ken Werner, Trinity Plaza Tenants Association

On Tuesday, February 28, 2006, the City and County of San Francisco became the first large municipality to call for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, by a 7-3 vote...
The next stage of the story will commence to bring justice and peace to Casey Sheehan and the tens of thousands of American and Iraqi men, women, and children who are the victims of who I consider to be the biggest mass murderers of the 21st Century. And our City becomes the first major metropolis to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney for their crimes against humanity.

Is There a Case for Impeachment?
Obviously, most of the 1500 folks packed into NYC's Town Hall at 43rd and Sixth Avenue thought so as we listened to a panel moderated by Sam Seder consisting of Rep. John J. Conyers, Republican now Independent John Dean, former Congressmember Elizabeth Holzman, Lewis H. Lapham (Harpers Magazine editor, article link above), and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights). Read Lewis Lapham's article, title link, and that of Liz Holtzman at the Nation Magazine.

Cunningham Receives Eight-Year Sentence

A judge rejected Randall "Duke" Cunningham's tearful bid for mercy today and sentenced the war hero, "Top Gun" instructor and disgraced former congressman to 8 years, 4 months in federal prison for bribery.

Bush Plan Would Raise Deficit by $1.2 Trillion, Budget Office Says - New York Times
President Bush's budget would increase the federal deficit by $35 billion this year and by more than $1.2 trillion over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office reported on Friday. The nonpartisan budget office said that Mr. Bush's tax-cutting proposals would cost about $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years and that his proposals to partly privatize Social Security would cost about $312 billion during that period.

Lethal ‘flying gunships’ returning to Iraq

The U.S. Air Force has begun moving heavily armed AC-130 airplanes — the lethal “flying gunships” of the Vietnam War — to a base in Iraq as commanders search for new tools to counter the Iraqi resistance, The Associated Press has learned.

These are NOT precision weapons deployed against individual targets. These are machines designed to make whole villages full of people very dead, very quickly. These are "Kill them all, let God sort them out" with wings. If these are being deployed, then the situation in Iraq is deteriorating. Badly.
"They made a desolation, and called it peace." -- Tacitus

Kurt Vonnegut's "Stardust Memory"
Vonnegut takes an easy chair across from Prof. Manuel Luis Martinez, a poet and teacher of writing. He grabs Martinez and semi-whispers into his ear (and the mike) "What can I say here?"
Martinez urges candor.
"Well," says Vonnegut, "I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president."
The students seem to agree.
"The only difference between Bush and Hitler," Vonnegut adds, "is that Hitler was elected."
"You all know, of course, that the election was stolen. Right here."
Vonnegut's attacks on Bush have just warmed him up. "I'm lucky enough to have known a great president, one who really cared about ALL the people, rich and poor. That was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was rich himself, and his class considered him a traitor.
"We have people in this country who are richer than whole countries. They run everything.
"We have no Democratic Party. It's financed by the same millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans. So we have no representatives in Washington. Working people have no leverage whatsoever. I'm trying to write a novel about the end of the world. But the world is really ending! It's becoming more and more uninhabitable because of our addiction to oil. Bush used that line recently," Vonnegut adds. "I should sue him for plagiarism."
Things have gotten so bad, he says, "people are in revolt again life itself."
Our economy has been making money, but "all the money that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive compensation. If people insist on living as if there's no tomorrow, there really won't be one."
"If you really want to hurt your parents and don't want to be gay, go into the arts," he says.
By now the packed hall has grown reverential. The sound system is appropriately tenuous. Straining to hear every word is both an effort and a meditation.
"To hell with the advances in computers," he says. "YOU are supposed to advance and become, not the computers. Find out what's inside you. And don't kill anybody."
As for work, "there are no factories any more. Where are the jobs supposed to come from? There's nothing for people to do anymore. We need to ask the Seminoles: 'what the hell did you do?'' after the tribe's traditional livelihood was taken away.
Answering questions written in by students, he explains the meaning of life. "We should be kind to each other. Be civil. And appreciate the good moments by saying 'If this isn't nice, what is?'"
"You're all perfectly safe, by the way. I took off my shoes at the airport. The terrorists hate the smell of feet."

Pentagon Releases Names of Gitmo Inmates
After four years of secrecy, the Pentagon handed over documents Friday that contain the names of detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. The release resulted from a victory by The Associated Press in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
The Bush administration had hidden the identities, home countries and other information about the men, who were accused of having links to the Taliban or al-Qaida. But a federal judge rejected administration arguments that releasing the identities would violate the detainees' privacy and could endanger them and their families.

The names were scattered throughout more than 5,000 pages of transcripts of hearings at Guantanamo Bay released Friday, but no complete list was given and it was unclear how many names the documents contained. In most of the transcripts, the person speaking is identified only as "detainee." Names appear only when court officials or detainees refer to people by name. In some cases, even having the name did not clarify the identity.
In one unedited transcript, Zahir Shah, an Afghan accused of belonging to an Islamic militant group and of having a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and other weapons in his house, admits having rifles. He says they were for protection he had a running feud with a cousin and insists he did not fight U.S. troops. The only time he shot anything, he says, was when he hunted with a BB gun.
"What are we going to do with RPGs?" he asks, adding: "The only thing I did in Afghanistan was farming. ... We grew wheat, corn, vegetables and watermelons."
In another document, a detainee identified as Abdul Haim Bukhary denies he is member of al-Qaida but acknowledges he traveled from his native Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces, and says he met Osama bin Laden about 15 years ago while fighting in Russia. He praises his captors for running a good prison.
"Prisoners here are in paradise," he says. "American people are very good. Really. They give us three meals. Fruit juice and everything!"
(Guess the brainwashing is working)

Dangling Chad?

Katherine Harris Caught Up in Bribery Scandal
U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris said Thursday she did not knowingly do anything wrong in her associations with a defense contractor who prosecutors say illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign in 2004
Remember her, from the 2000 Presidential election?

U.S. Cites Exception in Torture Ban
Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison. In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."

'War on terror' trials could allow evidence obtained through torture
The officer, who wields power similar to a judge, was asked by the defense lawyer representing Ali Hamza Ahmad al-Bahlul, a Yemeni accused of plotting terror attacks for bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, if he was ready to exclude all evidence secured through torture.
After a long pause, Colonel Peter Brownback declined to commit to a blanket ban on evidence obtained as a result of torture. "What you and I mean by torture could be different," Brownback told defense lawyer Major Tom Fleener. He said "a red-hot needle in the eye" constitutes torture but was not ready to commit to a prohibition in advance of the trial. "My personal belief is that torture is not good," he added. But he said it would depend on the circumstances and how the prosecution presented the evidence.
Bahlul's lawyer, who has the right to question the tribunal chief to verify his client will receive impartial treatment, said he asked the question because he alleged his client had been tortured while in detention. "I believe Mr al-Bahlul was tortured," Fleener said. He added that "it's going to be an issue" in the trial.
Watch out, folks: we're on a highly slippery slope with this one. We're being softened up to accept torture as a normal part of police procedure right here in the good ol' U. S. A.

US Army censors websites
US MARINES stationed in Iraq are complaining that the US government is restricting their access to websites too much.Along with porn sites, on the Army’s list of banned sites include mail sites such as Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail. The censors are also blocking blogs and sites that do not agree with the current administration.

Republican Congressman Predicts Bush Impeachment
Republican Congressman Ron Paul has gone on record with his prediction that the impeachment of George W. Bush is right around the corner but warned that in the meantime the US was slipping perilously close to a dictatorship.

Fmr. UN Official: Human Rights Abuses Worse Now Than Under Saddam
Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country, the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq said Thursday. John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.

Baghdad official who exposed executions flees
"The vast majority of bodies showed signs of summary execution - many with their hands tied behind their back. Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills."

National Archives Order Halt To Document Re-Classification
In other news, the New York Times is reporting the National Archives have directed intelligence agencies to stop removing thousands of previously declassified historical documents that had previously been available to the public. The program began in 1999 and intensified after President Bush took office. Documents that have been re-classified include intelligence estimates from the Korean war and reports on “Communism” in Mexico in the 1960s.


Dubai--Death Machine showcase
There is another aspect of Bush's Dubai Ports World deal to take over operations at 21 U.S. ports that is being largely overlooked by the U.S. media. Dubai is the location of the world's third largest international weapons of death exhibitions -- the Dubai Air Show. This event brings together the global military industrial complex. Deep pocketed foreign military officials, including billionaire Arab Gulf sheikhs, make the periodic pilgrimage to Dubai International Airport and are wooed by the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and behind the scenes, but with tremendous influence and clout -- the omnipresent Carlyle Group, the corporate contrivance that brings together the Bush crime cartel with billionaire Saudi, Emirati, and Kuwaiti investors, including the Bin Laden family.
The Dubai Air Show was held last November and reading just one press release from the show indicates how important Dubai is to the U.S. military-industrial complex:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates; FORT WORTH, Texas, Nov. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is featuring the most advanced F-16 fighters this week at the Dubai International Air Show -- the Block 60 F-16 E/F and the Block 50/52 F-16 C/D.
The new Block 60 aircraft made its aerial debut at the show on Monday November 21 -- in the home country of the first and only nation flying this aircraft today. Troy Pennington, Lockheed Martin test pilot, is flying the aircraft in the demonstrations this week.
"The Block 60 is a great plane to fly and is an outstanding addition to our air force," said Brigadier General Ali Khadem Salem Al Mansoori, [UAE] Assistant Air Force commander for air defense during the F-16 briefing today. "The aircraft meets our requirements and we look forward to the continued support of Lockheed Martin as we work together to build a great air force structure for our nation. We are proud to see our new aircraft perform aerial demonstrations during the show this week."
"This is a proud moment for the UAE and for Lockheed Martin. The Block 60 possesses breakthrough technological features and advanced systems. It exemplifies the evolution of Lockheed Martin aircraft, matching capability with customer needs," said John Larson, vice president and deputy, Lockheed Martin F-16 programs. "We are honored to provide the UAE with the Block 60 and are committed to sustaining and maintaining their F-16s to the highest levels of capability and readiness into the future."

And its not just the U.S. defense industry's business dealings with Dubai that are important to the Bushes and Carlyle. Carlyle is a majority owner of Italy's Avio SpA, a major manufacturer of aircraft engine components. Carlyle is a partner in Avio with Finmeccanica, the Italian defense giant that wrested the contract to replace the President's Marine One helicopter -- another foreign deal approved by the Bush administration that surprised many defense industry observers.

What did he know, and when did he know?

The Raw Story | U.S. signs $38 million deal for depleted uranium tank shells
The munition is highly controversial. While the Pentagon has been ambiguous about its health toll, leftover rounds from the first Gulf War are believed to have caused a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in Iraq. According to a detailed article by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2002, "Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans."

Gulf War Veteran Gets Placebos Instead Of Real Medicine
"She told me there was this new drug out that would really help me with all of my physical conditions, and my pain. She really wanted me to try it," said Woods.
But when the pill provided no relief, Woods did some research and learned that Obecalp isn't a medicine at all, but a sugar pill. He was shocked to learn the word "obecalp" is placebo spelled backward.

New Iraq Reconstruction Funds Devoted Solely to Prisons
The State Department quietly announced this week it has requested $100 million dollars for Iraqi reconstruction – all of it for prisons. The Bush administration initially promised $20 billion dollars to reconstruct Iraqi infrastructure. But much of the money has been diverted to security. State Department Iraq coordinator James Jeffrey said the $100 million dollar prison project was the lone new reconstruction effort the US government will undertake over the next year.

10-Year U.S. Strategic Plan For Detention Camps Revives Proposals From Oliver North
News Analysis/Commentary, Peter Dale Scott,
New America Media, Feb 21, 2006
A recently announced contract for a Halliburton subsidiary to build immigrant detention facilities is part of a longer-term Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists." Scott is author of "Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). He is completing a book on "The Road to 9/11." Visit his Web site at http://www.peterdalescott.net.
The Halliburton subsidiary KBR (formerly Brown and Root) announced on Jan. 24 that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build detention camps. Two weeks later, on Feb. 6, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that the Fiscal Year 2007 federal budget would allocate over $400 million to add 6,700 additional detention beds (an increase of 32 percent over 2006). This $400 million allocation is more than a four-fold increase over the FY 2006 budget, which provided only $90 million for the same purpose.
Both the contract and the budget allocation are in partial fulfillment of an ambitious 10-year Homeland Security strategic plan, code-named ENDGAME, authorized in 2003. According to a 49-page Homeland Security document on the plan, ENDGAME expands "a mission first articulated in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798." Its goal is the capability to "remove all removable aliens," including "illegal economic migrants, aliens who have committed criminal acts, asylum-seekers (required to be retained by law) or potential terrorists."
There is no question that the Bush administration is under considerable political pressure to increase the detentions of illegal immigrants, especially from across the Mexican border. Confrontations along the border are increasingly violent, often involving the drug traffic.
But the problem of illegal immigration cannot be separated from other Bush administration policies: principally the retreat from traditional American programs designed to combat poverty in Latin America. In Florida last week, Democratic Party leader Howard Dean attacked the new federal budget for its almost 30 percent cut in development aid to Latin America and the Caribbean.
In truth, both parties have virtually abandoned the John F. Kennedy vision of an Alliance for Progress in Latin America. Kennedy's hope was that, by raising the standard of living of Latin America's poor, there would be less pressure on them to emigrate to the United States.
That vision foundered when successive administrations, both Democratic and Republican, contributed to the overthrow of democratically elected governments in Brazil, Chile and elsewhere, replacing them with oppressive dictatorships.
Since about 1970, the policies of the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund have also aggravated the problem of poverty in the rest of the world, especially Latin America. U.S. programs abroad, like programs at home, are now designed principally around the concept of security -- above all for oil installations and pipelines.
In consequence, the United States is being redefined as a vast gated community, hoping to isolate itself by force from its poverty-stricken neighbors. Inside the U.S. fortress sit 2.1 million prisoners, a greater percentage of the population than in any other nation. ENDGAME's crash program is designed to house additional detainees who have not been convicted of crimes.
Significantly, both the KBR contract and the ENDGAME plan are open-ended. The contract calls for a response to "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies, such as "a natural disaster." "New programs" is of course a term with no precise limitation. So, in the current administration, is ENDGAME's goal of removing "potential terrorists."
It is relevant that in 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his desire to see camps for U.S. citizens deemed to be "enemy combatants." On Feb. 17 of this year, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the harm being done to the country's security, not just by the enemy, but also by what he called "news informers" who needed to be combated in "a contest of wills." Two days earlier, citing speeches critical of Bush by Al Gore, John Kerry, and Howard Dean, conservative columnist Ben Shapiro called for "legislation to prosecute such sedition."
Since 9/11 the Bush administration has implemented a number of inter-related programs, which had been planned for secretly in the 1980s under President Reagan. These so-called "Continuity of Government" or COG proposals included vastly expanded detention capabilities, warrantless eavesdropping and detention, and preparations for greater use of martial law.
Prominent among the secret planners of this program in the 1980s were then-Congressman Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who at the time was in private business as CEO of the drug company G.D. Searle. The principal desk officer for the program was Oliver North, until he was forced to resign in 1986 over Iran-Contra.
When planes crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Vice President Cheney's response, after consulting President Bush, was to implement a classified "Continuity of Government" plan for the first time, according to the 9/11 Commission report. As the Washington Post later explained, the order "dispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans."
What these managers in this shadow government worked on has never been reported. But it is significant that the group that prepared ENDGAME was, as the Homeland Security document puts it, "chartered in September 2001." For ENDGAME's goal of a capacious detention capability is remarkably similar to Oliver North's controversial Rex-84 "readiness exercise" for COG in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary "refugees," in the context of "uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the United States. North's exercise, which reportedly contemplated possible suspension of the United States Constitution, led to questions being asked during the Iran-Contra Hearings. One concern then was that North's plans for expanded internment and detention facilities would not be confined to "refugees" alone. Oliver North represented a minority element in the Reagan administration, which soon distanced itself from both the man and his proposals. But that minority associated with COG planning, which included Dick Cheney, appear to be in control of the U.S. government today.

New York Reaches Settlement With 22 Prisoners in Abuse Case
New York City has reached a settlement with 22 prisoners that includes new city-wide measures controlling the use of force by prison guards. The city agreed to pay a total of $2.2 million dollars to 22 prisoners who suffered serious injuries at the hands of city prison guards. Under the agreement, the city will also modify its rules on the use of force, place hundreds of new video cameras to monitor guard behavior and overhaul its mechanisms to investigate abuses.

Bush Admin. Decreased Fines, Enforcement on Mine Violations
New York Times is reporting the Bush administration has decreased the fines for major mining companies and failed to collect fines on nearly half of the mine safety violations issued under its watch. Mine safety regulation has come under increased scrutiny with the deaths of 24 miners this year alone. Tony Oppegard, a former top official at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said: "The Bush administration ushered in this desire to develop cooperative ties between regulators and the mining industry. Safety has certainly suffered as a result." Federal records also show that in the last two years the federal mine safety agency has failed to hand over any delinquent cases to the Treasury Department for further collection efforts, as is supposed to occur after 180 days.

How did the Washington Post miss the levees in their new story about the Katrina video?
While the Post mentions "the big one" quote, they don't mention Bush's quote to the contrary, that no one could have imagined the storm would be so large - that's the entire point of why the video matters, it contradicts Bush's own words. Same goes for the levees breaching - the video proves that Bush lied when he said no one could have imagined the levees breaching, Bush himself was briefed on the possibility before the storm. But the Washington Post doesn't even mention this in their story? How do you not quote Bush's comments about the levees breaching in this context?

Video Shows Bush Receiving Dire Warnings Day Before Katrina
Video shows Bush Katrina warning
The Associated Press has obtained confidential video footage of President Bush’s final briefing before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. It shows the President was given dire warnings the storm could breach levees and threaten the lives of residents of New Orleans. The briefing occurred on August 28th – one day before Katrina hit. On the video, President Bush is seen watching the briefing via a videoconference from his Texas ranch. The President does not ask one single question throughout the briefing, yet concludes that the government is: "fully prepared."
The video shows several federal, state and local officials issuing the warnings. Then-FEMA head Michael Brown tells the President and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff: "My gut tells me ... this is a bad one and a big one." At another point in the briefing, , a weather expert says he has “grave concerns” on the levees in New Orleans. The video casts further doubt over the White House’s claim it wasn’t adequately warned about Katrina’s possible magnitude.
On September 1st, President Bush said: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."
After viewing the video, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin said: "I have kind of a sinking feeling in my gut right now… From this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware." The White House is already trying to downplay the video. Presidential spokesperson Trent Duffy said: "I hope people don't draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing."

Video Shows Bush Warned Before Katrina Hit
The footage — along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by AP — show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Ex-FEMA Head Says Response Hampered by “Fog of Bureaucracy”
Meanwhile, in an interview with the Associated Press, former FEMA head Michael Brown dismissed Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff’s assertion that the Bush administration’s response was hampered by the “fog of war.” Brown said: "It was a fog of bureaucracy…My entreaties to the White House about the problems that FEMA was having were falling on deaf ears.”

Why Americans Know More About The Simpsons Than The Constitution
More Americans can name Simpsons characters than they can the freedoms that the 1st Amendment upholds. This is a benchmark of how much danger the country is in and the blame can be laid with public education.
Bill of Rights
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque:

How sickening, then, to find myself last Saturday reading of the precisely the same kind of state terror that Solzhenitsyn described (and survived) once again being inflicted on innocent people -- and this time in my name, under the flag of my country, at the express order of the leaders of my government. Bush is trying to turn us all into the kind of quiet collaborationists and cowed enablers of atrocity that we habitually decry when speaking of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany: "Oh, how could they have let such awful things go on? Why did they stand silently by? How could they swallow all those monstrous lies? I would never have stood for that kind of thing!" Well, tens of millions of Americans are standing for it right now –- every bit as quiescent as the most head-down, eyes-averted Soviet citizen or German burgher: countenancing, condoning, even celebrating brutal acts of state terror, and swallowing the tyrant's eternal lie that his crimes are committed to protect the people.

Wayne connects the dots...

Now it all makes more sense....
THE REAL STORY ON DUBAI from Wayne Madsen Report.com:

March 1, 2006 -- Dubai -- the emirate has the smoking gun evidence tying the Bush criminal cartel to arms trafficking, Viktor Bout, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda.

Internal documents from the UAE Central Bank in Dubai detail huge money laundering operations in the UAE according to financial industry insiders. Moreover, the Sharjah branch of HSBC Holdings PLC was tied to international arms trafficker Victor Bout, indicted in Belgium for money laundering and named in various UN reports as a chief embargo buster in Africa and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Hakim, yet another whistleblower who has been ignored and mistreated by the Bush administration and threatened by Bush's Persian Gulf potentate friends, discovered a suspicious $343 million per year money flow through an HSBC personal account in Dubai. The transactions were investigated by the FBI and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement but no prosecutions resulted.

There are deep-seated ties between the Bush-Cheney criminal cartel, key GOP operatives, and the UAE. Significant questions about the oil industry's ties to the U.S. military-intelligence complex were raised when Michael Trumpower, the owner of Prescott, Arizona-based company Matco, Inc. filed for bankruptcy shortly after George W. Bush's inauguration. In questionable financial moves similar to those of Enron, Matco traded on a lucrative oil concession it was granted for all offshore exploration off the Emirate of Fujairah for unsecured loans for equipment and services.

Fujairah, one of the poorest of the emirates, is led by Sheik Hamad bin Mohammed al Sharqi, one of the more fundamentalist Wahhabi Muslims in the UAE leadership. Al Sharqi patronizes the Fujairah Islamic Call and Guidance Center, which has recruited a number of foreign adherents of Wahhabi Islam. These include Filipinos, British, Americans, Russians, and Sri Lankans. Moreover, all their native countries are targets of Bin Laden's Al Qaeda. In addition, a number of Pakistani nationals who worked at the National Bank of Fujairah were known by international law enforcement to be sympathetic to the Taliban.

Trumpower's close ties to Sheikh Hamad are only rivaled by his close ties to the CIA. Although he became strapped for cash after his company tanked, Trumpower, like Enron's Kenneth Lay, was a major contributor to the Bush campaign and those of other Republican candidates, including that of powerful House Rules Committee member, Representative Thomas Reynolds of New York. Reynolds was in a prime position to derail any House investigation of the GOP-CIA-oil industry ties.
In the mid-1980s, Trumpower was an associate of Iran-contra figure Oliver North. North claims Trumpower was instrumental in helping to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon. That affair was the heart of the Iran-contra scandal in which several current and former Bush administration officials took part. These include National Security Council Middle East adviser Elliot Abrams, former Defense Department Information Awareness Office chief Admiral (retired) John Poindexter, and Assistant Secretaries of State for Latin American Affairs Otto Reich and Roger Noriega. The old Iran-contra fraternity remains largely intact. In 2000, North and Trumpower jointly appeared at a Republican fundraising dinner in Arizona.

Trumpower was also close to the reigning Emir of Sharjah, who granted the shadowy ex-CIA agent of influence rights to drill in a strip of ocean bordering Fujairah. Sharjah was a major base of operations for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which used the emirate to smuggle weapons and drugs using Ariana Afghan Airlines security credentials. Sharjah was a base of operations for Viktor Bout's Air Cess operations, which was accused of running weapons to the Taliban and gun running activities in Africa, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo.

From his base in Sharjah in the Gulf, Bout was servicing Ariana Afghan Airline flights to Kandahar, Afghanistan. These flights were believed to be ferrying weapons and Al Qaeda and Taliban volunteers to Afghanistan and the Clinton National Security Council strongly believed Bout was aiding terrorism. Belgium issued an INTERPOL international arrest warrant for Bout for money laundering and diamond smuggling. Clinton White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke wanted an arrest warrant issued for Bout. Gayle Smith, Clinton's National Security Council Africa bureau chief, along with CIA and British MI-6 agents, kept a wary eye on Bout's activities in Africa's conflicts.

At heart of Dubai scandal: Taliban and Al Qaeda weapons smuggler and U.S. contractor Viktor Bout

After Bush was inaugurated in 2001, Sharjah police sent a special police unit to Sharjah airport to capture Bout and hand him over to U.S. authorities, but the White House declined. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told U.S. intelligence that when it came to Bout, "look but don't touch." After 911, Rice inexplicably called off all operations aimed at Bout. Law enforcement and intelligence agents considered such a move amazing, considering Bout's direct links to smuggling arms to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, as well as to other areas of the world that were rife with Islamist terrorist groups.

Next door to Sharjah is Dubai, the center of CIA spying in the region, according to U.S. intelligence sources. Dubai's Dolphin Energy Ltd. was a quarter-owned by Enron before the firm's collapse. Dolphin's CEO was UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahayan. Bout was reported by the UN to be using Flying Dolphin Airlines, which operated scheduled flights between Dubai and Kandahar between October 2000 and January 2001, to ship arms to the Taliban. Flying Dolphin was owned by Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Saqr al Nahayan, a former UAE ambassador to the U.S. and a relative of the President of the UAE, who is also the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Flying Dolphin was registered in Bout's favorite home base of Liberia although its main office was in Dubai.
In addition, Bout's Texas-based Air Bas had rights to refuel at U.S. bases in Iraq. One of Bout's airfreight companies, Airbus, was subcontracted through another firm called Falcon Express of Dubai, by Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton. Air Bas also had links to Falcon Express.

In July 2001, Osama bin Laden was reported to have received kidney treatment at the American Hospital in Dubai with the blessing of the Dubai and UAE governments. At the time of his hospitalization, Osama Bin Laden was reported by the French newspaper Le Figaro and Radio France International to have been visited on July 12, 2001, by Larry Mitchell, the CIA chief in Dubai who was said to have had close contacts with all the Gulf royal families. Mitchell was reportedly called back to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia on July 15, 2001. The Carlyle Group, with George H. W. Bush, James Baker III, and the Bin Laden family as major principals, bought a 42 percent stake (from a previous 4.9 percent stake) in Le Figaro after the paper on October 31, 2001, reported on the Bin Laden meeting with the CIA station chief in Dubai.

The Bush criminal cartel: fingerprints all over Dubai ports deal

One of Neil Bush's best friends and advocates in the Middle East is the Emir of Dubai, Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, an individual who often crossed paths with the Taliban and Al Qaeda on his frequent hunting and falconing trips to eastern Afghanistan. In the wake of 911, Rashid, who was the Defense Minister of the United Arab Emirates and then Dubai Crown Prince, said the following, "The United States must not to act in haste, it must give diplomacy and legal means every opportunity before launching a military strike on Afghanistan, it must not rush to accuse people without hard evidence." The UAE was only one of three countries to recognize the Taliban, which acquiesced to the financing of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. In October 2001, while visiting Dubai just weeks after 911, Neil Bush praised the Shaikh Rashid as a man with "foresight and vision." In the same speech, Neil Bush said something that should chill the bones of every American--
he said the following about his learning-disabled son Pierce, "My father was the 41st president and my brother is 43rd. I think that if Pierce finishes high school, he'll be the 50th president of the United States."

Rashid also just so happened to be in charge of a project to put computers in UAE schools and Neil Bush was hawking the services of his Ignite! Inc., an e-learning educational software company.
Carlyle Group has its fingerprints on the Dubai Ports world deal to assume control of six major U.S. ports from Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). After Treasury Secretary John Snow left CSX Corporation as its chairman, CSX Lines was sold to Carlyle, which renamed it Horizon Lines. David Sanborn, who was a CSX executive under Snow, became director of European and Latin American operations for Dubai Ports World and arranged to sell the Dubai state-owned firm CSX port operations in South America and Asia. Sanborn was then appointed Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Maritime Administration (MARAD), the oversight agency for U.S. shipping and ports. The Dubai Ports World deal to take over U.S. port operations was signed off by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), chaired by Sanborn's old CSX boss Snow. Perhaps not coincidental to the lucrative port deals, the Dubai Investment Corporation recently invested $100 million in The Carlyle Group. And Dubai Ports World's deal involves taking over operations at more than just six U.S. ports -- New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia/Camden, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans.

P&O's web site states the Dubai Ports World deal involves stevedore operations at 21 U.S. ports: Portland, ME; Boston, Davisville, RI; New York; Newark; Philadelphia; Camden, NJ; Wilmington, DE; Baltimore; Newport News, VA; Norfolk, VA; Portsmouth, VA; Miami; Lake Charles, LA, New Orleans; Beaumont, TX; Port Arthur, TX; Galveston, TX; Houston; Corpus Christi; and Freeport, TX.
The magazine In These Times reported yet another former CIA officer who had ties to the Gulf and who was heavily involved with the oil industry. He is Stephen "Satch" Baumgart of Reston, Virginia. He reportedly helped funnel arms to Sadaam Hussein in the 1980s with the approval of the CIA, which had, at the time, tilted to Baghdad in its war with Iran. Baumgart was linked to another Republican contributor and oil mogul, Pierre Falcone of Scottsdale, Arizona. Falcone was implicated in a complex guns-for-oil scandal involving Angola and Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, a major player with the Luanda regime. Another player in that scandal was Russian-Israeli mobster Arkady Gaydamak, who is tied into an international network of smugglers connected to Marc Rich, Scooter Libby's one-time client. Falcone was also closely linked to Arizona Republican State Senator Scott Bundgaard, who ran for the House of Representatives' Second District in Arizona.

There is also a connection between the scandal-plagued firm Custer Battles (Talk about a bad name for a company), which has been under investigation for fraud in Iraq security contracts, and Dubai.
Custer Battles was formed in 2003 by Mike Battles, aged 33, a former U.S. Army and CIA officer and Scott Custer, also a former U.S. Army Ranger and employee of SAIC. (There was a story about them on 60 Minutes, using pets as "bomb sniffing" dogs and other total scams while raking in millions as a "security" firm in Iraq). Custer was Battles's campaign assistant in a failed 2002 congressional race against Rhode Island Democratic Representative Patrick Kennedy. Custer Battles initial financing is sketchy but it is known that the company received $15 million in seed money from a Dubai venture capital firm. The venture capital firm hoped to raise an additional $100 million for Custer Battles ventures in Iraq. Battles refused to disclose the name of the Dubai firm.

A mercenary firm that supplies ex-South African counter-insurgency Koevoet commandos has links to Dubai. The firm, Erinys International, which established an Erinys Iraq branch, has its headquarters in London with offices in Johannesburg and Dubai.
Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, has some interesting partners in its work in occupied Iraq. On Dec. 11, WMR reported on links between Halliburton/Kellogg, Brown & Root and a Viktor Bout-owned airline based in Moldova, Aerocom/Air Mero. Bout's airlines have also reportedly been involved in flying low wage earners from East Asia to Dubai and on to Iraq where they work for paltry salaries in sub-standard living conditions. Halliburton/KBR has sub-contracted to a shadowy Dubai-based firm, Prime Projects International Trading LLC (PPI), which "trades" mainly in workers from Thailand, the Philippines, Nepal, India, Pakistan, and other poor Asian nations.

In 2004, after a Filipino PPI worker was killed in a mortar attack on Camp Anaconda in Iraq, the Philippines government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered PPI, which is based at P.O. Box 42252, Dubai, UAE, to send overseas Filipino workers OFWs) home from Iraq and Kuwait and banned it from further recruiting in the Philippines. Some of PPI's recruiting included running ads on the Internet. In addition to the other south Asian employees, the Philippine workers were employed by PPI under a Pentagon sweetheart umbrella contract let to KBR under the LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) III program.

Although little is known about PPI, it reportedly has been linked to Halliburton/KBR for a number of years and has been associated with Halliburton contracts in the Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Balkans during the time when Dick Cheney headed the firm. PPI has also been involved in operations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Filipino workers were involved in building the prison housing suspected "Al Qaeda" prisoners.

Inside sources report that PPI has some high level financial partners, including the al Nahayan royal family of the United Arab Emirates and Vice President Cheney.

This is terrifying

Gulags For American Citizens In Final Planning Stages
Halliburton sex slave trade criminals prepare camps for political dissidents

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | March 1 2006

Bush administration and US army preparations to target American citizens and intern them in forced labor camps has vastly accelerated in the past month and commentators from all over the political spectrum are sounding the alarm bells that the round-ups may begin soon.
Once the bane of the media's stereotypical 'tin foil hat wearing' caricatures, concentration camps in America are now serious news and no one is laughing.
Following the news first given wide attention by this website, that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.
The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture supporting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to target, "Fifth Columnists" Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with "the enemy," whoever that enemy may be.
It is important to stress that the historical precedent mirrors exactly what the Halliburton camp deal outlines. Oliver North's Reagan era Rex 84 plan proposed rounding up 400,000 refugees, under FEMA, in the event of "uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the United States.

Ollie North at Iran/Contra hearings--he drew up the original plan...

The real agenda, just as it is with Halliburton's gulags, was to use the cover of rounding up immigrants and illegal aliens as a smokescreen for targeting political dissidents. From 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the "ADEX" list. The current terrorist suspect list was recently revealed to contain the names of 325,000 people. The government claimed that only a tiny fraction were American citizens living in America but when compared to the potential terrorist list in the UK, which under section 44 of the terrorism act has ensnared at least 119,000 people, most of them innocent protesters, the number is likely to be far higher. Britain's population is only 60 million compared to the US at 295 million.
Halliburton, through their KBR subsidiary, is the same company that built most of the major new detention camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. KBR have been embroiled in a human sex slave trade that their representatives have lobbied to continue. We have a company that has been handed a contract to build prison camps in America that is engaged in trafficking young girls and women. Can this horror movie get any more frightening?
A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon's Civilian Inmate Labor Program, has recently been updated and the revision details a "template for developing agreements" between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations."

The plan is clearly to swallow up disenfranchised groups likes prisoners and Muslims at first and then extend the policy to include 'Fifth Columnists,' otherwise known as anyone who disagrees with the government or exercises their Constitutional rights.
Respected author Peter Dale Scott speculated that the "detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law."
Daniel Ellsberg, former Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense, called the plan, "preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They've already done this on a smaller scale, with the 'special registration' detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo."
George Bush has declared himself to have supreme power over and above the limitations of the US Constitution. Bush administration officials like Alberto Gonzales have declared Bush to be "above the law." White House advisors are openly discussing the legality of crushing a child's testicles as part of the war on terror. Preparation for the internment of thousands of Americans who are 'disloyal' in times of emergency are afoot.
The next step is clearer than it has ever been. One more large scale staged terror attack in America and the result will be martial law. When even famous singers like Morrissey are being detained and questioned by the secret service for "speaking out against the American and British governments," we know we are in a lot of trouble.