Support our robots

Support our Robots
Well, I suppose we won’t have to worry as much about the safety of our invading, marauding army. We can "support our Robots" instead, as unmanned planes, named, appropriately, The Reaper, murders Iraqis, destroys more homes and "secret insurgent hideouts" ( among their families, friends and other non-combatants, in Iraq), and secures the area for Truth, Justice, and the American Way (massive oil consumption, militarism, predatory Corporatism, racism and all the rest).
This is not about "honor or bravery or sacrifice," any more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki had been. It’s pure cowardice, killing without having to put "our" troops in harms way. "Support our troops" indeed. But we know what we are, so why fight our own selfish, cowardly, murderous intent? Must a dog learn to meow or a cat bark? Why pretend we’re something we’re not? "We" didn’t create the largest military on earth because we’re decent, peace-loving, democratic do-gooders.


Conyers Wimps Out

On Monday, Rep. John Conyers brushed off the heroic impeachment efforts of Cindy Sheehan, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Ray McGovern, Medea Benjamin, David Swanson, 300 dedicated impeachment marchers, 1 million petition signers, resolutions from dozens of cities and towns, and activists who called his office every 30 seconds.

Overcoming John Conyers
Years in Washington DC change a man. Yesterday Conyers had 48 impeachment activists, including Gold Star Families for Peace founder Cindy Sheehan, Iraq Veteran Against the War activist Lennox Yearwood and Intelligence Veterans for Sanity founder Ray McGovern, arrested for conducting a sit-in in his office in the Rayburn House Office Building. The three, together with several hundred other impeachment activists who packed the fourth floor hallway outside Rep. Conyers' office, had come to press Conyers to take action on impeachment, and specifically to start action on H.Res. 333, the bill submitted nearly three months ago by Rep. Dennis Kucinich calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.
After nearly an hour of talking with Conyers, a clearly angry Sheehan emerged together with Yearwood and McGovern, and announced to the waiting throng in the hall that Conyers had told them "impeachment isn't going to happen because we don't have the votes."

Michael Moore: Impeach the President

"I think we need a trial, in this country, where Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush would be brought up on charges for causing the deaths of so many people." -- Michael Moore

Loose Change Producer Korey Rowe Arrested
Loose Change producer and Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Korey Rowe has been arrested and handed over to military officials without bail for allegedly "deserting the Army".
Rowe Arrested Despite Honorable Discharge Papers


Australia drops terror charges against doctor
Mohamed Haneef, the Indian doctor held in Australia in relation to the failed bomb plots in Glasgow and London, has had all charges against him dropped.

MPs accuse BBC bosses over scandal
MPs also questioned why licence fee money should be spent putting BBC staff through a training programme telling them "not to lie".
FLASHBACK: Olbermann Exposes Nexus Of Politics And Terror
During a prime time segment on his MSNBC show last night, anchor Keith Olbermann presented ten clear examples where the Bush administration had issued terror alerts days after politically damaging revelations and questioned the credibility of each of the alleged plots' authenticity in light of astounding evidence to the contrary.


Homeland General: Attack 'Could Happen Any Day'
The U.S. military commander in charge of defending the U.S. homeland said Tuesday that he believes there are al-Qaida cells in the United States or people working to create them.
Air Force Gen. Victor "Gene" Renuart said that while the terrorism threat within the nation's boundaries has increased in the past year, officials have strengthened intelligence sharing, particularly in an effort to shore up weaknesses in security at U.S. ports. "I believe there are cells in the United States, or at least people who aspire to create cells in the United States," Renuart said in an interview with The Associated Press. "To assume that there are not those cells is naive and so we have to take that threat seriously." He added, "Am I concerned that this will happen this summer, I have to be concerned that it could happen any day."

Judge awards $100 mln for unjust convictions
A federal judge ordered the U.S. government on Thursday to pay over $100 million in damages, saying four men were wrongfully convicted of murder after the FBI withheld evidence to protect a mob informant.

Gov‘t to pay $102M for mob convictions
In a stinging rebuke of the FBI, a federal judge on Thursday ordered the government to pay a record judgment of nearly $102 million because agents withheld evidence that would have kept four men from spending decades in prison for a mob murder they did not commit.

FBI to recruit thousands of covert informants
The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities.


US to fund defense systems for Israel
On Thursday the House Appropriations Committee voted to give Israel an additional $70 million in defense aid beyond the $80 million requested by the administration.

Report: Palestinian children in Israeli detention abused, tortured
The report includes personal testimonies from children that expose physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the Israeli army and brutal treatment during lengthy periods of interrogation. At the end of the interrogation process the children were told to sign papers, despite not knowing what they were signing. DCI noted that "a central aspect of the interrogation phase is the use of particular forms of torture and ill treatment. Statements made by Palestinian children held in Israeli prisons, to Defense for Children International within this article, illustrate the varying types of methods used."

Report: Libby a long-time Israeli intelligence agent
Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby (Leibowitz) has been a long-serving intelligence agent for Israel's Mossad, according to a veteran CIA "official cover" officer who spoke to the Wayne Madsen Report on deep background. The CIA's Clandestine Service has, over the years, gathered a tremendous amount of intelligence on Libby's activities on behalf of Mossad.

The Vietnam airlift.

Planning pullout from Iraq a `priority,' Pentagon says The Pentagon is making contingency plans for a gradual U.S. withdrawal of troops from Iraq, according to U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who called the planning a "priority."

Dozens of Afghan civilians die in air raids: residents

Abuse of workers building U.S. embassy in Iraq is alleged

CNN Censors You Tube Debate Question On Impeachment
CNN is congratulating itself profusely for its YouTube debate, and they showed a lot of excellent questions. But they refused to show the #1 video as voted on by visitors to CommunityCounts. The hands-down winning question was on impeachment.
Among the candidates, Dennis Kucinich of course wins the impeachment contest because he is the author of H.Res. 333, Articles of Impeachment for Vice President Cheney. Chris Dodd gets points for answering the question, but he gave the wrong answer when he said it would "divert the attention" of Congress.

CNN Omits 9/11 Conspiracy Comments From Video
CNN is running a story about a protester at a Fred Thompson event who was forced out after telling Thompson he wasn't 'a real conservative.' What CNN neglects to mention, in fact omits from it's story and edits from the corresponding video, is that the woman ejected from the Thompson event wasn't a 'conservative.' In fact, the female who was asking the questions was a memeber of 'Houston 9/11 Truth' and was removed only after screaming 'what about building 7?' and '9/11 was an inside job.' Watch the raw video of the event and see what CNN edited out.

$500 Million Dollar Bailout Extended to US Mortgage Borrowers
Several different US states have or are set to announce multi-million dollar bailout plans for mortgage borrowers who are in danger of losing their home. Will the money come from taxpayer pockets?


Wesley Clark On MSNBC: "Possible" Tillman Death Was Murder



Pat Tillman's father: Memo proves coverup
The parents of former NFL player Pat Tillman say a memo from a top general passed up the military ranks within a week after Tillman's April 2004 death supports the family's long-held belief that the Bush administration knew more than it has publicly acknowledged about the incident. The memo, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, warned that Tillman might have died from friendly fire, and was intended to reach all the way to President Bush.

Soldier: Army ordered me not to tell truth about Tillman
The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to divulge -- especially to the Tillman family -- that a fellow soldier killed Tillman.



New documents shed light on Tillman’s death
Army medical examiners concluded Tillman was shot three times in the head from just 10 yards away, no evidence of "friendly fire" damage at scene, Army attorneys congratulated each other on cover-up, Wesley Clark concludes "orders came from the very top" to murder pro-football star because he was about to become an anti-war political icon.
Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
"The medical evidence did not match up with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.
The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The evidence points directly to it and the motivation is clear - Tillman abandoned a lucrative career in pro-football immediately after 9/11 because he felt a rampaging patriotic urge to defend his country, and became a poster child for the war on terror as a result. But when he discovered that the invasion of Iraq was based on a mountain of lies and deceit and had nothing to do with defending America, he became infuriated and was ready to return home to become an anti-war hero.
As far back as March 2003, immediately after the invasion, Tillman famously told his comrade Spc. Russell Baer, "You know, this war is so fucking illegal," and urged his entire platoon to vote against Bush in the 2004 election. Far from the gung-ho gruff stereotype attributed to him, Tillman was actually a fiercely intellectual man with the courage of his convictions firmly in place. Tillman had even begun to arrange meetings with anti-war icons like Noam Chomsky upon his return to America before his death cut short any aspirations of becoming a focal point for anti-war sentiment.

Iraq war veteran's parents sue U.S. after suicide
The suit accuses the federal government of not helping 23-year-old Jeffrey Lucey, who committed suicide in his parents' Massachusetts basement less than a year after returning home from fighting during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson was also named in the suit.
"This government is guilty of not taking care of the troops after they come home," the veteran's father, Kevin Lucey, said in an interview. "We are hoping to show this nation how broken the Veterans Administration is. We want to make this a responsive and efficient system."
Jeffrey's family and friends noticed something was wrong as soon as he got back from Iraq. He became paranoid, profoundly sad and unable to sleep at night. He started drinking heavily and talking about suicide. His mother, Joyce Lucey, says it was like "watching my son die slowly, day by day." He refused to take off two dogtags he wore around his neck, tags, he said, he had taken from the bodies of two unarmed Iraqi soldiers that he claimed he'd been ordered to shoot at close range.

An enduring vision of his was of a young Iraqi boy, shot in the head and dead in the street, clutching a small American flag in his hand. As an American tank came down the street and approached the body Lucey left his vehicle, under fire, and carried the boy to a nearby alley.
While transporting prisoners he said he was ordered to shoot two Iraqi soldiers. He remembered looking into their eyes as they shook in terror, and thought about their families. He remembered an officer shouting “pull the f***ing trigger, Lucey”. He remembered shooting the prisoners and watching them die. He told his father there were “other things” he didn’t want to talk about.

Veteran's Stories: The human cost of war
Men and women go through basic training as a means of converting them from non-violent civilians to violent killers, whose task in a war is to kill the enemy.
That conversion can never be complete and there are struggles that go on (with them) about killing. When they return to civilian society it’s not so easy to stamp out the killer that has been evoked in them by their military training and by the things they’ve done in the military.

Just a Coincidence? Four of Jessica Lynch's Rescuers Have Died Mysteriously
When the Department of Defense insisted on keeping up their official version of the rescue, I knew that inevitably some of Lynch's rescuers would be hushed. After all, here is a woman who endured a few broken limbs from a vehicle accident and is rewarded with a million bucks, while her rescuers continue to live without toilets and running water in a Depleted Uranium wasteland. Her Bronze Star has outraged many veterans. At some point even the threat of an untimely demise will not keep some disgruntled military folks from talking.
Eerily enough, four of Pfc. Lynch's rescuers and colleagues have met an early demise.
Petty Officer First Class David M. Tapper died of wounds received in Afghanistan. He took part in the rescue.
Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung was killed in a drive-by shooting. He was also part of the rescue team.
Spc Josh Daniel Speer died when his car crashed into some trees for no apparent reason. He was part of the rescue team.
Kyle Edward Williams, who worked in the same company as Lynch, died of "suicide".

FLASHBACK: Pentagon calls BBC's Lynch allegations 'ridiculous' - Jun. 17, 2003
Any charge that the U.S. military misrepresented the facts of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch's rescue April 1 from an Iraqi hospital to make the mission appear more dramatic or heroic is "void of all facts and absolutely ridiculous" the Pentagon said Monday.


Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour
Throughout CUFI's Israel Summit, videographer Thomas Shomaker and I were hounded by PR agents seeking to prevent us from interviewing attendees about the End Times. The conference, we were told, was about "one message" - evangelical Christians supporting Israel. We were instructed to only interview CUFI leaders capable of sticking to the talking point that their support for Israel has, as Hagee declared, "nothing to do with the End Times." But I was forbidden from asking Hagee about statements he made in his book, "Jerusalem Countdown," that appeared to blame Jews for their own persecution. After doing just that during a press conference, I was removed from the conference by off-duty DC cops summoned by members of Hagee's family.

Tom Delay: US and Israel must enjoy second coming
Hagee and others have stated that "End-Times" theology or eschatology plays no role in their support for Israel, the people Blumenthal interviewed tell a different story. Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Dore Gold, also claims that it plays no role and is not concerned with the apocalyptic undertones of such a group, claiming only the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad purports to want Armageddon. Blumenthal then interviews a string of conference-goers who explain how when Jesus returns all of the Jews will be "saved" after realizing the divinity of Christ. He also speaks to several people who say they are looking forward to Armageddon, because it will bring about the "cleansing of the earth."



US nixes higher-level talks with Iran
The United States on Wednesday rejected holding higher-level talks with Iran, one day after their ambassadors to Baghdad held a landmark second meeting on Iraqi security.

National Intelligence Estimate lacks supporting evidence, possibly politicized, intelligence officials say
Current and former intelligence officials say the Bush Administration's National Intelligence Estimate regarding terrorist threats to the United States does not provide evidence to support its assertions and may have inflated the domestic threat posed by the Lebanese political and military group Hezbollah, perhaps because it receives financial support from Iran.

Outsourcing Intelligence: Author R.J. Hillhouse on How Key National Security Projects Are Contracted to Private Firms
Author R.J. Hillhouse caused a stir in Washington last month when she revealed more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service has been outsourced to private firms. Now Hillhouse has exposed private companies are heavily involved in the nation's most important and most sensitive national security document – the President's Daily Brief. And there appears to be few safeguards from preventing corporations from inserting items favorable to itself or its clients into the President's Daily Brief in order to influence the country's national security agenda.

Botulism making cans burst
The bursting cans were among those being held by Castleberry's Food Co., which last week announced a massive recall that now includes more than 90 potentially contaminated products, including chili sauces and dog foods.



US Senators back web censorship
US senators issued a bipartisan call for filtering and monitoring technologies on the Internet.
In a meeting where civil liberties groups were not invited, Democrats and Republicans said that the web needed to be censored to protect children.
Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Vice Chairman Ted 'The Internet is made out of tubes" Stevens argued that Internet was a dangerous place where parents alone could not protect their children.

Military To Crackdown On North American Union Protesters
The US army is to enforce a huge security perimeter around the upcoming North American Union meeting in Canada this August as well as cracking down on expected protests, having already shut down a public forum due to take place close to the event.


How Truth Slips Down the Memory Hole
By John Pilger
One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked. The Israelis described him as a "legitimate target." The International Federation of Journalists called the shooting "a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist." At the age of 21, he has had both legs amputated.

FDA ANNOUNCES PLAN TO ELIMINATE VITAMIN COMPANIES
The FDA, emboldened by its transformation into a drug company, has embarked upon an anti-American plan of interfering with business and intentionally eliminating various dietary supplement companies from the market. The FDA announcement came on Friday, June 22, 2007 under the guise of a final rule for dietary supplement good manufacturing practices (CGMPs).

Ron Paul ‘Spammers’ Spam Local Charity With Wall of Food

Gonzales contradicted by FBI -- Rove subpoena & Gonzo perjury probe next?

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: ROVE SUBPOENAED
Democrats urge perjury probe of Gonzales
Senate Democrats called for a special counsel to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied under oath and subpoenaed top presidential aide Karl Rove Thursday in a widening probe into the dismissal of federal prosecutors.
"It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements," four members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.
They dispatched the letter shortly before Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced the subpoena of Rove, the president's top political strategist.
"We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States Attorneys last year," said Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Administration officials have consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with the firing of the prosecutors, who were let go last winter.
Gonzales is at the center of the U.S. attorney controversy, but the call for a perjury probe involved alleged conflicts between testimony he gave the Judiciary Committee last year and this week. The issue revolves around whether there was internal administration dissent over the president's warrantless wiretapping program.
As for the firing of the prosecutors, e-mails released by the Justice Department show Gonzales' aides conferred with Rove on the matter.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats called for a special counsel to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied under oath and subpoenaed top presidential aide Karl Rove Thursday in a widening probe into the dismissal of federal prosecutors.
"It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements," four members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.
They dispatched the letter shortly before Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced the subpoena of Rove, the president's top political strategist.
"We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States Attorneys last year," said Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

FBI Chief Contradicts Gonzales Testimony
Senate Requests Perjury Probe; Rove Targeted
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller contradicted sworn testimony by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday, saying that the government's terrorist surveillance program was the topic of a 2004 hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday that he arrived at the bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft shortly after Gonzales and Andrew Card had spoken with Ashcroft.
Gonzales testified Wednesday that he and Card were talking about a different anti-terrorist program with Ashcroft and denied that the pair had pressured Ascroft to sign off on the program.
Mueller testified Thursday that Ashcroft sided against the two White House officials and with then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who believed the eavesdropping program, known as TSP, was illegal. Ashcroft had handed off his official duties to Comey before entering hospital for surgery."
Earlier, a group of Senate Democrats called for a special counsel to investigate whether Gonzales perjured himself regarding the firings of U.S. attorneys and administration dissent over Bush's domestic surveillance program.
"We ask that you immediately appoint an independent special counsel from outside the Department of Justice to determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress," four Democratic senators wrote in a letter Wednesday.
"We do not make this request lightly," wrote Sens. Charles E. Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.
"His inability to answer simple, straightforward questions" during sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee "was just stunning," Schumer said in a news conference.
Accusing Gonzales of having "dissembled and deceived" senators on the committee, Schumer said "enough is enough.""He told half-truths, part-truths and everything but the truth over and over and over again," Schumer said.
"I have never seen an attorney general so contemptuous of Congress," Feinstein added.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he supports the request.
Also Thuirsday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said Thursday he will subpoena White House political adviser Karl Rove to testify about the firings of the federal prosecutors."We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States Attorneys last year," Leahy said.
In response, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, "Every day congressional Democrats prove that they're more interested in headlines than doing the business Americans want them to do. And Americans are now taking notice that this Congress, under Democratic leadership, is failing to tackle important issues," he said.
E-mails released by the Justice Department show Gonzales' aides conferred with Rove on the matter.

FBI director contradicts Gonzales
The head of the FBI contradicted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sworn testimony and Senate Democrats requested a perjury investigation Thursday in a fresh barrage against the truthfulness of President Bush's embattled longtime friend and aide.
In a third blow to the Bush administration, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to compel the testimony of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, in connection with its investigation.
"It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements," four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement calling for a special counsel to investigate.
"I'm convinced that he's not telling the truth," added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The developments marked a troubling turn for Gonzales as well as the administration, which has been on the political defensive since congressional Democrats launched an investigation seven months ago into the firings of U.S. attorneys.
That probe revealed information that Democrats have sought to weave into a pattern of improper political influence over prosecutions, of stonewalling and of deceit in sworn testimony before Congress.
The White House defiantly stuck by Gonzales and denied that Mueller had contradicted him.
Democrats insisted that Gonzales had been untruthful and that the White House had encouraged top aides to flout congressional subpoenas in the U.S. attorney probe.
But Gonzales took the toughest hits Thursday, when four Senate Democrats issued a list of examples of what they said was the attorney general lying to Congress under oath — the basis for their request to Clement to appoint a special counsel to investigate.

Veterans sue U.S. over "shameful failures" in care

Veterans sue U.S. over "shameful failures" in care
The many medical claims by veterans of U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has completely overwhelmed the American government, leading to "shameful failures" in treatment, a class-action lawsuit filed on Monday alleged. The filing by two veterans groups sued various officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and challenged the constitutionality of a 1988 law establishing various VA practices. The two plaintiff organization represent about 12,000 American veterans.
"Unless systemic and drastic measures are instituted immediately, the costs to these veterans, their families, and our nation will be incalculable, including broken families, a new generation of unemployed and homeless veterans, increases in drug abuse and alcoholism, and crushing burdens on the health care delivery system and other social services in our communities," the suit said.
The suit said the Department of Veterans Affairs faced a backlog of 600,000 claims, with some veterans dying while waiting to settle claims. It also claimed the VA was unable to deal with the growing number of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder cases.
A spokesman for the Veterans Affairs Department was not immediately available.



Military buyers: Pentagon junks millions in hardware
The $1.8 billion in equipment the Pentagon scrapped during the first six months of 2007 represents the amount the Pentagon originally paid for the items. The resale value can amount to pennies on the dollar but still would be worth millions of dollars.
Of roughly $1.8 billion worth of equipment the Defense Department downgraded to scrap from January through June, at least $330 million worth came from categories of gear the Pentagon most frequently buys back from surplus dealers, according to the National Association of Aircraft & Communication Suppliers. Those include parts for aircraft, weapons and communications systems, the group said. The association, a lobbying group for surplus dealers, is worried the military's recent decision to shred retired F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets is the start of a broader effort to destroy Pentagon leftovers that surplus dealers once bought routinely. Iran is aggressively seeking F-14 components for its own aging Tomcat fleet. In a new lobbying campaign, association members and other surplus buyers are urging Congress to force the Pentagon to do a better job separating sensitive surplus from items considered safe to sell, rather than lumping both types of surplus together and destroying them. The association's allegations of Pentagon waste during the war is hitting a nerve with some lawmakers.



Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., wrote to Lt. Gen. Robert Dail, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, asking whether surplus equipment is being scrapped.
"I have received reports that usable items such as sleeping bags and gloves, and auto parts such as mufflers, are being scrapped because DRMS has stated that it is unable to identify them," Shadegg wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press. The DRMS is the Pentagon's Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service.
"I believe they're using the F-14 as sort of an umbrella to get everything through under national security, to say it needs to be done," said Ed Wilk, owner of Dixie Air Parts in San Antonio and an association member. "They're destroying boots, binoculars, aircraft parts, engine parts, airframe parts."
The Pentagon decided to destroy its retired F-14s after The Associated Press reported in January that weaknesses in surplus sale security had allowed middlemen for Iran, China and other countries to acquire sensitive U.S. military technology including parts for Tomcats and other aircraft and missile components. Iran is the only country trying to maintain Tomcats.
U.S. efforts to track down illegal brokers of F-14 parts continue. On Thursday, Jilani Humayun of Lynbrook, N.Y., was arrested by federal agents on charges that between January 2004 and May 2006, he illegally exported F-14 and F-5 jet parts and Chinook helicopter parts to Malaysia, a common pass-through point for contraband military goods.



Halliburton Income More Than Doubles

Halliburton Co. said Monday second-quarter net income more than doubled to $1.5 billion, lifted largely by a $933 million gain from the separation of its former subsidiary, KBR Inc.

Protesting The War May Now Be A Crime
It remains to be seen just how far Bush will stretch this law, in light of ongoing attempts by Neocon enemies of America, who charge Americans with “subversive activities” and “providing support to the enemy,” for protesting the war. No one is safe from their crusade to brand most of the American people as “treasonists,” for opposing Bush’s out-of-control “leadership” of the war effort. Even Sen. Hillary Clinton has been accused of these “crimes” by Neocon stooges like Eric Edelman, who attacked her for requesting a briefing for her committee from the Department of Defense on contingency plans for withdrawal from Iraq.

VA Rebuked For Balking Angent Orange Care
In a stinging ruling, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ripped into the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday for its continued resistance to paying benefits to veterans suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia because of their exposure to Agent Orange. Thursday's 3-0 decision marked the sixth major ruling against the government by the appeals court or a federal trial judge in a case that started in 1986. It stemmed from a clash between Vietnam veterans and the government over a chemical defoliant used by U.S. armed forces to clear dense jungle in Southeast Asia.
"What is difficult for us to comprehend is why the Department of Veterans Affairs, having entered into a settlement agreement and agreed to a consent order some 16 years ago, continues to resist its implementation so vigorously, as well as to resist equally vigorously the payment of desperately needed benefits to Vietnam War veterans who fought for their country and suffered grievous injury as a result of our government's own conduct," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the opinion.





Operation Falcon - US Turns Into A Police State
General Tommy Franks predicted that a “massive, casualty producing event” might cause “our population to question our own Constitution and begin to militarize our country;” a scenario that many see as likely now.
According to FEMA it would mean “the suspension of the normal functions of civilian government, implying the cancellation or postponement of state and federal elections.” (Global Research) It would also “close public and government facilities not critical for continuity of essential operations.”
(Coincidentally, Newsweek article “White House Rehearses for Domestic Attack” 2-23-07; “The White House is staging a high-level exercise Saturday to test responses to the prospect of a massive domestic terrorist attack.” These drills are a critical part of the C.O.G. regimen dating back to the Reagan administration)
The Falcon operations are just a small part of this larger paradigm. The program is not designed for rounding up minor crooks and drug dealers, (which no one really cares about anyway) but for removing leftists, dissidents and political rivals. These are the real targets. The power of the state is measured in terms of how effectively it defeats or eliminates its enemies. And, the Bush administration has shown a remarkable aptitude for crushing its rivals.



The Whitehouse Coup

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell House & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Embattled Gonzales: I'm sticking around to 'fix the problems'

Bush's former lawyer expressed slight regret over the immoral practices. "I am troubled because the allegations regarding the politicization of this historic institution, an institution that stands for and protects the rights of the citizens of the greatest and most free nation on Earth, have occurred on my watch," he said.

House panel plans a vote on contempt
The House Judiciary Committee said Monday that it would move forward with contempt-of-Congress proceedings against President Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, and former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas pertaining to the probe of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.
Gonzales has been criticized for giving what lawmakers consider conflicting explanations about the depth of his involvement in the firings. He is also facing questions about a conversation he had with former top aide Monica M. Goodling, who said he attempted to discuss the firings with her before she was questioned by congressional investigators.

President Bush Tells Congress, Because I Said So

All President George W. Bush has to do is utter those two words and his underlings can ignore congressional subpoenas without fear of jail. Why? Because the president says so. Who decides whether the claim is constitutional or bogus? He does. Who can challenge it? Nobody. No check. No balance. No way to bring in a judge. See? Simple.

UK Protects Biggest Heroin Crop Of All Time

News - US lawmakers unite to demonize Iran

The "threat of Iran" and the need to confront the regime has become a mainstream view in the US legislature, attracting support from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike.

The Israel Project (TIP) "fights the war of words and images" to provide a "more positive public face of Israel", according to the organization's website. Mizrahi's lobby group may only be three years old, but it has already attracted strong support from high-profile Congress members such as Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana and Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania, both of whom sit on its board of advisers.
Elliot Engel, a New York congressman who also sits on TIP's board of advisers, said: "This is our Munich. We need to stand up to Iran and tell them they cannot thumb their noses at world opinion."
Obama recently introduced the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act, one of several bills making its way through Congress that calls for stiffer economic sanctions on Iran's energy industry and countries that do business with Iran.
Clinton said: "We cannot permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. We must also not let go unanswered its state sponsorship of terrorism. We must not stand silent in the face of brutal repression of women and minorities. And we must not tolerate threats to the existence of Israel."
What about all the Saudis in Iraq, Hillary?



3.7 Million Tanzanians Are Starving
East Africa's prolonged drought -- only recently broken by rain -- has dried up rivers in Tanzania and left some 3.7m Masaai cattleherders on the verge of starvation as hydroelectric plants shut down due to water shortages. Half of the Masaai herds have already died.

Zimbabwe's Marie Antoinette Spends While Masses Starve



Bush's torture ban is full of loopholes
Once upon a time, a U.S. official's condemnation of torture was a statement of moral principle. Today, it is an opportunity for obfuscation. We have learned that when President Bush says, "We don't torture," it's important to read the fine print. So it was once again on July 20, when Bush issued a long-awaited executive order purporting to regulate interrogation tactics used by the CIA in the "war on terror."
According to a White House press release, the order provides "clear rules" to implement the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of detainees in wartime -- rules the administration insisted did not even apply to the "war on terror" until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise last summer. But while the new rules reflect a significant retreat by the administration from its initial torture policies, they are anything but "clear," come far too late in the day, and in any event are unenforceable.

King Hemp - Part 1
Industrial hemp is not marijuana. Yet, unlike in countries advanced enough to farm the world’s most useful plant, where the issue of hemp is handled by agricultural, or food or health agencies, in the U.S., it’s the DEA standing in the way of hemp. Industrial hemp has nothing to do with drugs, yet the road to restoration of hemp farming goes straight through our drug enforcement bureaucracy. An end to hemp prohibition in this country is perhaps the DEA’s greatest fear because, they believe, decriminalization of marijuana would automatically follow, killing their ultimate cash cow.
Without marijuana, the War on Drugs might suffer an attack of peace -- disaster for any war profiteer such as the DEA. Half of all drug arrests nationwide are for marijuana. Nearly 15% of America’s bloated prison population represents incarceration mostly for marijuana possession. Privatization of America’s prison industry is one of the country’s top growth industries, along with slave labor provided by prisoners.

Goldman Sachs guru warns of war-debt failure

Foreign banks are dumping dollar reserves, while we gorge on cheap toys and bad pet food. Actually, our biggest "terrorist" threat is internal: Distorted values are downgrading our nation's "creditworthiness." We're like out-of-control kids with stolen credit cards, spending our future with no plans to repay.

Trouble in Hedgistan: “Its gonna get a lot worse
The Fed has tried to conceal the massive increase to the money supply, but the evidence is everywhere. (Many analysts now calculate that inflation is running at roughly 13%) Food and energy have skyrocketed. Housing prices have soared. Everything has gone up except the cheapo imports which the Fed uses to manipulate the inflation stats.
In itself, a correction in real estate is not enough to bring down the whole economy. Unfortunately, the contagion from the subprime meltdown has spread to the stock market, the insurance industry, banking and pensions. Not even Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson or Fed-master Ben Bernanke are claiming that the subprime problems are “contained” anymore. Just this week, the scholarly looking Bernanke said to Senators on the Hill that the housing market has “deteriorated significantly”.

ISRAEL NEEDS ENEMIES TO EXIST
The zionists seem to believe that without an enemy, Israel as we know it will cease to exist. This theory was threatened with peace treaties signed by Egypt and Jordan in recent years and is further threatened with the possibility of others in the future. What happens then?

Blair Plans To Call Opulent Jerusalem Palace Home
Tony Blair was accused of having delusions of grandeur as it emerged he may base himself in a Jerusalem palace for his role as Middle East envoy. The former premier has been looking at an imposing, historic edifice with a ballroom, fragrant gardens and a wonderful view of the golden dome of the city's al-Aqsa mosque. The house - built in 1931 - was once the home of Britain's high commissioner to Palestine. Today it serves as the UN's Middle East HQ. Critics warned that living in luxury while many Palestinians struggle in squalor would only inflame anger over Mr Blair's appointment.



A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS IN PALESTINE

What is missing and is desparately needed on the American scene is an organisation called APPAC (American Palestinian Public Affairs Committee). The zionists have their AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee), it would only be fair for the Palestinians to have a Lobby as well... a VOICE for the American people to hear. A voice that could tell the world of the genocide, the apartheid, the dehumanisation of an entire people by the zionist regime.

New Studies Links Dairy To Cancer Risk
When cows are treated with genetically engineered growth hormone to boost milk production, they produce more insulin-like growth factor, which stimulates cell growth. Bibb's theorizes that dairy-rich diets may render children less resistant to cancer.
"A gene can be turned on or turned off," said Bibb, "Suppose your consumption of dairy turned off some of the switches, but you didn't get cancer. You pass your gene on to your daughter or son and they have some of those turned-off switches ... this is all theory, but I believe it explains the phenomenon [of prostate and breast cancer occuring in younger people]."
Although dairy products' link to certain cancers have been suspected for at least 30 years, many health groups vouch for their safety. But other scientists, such as Dr. Ganmaa Davaasambuu, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, are independently questioning dairy's relationship to cancer.
"A groundswell is building on this thing," said Bibb, who filed for a patent for a dairy process that would neutralize harmful proteins and hormones. The whole exercise could be a waste of time if the dairy industry doesn't respond, or it could become the biggest thing since pasteurization. "I'm not out to destroy the dairy industry," Bibb said. "I'm going to save them."
Bibb already takes all his acne patients off dairy because those foods aggravate the condition. As a vegan, he avoids milk products in his own diet. And it makes him nuts when celebrities - especially those who have had cancer - show up in "Got Milk?" ads. Breast cancer survivor Sheryl Crow was interviewed in a cancer magazine where she also endorsed milk in an ad, so Bibb wrote the singer and the magazine about misleading the public. "She didn't respond," he said.
Or we could just stop feeding cows genetically engineered growth hormones!!

Demand For Organic Dairy Soaring
Sales of organic milk are climbing in California and the nation as the organic industry steps up its marketing of farming that eschews antibiotics, synthetic hormones and genetic engineering. Organic dairy farmers will tell you that consumers want to see cows grazing in a natural habitat, not confined with mounds of feed, getting injected with a synthetic growth hormone for greater milk production. It doesn't matter to growing numbers of people that organic milk costs more than milk produced by conventional dairies. And that price gap has narrowed in recent months as milk prices soared. "Consumers want not only to know that milk is USDA-certified organic, but it's just as important to them to know how animals are treated, how farms are being compensated, how land that produces the product is being managed, and that the product is highest quality,'' said Marcus Benedetti, president of Clover Stornetta Farms in Petaluma, which buys from 33 North Bay dairies, 15 of them organic.
"You are what you eat, correct?" he asked. "If you are producing food without antibiotics, without chemicals, without pesticides, that does have to have some kind of impact on the end product."
Benedetti said that in the late 1990s, consumers recoiled at the use of a synthetic bovine growth hormone, rbST, at some conventional dairies. The hormone sustains lactation by stimulating cows' appetites so they eat more and produce more milk, as much as an extra five quarts per day.
Under federal regulations, organic farms must use organic or untreated seeds and apply no prohibited materials for three years prior to certification. They must use 100 percent organic feed and avoid antibiotics, growth hormones or genetically modified organisms. They also must provide access to pasture.

Daily Soft Drinks -- even Diet --Tied To Higher Heart Disease
For those who drink diet pops in the belief that sugar-free beverages are healthier than regular soft drinks, new research suggests they should think again. A huge U.S. study of middle-aged adults has found that drinking more than one soft drink a day - even a sugar-free diet brand - may be associated with an elevated risk for metabolic syndrome, a cluster of factors that boosts the chance of having a heart attack or stroke and developing diabetes.
The researchers found that compared to those who drank less than one can per day, subjects who downed one or more soft drinks daily had a:
-31 per cent greater risk of becoming obese (with a body mass index of 30 or more).
-30 per cent increased risk of adding on belly fat.
-25 per cent higher risk of developing high blood triglycerides or high blood sugar.
-32 per cent higher risk of having low HDL levels.

UK Child Anti-Depressant Prescrpitions Up 400%
Record Numbers UK Kids Given Anti-Depressants

Order of the Phoenix

Expanding claim of executive authority, White House official tells paper staff can't be charged

According to the Post, "Administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege. Officials pointed to a Justice Department legal opinion during the Reagan administration, which made the same argument in a case that was never resolved by the courts."


Government agency says Bush overreaches on executive privilege
A report earlier this month by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency that studies policy and legal questions for Members of Congress, found that President George W. Bush's recent assertions of 'executive privilege' to fend off Congressional investigators were dubious.
Morton Rosenberg, a Specialist in American Public Law at CRS, said that the assertion of privilege recently attempted by the White House went beyond restraints found in recent legal decisions.






America has no surplus democracy to export

If we can’t impeach Bush for his WMD lies and the horrific results, then we will be left with solid proof that America has no surplus democracy to export. We can either impeach Bush and Cheney or suffer irreparable damage to our political heritage of being a nation of laws.



US Ambassador: "Concern that United States 2008 elections will be postponed"

My suspicions have at their base the feeling I have that, given their operating style now, this bunch will not leave the White House easily in 2009.

Soldiers still go over the hill even in an all-volunteer Army

His recruiter told him a tour in Iraq would give him the opportunity to build schools and support war-weary Iraqis, so against the advice of his parents, he signed up. But once in Iraq, he was assigned to a "small kill" team that set traps for insurgents. They'd place a fake camera on a pole with a sign labeling it as U.S. property, giving the team the right to shoot anyone who messed with it. Burmeister, who provided perimeter security for the team, said he could never get over his distaste for the tactic.

Castro suggests Washington fails to stop attacks on U.S. soil to justify war on terror

Fidel Castro suggested Sunday that Washington has deliberately failed to stop terrorist attacks against Americans because it needed “to deliver a bang” that would justify its war on terror.

The terrorists aren't coming, they're here . . . in Washington

What is completely ignored by both the corporate media and the wannabe presidents is that if the Bushies pull off their next 9/11, George W. will have his "catastrophic emergency" in order to invoke his National Security and Homeland Security Directive, thereby making himself and Cheney dictators for life. In that event, will all those who stuffed the campaign coffers of the 2008 hopefuls want a refund?
One might have thought Bush and Cheney would wait until next summer or early next fall to play their trump card, but with the disastrous Bush/Cheney ship severely listing, the people's call for their impeachment growing louder and their desire to nuke Iran before they go down, they've had to move to Plan B by setting the stage for the next attack lest Congress finally listens to the people and begins impeachment proceedings -- first against Cheney, then Bush.
"Tuesday, there wasn't even a fuss. Wednesday, the world was a little different. By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of any person who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq. The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the fact." There hasn't been much media notice of this; the UK's Guardian has an article explaining how the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists.


White House preparing to stage new September 11 - Reagan official
A former Reagan official has issued a public warning that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship and launch a war with Iran within a year.

Old-line Republican warns 'something's in the works' to trigger a police state
Paul Craig Roberts said that because of Bush's unpopularity, the Republicans face a total wipeout in 2008, and this may be why "the Democrats have not brought a halt to Bush's follies or the war, because they expect his unpopular policies to provide them with a landslide victory in next year's election."

King George W.: James Madison’s Nightmare

George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the “foreign entanglements” that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Exclusive: Another Asbestos Coverup Following NYC Steam Blast?

The massive pipeline that exploded was known to contain Asbestos. The pipeline exploded, sending toxic dirt and sludge hundreds of feet into the air. Still, health officials state that the air is safe to breathe.

FEMA Suppressed Health Warnings for Workers, Katrina Victims
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers, lawmakers said today.

FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers

US says Iraqi rebel head is an invention

On Wednesday, Omar al-Baghdadi, the supposed leader of an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Iraq, was declared non-existent by US military officials, who say he is a fictional character created to give an Iraqi face to a foreign-run terrorist group. In reality, said Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner, an Iraqi actor has read statements attributed to al-Baghdadi, who has been identified since October as the leader of the group, known as Islamic State of Iraq.

ISI revealed as fake front while the resistance consolidates its power

Al-Mashadani, who was caught this month, has told his U.S. military interrogators a prominent al Qaeda-led group is just a front and its leader fictitious, a military spokesman said on July 18, 2007. Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told a news conference that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, which was purportedly set up last year, did not exist.

Doubt cast on police claims against terror suspect: report

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said prosecutors claimed six day ago that a mobile telephone SIM card once owned by Doctor Mohammed Haneef had been found in a burning Jeep that rammed into Glasgow airport late last month. But the SIM card was in fact seized by British police when they arrested Haneef's second cousin, Sabeel Ahmed, in Liverpool some 350 kilometres (220 miles) away eight hours after the attacks, the broadcaster said.



White House Gets Defensive Over Accusation Bin Laden Is Dead

White House Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend was asked at a press conference earlier this week what evidence she had that Osama Bin Laden was still alive, considering the fact that he has been gravely ill and on a kidney dialysis machine while traversing the harsh terrain of the Pakistani border region. Townsend's response was to refuse to discuss the matter and immediately leave.

REPORTER: Fran, do you know if Osama bin Laden is still on a dialysis machine, is he still ill? What? I mean, could you tell us about that? I mean, because -- it might be laughable, but people are finding it hard, six years this man is sick, moving around from cave to cave, and can't be found -- with a dialysis machine?
MS. TOWNSEND: Have you ever been to the tribal areas? I suspect not.
REPORTER: No, I haven't, but I've seen some great pictures from Ken Herman as to the rough terrain over that way. (Laughter.)
MS. TOWNSEND: It's not exactly easy. If it were easy he'd be dead.
REPORTER: But it's not easy for him to travel around with medics and machinery if he's sick. I mean, is he -- do you know from your intelligence if he's still sick? What do you know about that?
MS. TOWNSEND: I'm not going to talk about that.

Osama died in December of 2001 from kidney failure. His funeral notice appeared in many foreign newspapers. But the image of Osama is very useful to a regime intent on lying their people into wars of conquest, to the US media ignored the obituary along with evidence that postmortem Osamas were obviously fakes.

The Buzz: Daily Kos blog warns Cindy Sheehan

The pro-Democratic blog Daily Kos warns the anti-war Cindy Sheehan that if she does, indeed, challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it will ban her from promoting her candidacy on the blog.

Kissinger’s Secret Meeting With Putin

Kissinger was accompanied on his junket by a delegation of high-powered political and corporate big-wigs including former Secretary of State George Schultz, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Special Representative for Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr., former Senator Sam Nunn and Chevron Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David O'Reilly.
No one really knows what took place at the meetings, but judging by Kissinger’s parting remarks; things did not go smoothly. He said to one reporter, ``We appreciate the time that President Putin gave us and the frank manner in which he explained his point of view." In diplomatic phraseology, "frank" usually means that there were many areas of strong disagreement.

CNN Throws in Towel, Admits to Two Errors, and States That All 'Sicko' Facts Are True to Their Source ...



Nuclear crisis in Japan as scientists reveal quake threat to power plants
The world’s biggest nuclear power station stands directly above an active earthquake faultline, which provoked an atomic spill this week, seismologists revealed yesterday. The disclosure that the Kashiwazaki plant was prone to further earthquake damage threw Japan’s nuclear industry into crisis as seismologists recommended that up to a third of the country’s 55 atomic power stations should be closed for inspection.


Bush To Veto Ban On Mercury In Vaccines
President Bush is to veto a bill that would ban mercury in flu vaccines for children despite its known links to autism and other neurological disorders and despite the fact that he pledged in 2004 to support such a move when campaigning for re-election.

Pelosi heckled: "IMPEACH NOW!", Moore asks CNN to apologise for lies

House speaker faces 'impeach' chants at ribbon-cutting
SAN FRANCISCO—It should have been a festive occasion for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but the ribbon-cutting of a new federal building turned into a skirmish with anti-war protesters. About a dozen people chanted "Impeach now!" as Pelosi spoke at the dedication of the $144 million, 18-story landmark office complex, which boasts cutting-edge energy efficiency features. The demonstrators also unfurled a large "impeach" banner that directly faced Pelosi and other speakers.
As Pelosi and other dignitaries prepared to snip the ceremonial ribbon, a heckler shouted: "How about cutting the funding for war?"
Pelosi ignored a question about Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war activist and mother of a slain soldier who has decided to challenge Pelosi for her congressional seat unless she moves to impeach Bush.


Pentagon whistleblower still paying the price for telling the truth

From a cramped motor home in a Montana campground where Internet access is as spotty as the trout, Richard Barlow wakes each morning to battle Washington.

Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations

As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers.
"There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have.

Senate Dems Move to Block Cheney Funding
Senate Democrats have taken steps towards cutting off funding for the office Vice President Cheney over Cheny’s refusal to comply with laws governing the handling of classified information. Cheney has tried to duck national security disclosure rules by arguing his office isn’t within the executive branch. He also tried to shut down the oversight office that asked him to comply. On Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee moved to freeze nearly five million dollars in Cheney’s office funding until Cheney drops his refusal.

White House blocks Congress from meeting with former aides in Attorneys investigation

White House Counsel Fred Fielding sent a letter to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees stating that President George W. Bush will refuse to comply with subpoenas for testimony from former White House aides.

If there's no wrongdoing, what do they have to hide?

Lawyer: Bush told ex-staff to ignore subpoena
Ex-White House Political Director to Testify in Attorney Probes
Former White House political director Sara Taylor is slated to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the ongoing probe into the firing of nine US attorneys. President Bush has invoked executive privilege to prevent Taylor from answering questions. In a statement today, Taylor said she will follow Bush’s directive unless a court instructs her to do otherwise.

San Jose Mercury News - Judge removes defense attorney in CIA fraud case

A judge on Monday removed high-profile defense attorney Mark Geragos from the case of a defense contractor charged with conspiring to defraud the CIA because the lawyer refused to submit to background checks. U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said Geragos placed an undue burden on the court by refusing to obtain a security clearance. Prosecutors said they would have to spend six months sifting through 17,000 pages of documents to remove any classified material.

Wife of Ex-Spy Says CIA Blocked Her From Lawyer

In a brief filed in a Manhattan federal court on Friday, the wife of a former covert CIA official, identified in the heavily blacked-out case only as Jane Doe, says the agency violated the attorney-client relationship by prohibiting her lawyer from contacting her by phone or e-mail. Ms. Doe sued the CIA last April for denying her medical coverage and forcing her and her family to live in a foreign country after her husband was fired from the agency .



While Nation Debated Immigration, House Gave Itself a Raise
As last week's battle over immigration reform focused the country's attention on the Senate, the members of the House of Representatives were also busy -- voting themselves a pay increase of $4,400.

Health Care Terror

The only things standing in the way of universal health care are the fear-mongering and influence-buying of interest groups.

Michael Moore “Blitzes” CNN’s Coverage of Iraq War, Healthcare in Live Wolf Blitzer Interview In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Monday, filmmaker Michael Moore blasted CNN for its coverage of the Iraq war and called on the network to apologize to American viewers. Moore also took Blitzer to task for CNN’s coverage of his film “SiCKO” on the U.S. healthcare system. 'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight Michael Moore Slams CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and the Corporate Media “Just apologize to the American people and to the families of the troops for not doing your job four years ago. We wouldn’t be in this war if you had done your job. Come on. Just admit it. Just apologize to the American people.” — Michael Moore, live on The Situation Room

Rollins not slowing down any time soon

I think the Bush Administration really wants a war with Iran or something that ends ultimately with us against them and with America's safety at stake. And the media seems to be going along with that. It very well may be true that Iran has a plan for us all to die. I'm not a fan of (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president), but I know that usually the government is one way and the people are another and the last time Bush said a country — Iraq — was a threat, it turned out not to be true.

Wilson: "The Obstruction Of Justice Is Ongoing And Now The President Has Emerged As Its Greatest Protector"

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you at this hearing on the possible abuse of Presidential authority in the commutation of I. Lewis Libby, convicted on four counts of lying to federal investigators, perjury and obstruction of justice. I am not a lawyer, but I have understandably followed this case closely. This matter, after all, involves the betrayal of our national security, specifically the leaking of the identity of a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, my wife, Valerie Wilson, as a vicious means of political retribution.

China Executes Ex-Drug Chief
In China, the former top Chinese official for food and drug regulation was executed Tuesday. Zheng Xiaoyu was chief of China’s State Food and Drug Administration from 1998 to 2005. He was found to have accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies to allow at least six fake drugs on the Chinese market.
Maybe we should impose stiffer penalies for government corruption....

White House in 'Panic Mode' Over GOP Revolt on Iraq
The Bush administration has begun a new offensive to stave off more Republican defections on the Iraq war. On Tuesday, several Bush administration officials including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice urged lawmakers to hold off on any votes on Iraq until September. At least four Republicans have broken with the White House in recent weeks. The move came as the Senate opened debate on a series of measures including a new timetable for withdrawal. Speaking in Ohio, President Bush urged lawmakers for more time.

President Bush: "I welcome a good honest debate about the consequences of failure, the consequences of success and this war. But I believe it is in this nation's interest to give the commander a chance to fully implement his operations and I believe Congress ought to wait for General Petraeus to come back and give his assessment of the strategy that he is putting in place before they make any decisions."
Bush went on to repeat the administration’s linkage of the 9-11 attacks to Iraq, saying the war in Iraq is a fight against “the same people that attacked us on September the 11th.” One option before the Senate would see a troop withdrawal begin within the next three months. A recent USA Today/Gallup shows more than seven out of ten Americans want all US troops out by April of next year. Sixty-two percent say sending troops to Iraq was a mistake -- the highest percentage so far.

River's abundance of corpses ruins Iraqis' appetite for carp
River fish are off the menu in Baghdad. Dead bodies frequently pulled from the River Tigris have dulled the Iraqi capital's appetite for masqouf, its popular dish of grilled carp, after it was reported that clerics had warned that the fish dined on rotting corpses.
“They spread rumors about the fish, that they eat the bodies of drowned people, but this is just a rumor,” said fisherman Hussein Ahmed, 62, after setting his nets within sight of the heavily fortified Green Zone compound on the banks of the Tigris.
Scores of corpses turn up every week in Baghdad, victims of unrelenting violence between majority Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs. Many are dumped in the Tigris, which flows through the heart of the city and was once lined with restaurants specializing in the masqouf people loved to eat on Friday nights. Most riverfront eateries closed after they became magnets for insurgents' bomb attacks. A fatwa, or religious edict, forbidding Iraqis to eat fish from the Tigris was reported by Iraqi media recently, but tracing its original source has been tricky. Prominent Shiite clerics in the holy southern city of Najaf yesterday denied any knowledge of the edict. Officials from the government office representing imams who run Iraq's Sunni mosques were not available for comment.

Only 133 Iraqi refugees allowed in US so far this year

Only 133 Iraqi refugees have been allowed into the United States since October, well short of the 7,000 the US has vowed to welcome in this fiscal year, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

Oil law to plunge country into more chaos

Iraqi oil experts, national figures, Iraqis of note, politicians and numerous factions in the government had warned that unless redrafted, the bill will definitely become a cause for infighting and eventual division of the country.

US boosts Gulf naval presence

"[The carrier] Enterprise provides navy power to counter the assertive, disruptive and coercive behaviour of some countries, as well as support to our soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan," the US navy said in a statement.

Taking the "Booga Booga" engines to warp factor 9

Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.
Homeland Security Secretary warns "We could easily be attacked" cites summer risks; gut feeling -
Red Alert: Has Santorum Let the Cat Out of the Bag?
In an alarming display of fearmongering, former Republican Senator Rick Santorum has suggested that a series of ‘unfortunate events,’ namely terrorist attacks, will occur within the next year and change American citizen's perception of the war. Santorum went on to clearly imply that terror attacks will occur inside America which will alter the body politic and lead to a reversal of the anti-war sentiment now dominating the country.”
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2007/070707changeview.htm

More staged terrorism planned to prevent Ron Paul from winning

In an alarming display of fearmongering, former Republican Senator Rick Santorum has suggested that a series of “unfortunate events,” namely terrorist attacks, will occur within the next year and change American citizen’s perception of the war.

Abbas Accuses Hamas of Al-Qaeda Ties
In the Occupied Territories, Hamas is denying accusations from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas it has allowed al-Qaeda-linked groups into the Gaza Strip. Abbas made the charge in an interview with Italian television on Monday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: "Al-Qaeda entered (Gaza) through Hamas. Hamas protects and supports al-Qaeda. With this bloody behaviour, Hamas is becoming very close to al-Qaeda."

Abbas also said he would refuse to meet with Hamas officials until Hamas agreed to hand back control over the Gaza Strip. On Tuesday, dismissed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh rejected the al-Qaeda charge and urged Abbas to agree to talks.

Ismail Haniyeh: "Hamas has no links with al-Qaeda. Hamas' policy and strategy are different. Hamas fights the Israeli occupation and only inside the Palestinian Occupied territories, and has never operated outside these borders. We say that the only way to end this Palestinian situation is a dialogue, without conditions. I think that the President is in a hurry when being asked about dialogue with the Hamas movement."

Worries about Palestinian democracy climb as Abbas strengthens role of military courts

In his latest move, made public Monday by a Palestinian human rights group, Abbas issued a decree granting broad power to military courts to decide the fate of Palestinians accused of harming "public safety."

Border Control / Who told them to give birth at night?

It is common knowledge that the Palestinians suffer from a serious lack of discipline, which starts in their mother's womb. There are fetuses that insist on coming into this world right at the time when the Israeli soldiers go to sleep.

Making Gaza 'Scream'

That's the plight of the Palestinians who've been "screaming" for six decades following Israel's "war of independence" they call al-Nakba, the catastrophe. In May, 1948, they were deprived of four-fifths of their former land and the remainder for the past 40 years. Conditions then became especially harsh after January 25, 2006 when they rejected ruling Fatah's institutionalized corruption and willingness to be Israel's enforcer for the benefits it afforded its leaders.

US Turns Down Russia’s Missile Shield Offer

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday turned down Moscow’s offer of a joint missile shield in Europe and confirmed intentions to pursue its own plans to put a missile defense in Eastern Europe.

Defense Challenges Italian Jurisdiction in Calipari Killing Case
In Italy, the absentia trial of the U.S. soldier accused of killing the Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari continues in Rome. Mario Lozano is accused of shooting Calipari as he escorted the then-newly freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to the airport. Italian ballistics experts concluded that the car was driving at a normal speed and that the US unit gave no warnings before opening fire. On Tuesday, Lozano defense attorney Alberto Biffani said the Italian court had no right to try his client. Alberto Biffani: "If there is one certain point in this case, and there are more than one, the first is that the jurisdiction of an Italian judge does not exist." Giuliana Sgrena accused the defense team of trying to stall the case. The next court date is scheduled for late September.

Pope: Other Christians not true churches

Newly-Revealed Site Could Hold Remains of Slain Mexican Student Protesters
In Mexico, a Mexican architect has broken more than two decades of silence to reveal she may have discovered the bodies of three people killed in the 1968 government massacre of student protesters. Human rights groups estimate up to three hundred people were killed when government forces opened fire on students gathered in Tlatelolco Plaza. Rosa María Alvarado Martínez says she was working on remodeling the adjacent hospital in 1981 when workers discovered three bodies buried underground. Alvarado says she kept quiet after police told her they would kill her son if she went public. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has drawn criticism for closing the office of the special prosecutor investigating the killings. On Tuesday, the prosecutor, Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, said the bodies should be exhumed and identified.

Ex-Surgeon General Alleges White House Interference
Here in the United States, the first surgeon general appointed by President Bush has spoken out against what he calls political interference from the White House. Dr. Richard Carmona’s four-year term as the nation’s top doctor ended last year. On Tuesday, Carmona said administration officials censored his speeches and prevented him from speaking publicly on issues including stem cell research, contraceptive use, prisoner health care and the administration’s promotion of abstinence-only sex education.
Carmona said “There is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party.”
Carmona’s comments came in testimony before the House Oversight Committee. The Senate is set to take up the president’s nomination of Dr. James Holsinger as his successor this week. Holsinger has already drawn controversy for making what many see as homophobic comments in the early 1990s.

Concerns Raised Over FBI Spy Scheme
Privacy experts are raising alarm bells about a new FBI program that would pay private companies to hold millions of phone and Internet records the FBI is barred from keeping itself. Companies would be responsible for at least two years of network calling records. The program would allow the FBI to skirt laws banning the collection of data not directly connected to a criminal investigation or intelligence matter. The proposed companies involved are Verizon, MCI and AT&T.

ABC host tells Paul, Gravel they have no chance to win

While providing both underdogs with prime network coverage, the one-time communications director for President Clinton also told the candidates straight to their faces that he didn't believe either could win.
Stephanopoulos asked Paul, "What's success for you in this campaign?" but cut off the start of Paul's response, "Well, to win ..." with an interjected "That's not going to happen!"
"Do you know absolutely?" Paul came back. Do you want to bet every cent in your pocket for that? ... The odds are great ... but I would say that what has happened so far has been 100 times greater than I anticipated."
Stephanopoulos concluded by saying to Gravel, as he had to Paul, "You're not going to be president." Gravel's response was, "One of the great beauties of this great country of ours is that anything is possible in politics. You just have a tough time accepting it."

McCain campaign suffers key shakeups
Republican Senator John McCain’s campaign hopes are facing major doubt today following the departure of four top aides. On Tuesday, campaign manager Terry Nelson and chief strategist John Weaver announced their resignations. Nelson and Weaver reportedly decided to step down following a heated argument with McCain after he returned from a recent visit to Iraq. Also departing from the McCain camp -- political director Rob Jesmer and deputy campaign manager Reed Galen.

Ron Paul: Psychopaths Run Our Lives

Giuliani Co-Chair Called Blacks Retarded

Giuliani, who is the only major presidential candidate whose campaign is being run entirely by whites as revealed in "Which Presidential Campaign Is Worst for Diversity?" in DiversityInc's June 2007 issue, is being slammed by the Democratic National Committee for his selection of Arthur Ravenel Jr., a former U.S. congressman who is the new co-chair of his campaign in South Carolina.



Pamela Martin & Associates RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC
ANOTHER SOURCE FOR SOME OF THE DC MADAM PHONE RECORDS
Apparently there may be an altered copy of the phone records floating around the blogosphere, so Jeane Palfrey has released the entire set of phone records to the public. Get out your lists of the private phone numbers of Congress and the Executive and start comparing!

Senator Vitter admits number on 'DC Madam' phone records

According to Vitter, his phone number appeared on the phone records of the escort service Pamela Martin and Associates before he ran for the Senate in 2004. From 1999 to 2004, Vitter served as a congressman in Louisiana's 1st district. The 46-year-old politico is also the southern regional chair of Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. In 2004, Vitter campaigned with a promise of "protecting the sanctity of marriage," and was a co-author of the "Federal Marriage Act" that sought to prohibit courts from interpreting same-sex marriage laws.

US senator admits 'serious sin'

A Republican senator has apologised for "a very serious sin in my past" after his phone number was linked to an alleged Washington prostitution ring.

David Vitter's voting record would make it very worthwhile to find out just what that sin WAS, and if his constituents will also forgive him:

• Voted NO on disallowing an oil leasing program in Alaska's AMWR. (Nov 2005)
• Voted NO on $3.1B for emergency oil assistance for hurricane-hit areas. (Oct 2005)
• Voted NO on reducing oil usage by 40% by 2025 (instead of 5%). (Jun 2005)
• Voted NO on banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Mar 2005)
• Voted YES on passage of the Bush Administration national energy policy. (Jun 2004)
• Voted YES on implementing Bush-Cheney national energy policy. (Nov 2003)
• Voted NO on raising CAFE standards; incentives for alternative fuels. (Aug 2001)
• Voted NO on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR. (Aug 2001)
• Voted NO on starting implementation of Kyoto Protocol. (Jun 2000)
• Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
• Voted YES on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime. (Feb 2004)
• Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life. (Oct 2003)
• Voted YES on funding for health providers who don't provide abortion info. (Sep 2002)
• Voted YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad. (May 2001)
• Voted YES on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes. (Apr 2001)
• Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortions. (Apr 2000)
• Voted YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion. (Jun 1999)
• Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)
• Discontinue affirmative action programs. (Nov 2002)
• Voted YES on recommending Constitutional ban on flag desecration. (Jun 2006)
• Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
• Voted YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
• Voted YES on constitutional amendment prohibiting flag desecration. (Jun 2003)
• Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
• Supports anti-flag desecration amendment. (Mar 2001)
• Rated 7% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)

Ralph Nader: Challenge the corporate robot

Ralph Nader on the Candidates, Corporate Power and His Own Plans for 2008
The race for the 2008 election is on, and all we hear about is the race for the money. Presidential hopefuls are vying with each other to raise tens of millions of dollars for what is projected to be the most expensive election in history. But hardly anyone is talking about where this money comes from or where it ends up. Fewer still have asked persistent questions about corporate America's grip over not just the elections, but most policy decisions out of Washington, DC.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, why hold a three-day conference on corporate power, rather than on war?

RALPH NADER: Well, first of all, the corporations are very involved in the war machine. Remember President Eisenhower’s statement about the military-industrial complex. He might have called it today the industrial-military complex, because the industrial part is now a supreme influence on the US military budget, which now is half of the entire federal government’s operating budget, and as well as effecting foreign policy. Even Mr. Koppel has written that oil is very much involved in the invasion of Iraq. In fact, he went on to say it’s mostly about oil in an op-ed in the New York Times -- Ted Koppel. So the domination, the corporate sovereignty over our political economy is very much related to our foreign, military and economic policy, including GATT and NAFTA, which are architectures of corporate supremacy over civil values and the rights of workers, environment and consumers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you recap from this conference of three days -- people coming at corporations, dealing with them in many different ways -- what you think are the biggest problems and the most effective strategies for dealing with them?

RALPH NADER: Well, the biggest problem is that the avenues to challenge corporate power, to restrain it, to break it up in its present concentrated form, to take it away from the political arena, because corporations are artificial entities. They’re not real human beings. They don’t vote. They don’t die in Iraq. They don’t have children. They are entities that are dominating our politics, our electoral systems, our universities, increasingly, dominate almost everything, even moving into areas that were once prohibited by custom in our country, like commercializing childhood.
And so, this conference really challenges the corporations at every interface that affects people -- taxpayers, consumers, workers, communities, children, healthcare, living wage, the varieties of opportunities that people should have that are being denied. We are in the advanced stages of being a corporate state, where -- as Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned Congress in 1938 that when government is controlled by private economic power, he called that fascism. And he would consider today’s control by private economic power -- namely, giant corporations astride the world -- as an even more advanced form of what he called fascism: control of government by corporate interests.

AMY GOODMAN: Does George W. Bush matter anymore?

RALPH NADER: Yeah, he matters, because he’s a national security menace. He’s a destroyer of our Constitution, a violator of our statutes, a revoker of our regulations. He’s a war monger. He’s a war criminal, clinically a war criminal. And he’s still in charge. And I said some time ago, he’s a giant corporation in the White House masquerading as a human being, although I sometimes wonder about the word “human.” I don’t think it’s possible to see a more obsessively compulsive person with so much contempt for the traditions of our country, including conservative traditions, which is why so many libertarians and conservatives like Pat Buchanan have opposed him again and again.
What’s important is to basically get back to self-determination. Do we really believe in self-government? Do we really believe in accountable government? And do we really believe that the supremacy of the people has to be reinstalled over the supremacy of what Jefferson called the moneyed interests and which today are the giant corporations? And I think that in addition to the various tools of accountability that we’ve discussed here at this conference, such as regulation; litigation; investor power; public delivery systems, when the corporations aren’t interested, like the Tennessee Valley Authority; stronger labor unions; organized consumers; cooperatives; here’s what we really need in a broad sense: we need to exercise the ownership that we already have of the great public assets of the United States of America, from the public airwaves to the public lands, to the government’s research and development, to trillions of dollars of labor pension funds, all of which are owned by the people and controlled by corporations. And so, that’s no big deal, theoretically, is it? To revert control back to the owners? That’s a basic conservative principle.
The second thing we have to do is increasingly displace the operations of corporations with better operations: more efficient energy, more renewable energy, more credit unions that are accountable to their small investors, more Medicare replacing the HMOs. All over the country, we see examples of displacement of corporation, and that is really a very powerful and exciting movement, if it obtains a magnitude of significance.
And then, the third, we have to structurally, constitutionally -- every way -- subordinate this robot called the corporate entity, not its employees or its people. The robot has to be subordinated to the supremacy of human rights of real individuals. And that shouldn’t be a hard sell, either, if we start talking about these things more often, if we don’t leave it up to Democracy Now! to talk about it, if we don’t leave it up to an occasional TV, you know? An occasional TV, a very occasional TV.

We have to increase our expectation levels. It all starts with increasing our expectation levels of what kind of society we want and what kind of world we want to bequeath to our descendants. If we’re not motivated enough by the past great reformers and civic patriots of our past, the fighters against slavery, women’s rights and all the rest of the social justice movement, if that isn’t enough to motivate us, then just look around this country and see the tragedies, the dispossession, the injustice, the exclusions, the disrespect, the gouging, the rip-offs, the using of taxpayer dollars against those small taxpayers themselves, the lack of health and safety, the hundreds of thousands of lives lost every year in occupational disease and medical malpractice and air and water pollution and denial of healthcare and so on -- who weeps for those people?

And we have to stop making excuses for ourselves. That’s the key. We have to multiply our own civic energies with our neighbors, our relatives, our coworkers, our friends. When that happens, when word of mouth takes over as the prime communications system in this country, nothing can stop it. We have to replace big talk with small talk. And we have to make it apparent to millions of people that striving for justice is one of life’s greatest gratifications. In fact, outside of the family, it is the greatest gratification. Without justice, there’s no such thing as liberty and freedom, there’s no such thing as fulfilling life’s possibilities. And I want to thank the people who came to this conference and lent us their energies and energized themselves and hope they’ll go throughout the country and do the same thing.

EPA Scaled Back Rules On Wetlands
After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams.
The administration last fall prepared broad new rules for interpreting the decision, handed down by a divided Supreme Court in June 2006, that could have brought thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The draft guidelines, for example, would allow the government to protect marsh lands and temporary ponds that form during heavy rains if they could potentially affect water quality in a nearby navigable waterway.
But just before the new guidelines were to be issued last September, they were pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers for groups concerned that the rules could lead to federal protection of isolated and insignificant swamps, potholes and ditches.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, charged with enforcing the Clean Water Act, finally issued new guidelines last month, which environmental and recreational groups complained were much more narrowly drawn. These groups argue that the final guidelines will leave thousands of sensitive wetlands and streams unprotected.
The draft guidelines, leaked to environmental groups by someone within the government, allowed officials to look at the impact of dredging or discharge of pollutants on a wide region or watershed, potentially putting millions of acres of land adjacent to streams and wetlands off limits to industry, agriculture and development. Lobbyists for these groups immediately raised objections. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and Alliance Coal, one of the nation's largest coal producers, also weighed in on the proposed guidelines, expressing concern that the new rules would affect temporary drainage ditches and "ephemeral" streams that appear only after heavy rain.

More Than 250 Dead in Weekend of Iraq Violence
In Iraq, more than two-hundred fifty people were killed this weekend in a wave of violence across the country. At least one-hundred fifty people died Saturday in a massive truck bombing in the northern town of Tuz Khurmato. Locals compared the aftermath to scene of an earthquake. More than one hundred shops and homes were destroyed with dozens of bodies feared dead beneath the rubble. It was the second-deadliest insurgent bombing attack since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Witnesses: U.S. Troops Shoot Iraqi Civilians
Meanwhile in Baghdad, witnesses say U.S. forces shot dead six Iraqi civilians in a raid on the Shia area of Sadr City. Two brothers aged eleven and fifteen years-old are believed among the dead.

Sadr City resident Abu Haider: "We do not know why they were killed by the Americans. We do not know the reasons behind attacking those poor innocent men who worked to earn their livings. Islam and Christianity can not accept this!"

125 Afghans Feared Dead in NATO Strikes
Villagers in a remote western area of Afghanistan are claiming at least one hundred civilians were killed in U.S.-led NATO airstrikes over two days last week. The attack was said to take place in the Bala Baluk district. Residents of another area in the northeast province of Konar say twenty-five villagers were killed in a separate attack. The claims were impossible to verify because both areas are out of reach to journalists and independent researchers. Recent figures show more Afghan civilians have died in NATO airstrikes than in Taliban attacks this year.
Poll: Record Support for Impeaching Bush, Cheney
A new poll shows record public support for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. According to the American Research Group, forty-five percent of Americans would back impeachment proceedings against Bush, while fifty-four percent would back the same against Cheney. A measure to impeach Cheney has attracted nine co-sponsors since Ohio Democratic Congressmember Dennis Kucinich introduced it earlier this year.

Sheehan Mulls Pelosi Challenge
Meanwhile the peace mom Cindy Sheehan has announced she may run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if Pelosi fails to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush. Sheehan set a deadline of July 23rd -- the same day she arrives in Washington, DC from a two-week caravan starting at Sheehan’s former protest site near President Bush’s Crawford estate.
Sheehan, who announced in late May that she was departing the peace movement, said she decided to run against Pelosi unless the congresswoman moves to oust Bush in the next two weeks.
"I think all politicians should be held accountable," Sheehan told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership. We hired them to bring an end to the war... I'm doing it to encourage other people to run against Congress members who aren't doing their jobs, who are beholden to special interests.
You can't keep a good gal down. Nice t-shirt, Cindy.

NYT Calls for Iraq Withdrawal
In media news, the New York Times has come out in favor of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. In an editorial published on Sunday, the Times editors write: “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.” The Times was widely criticized in the lead-up to the Iraq war for its coverage mirroring the Bush administration’s claims on Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Military Judge OKs New Trial for Watada
A military court has issued a new judgment in the case of First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse to serve in the Iraq war. On Friday, Lieutenant Colonel John Heed ruled military officials have the right to charge Watada for a second time. Watada’s lawyers had argued a second trial would amount to double jeopardy. Watada’s first trial in a mistrial. Watada faces six years in prison if convicted.

Powell: "I Tried to Stop Bush from War"
Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is claiming he tried to dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq. Speaking at the Ideas Festival in Colorado, Powell said he tried to avoid the war by explaining to Bush “the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.” Powell delivered the infamous speech alleging Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction at the UN in Feburary 2003 just one month before the war.
He didn't try too hard.

Drummond Trial Begins in Colombia Union Slayings
In Alabama, a civil trial begins today accusing the coal company Drummond of ordering the killing of three Colombian union leaders. In a sworn statement submitted to the trial, a former senior official at Colombia’s executive intelligence agency testifies he saw Drummond officials hand over a suitcase full of money to pay for the assassinations of two labor leaders in 2001.

Shocking Link - Psych Drugs, Suicide, Mass Murder

From Columbine to Virginia Tech, every time another headline-making mass murderer is discovered to have taken antidepressants or other psychiatric drugs, rumors and speculation abound regarding the possible connection between the medications and the violence. To begin with, many of the most notorious mass killers in recent memory have been on, or just coming off, prescription mood-altering drugs. Remember these headline names?

• Andrea Yates, in one of the most heartbreaking crimes in modern history, drowned all five of her children – aged 7 years down to 6 months – in a bathtub. Insisting inner voices commanded her to kill her kids, she had become increasingly psychotic over the course of several years. Yates had been taking the antidepressant Effexor. In November 2005, more than four years after Yates drowned her children, Effexor manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals quietly added "homicidal ideation" to the drug's list of "rare adverse events." But "rare" is defined by the FDA as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. And since, according to an Associated Press report, about 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled in the U.S. alone in 2005, that means statistically almost 20,000 Americans could experience "homicidal ideation" – that is, murderous thoughts – as a result of taking just this one antidepressant drug.
• Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking the widely prescribed antidepressant Luvox when he and fellow student Dylan Klebold went on a hellish school shooting rampage in 1999, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding 24 others before turning their guns on themselves.
  Dr. Peter Breggin, a top expert on the adverse effects of psychiatric drugs, has analyzed in detail "the clinical and scientific reasons for believing that Eric Harris's violence was caused by prescribed Luvox."
  Beyond showing how meds like Luvox can cause "command auditory hallucinations" and many other scary, suicidal and homicidal "rare adverse events," Breggin cites Luvox manufacturer Solvay Pharmaceuticals as conceding that 4 percent of children and youth taking Luvox developed mania during short-term controlled clinical trials.
  "Mania," explains Breggin, "is a psychosis which can produce bizarre, grandiose, highly elaborated destructive plans, including mass murder."
  
• Authorities investigating Cho Seung-Hui, who murdered 32 at Virginia Tech in April, reportedly found "prescription drugs" for the treatment of psychological problems among his possessions. Joseph Aust, Cho's roommate, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch Cho's routine each morning had included taking prescription drugs.
  And while the autopsy report says no drugs were found in Cho's bloodstream on the day of the murders, April 16, Breggin says Cho could well "have been tipped over into violent madness weeks or months earlier by a drug like Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft."Cho's medical records have yet to be released to the public – authorities claiming it's because a criminal investigation is ongoing, while Breggin suspects "maybe they're protecting drug companies," citing the serious problems withdrawal from psychiatric drugs have been known to cause.
• Patrick Purdy's 1989 schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, Calif., was the catalyst for the legislative frenzy to ban "semiautomatic assault weapons" in California and the nation. The 25-year-old Purdy, who murdered five children and wounded 30, had been on Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine.
  
• Kip Kinkel, 15, murdered his parents in 1998 and the next day went to his school, Thurston High in Springfield, Ore., and opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others. He had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.
  
• In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., killing one child and wounding six. She had been taking the antidepressant Anafranil as well as Lithium, long used to treat mania.
  
• In Paducah, Ky., in late 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, son of a prominent attorney, traveled to Heath High School and started shooting students in a prayer meeting taking place in the school's lobby, killing three and leaving another paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.
  
• In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise, living on Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation, shot and killed nine people and wounded five others before killing himself. Weise had been taking Prozac.
  
• In another famous case, 47-year-old Joseph T. Wesbecker, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.

All very interesting, you may be thinking, but what do the drug companies say in their defense?
One of the most widely prescribed antidepressants today is Paxil, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
Paxil's known "adverse drug reactions" – according to the drug's own 2001 FDA-approved label – include "mania," "insomnia," "anxiety," "agitation," "confusion," "amnesia," "depression," "paranoid reaction," "psychosis," "hostility," "delirium," "hallucinations," "abnormal thinking," "depersonalization" and "lack of emotion," among others.
With a rap sheet like that, no wonder pharmaceutical companies are nervous about liability lawsuits over the "rare adverse effects" of their medications.
In 1998, for example, GlaxoSmithKline was ordered to pay $6.4 million to Donald Schnell's surviving family members after the 60-year-old man, just two days after taking Paxil, murdered his wife, daughter and granddaughter in a fit of rage.

VIPER teams converge on mass transit

VIPER Teams Patrol Mass Transit Facilities, Look For Susupicious Individuals
Federal air marshals are expanding their work beyond airplanes, launching counterterror surveillance at train stations and other mass transit facilities in a three-day test program. As of Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration said, teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers were descending on bus stations, ferries and transit systems across the country to protect them from potential terrorists.
"We just want to develop the capability to enhance security outside of aviation," said air marshal spokesman David Adams.
Air marshals stepped outside of their usual role of flying undercover on airliners after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. They were sent to keep order at Louis Armstrong International Airport, where thousands of evacuees converged after the levees were breached. The so-called "Visible Intermodal Protection and Response" teams - or VIPER teams - will patrol Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and Los Angeles rail lines; ferries in Washington state; bus stations in Houston; and mass transit systems in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore. Some members of the team will be obvious to the traveling public and wear jackets bearing the TSA name on the back. Others will be plainclothes air marshals scanning the crowds for suspicious individuals.

Nightmare at Reagan National Airport: A Security Story to End all Security Stories
The incident started when Monica, who left the Secret Service to raise a family, was stopped while going through airport security because there was water in her son's sippy cup. The sippy cup was seized by TSA. Monica wanted the cup back because the sippy cup was the only way her son would drink -- and it was a long flight between Washington, DC and Reno, Nevada where she was going for a family reunion.
"I demanded to speak to a TSA supervisor who asked me if the water in the sippy cup was 'nursery water or other bottled water.' The sippy cup was seized as my son was pointing and crying for his cup. I asked if I could drink the water to get the cup back, and was advised that I would have to leave security and come back through with an empty cup in order to retain the cup. As I was escorted out of security by TSA and a police officer, I unscrewed the cup to drink the water, which accidentally spilled because I was so upset with the situation. At this point, I was detained against my will by the police officer and threatened to be arrested for endangering other passengers with the spilled 3 to 4 ounces of water. I was ordered to clean the water, so I got on my hands and knees while my son sat in his stroller with no shoes on since they were also screened and I had no time to put them back on his feet. I was ordered to apologize for the spilled water, and again threatened with arrest. I was threatened several times with arrest while detained, and while three other police officers were called to the scene of the mother with the 19 month old. A total of four police officers and three TSA officers reported to the scene where I was being held against my will. I was also told that I should not disrespect the officer and could be arrested for this too. I apologized to the officer and she continued to detain me despite me telling her that I would miss my flight. The officer advised me that I should have thought about this before I 'intentionally spilled the water!'"
Monica said that the incident ended this way: "I missed my flight, needless to say after being detained for over 40 minutes. After the officer was done humiliating me, I was advised that I could go through the security check point in an attempt to catch my flight. The officer insisted that my son and I be rescreened despite us both being detained and under her control the entire time."

New Drug Deletes Bad Memories

Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories.
Bet they'll test it on the guys at GITMO before they let them go...

Three Girls Died, Others Hospitalized, After HPV Vaccine

Amid controversy over state legislatures in the U.S. requiring young girls to take Gardasil, Merck's new vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), severe side effects are being reported.
1,637 adverse reactions have been reported by Judicial Watch, a public interest watchdog, including three girls who died shortly after receiving the immunization. Judicial Watch obtained the reports from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration using the Freedom of Information Act.

Genetically engineered rice gets into the U.S. food supply

America's rice farmers didn't want to grow a genetically engineered crop. Their customers in Europe did not want to buy it. So how did it end up in our food?

Plague of bioweapons accidents afflicts the US

Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists. Plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever - these are among the bioweapons some experts fear could be used in a germ warfare attack against the US. But the public has had near-misses with those diseases and others over the past five years, ironically because of accidents in labs that were working to defend against bioterrorists. Even worse, they may be only the tip of an iceberg.

The revelations come from Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a biosafety pressure group based in Austin, Texas, US, who after persistent requests got the minutes of university biosafety committees using the US Freedom of Information Act. The minutes are accessible to the public by law. There are now 20,000 people at 400 sites around the US working with putative bioweapons germs, says Hammond, 10 times more than before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Some scientists have warned for years that more people handling dangerous germs are a recipe for accidents.
The fears have been borne out by publicised infections of lab workers with tularemia, brucellosis and Q fever. The Q fever incident took place at Texas A&M University, which has now been ordered to stop research into potential bioweapons while an investigation takes place. However, Hammond’s minutes contain further, previously unreported, slip-ups:

• At the University of New Mexico, one worker was jabbed with an anthrax-laden needle, and another with a syringe containing an undisclosed, genetically engineered microbe.
• At the Medical University of Ohio, workers were exposed to and infected with Valley Fever.
• At the University of Chicago, there was another puncture with an undisclosed agent normally requiring heavy containment, probably anthrax or plague.
• At the University of California at Berkeley, workers handled deadly Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which spreads in the air, without containment when it was mislabelled as harmless.
• At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, workers were exposed to TB when containment equipment failed.

As yet, none of the accidents have been serious in outcome. But, Hammond fears, more such accidents may go unreported. "Instead of a 'culture of responsibility', the federal government has instilled a culture of denial" he says. "Labs hide problems, and think that accident reporting is for masochists."
Without stringently enforced reporting rules, he says, labs have every reason to cover up accidents. They want to avoid losing research funds, and fear the massive official reaction to any accident – such as the imprisonment of plague researcher Thomas Butler in 2003. And he claims Texas A&M officials have said they now regret reporting the Q fever incident.
"I think the answer is to create a level playing field by having clear and absolutely mandatory reporting requirements," says Hammond. "Eliminate even the possibility of an institution claiming that it does not have to report infections. The labs will say, you can't do that because then people won't report accidents. Well, I think it's pretty clear that people don't report accidents as it stands."

MI5 story continues to `Evolve'

First MI5 Story : 'no hint , no smell ' ...........
Second Story : 'We did warn nightclubs -and Wimbledon- to watch out for Iraqi-style car bombs' .......
Third Story : 'The Americans knew of the threat of an imminent attack on Glasgow airport - but they didn't tell us ." .....
Today : 'Yeah We had files on these guys ' .........

Scotland Yard: Bombers 'laughable', likely not 'al Qaeda'

"So incompetent as to be almost laughable." That's how former Scotland Yard detective John O'Connor described the botched UK bombings this morning on CNN. He also noted that it's probably wrong to refer to these guys as 'al Qaeda'.

US goverment chews up old Tomcat fighter jets to keep parts from Iran

The Pentagon is paying a contractor at least $900,000 to destroy old F-14s, a jet affectionately nicknamed "the turkey," rather than sell the spares at the risk of their falling into the wrong hands, including Iran's.

Caught Red-Handed: Media Backtracks on Iran's Anti-Israel 'Threat'

The effect this misquote has had on American policy towards Iran is undeniable. The majority of 2008 Presidential candidates in both parties have repeatedly mentioned the alleged threat in speeches and interviews, obviously influenced by media reports. And yet suddenly, after all this hoopla, at least two of the biggest media titans, the BBC and the Associated Press, appear to be backing away from the incorrect “wiped off the map” quotation they've been drilling into people's minds for so long. It's happening quietly and undemonstratively, but some recent subtle changes in their presentation indicate a tacit acknowledgement of their previous misreporting.

Lieberman: Iran has declared war on the US
"Although no one desires a conflict with Iran, the fact is that the Iranian government by its actions has declared war on us," Lieberman wrote, while urging the United States to keep "open the possibility of using military force against the terrorist infrastructure inside Iran."

Clinton's Chief Strategist Is Accused of Illegal Eavesdropping

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief strategist is being accused of illegal eavesdropping in a lawsuit that alleges he and his polling firm monitored the personal e-mails of a former associate who started a rival company.


D.C. madam vows to release records
The 46 pounds of Sprint phone records, stored meticulously over the D.C. Madam's 13-year escort service, is a scandal in waiting that looms large over the nation's capital. And if the current court-ordered injunction is lifted, allowing Deborah Jeane Palfrey access to her files, she vows to send every last name and phone number to any journalist, blogger or private detective wanting them.
"I kind of think it will be like deciphering the Da Vinci Code," said Palfrey, in an exclusive Times-Herald interview Friday at a local coffee shop.
Of the more than 10,000 client names within the phone records, "a couple dozen to 100 or so" are Washington D.C. bigwigs. Even if just 20 high-profile names are culled from her phone records, Palfrey says the White House would "implode" over the scandals. "If what I'm saying is true and this goes to the heart of the Bush administration and the corruption the last several years, then yeah, I'll have an army behind me," Palfrey said.
Palfrey almost didn't have the phone records. In what Palfrey calls an illegal search warrant last October while she was in Germany, the feds raided her historic Vallejo home, seizing assets and other items allegedly used to operate her escort business. Palfrey still gets a kick out of the fact investigators missed the phone records, which were sitting in neatly marked file boxes in the basement, labeled by year.
"You would die if you saw how many times they walked by them sitting in full view," she said. It was those high-profile client names, Palfrey says, that kept investigators interested in her.

Not all would put a heroic sheen on Thompson's Watergate role

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight -- asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system -- he telephoned Nixon's lawyer. Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public.
Then on the other side we have Sen. Mike Gravel, who entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional record. I know who I put the "heroic sheen" on.

Woman sues US prison over son's 86-minute execution

The mother of a US man whose 2006 execution took 86 minutes and involved sticking needles into him 19 times has sued the prison team which oversaw the execution for civil rights violations.

Belated realization: US is not us

Democracy in America, as imperfect as it has always been, is now a totally lost art. We have allowed democracy to be buried, and it won’t be long before Capital starts asking us to bury what’s left of our liberty and freedoms.

Iraq draws up plans for privatisation gold rush

The privatisation proposals could also include a massive extension of foreign participation in the oil industry. Sources close to the foreign ministry said the government believed it had struck a deal on the long-awaited hydrocarbon law which could see Parliament vote the legislation through in two weeks' time. If the legislation is passed, arrangements to allow foreign oil majors to enter into production-sharing agreements with Iraq's national oil company could then make it into the memorandum.

Government considers selling Iraq

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that officials from the government have recently held talks with banking and legal advisers in London. City sources said Iraq's minister for industry, Fawzi Hariri, was looking to appoint advisers to draw up a memorandum of understanding to sell off the country's non-oil assets, ranging from petrochemical plants to construction companies, hotels and airlines, as early as this month.

Iraqi cabinet endorses amended oil law
Iraq's cabinet on Tuesday approved an amended draft oil law -- a key plank to help unite the country's warring communities -- and forwarded the bill to the parliament.
This is what our kids have been getting maimed and dying for; not freedom for the Iraqi people; not "to spread democracy" in the Middle East.

On His Last Day in Office, Bush Will Pardon Himself and Cheney

George H. W. Bush charged that those who disclose the identities of covert operatives are committing the equivalent of treason, while George W. Bush believes that those who lie under oath about such matters should receive less jail time than Paris Hilton.

Hush-Hush: Rove's Security Clearance Renewal

Should White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove be privy to the nation's most sensitive secrets? Did he break trust with President Bush and the nation when he told syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak about Valerie Plame's classified job with the CIA? Did he further erode that trust in 2003 when he told then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan that, as McClellan put it, there was "no truth" to rumors that he played a role in the disclosure of Plame's identity?

A Declaration The President Ignores

We all know that the Declaration of Independence announced the United States' freedom from the British Empire. We all remember that it declared certain truths to be self-evident. But what you probably haven't heard is that the declaration also advanced an idea about war. The idea was that war ought to be governed by law.

CONGRESS CAN STILL FOLLOW THE LIBBY OIL TRAIL

The first famous obstruction of justice in which Scooter Libby was involved came at the end of the Clinton presidency when Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, the notorious international criminal who has made billions from illegal oil trading. One can argue that Clinton pardoned Rich expecting some financial benefit, but it is quite likely that the pardon also protected Rich associates, probably including oil people. The pardon stopped Federal investigation and prosecution of Rich and so very likely benefited powerful people inside and outside the U.S.

FLASHBACK: GOP lawyer: Facts 'misconstrued' in Rich case

Podesta, in an opening statement, said that Clinton was urged by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to support the Rich pardon...

Remember the Marc Rich case? Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich was the direct result of blackmail and bribery by forces representing Israel. Scooter Libby was Rich's lawyer.

McDermott to Cheney: ‘Resign or face impeachment’

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) told Vice President Dick Cheney to “resign or face impeachment” Thursday night as three more House Democrats lent their support to a plan to impeach the vice president.

The Day the Rule of Law Died

Let’s get something straight right away. Valerie Plame is the victim. A woman who dedicated her entire life to protecting this country from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction deserved better than this. A woman who served a NOC (non-official cover), meaning she would be killed and our government would have disowned her if she was caught, deserved better than this. Scooter Libby is a traitor to this country. He essentially committed treason against this country by deliberately lying to a special prosecutor investigating the outing of a covert CIA operative. Scooter Libby is not the victim. It is disgusting for President Bush to continue to portray him as one; today commuting his jail sentence; defecating on the rule of law as we know it.

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment:
"You ceased to be the President of the United States"
Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers. Did so even before the appeals process was complete… Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice… Did so despite what James Madison –at the Constitutional Convention -- said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president… Did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder:
To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish -- the President will keep you out of prison?
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens -- the ones who did not cast votes for you.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President… of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party.
And this is too important a time, sir, to have a Commander-in-Chief who puts party over nation.
This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics.
The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of “a permanent Republican majority,” as if such a thing -- or a permanent Democratic majority -- is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.
Yet our democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government. But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain… into a massive oil spill.
The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment.
The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party, who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and “quaint.”
The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws.
The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.
And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor…
When just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable “fairness” of government is rejected by an impartial judge…
When just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice…
This President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.
I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.
I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.
I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but instead to stifle dissent.
I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.
I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.
I accuse you of handing part of this republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.
And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of you becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” on October 20th, 1973, Mr. Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously:
“Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people.”
President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.
It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party’s headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes. But in one night, Nixon transformed it. Watergate -- instantaneously -- became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law. Of insisting -- in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood -- that he was the law.
Not the Constitution.
Not the Congress.
Not the Courts.
Just him.
Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.
The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the “referee” of Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s analogy… these are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.
But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush -- and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal -- the average citizen understands that, sir.
It’s the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one -- and it stinks. And they know it.
...
Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.
Resign.
And give us someone -- anyone -- about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”
Good night, and good luck.

Congress seeks hearing on Cheney’s role in water diversion

On June 27, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), along with 35 California and Oregon members of Congress, called for congressional hearings on Vice President Dick Cheney’s involvement in the political decision that killed 80,000 spawning salmon. They made this request to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) after a Washington Post investigative report found that Cheney pressured mid-level bureaucrats in the Department of Interior to divert water from the Klamath River Basin for political gain.


Newly naturalized U.S. Marines raise their hands during a ceremony Wednesday at Camp Victory in Baghdad. A total of 160 troops from 52 countries were granted U.S. citizenship during the ceremony.

U.S. troops naturalized in Iraq
U.S. immigration officials swore in 325 service members as citizens during ceremonies across Iraq on Wednesday. As of May, 1,186 service members had become citizens in Iraq since the beginning of the conflict, according to the Defense Department.

The Militarization of American Youth

Militarism in our schools is an issue of serious and growing importance. Using a variety of clever tricks and persuasive tactics, the Pentagon takes advantage of our nation’s youth, especially the underprivileged, by marketing dead-end military jobs. With its vast budget and immense political power, the military is trying to sell itself as a cure for our country’s social and economic problems, even in the face of considerable evidence showing that a military career can cut short a student’s education and make it even harder to find a productive livelihood. Despite its best efforts, however, military recruitment rates continue to decline. This testifies to the fact that the real implications of military service are slowly gaining widespread attention and that counter-recruitment campaigns are succeeding. As the antiwar movement and all people concerned about the welfare of our nation’s youth continue to expose the military’s lies.

Judge orders man to leave Irvine mosque alone

At the beginning, worshipers at the Islamic Center of Irvine said, they thought Craig Monteilh was just an overzealous convert when he criticized U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. But when he started talking about jihad and dropped oblique references to violence, congregants contacted authorities.

Can you say "Agent Provocateur?" Can you say, "Obvious FBI shill?"I knew you could!

Mexico denies official complicity in drug suspect's cash hoard
The Mexican government vigorously denied this week the accusations of a Chinese-Mexican businessman who is wanted on drug charges here but who asserts that $150 million found hidden in his mansion came from members of President Felipe Calderón's party, including the secretary of labor.

Oil a factor in Australian role in Iraq: minister
Oil is a key factor keeping Australian troops in the US-led war in Iraq, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said Thursday, before his boss Prime Minister John Howard sharply contradicted him. Nelson's startling comments caused an immediate stir in Australia, one of the United States' few major allies in the increasingly unpopular war, but Howard quickly backed away from the explosive contention.

Shell-shocked in the Strip: Israeli Attacks and Border Closures Exacerbate Daily Suffering

At the Rafah border, in limbo and unable to make it home, Palestinians are suffering from another aspect of the Israeli government’s policy of imposed collective suffering through border closures, economic sanctions, air and land attacks, and extreme military control of Palestinian areas. These latest closures will achieve neither the peace nor security Israel professes to desire. Nonetheless, Israel continues the inhumane policy of denying Palestinians access to medical care, food, and supplies outside of Gaza, and continues to hold hostage the many Palestinians who have been waiting for over three weeks now to return home.

"Nice policewomen" soothing an old woman after taking all her belongs and demolishing her home
US Taxpayers' Money at Work: Photos of Israel's demolitions of Palestinian homes

Rights group: Israel ruining economy in Gaza Strip
The virtually total closure imposed on the Gaza Strip since Hamas's takeover in June has almost destroyed the Palestinian economy and threatens to turn its 1.4 million residents into charity cases, Gisha, the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, charged in a report released Wednesday. Israel has erased from its computers the customs code used to identify goods entering Gaza and issued orders not to release them until further notice. This policy has cost Palestinian importers $1.5 million in the first two weeks of the closure, including fines paid for the use of rented containers, breach of contracts and damage to goods stored in warehouses for extended periods of time, the organization said.

U.S. Senate bill would restrict Israel's use of military aid to buy cluster bombs
The foreign aid clause, sponsored by Senators Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein, would restrict the sale or transfer of cluster bombs such that no military funds will be used for such bombs unless "the cluster bombs have a failure rate of one percent or less."

Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan No Coincidence
American General Dan McNeill, who took control of all NATO forces in Afghanistan this spring, seems to have an answer: Bombs away, and let hearts and minds fall where they may. The spike in civilian deaths from NATO bombs is no coincidence. It reflects a major change in strategy, which has gone totally unreported in the American media.

'Free' energy technology goes on display

Technology developed by an Irish firm that allegedly defies basic laws of physics to produce free power today goes on public display for the first time.

Shops emptied as panic grips Zimbabwe

"I am selling goods at less than what I paid for them. I am selling bread at less than what it costs to bake it," a distraught Harare shopowner said, pleading for anonymity so as to avoid government retribution. "I am following the government's orders. Army soldiers came here this morning to check prices. Mugabe has threatened to seize any business that does not do what he says. I don't know how long this can continue."

Coalition of the billing

Private contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq
New U.S. data show how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of the war-torn nation.
The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns. More than 180,000 civilians -- including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis -- are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq.
The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq — a mission criticized as being undermanned.
"These numbers are big," said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar who has written on military contracting. "They illustrate better than anything that we went in without enough troops. This is not the coalition of the willing. It's the coalition of the billing."



The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis, all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the most recent government data. The array of private workers promises to be a factor in debates on a range of policy issues, including the privatization of military jobs and the number of Iraqi refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. But there are also signs that even those mounting numbers may not capture the full picture. Private security contractors, who are hired to protect government officials and buildings, were not fully counted in the survey, according to industry and government officials. Continuing uncertainty over the numbers of armed contractors drew special criticism from military experts.
"We don't have control of all the coalition guns in Iraq. That's dangerous for our country," said William Nash, a retired Army general and reconstruction expert. The Pentagon "is hiring guns. You can rationalize it all you want, but that's obscene."

Adding an element of potential confusion, no single agency keeps track of the number or location of contractors.
The companies with the largest number of employees are foreign firms in the Middle East that subcontract to KBR, the Houston-based oil services company, according to the Central Command database. KBR, once a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., provides logistics support to troops, the single largest contract in Iraq.
The most controversial contractors are those working for private security companies, including Blackwater, Triple Canopy and Erinys. They guard sensitive sites and provide protection to U.S. and Iraqi government officials and businessmen. Security contractors draw some of the sharpest criticism, much of it from military policy experts who say their jobs should be done by the military. On several occasions, heavily armed private contractors have engaged in firefights when attacked by Iraqi insurgents. Others worry that the private security contractors lack accountability. Although scores of troops have been prosecuted for serious crimes, only a handful of private security contractors have faced legal charges. The number of private security contractors in Iraq remains unclear, despite Central Command's latest census. The Times identified 21 security companies in the Central Command database, deploying 10,800 men. However, the Defense Department's Motsek, who monitors contractors, said the Pentagon estimated the total was 6,000. Both figures are far below the private security industry's own estimate of about 30,000 private security contractors working for government agencies, nonprofit organizations, media outlets and businesses.





THREE TRUE PATRIOTS TELL THEIR STORIES:
How the Pentagon Papers Came to be Published by the Beacon Press: A Remarkable Story Told by Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Dem Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel and Unitarian Leader Robert West
Thirty-five years ago this weekend, Beacon Press lost a Supreme Court case brought against it by the US government for publishing the first full edition of the Pentagon Papers.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: There were 7,000 pages of top secret documents that demonstrated unconstitutional behavior by a succession of presidents, the violation of their oath and the violation of the oath of every one of their subordinates -- I, for one -- who had participated in that terrible, indecent fraud over the years in Vietnam, lying us into a hopeless war, which has, of course -- and a wrongful war -- which has, of course, been reproduced and is being reproduced right now and may occur again in Iran. So the history of that, I thought, might help us get out of that particular war.

...
AMY GOODMAN: Dan Ellsberg you have been calling for people, who like you thirty-five years ago were inside the system, to step outside and to release an equivalent of the Pentagon Papers. Do you think they exist -- the papers and these people who could step forward?
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, of course, the papers exist. The Pentagon Papers, the equivalent of them, exist in safes in Washington, all over Washington, not only in the Pentagon, but in the CIA and the State Department and elsewhere. Are there people who realize what the meaning of those -- the full meaning of those papers in their safes? Yes. We know from many leaks and memoirs that have come out that there were people in the White House and the CIA and the Pentagon who realized that we were being lied into war. They realized that as early as 2001.



So my message over the last two years has been to officials in that position, of whom there are hundreds, not only in 2001 and 2002, hundreds right now who could prevent a war with Iran that is on the tracks right now, that they know, and that they know would be disastrous. They could put that out with the authority of their position, but especially of documents, at the risk -- the certainty -- of losing their clearances, which would almost certainly -- which would mean losing their career with the executive branch, possibly, very likely, subjecting them to prosecution, possibly to conviction, possibly to prison. And by taking that risk, they would have a high chance of averting a catastrophe that would lead to the deaths of tens, hundreds of thousands of people and disastrously reduce our security. They know that. So by taking their own personal risk, like the 5,000 people who went to prison as draft resisters in Vietnam, and by the people here who took risks with their institution and their privacy, by taking that risk they could avert this.

So my message is to them: don’t do what I did. Don’t wait ’til the war has started. Don’t wait ’til the bombs have fallen against Iran, or earlier Iraq. Don’t wait ’til the engine of this war is unstoppable. Before the war, take the risk. Reveal what you know to be the truth. Reveal the truth under the lies of your own bosses and your superiors. Obey your oath to the Constitution, which every one of those officials took, not to the commander-in-chief, not to superior officers, but to the Constitution of the United States, which they know is being violated.