Christine Todd Whitman "I've been called a liar ... and my actions might have been criminal."

"Ex-EPA Head Christine Todd Whitman Denies Misleading Public Over Environmental Dangers After 9/11; Admits White House Removed EPA Call for NYC Apartments to be Professionally Cleaned of Dust
Nearly six years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Whitman appeared on Capitol Hill Monday for the first time to answer questions about the EPA's statements after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Since Whitman assured New Yorkers that the air was "safe to breathe," thousands of downtown residents and workers have become sick.

AMY GOODMAN: JoAnn Lum, where does Beyond Ground Zero go from here? This is now six years later.
JOANN LUM: Well, we're calling for the government to pay for this lie, this misconduct, and so besides Christine Whitman acknowledging, apologizing, we're saying that she should be punished for this. She should go to prison. I mean, people died because of her misconduct, her lie. And also, one of the things we're also calling for is that the government, the federal government, put funds into addressing the health problems of these victims of 9/11.

REP. KEITH ELLISON: Right. And do you also agree today, even looking back in hindsight, that the language that you used gave people a false sense of safety?
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: No, I do not agree that it gave them a false sense of safety. We were talking about air quality, the general ambient air quality in Lower Manhattan, and the impact on long-term health. And I’m sorry if that was not what people --
...
REP. KEITH ELLISON: And I’m not going to stand here and allow you to try to obfuscate the questions that I’m asking --
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: I’m not obfuscating, Congressman. I’m answering.
REP. KEITH ELLISON: -- by doing what you're doing.
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: I have been called a liar.
REP. KEITH ELLISON: No, I’m not calling --
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: I’ve been called a liar even in this room today --
REP. KEITH ELLISON: Governor, I’m not calling you --
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: -- and my actions might have been criminal.
REP. KEITH ELLISON: Governor, I’m not calling you that.
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: With all due respect, you're sitting on a panel with people who are calling me those things.
REP. KEITH ELLISON: Governor, I’m not calling you that. I’m trying to get answers.

With Thousands of New Yorkers Sick, NYC Residents and Workers Accuse Whitman and Bush Administration of Covering Up Dangers of Toxic Air After 9/11
On Monday, two busloads of Ground Zero workers and residents traveled to Washington to hear Christine Todd Whitman's testimony. We hear from two members of the group Beyond Ground Zero, environmental attorney Joel Kupferman and Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez, who attended Monday's hearing.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I think the main thrust was that Whitman had no regrets about any of the stuff that she had told the public, or that her agency had told the public, in the first few days after 9/11. She reiterated that she was following the conclusions of the scientists. Yet Congressman Nadler raised to her that there were scientists within the government who had raised concerns from the earliest days, including Ed Kilbourne from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, ATSDR, who warned on September 12 that there were significant asbestos readings in the scanty early tests that EPA had done and questioning whether it was advisable to have people re-enter buildings in the financial district.
And Whitman basically did not respond to that, when she was told by Congressman Nadler that there were very few air monitoring tests in the first couple of days before she made her first pronouncement that there were no danger problems from contaminants, but that the few tests that there were -- for instance, the City of New York had ten asbestos air monitoring tests in the first couple of days. Seven of them, or 70%, showed elevated asbestos levels. And when she was asked about that, she said that she couldn't recall which tests were taken on what day, but she continues to say the scientists were backing up her claims. So I think that was one big hole in the testimony.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I think that there are still questions not really followed up very well such as, many of the respiratory problems that people have suffered from have been traced to scarring of the lungs and into people's breathing system, a lot of it caused by the highly caustic dust that was blanketing all of Lower Manhattan. And, in fact, the alkalinity levels were as corrosive as drain cleaner, according to one study that was done but was not released to the public until months afterwards. And EPA was required to test for alkalinity to protect rescue workers in any emergency. They had never released any of those initial reports, if they took them, or they may not have taken them at all. This was never really followed up. A question was asked to Whitman about it, but she deflected it, and then it was never followed up on by any of the other Congress members.
But I think that the other interesting issue is the whole issue of the White House involvement. I think the members of the Congress who compared the original press releases of EPA versus what was actually produced show that there were clear substantive changes, not just mere word changes, to these releases to downplay any alerts to the public that this may be a problem, the contamination there. And the interesting thing was that Samuel Thernstrom, who was the person at the White House who was actually doing the rewriting of the releases, was asked at one point “Who appointed you at the National Security Council to this job? Who were you reporting to?” He said, “I don't know who appointed me.” He said he did not know who his superior was at the National Security Council. And yet the Security Council had to approve all of the press releases he was rewriting. So at one point Congressman Nadler asked him, “Well, who did you send your press releases to to get approval?” And Thernstrom, in a bizarre exchange, said, “Well, I faxed them to the National Security Council, and then I got a reply back with the approval of my press releases.”
And the final thing is that John Henshaw, the head of OSHA, made a startling statement at one point when he was asked -- I think it was by Keith Ellison. Ellison said, “Isn't it true that there is no safe, recognized safe, level of asbestos exposure?” And Henshaw said, “No, that's not true. There is a safe level of asbestos exposure.” Now, there is nothing in any government record that I know of that says that there is a safe level of asbestos exposure. There are permissible levels that workers can be exposed to, but there is no safe level, and no science has recognized that there is a safe level of asbestos exposure.
...
AMY GOODMAN: I remember a story that actually the New Yorker magazine made famous of a very high-end apartment building, where the residents came home not too long after 9/11. And they saw people in the lobby who were asking them for their addresses, how much money they needed. And they gave them something like $10,000 or $15,000. And they said, “Why? We haven't even asked for this.” And they said they were giving out money. They couldn't even refuse the money. Yet what has happened in the low-income communities?
JOANN LUM: Nothing like that was ever offered to the low-income people. And, in fact, we found that there was a disproportionate amount of FEMA money, Federal Emergency Management Agency money, that went to the higher-income ZIP codes in Lower Manhattan and that people on the East Side, the lower-income people in Chinatown and the Lower East Side, got a very small percentage of the aid from FEMA right after 9/11. And we felt like this was real discrimination, you know, racially and income-wise, for people who were affected by 9/11.

With Release of “Family Jewels,” CIA Acknowledges Years of Assassination Plots, Coerced Drug Tests and Domestic Spying
The CIA has released its so-called “family jewels” -- nearly 700 pages of documents detailing some if its most infamous and illegal operations dating back to the 1950s. These include assassination plots against foreign leaders, drugs tests on unwitting citizens, wiretapping of U.S. journalists, opening mail, break-ins at the homes of ex-CIA employees, extensive surveillance of civil rights and anti-war groups, bugging of political conventions, performing drug tests on US citizens without consent, and plotting to assassinate world leaders. In 1960, the CIA enlisted two mobsters on the FBI’s most-wanted list in an attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro. We speak with John Prados of the National Security Archive, an independent research institute that filed the original Freedom of Information Act request for the “family jewels” 15 years ago.

Lockerbie evidence 'was tampered with, destroyed and overlooked'
Amid claims from his defence team of a "co-ordinated effort to mislead the court", tantamount to a perversion of the course of justice, the SCCRC is studying hundreds of documents and photographs that suggest evidence was deliberately fabricated, manipulated or ignored by police and CIA operatives.

Who Killed JFK?
Shortly before President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas, he made certain statements, any one of which would align powerful antagonistic forces against him:
1) He would eliminate the CIA,
2) He would issue Treasury greenbacks (which don’t pay interest) in lieu of financing government deficits through the Federal Reserve, and
3) He spoke against empowering the state of Israel with nuclear capability.

Flashback: Fighting War Protesters
Documents make it clear that the intelligence agency also wanted to keep tabs on the mammoth antiwar demonstrations in Washington from 1969 through 1971. The D.C. police department, for example, was given a communications system "to monitor major anti-Vietnam war demonstrations," the records said.

FEMA Whistleblower Exposes 9/11 Conspiracy
"What I saw at certain moments and in certain places...is very frightening, I don't know who to put it in words, what I saw leads me to the terrible conclusion that there was foreknowledge of what was going to happen. The precautions that were taken to save certain things that the authorities there considered irreplaceable or invaluable. For example, certain things were missing that could only have been removed with a truck, yet after the first plane hit one of the towers, everything in manhattan collapsed and no one could have gotten near the towers to do that."

FLASHBACK: Sept. 11's Moments of Crisis, Part 2
Just after 9 a.m. ET on Sept. 11, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney was in his West Wing office when two or three agents came in and told him "Sir, you have to come with us," according to David Bohrer, a White House photographer who was there.

Mineta Confirms Cheney Ordered Stand Down

Mineta says Vice President Cheney was "absolutely" already there when he arrived at approximately 9:25 a.m. in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) bunker on the morning of 9/11. Mineta seemed shocked to learn that the 9/11 Commission Report claimed Cheney had not arrived there until 9:58 -- after the Pentagon had been hit, a report that Mineta definitively contradicted.

Bush Directive for a "Catastrophic Emergency" in America: Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran?
NSPD 51 has barely been reported by the mainstream media. There was no press briefing by the White House or by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, which would be the normal practice, given the significance and implications of NSPD 51. The text of NSPD /51 HSPD 20, announced by the White House is not even mentioned on the DHS's website.
This Combined Directive NSPD /51 HSPD 20 grants unprecedented powers to the Presidency and the Department of Homeland Security, overriding the foundations of Constitutional government. NSPD 51 allows the sitting president to declare a “national emergency” without Congressional approval The adoption of NSPD 51 would lead to the de facto closing down of the Legislature and the militarization of justice and law enforcement.
Keep in mind that in all the various EOs and FEMA directives, an economic crash is included on the list of events by which Bush can suspend the Congress and Constitution.

It’s Official: The Crash of the U.S. Economy has begun

In language remarkably alarmist for the usually ultra-bland pages of the Post, Pearlstein wrote, “It is impossible to predict when the magic moment will be reached and everyone finally realizes that the prices being paid for these companies, and the debt taken on to support the acquisitions, are unsustainable. When that happens, it won't be pretty. Across the board, stock prices and company valuations will fall. Banks will announce painful write-offs, some hedge funds will close their doors, and private-equity funds will report disappointing returns. Some companies will be forced into bankruptcy or restructuring.”

Banks 'set to call in a swathe of loans'

The United States faces a severe credit crunch as mounting losses on risky forms of debt catch up with the banks and force them to curb lending and call in existing loans, according to a report by Lombard Street Research.The group said the fast-moving crisis at two Bear Stearns hedge funds had exposed the underlying rot in the US sub-prime mortgage market, and the vast nexus of collateralised debt obligations known as CDOs.

Giuliani discouraged use of respirators by WTC workers

In an upcoming interview with WNBC-TV, former head of the EPA Christie Whitman says former Mayor Rudy Giuliani blocked her efforts to force WTC workers to wear respirators.

In Blow to Campaign Finance Reform, Supreme Court Throws Out Restrictions on Special Interest Campaign Ads
The Supreme Court has thrown out part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that placed restrictions on corporations and unions from buying television ads close to elections. Attorney John Bonifaz of Voter Action says that in granting corporations the first amendment rights of individuals, the Supreme Court is undermining the election process.

Rat out Karl Rove? Your house may burn down.
Dana Simpson, a Republican, had to open her mouth and blow the whistle. The response to Simpson’s affidavit has been a series of brusque dismissive statements – all of them unsworn – from others who figured in the discussion and the federal prosecutor in the Siegelman case, who has now made a series of demonstrably false statements concerning the matter. She’s been smeared as “crazy” and as a “disgruntled contract bidder.”
And something nastier: after her intention to speak became known, Simpson’s house was burned to the ground, and her car was driven off the road and totaled. Clearly, there are some very powerful people in Alabama who feel threatened. Her case starts to sound like a chapter out of John Grisham’s book The Pelican Brief.

Justice in Alabama
Far, far more troubling still is the conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in a prosecution in Montgomery... the prosecution was corruptly conceived and pursued and that the court proceedings were corrupted, almost from the outset: that is already extremely clear. This is not a prosecution of a political figure for corruption. It is a political vendetta, conceived, developed and pursued for a corrupt purpose.
The Siegelman prosecution was commenced as the result of a plan hatched between senior figures in the Alabama Republican Party and Karl Rove. This connection is not coincidental, because Rove was once fired by the first President Bush and then had to rehabilitate himself. Rove did this in spades, and the place where he worked his political magic was in Alabama. He put together a campaign to engineer the Alabama GOP’s capture of the state’s judicial machinery. It worked brilliantly. And Rove has retained tight connections with the Alabama GOP ever since. Rove and the Alabama GOP leaders set out to destroy Siegelman’s political career and thus smooth the path by which the Republican Party could secure and retain political control of the Alabama statehouse.
The curtain was pulled back on this plan when Dana Jill Simpson, a Republican lawyer who previously worked on a campaign against Siegelman, decided to blow the whistle. Her affidavit described William Canary, a legendary figure in the Alabama GOP, bragging that “his girls” would take care of Siegelman. Canary is a close friend of Karl Rove, and I have documented their long relationship in another post.
But still more striking – astonishing by any measure – is how this same U.S. Attorney and Department of Justice dealt with Siegelman’s successor, current Governor Bob Riley. Riley and many of his senior-most associates are closely tied to Jack Abramoff, perhaps the single most scandal-ridden figure in U.S. political history. I have detailed some of these relationships earlier. Documents that surfaced in the Abramoff investigation suggested that in exchange for millions of dollars in campaign contributions from a Mississippi tribe with gaming interests to his gubernatorial election campaign, Riley would ensure that an Alabama tribe then seeking a license would be blocked. In fact the millions flowed into Riley’s coffers, and he in fact took steps to block the license sought by his own constituents. So what did the U.S. Attorney, Leura Canary, do? Instigate an investigation for corruption? Bring evidence before a grand jury? No. In fact, Mrs. William Canary seems suspiciously involved in the entire scheme. Indeed, she secured appointment to the licensing board for the matter.

Ex-Admin Official Given 10-Month Prison Term
President Bush’s former Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Steven Griles, has been sentenced to ten months in prison. Griles pleaded guilty earlier this year to lying about his relationship with Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Griles is the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the Abramoff lobbying scandal. Abramoff’s clients paid more than five hundred thousand dollars to a non-profit environmental group run by Griles’ girlfriend, who was a former aide to then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton.
In court documents, Griles minimized his role in the Abramoff scandal. He said he never accepted anything of value from Abramoff and he asked a judge to consider his career of public service. Prosecutors painted a different picture.
Second in rank only to then-Secretary Gale Norton, Griles effectively was Interior's chief operating officer while at the agency between July 2001 and January 2005, and its top representative on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.

ACLU: U.S. holds 19,000 terror suspects
The United States currently is holding about 19,000 terror suspects, a human rights group said Monday.

Former Army Official Sentenced For Stealing Iraq-Reconstruction Funds
Former Army Lieutenant Colonel Bruce D. Hopfengardner was sentenced to nearly two years in prison yesterday for helping steer millions of dollars in Iraq-reconstruction funds to a fraudulent contractor in exchange for jewelry, computers, cigars, sexual favors and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney

Cheney backs off on claim that he is 'fourth branch of government'
"The White House has no plans to reassert the argument there is any vice presidential distinction from the executive branch," according to Bush administration officials who spoke with reporter Mike Allen. "Two senior Republican officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the rationale had been the view of the vice president’s lawyers, not Cheney himself."


Leaving No Tracks
In Oregon, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to be cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. Federal biologists said the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake. Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.
First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.
Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River. Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.
The Klamath case is one of many in which the vice president took on a decisive role to undercut long-standing environmental regulations for the benefit of business.
By combining unwavering ideological positions -- such as the priority of economic interests over protected fish -- with a deep practical knowledge of the federal bureaucracy, Cheney has made an indelible mark on the administration's approach to everything from air and water quality to the preservation of national parks and forests.
It was Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, not the personal reasons she cited at the time, that led Christine Todd Whitman to resign as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, she said in an interview that provides the most detailed account so far of her departure.
The vice president also pushed to make Nevada's Yucca Mountain the nation's repository for nuclear and radioactive waste, aides said, a victory for the nuclear power industry over those with long-standing safety concerns. And his office was a powerful force behind the White House's decision to rewrite a Clinton-era land-protection measure that put nearly a third of the national forests off limits to logging, mining and most development, former Cheney staff members said.

Three issues in the safety of genetically modified crops
Baculovirus is a circular DNA duplex, it replicates in the insect cell nucleus and replication is prone to the generation of defective genomes by deletion (Wu et al 1999). The mode of virus replication seems to make the recombinant virus highly unpredictable and prone to generating potentially undesirable variants. This important finding has not yet been taken into account in risk analysis of recombinant baculovirus insecticides and gene therapy vectors.

"Comments on the human health impact of Bacillus thuringiensis toxin gene product in genetically modified crops"
First, there is evidence that Bacillus thuringirnsis (Bt) cry 1 toxin will impact directly on human health through damage to the ileum , second , the use of synthetic Bt cry toxin genes has not been proven to be equivalent to the natural bacterial gene and finally, the introduction of natural and synthetic bacterial genes into crops and food sources for human or farm animals has not been evaluated regarding its introduction of high levels of the bacterial CpG trigger that activated the innate immune response. The study below shows that Bt Cry 1 toxin which is used extensively in corn and cotton products (oil and seed meal) used in human and animal food damages the mammalian ileum. Damage to the ileum can produce chronic illness such as fecal incontinence and/or flu like upsets of the digestive system.

Bees dying of mysterious infection
He had expected to see mites or amoebas, perennial pests of bees. Instead, he found internal organs swollen with debris and strangely blackened. The bees' intestinal tracts were scarred, and their rectums were abnormally full of what appeared to be partly digested pollen. Dark marks on the sting glands were telltale signs of infection.

Could genetically modified crops be killing bees?
Bees forage heavily on corn flowers to obtain pollen for the rearing of young broods, and these pollen grains also contain the Bt gene of the parent plant, because they are present in the cells from which pollen forms.
Is it not possible that while there is no lethal effect directly to the new bees, there might be some sublethal effect, such as immune suppression, acting as a slow killer?

Poll: Support for Iraq War at New Low
A new poll shows support for the Iraq war has reached an all-time low of thirty-percent. According to CNN, nearly two-thirds of Americans favor an immediate withdrawal. More than half say U.S. action in Iraq is not morally justified.

Baquba: ' A kill sack'.

' We are enveloping the enemy into a kill sack,' said Command Sergeant Major Jeff Huggins from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade, according to Reuters (23rd June.)
A 'kill sack'? Good luck America, when these sickos return home. Shutter the windows, barr the doors - and above all, lock up your daughters. Remember little Abeer al-Janabi, multiply raped in nearby in Mahmoudiya, her family shot and she and all burned to cover the evidence? Remember Abu Ghraib? And where else? Think rape, rape, rape, sodomy, sodomy, sodomy - think the furthest other reaches of the most bestial inhumanity to man, women and yes, children. Think of America's finest selling the pictures of the dead, dying, defiled on the internet, in exchange for porn. Think also of chains of command. Where does the cover up start and how high does it go?
'We are not carpet bombing these things.* People know if we get resistance from a house, we'll take out that house and the people in it, but not the entire street.'
How thoughtful. Any one reflected that most on earth would 'resist' their home being trashed by strangers, their children and women terrified (or worse) at 3 a.m. (or any time) risking also any belongings of value and money stolen? Residents have no right to refuse and can be shot (no questions asked later) for just that.
*Iraqis, please note, it seems, are now 'things'.
This week there was an article about the deaths of Americans in Iraq 'and a terp'. What was a terp? Some animal mascot? No, it was an interpreter, prepared tor risk his life with and for them, but not even worthy of a title or name. Another statement which arose this week from the US military, regarding accidental deaths was: 'They are only Iraqis'. The whole of Iraq, just 'a kill sack'. Need more be said?

Marines to train at new Israeli combat center

In a new, elaborate training center in the Negev desert, Israeli troops -- and someday, U.S. Marines and soldiers -- are preparing for the wide range of urban scenarios they may confront.
Built by the Army Corps of Engineers and funded largely from U.S. military aid, the 7.4-square-mile generic city -- balad, in Arabic, means village -- consists of 1,100 basic modules that can be reconfigured by mission planners to represent specific towns.

Afghan opium production 'soars'

Opium production in Afghanistan is soaring out of control, the annual UN report on illegal drugs says.
"Mission Accomplished."

Afghan civilians reportedly killed more by U.S., NATO than insurgents

U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have killed at least 203 civilians so far this year -- surpassing the 178 civilians killed in militant attacks, according to an Associated Press tally.

Officials: Soviet-Era Caches, Not Iran, Arming Taliban
While United States officials accuse Iran of arming a resurgent Taliban, officials here say the weapons are actually part of vast caches left behind by the Soviet army that fought a nine-year war in Afghanistan before withdrawing in 1988.
Ustad Basir Arifi, secretary for the Disarmament of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) program in northern Afghanistan, told IPS that weapons abandoned by the Soviet Union there are now being moved by professional smugglers to the southern provinces where the Taliban Islamist movement has its stronghold.

Looks as though this administration has been caught lying...again.

Republican Voinovich joins call for U.S. troops to start coming home
On Tuesday, Senator George Voinovich called on President Bush to develop a plan for an eventual US withdrawal from Iraq, warning “we are running out of time.” His comments come one day after Republican Senator Richard Lugar gave an un-announced speech on the Senate floor calling for the reduction of US troops in Iraq.

Republican Senator Richard Lugar: "In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved. Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term."

Richard Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senate GOPers Block Union Legislation
On Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans have blocked a measure aimed at easing barriers for workers to join unions. The Employee Free Choice Act would stop employers from demanding secret-ballot elections and require them to recognize unions if a majority of workers consented. The House passed the bill in March. But on Tuesday, Senate Democrats failed to reach the sixty-votes needed to move the measure to vote.

McCain could pull out of race by autumn

The speculation, vigorously denied by McCain’s camp, is sweeping Republican circles after a disastrous few weeks in which the principled Arizona senator has clashed with the party’s conservative base on immigration and also alienated independent voters by backing President George W Bush’s troop surge in Iraq.

The Foreign Policy of Barack Obama

Barack Obama provides no alternative to Hillary Clinton, in terms of imperial-minded foreign policy. This is doubly regrettable since Clinton herself provides no substantive alternative to the neoconservative philosophy of the Bush administration.

Sen. Mike Gravel: Why Hillary Scares Me
During one of the debates I mentioned that my fellow Democratic candidates scare me. Hillary's speech last week to the Take Back America conference gives me yet another reason to be afraid.
In an indignant voice she decried the Bush administration's ''stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run amok. . . It is everything our founders were afraid of, everything our Constitution was designed to prevent.'' Actually, our Constitution grants Congress the power to prevent these ills but Hillary and her colleagues weren't up to the task.
Our founders' legacy did not stop Hillary from voting for the Patriot Act and then supporting its renewal in 2006 despite revelations that the government was using it to infringe on the very liberties that our founders held sacred. Where was her commitment to our founders when she voted to gut our habeas corpus protections?
As for cronyism -- Hillary has repeatedly authorized billions that the Pentagon gave in no-bid contracts to Halliburton. Even though the Democrats have been in control of Congress for months, they still haven't summoned Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and the other usual suspects to account for the missing millions in reconstruction funding.
In the same frightening speech, Hillary went on the blame the Iraqis for the mess in their country: "The American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions that are important for their own people.''
Let me get this straight. The Iraq disaster is not the fault of the delusional neo-cons, the greedy oil companies, or the gullible and cowardly Congressional warhawks. (Most senators including Clinton didn't even bother to read the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate). According to Hillary, the real culprit is the Iraqi government that we created virtually overnight and left to govern a fractured, impoverished society. Talk about blaming the victim!
Hillary, as an active supporter of the war, you are one of many Americans who are guilty. And now all Americans are left responsible, regardless of whether we supported or opposed he war. When we pull out, our hands will drip with the blood of the tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead. The Iraqi government didn't start this, we did.
Of course we can continue to compartmentalize ourselves from the truth, remove the troops and blame the rubble on the Iraqis. We can feed the collective fantasy that our good intentions and heroic efforts were thwarted by the cowardice and incompetence of others. But if that's what we take from our experience in Iraq, we will never learn the true lessons and we will be condemned to repeat the same mistakes.
The inability to admit a mistake and assume responsibility is not just a morally bankrupt way to walk through life; it is a dangerous and deadly way to lead a nation. When I am president, I will open up all secret files relating to the Iraq war and expose all officials who lied to the public in promoting it. (That's right, Dick, your files too.) My Justice Department will prosecute everyone who lied under oath or ripped off the American taxpayer by exploiting the Iraq reconstruction effort. And I will pardon to no one.

MEMRI Loss

As we have known for some time now, MEMRI, short for the Middle East Media Research Institute, specializes in disinformation by distorting translations of film and print media stories originating in Arabic, Iranian and Turkish media. In essence, what MEMRI does is change the context of news stories by way of mistranslation and excision. Call it MEMRI loss, the deliberate mangling of media. MEMRI did this to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by turning a speech he delivered in 2005 into a racist and genocidal screed. MEMRI accomplished this through mistranslation. Not a day passes now we do not witness corporate media claims Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map. In fact, Ahmadinejad said the “regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.” He did not say Israel must be wiped off the map. But this engineered lie is repeated constantly by the corporate media and to such a degree it is now accepted as fact.

General Predicts Israel will attack Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, "Al Quaeda", this summer

Israel is capable of attacking one or all of these “adversaries,” as Israel has a notorious history of attacking its neighbors under contrived pretense. If the Israeli Likudniks and the American neocons have their way, Israel will have a second go this summer.

Israel braces for July war with up to five enemies

Israeli military intelligence has projected that a major attack could come from any of five adversaries in the Middle East. Officials said such a strike could spark a war as early as July 2007.

High Court permits torture of Palestinians

The Israeli High Court issued a ruling that allows the Shabak, which is the Internal General Security Service of Israel, to torture with impunity.

PMO: Israel will transfer only part of withheld tax revenues to PA

Sources at the Prime Minister's Office said Sunday that the transfer of withheld tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, approved earlier Sunday, would for the time being include only part of the sum Israel has collected on behalf of the Palestinians.



FLASHBACK: CONTROLLED PRESS HIDES CHERTOFF'S ISRAELI ROOTS

Michael Chertoff, the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, was approved in a 98-0 vote in the U.S. Senate without the question of his Israeli roots and nationality even being raised.

The Coup Against Hamas
Inter-Palestinian violence and political chaos, of course, suit Israel’s expansionist right-wingers very well. They want turmoil on the West Bank. Palestinian infighting supplies them the perfect excuse to avoid ever having to make serious land concessions and provides useful cover under which to keep building settlements. The Bush administration appears to have quietly adopted this same view.


ILA destroys Bedouin homes to make way for Jewish town

The ILA is destroying the village built on government-owned land and evacuating its inhabitants so that a Jewish Community named "Hiran" can be established in the area. Fourteen shacks, which housed some 100 people, have been destroyed by bulldozers so far. Bedouin women attempted to get their children out of the house but police wanted to speed up the process so they grabbed the play pens with the children inside and did not let the mothers come near.

Israeli Attack on Gaza Kills 10
In the Occupied Territories, at lest ten Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip earlier today. The Israel Defense Forces say at least five of the dead were Palestinian militants. The attack comes just two days after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Egypt. Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh, who has not recognized his dismissal as Palestinian Prime Minister by Abbas last week, said Israel is trying to further divide Palestinians.

Ismael Haniyeh: "We want to alert the Palestinian and Arab leaderships to the luring policy of Olmert which aims to divide our people and cause internal problems."

Dying children among Palestinians trapped in Iraqi border camps: UN

"We seem to be a voice in the wilderness that nobody is listening to," said UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis. "Conditions for these refugees are deteriorating by the day."

Appropriations Vote Leaves Democrats Upset With Pro-Israel Lobby

Democratic leaders are miffed at AIPAC – the powerful pro-Israel Washington lobby – because it won't punish Republicans who voted last week against the $34.2 billion foreign appropriations bill, of which $2.4 billion was earmarked for Israel.

Blair gets Middle East job; 'Disaster for Palestinians'

In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair steps down today after ten years in office. He is to be replaced by Treasury chief Gordon Brown. Blair is expected to begin working as Middle East envoy for the Quartet of the US, Russia, the UN and the European Union.



Nigeria launches seven billion dollar case against Pfizer

The government is seeking damages after nearly 200 children either died or suffered deformities following trials for a new drug the US multinational carried out in the mid-1990s. Of the 200 children affected, 11 died while many more -- reportedly 181 -- suffered from deafness, paralysis, brain damage and blindness, according to the allegations. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared Trovan for adult use in 1997 and the drug swiftly became established as one of the most prescribed antibiotics in the US market. It was later associated with reports of liver damage and deaths, prompting the FDA in 1999 to restrict its use to serious adult cases.



Aspartame linked to cancer: study
The US Food and Drug Administration says there is no need for an urgent review of the safety of aspartame, despite a new study showing the sweetener may cause cancer.
The study found that rats eating high doses of aspartame over their lifetime developed a higher likelihood of leukaemia, lymphoma and breast cancer. Aspartame is widely used in products including diet soft drinks. It was approved in the early 1980s after intense lobbying efforts by Donald Rumsfeld when he worked as CEO for the pharmaceutical company GD Searle. Rumsfeld is said to have engineered the firing of the FDA commissioner who had held up aspartame’s release following studies showing possible links to brain cancer.

2 US Oil Giants Miss Deadline for Venezuela Oil Deal
Two major US oil firms have moved closer to ending operations in Venezuela. On Tuesday, the Venezuelan government announced Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips have failed to meet a deadline on new terms that would see Venezuela take majority control in oil operations there. Four other companies including Chevron and BP have agreed to deals that will see Venezuela hold a minimum sixty-percent stake in the projects.

Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez: "To the companies that have taken a stake in our country, a stake in our future: welcome! You can count on support from the Venezuelan government, on the support of our national company Petroleos, to jointly develop the immense businesses and opportunities that we have shaped in our national design for the development of the Orinoco petrol belt."

African states oppose US Military presence
U.S. plans for a military command based in Africa have met a new setback. The Guardian of London reports a State Department delegation was rebuffed in several meetings with African nations earlier this month. Morrocco -- the Bush administration’s closest northern African ally -- indicated it would reject a permanent US presence on its soil. A state department official said the US has a “a big image problem [in Africa],” adding: “Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US.”

Police cruiser video shows last moments before officer's death
It lasts all of six or seven seconds -- the driver reaching out as if to wave someone away, the police officer striding up, releasing a cloud of pepper spray through car's open window, and the driver reaching out again, this time firing a handgun.

Newsweek: Think "Correct" Thoughts, Citizen
Under the headline, "Dunce Cap Nation," Newsweek released polling results this weekend (from a survey of 1,001 adults, interviewed June 18-19) that "test" Americans knowledge "on a variety of subjects," and found "many gaps in America's knowledge-including a lingering misperception about an Iraqi connection to the September 11 terror attacks, an inability to name key figures in the American government and general cultural confusion."
Most of the questions were relatively straightforward probes of knowledge, such as:

• Only 11% correctly named John Roberts as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on an open-ended question
• While 59% correctly identified Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, 28% were unsure and 13% picked one of the other choices (Barbara Boxer, Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich) on a multiple-choice question.
• Only 31% correctly chose Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

However, at least one question seemed miscast:

5. From what you know about the situation, do you think the United States is losing the fight against al-Qaeda or radical Islamic terrorism?

52 Yes
37 No
11 Don't know/Refused

Is that really an objective test of knowledge? Newsweek put the "No" response in bold type in the summary of results, indicating a "correct answer," so they seem to think so. However, given that our most informed commentators and candidates cannot agree on what to call this fight, and according to USA Today, even the Secretary of Defense "declines to say whether the U.S. and its partners are winning the war on terror," this measure strikes me as more a measure of opinion than fact.