carapace – Not your father's america

NEW PULSE POSTED

http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v233_07.htm

That’s the url to the April 23, 2007, issue of DOE Pulse. Pulse is a newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. Here is some of what you’ll find in this issue:

* Brookhaven: Lyme disease vaccine

* Fermilab: MiniBooNE solves neutrino question

* Idaho: Concealed weapons detectors

* Argonne: Flexible electronics

Feature: Lawrence Livermore’s stellar simulations

Researcher profile: NETL’s adventurous David Tucker

==========

O’Reilly falsely claimed he “went on facts and facts alone” in his statements supporting Iraq war

On the April 24 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly denied the assertion by Marvin Kalb, lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a senior fellow at the school’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, that prior to, and during, “the first year or even two after the [Iraq] war got started, Fox and many other people associated with Fox … said all kinds of things in support of the war, which were not being borne out by the facts.” O’Reilly replied: “No, I didn’t. I went on facts and facts alone.” In fact, in the lead-up to, and following, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, O’Reilly made several false claims and misleading suggestions regarding the threat posed by Iraq. Notably, O’Reilly repeatedly suggested a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, despite numerous reports undermining this claim.

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200704270011?src=other

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Iraqi Oil Min Warns Companies Against Deals Bypassing Central Govt

26 Apr 2007

Iraq’s Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani Thursday warned international oil companies from signing oil contracts that bypass the federal government in Baghdad and the Oil Ministry, in a clear reference to deals signed by the Kurdistan Regional Government with a number of foreign firms. “Foreign companies shouldn’t sign any contract that isn’t through the federal government (in Baghdad) and the oil ministry,” al-Shahristani said in a statement handed to reporters. “Any contract that is signed without the knowledge of the federal government is illegal,” the minister said. “The ministry warns companies against violating the Iraqi laws and they would be responsible of such behavior,” the minister said.

Read more

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=44417

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Tenet: CIA warned of ‘anarchy’ in Iraq

27 Apr 2007

The CIA warned the Bush White House seven months before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the U.S. could face a thicket of bad consequences, starting with “anarchy and the territorial breakup” of the country, former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book. CIA analysts wrote the warning at the start of August 2002 and inserted it into a briefing book distributed at an early September meeting of President [sic] Bush’s national security team at Camp David, he writes.

Read more

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070427/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/tenet_iraq_5

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We’ve Been Surging For Years: More troops in Iraq than reported The total comes to 300,000 to 360,000, more than twice the “official” figure.

by Don Monkerud
Global Research, April 27, 2007
tompaine.com – 2007-04-06

The U.S. uses a number of deceptions, definitional illusions and euphemisms, including counting only “combat forces” and “military personnel,” to drastically undercount the number of U.S. forces involved in Iraq, which are at least twice the number as those quoted in the media.

Even President Bush’s January announcement of a “surge” of 21,500 U.S. troops, opposed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has now morphed into 30,000 troops with an additional “headquarters staff” of 3,000, although the currently reported total U.S. military in Iraq is 145,000.

The number of U.S. forces reported by the government, required to occupy a country slightly more than twice the size of Idaho, hides the true extent of vast U.S. resources invested in personnel, material and other costs. The real number is almost impossible to find in government released information even with a great amount of interpretation.

According to GlobalSecurity.org, a public policy organization that provides background information on defense and homeland security, keeping track of American forces has become “significantly more difficult as the military seeks to improve operational security and to deceive potential enemies and the media as to the extent of American operations.” According to John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, there are a number of other reasons affecting the accurate counting of the number of military forces involved in Iraq. Large numbers of troops are activated with unspecified duties to unspecified areas; many small units from various locations are being mobilized from the army and national guard, which count units differently; and groups rotate in and out of Iraqi so quickly it’s impossible for anyone but the Pentagon to calculated how many are there. The Pentagon tracks these numbers, but Pike says they aren’t telling.

“We only try to nail the numbers down when we think Americans are getting ready to blow someone up,” Pike says. “The Pentagon knows the numbers and we have certainly not done anything to highball it. Certainly, if there’s a chance to release or hold numbers, they are parsimonious.”

Additionally, private enterprise military “contractors” almost double the number of U.S. forces in Iraq. After four contractors were hung from a bridge in Fallujah in March 2004, the Bush Administration stonewalled congressional efforts to force the Pentagon to release information about the number of contractors in Iraq. Finally, the Pentagon reported a total of 25,000.

In “The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security,” Deborah D. Avant, director for the Institute for Global and Internal Studies at George Washington University, reports that official numbers are difficult to find, but “This is the largest deployment of U.S. contractors in a military operation.” In October, the military’s first census of contractors totaled 100,000, not counting subcontractors, and in February 2007, AP reported 120,000 contractors (which would put Bush’s “surge” closer to 50,000).

…

Complete article at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MON20070427&articleId=5503

From: www.GlobalResearch.ca

==========

A RELIABLE RIP-OFF

Volume XII No. 6 – April 27, 2007

As the federal budget wends its way through the nation’s capital, an optimistically named program tucked deep in the Department of Energy’s budget is attracting a lot of attention. The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW)

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/BSNTHBOCHC/HQCGHBOCNS/1165091411

would be the first nuclear weapon produced by the U.S. government in two decades, at a cost to taxpayers of $89 million in 2008 alone.

New nukes are a bad investment right now, though, because nobody has defined the role nuclear weapons will play in the post-Cold War world. The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) wants Congress to fund RRW as a down payment on an expansive program to overhaul the nation’s nuclear complex, an endeavor that would stretch over decades and could likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet neither the Department of Defense nor the White House has said how many weapons the U.S. needs in the future or how they would be used.

NNSA has floated a raft of reasons why the RRW is necessary, most of them formulated by scientists at federally funded laboratories struggling to rationalize their existence. They argue that warhead components such as plutonium have a limited shelf life, but a Department of Defense scientist advisory board says (pdf) the plutonium will be viable for at least another 50 years.

Another argument is that RRWs would result in a smaller and less expensive nuclear complex by cutting back on Cold War “high-yield” warheads in exchange for one that is simpler and cheaper to maintain. However, a recent report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that the RRW program would require a significant initial investment for new, expensive plutonium pit production facilities. But any savings would only accrue decades from now, since NNSA must continue refurbishing existing warheads until their replacements are built.

Unfortunately, DOE’s larger plan for consolidating the stockpile, dubbed “Complex 2030” for its target completion year, is also untethered to fiscal reality. DOE estimates Complex 2030 would cost $150 billion, a figure the Government Accountability Office criticized (pdf) as low, pointing out that “NNSA has had difficulty developing realistic, defensible cost estimates, especially for large complex projects.” The DOE champions consolidating production, storage and maintenance of nuclear weapons, yet rejected a plan for a Consolidated Nuclear Production Center. Rep. David Hobson (R-OH), one of the RRW program’s initial boosters, responded (pdf) that “RRW is a deal with Congress, but the deal requires a serious effort by the Department to modernize, consolidate, and downsize the weapons complex. Absent that, there is no deal.”

Congress has already appropriated $60 million for RRW and the administration has requested $89 million in this year’s budget, even though DOE has yet to taxpayers what the total cost of the project will be. The agency plans to produce a detailed estimate by the end of the year—after the FY 08 spending bills are put to bed. By then, taxpayers will already be out $149 million, with very little to show for it. And you can bet DOE will be back next year asking for more. Money for new nukes without a real plan for how to use them: That’s no way to make us more secure.

Going on at Taxpayer.net This Week

New Democratic Congress is Raking in the Campaign Cash

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/BSNTHBOCHC/OHHVHBOCNY/1165091411

Rep. Murtha (D-PA) Outpaces the Fundraising Field: Most Donations Came from Companies With Business Before his Committee (Excel file)

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/BSNTHBOCHC/BWQUHBOCNZ/1165091411

TCS Analysis of the Emergency Spending Bill that Congress Just Sent to the President

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/BSNTHBOCHC/ECIAHBOCOA/1165091411

TCS in the News

More than the war rides on funding bill (Marketplace)
Federal Probes Target Intelligence Lawmakers (ABC News)
Money Rolls For Approps Democrats (Roll Call) (sub. req.)
Your Turn: Tongass roads waste our money (St. Cloud Times, Minnesota)
Baird seeks more open Congress (Oregonian)
House Passes WRDA Measure Over White House Objections (National Journal’s CongressDaily) (sub. req.)
California Rep. Doolittle leaves House appropriations seat (Los Angeles Times)
House passes delayed water projects bill (Associated Press)
In Deepwater (Economist)

Notable Quote

“While we pursue these ideas and others to get politics and policy back into balance, ultimately we need leaders who see public service as a calling and not a profit center for either themselves or their political allies. A Congress that takes its oversight responsibilities seriously is our best antidote to the unprecedented politicization of government. Furthermore, the media must also continue to shine a bright light on government and keep our leaders honest and accountable. That vigorous oversight ought to extend to the next Administration, whether it be Democratic or Republican, and to the Congress.”

–Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), at the Brookings Institution, April 25, 2007

From: weekly wastebasket at www.taxpayer.net

==========

A failure in generalship

By Lt. Col. Paul Yingling

“You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict.”
- Frederick the Great

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq’s grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America’s general officer corps. America’s generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America’s generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

The Responsibilities of Generalship

…

Complete article at:

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

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Fascist America, in 10 easy steps #5 of 10

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government – the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors – we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security – remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” – didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

…

5 Harass citizens’ groups

The fifth thing you do is related to step four – you infiltrate and harass citizens’ groups. It can be trivial: a church in Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favour of peace, found itself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, while churches that got Republicans out to vote, which is equally illegal under US tax law, have been left alone.

Other harassment is more serious: the American Civil Liberties Union reports that thousands of ordinary American anti-war, environmental and other groups have been infiltrated by agents: a secret Pentagon database includes more than four dozen peaceful anti-war meetings, rallies or marches by American citizens in its category of 1,500 “suspicious incidents”. The equally secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (Cifa) agency of the Department of Defense has been gathering information about domestic organisations engaged in peaceful political activities: Cifa is supposed to track “potential terrorist threats” as it watches ordinary US citizen activists. A little-noticed new law has redefined activism such as animal rights protests as “terrorism”. So the definition of “terrorist” slowly expands to include the opposition.

Complete article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

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NETWORK HOSTING ATTORNEY SCANDAL E-MAILS ALSO HOSTED OHIO’S 2004 ELECTION RESULTS

By Steven Rosenfeld, Bob Fitrakis, Free Press

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic
infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush’s
re-election?

At:

http://www.alternet.org/stories/50941/

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three thousand words

Tom Toles: the real hero of the story

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/uc/20070426/ltt070426.gif

David Horsey: another judas in out midst!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20070429/cartoon20070429.gif

John Deering: you need the public backing of some former presidents

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/crjde/2007/crjde070427.gif

BIRTH OF THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER: HOW EVANGELICALS INFILTRATED THE AMERICAN MILITARY

By Michael L. Weinstein, David Seay, Thomas Dunne Books

It took decades for evangelicals to infiltrate the military, but eventually fundamentalist theology adapted as its entry points the culture of authority, duty, and sacrifice in the armed forces.

At:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/50696/

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How Bush Breached the ‘Wall of Separation’

By Len Hart(Len Hart)

Assertions that our legal system is founded on the Christian Bible is more than a “myth; it is a deliberate lie manufactured and perpetrated by American fundamentalists like Pat Robertson and other evangelists who have made huge …

At:

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-bush-breached-wall-of-separation.html

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SWIFT BOAT FIRM HELPS ABSTINENCE GROUP COURT PUBLIC OPINION

http://www.prwatch.org/node/5951

“Using membership dues paid in part by federal tax dollars, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) hired the Washington, DC, public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts,” writes Scott Swenson. CRC — best known as the PR firm for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who smeared 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry — will be heading a “proactive rapid response
initiative to counteract negative attacks on abstinence education,” reports O’Dwyer’s PR Daily. The Nation’s blog notes that the formation of NAEA and its hiring of a well-connected conservative PR
firm comes after “a frigid winter for the abstinence-only crowd.” The Government Accountability Office criticized the funding of abstinence-only programs without checking their “education materials for scientific accuracy,” while the Institute of Medicine faulted abstinence programs in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief as jeopardizing “the vitally important end of saving lives.” That’s not to mention that the abstinence-only programs “favored by Republicans and their conservative allies have lost momentum with the Democratic takeover of Congress,” as O’Dwyer’s observes.

SOURCE: RH Reality Check blog, April 4, 2007

==========

WHAT IF GOD TELLS YOU YOUR BLENDER IS EVIL ?

By Bruce Wilson

As Christian Right Leverages PR, Magical Reality Displaces Science.

At:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/51015/

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THE SECRETS OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT’S RECRUITING TACTICS

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig

A look at the cult-like recruiting tactics of the Christian right, including the manipulative and highly successful practice of “love bombing.”

At:

http://www.alternet.org/stories/50934/

==========

A Review of Chris Hedges’ Christian Fascism

Written by Stephen Lendman�
Monday, 23 April 2007

Chris Hedges is a journalist who for two decades was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times spending much of his time reporting from conflict zones in El Salvador, the Middle East and from Serbia covering the Balkan wars of the 1990s that divided and destroyed a country under the guise of humanitarian intervention providing cover for naked imperialism. There it allowed NATO (meaning the US) to expand into Central and Eastern Europe to keep predatory capitalism on the march for markets, resources and cheap labor everywhere using wars to get them and eliminate “uncooperative” heads of state like Slobodan Milosevic who was kidnapped, Mafia/Mossad-style, by the ICTY kangaroo court in the Hague, hung out to dry when he got there, and in the end effectively or, in fact, murdered to shut him up and prevent ugly truths coming out about what the conflict was really about and who the real criminals were.

The wars and subsequent show-trials had nothing to do with myths about it fed us by Western media. Those wanting the truth can find it in excellent books like Diana Johnstone’s Fools’ Crusade; the extensive research and writings of Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, law professor Michael Mandel; and the newest book out on the subject titled Travesty: The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice by British journalist John Laughland. Edward Herman wrote a superb review of the book in the April, 2007 issue of Z Magazine now available in which he pointedly says “the rules of the (illegally constituted) ICTY (established by the US and UK) stood Nuremberg on its head” and Laughland states “instead of applying existing international law, the ICTY has effectively overturned it” to hide NATO’s crimes and allow more of the same playing out now in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

The Christian Right supports these type crimes and motives for them readers will understand from Hedges’ new book. He’s also written many articles and is the author of four books including his bestselling War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning drawing on his experiences in the conflicts he covered describing how people and nations behave in wartime. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. His newest book is American Fascists – The Christian Right and the War on America published in 2007 and subject of this review. It’s an incisive examination of the huge threat extremist Christian fascists pose to a shaky free society most people in the US take for granted but no longer will after reading this important book.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1432/81/

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Baptists confront sex-abuse charges … and more

Winston-Salem Journal (subscription) – Winston-Salem,NC,USA

One calls for a study on developing a database of Southern Baptist ministers convicted of sex abuse, and the other urges churches to “pursue every possible …

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350867953&path=!living&s=1037645509005

2 charged with NJ sex blackmail

Houston Chronicle – Houston,TX,USA

The Baptist minister said that the sex was consensual and that money he gave the woman was to buy sodas. Atlantic County Prosecutor Jeffrey Blitz said this …

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4756936.html

==========

three thousand words

Mikhaela B. Reid: fundamentalist boot camp

http://www.mikhaela.net/pictures/toons/bp070308_bootcamp.gif

Justin Bilicki: the supreme court strongly believes in a woman’s right to choose

http://www.bilicki.us/images/042407.jpg

dhonig: yerrr out!

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a229/dhonig2/YerrrrOut2.jpg

Giving ordinary citizens the ability to easily document the flow of special-interest money

“Tread carefully, politicians — concerned citizens are watching your every move on the web. Their tools? Custom data mashups that use public databases to draw correlations between every vote cast and every dollar spent in Washington. Take this report about the widely debated and bitterly fought California SB217, which would have banned clear-cutting in ancient forests. Generated by the nonpartisan MapLight.org website, the report clearly shows that the logging industry, which opposed the bill, gave nearly twice as much money to politicians as environmental groups did. The bill was defeated. Sites like Maplight.org, Opensecrets.org and Follow the Money, along with wiki-based political reporting resources like Congresspedia, are increasingly giving ordinary citizens the ability to easily document the flow of special-interest money and how it influences the legislature. These new tools are providing an unprecedented level of transparency, exposing patterns of influence that otherwise would have remained invisible to ordinary citizens.”

Learn more in Wired News.

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/04/maplight

From: http://www.futurebrief.com/

                          ==========

Beck repeated misleading claim that “Pelosi didn’t even meet with Petraeus”

On the April 25 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck asserted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “didn’t even meet with” Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, during his April 25 visit to Capitol Hill. In response, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), whom Beck was interviewing, said that Pelosi is “too busy over there talking to the Syrians and wanting to have her own personal State Department.” Huckabee added: “So I guess she was just too busy to go and meet with the very person that she has been so willing to criticize in public.” In fact, as Media Matters for America noted, ABC News senior national correspondent Jake Tapper reported in an April 24 ABCNews.com article that Pelosi would “not attend” Petraeus’ April 25 briefing for lawmakers, but noted that a “Pelosi aide said the speaker on Tuesday requested a one-on-one meeting with Petraeus but that could not be worked out,” and that Pelosi and Petraeus had instead spoken on the phone for 30 minutes.

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200704260008?src=other

                          ==========

U.S. officials exclude car bombs in touting drop in Iraq violence [That's right --in war, exclude *bombs.*]

25 Apr 2007

U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President [sic] Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren’t counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians. Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn’t include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

At:

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17134253.htm

                          ==========

Ex-C.I.A. Chief, in Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq

27 Apr 2007

George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book ["At the Center of the Storm"], saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

At:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27intel.html

                          ==========

A True History of Fake News:

Jon Stewart’s parody news show may make him “the most trusted name in fake news,” but these days it “comes at us from every quarter of the media,” writes journalism professor Robert Love in the Columbia Journalism Review — “not just as satire but disguised as the real thing, secretly paid for by folks who want to remain in the shadows. And though much of it is clever, it’s not all funny.”

…

Complete article at:

http://www.prwatch.org/node/5981

                          ==========

U.S. media have lost the will to dig deep

By Greg Palast

A changed news culture has let several important investigative stories slip through the cracks.

By Greg Palast, GREG PALAST is the author of “Armed Madhouse: From New Orleans to Baghdad — Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.”

April 27, 2007

IN AN E-MAIL uncovered and released by the House Judiciary Committee last month, Tim Griffin, once Karl Rove’s right-hand man, gloated that “no [U.S.] national press picked up” a BBC Television story reporting that the Rove team had developed an elaborate scheme to challenge the votes of thousands of African Americans in the 2004 election.

Griffin wasn’t exactly right. The Los Angeles Times did run a follow-up article a few days later in which it reported the findings. But he was essentially right. Most of the major U.S. newspapers and the vast majority of television news programs ignored the story even though it came at a critical moment just weeks before the election.

According to Griffin (who has since been dispatched to Arkansas to replace one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department), the mainstream media rejected the story because it was wrong.

“That guy is a British reporter who accepted some false allegations and made a story up,” he said.

Let’s get one fact straight, Mr. Griffin. “That guy” is not a British reporter. I am an American living abroad, putting investigative reports on the air from London for the British Broadcasting Corp.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-palast27apr27,0,5178561.story?track=ntothtml

                          ==========

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps – #4 of 10

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government – the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors – we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security – remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” – didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

…

4 Set up an internal surveillance system

In Mussolini’s Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China – in every closed society – secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched.

In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens’ phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny.

In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about “national security”; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.

Complete article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

                          ==========

AMERICA SINCE 1980: A RIGHT-TURN LEADING TO A DEAD END

By Dean Baker, AlterNet

Economist Dean Baker’s new book lays waste to the “Reagan Revolution’s” unprecedented assault on working Americans’ economic security.

At:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/51086/

                          ==========

Exxon Mobil Posts Record First Quarter Earnings

Apr 2007

As much of South Florida pays nearly $3 for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline, Exxon Mobil has reported record breaking first quarter earnings. Thursday, Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company announced their net income grew 10 percent in the first quarter. The earnings of $9.3 billion were the company’s highest ever for the first quarter and beat Wall Street expectations.

At:

http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_116124410.html

                          ==========

three thousand words

Monte Wolverton: Surging Stem Cells

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/33972/

Matt Bors: the abortion solution

http://www.mattbors.com/strips/263.gif

Dan Wasserman: reexamine globalization

http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Graphic/2007/04/17/1176856742_6303.gif

April 2007 Southwest Climate Outlook

The April Southwest Climate Outlook is online. This month’s outlook provides recent drought conditions and the latest seasonal forecasts. The feature article is entitled “Global warming in the Southwest: An overview.”
This month’s cover photo was provided by Stephanie Doster, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth.

To download a printer-friendly PDF file (2.38 MB) of the April 2007 Outlook, visit:

http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/climas/end/packets/aprpacket2007.pdf

As always, you can view the latest Southwest Climate Outlook in html format at:

http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/climas/forecasts/swoutlook.html
Highlights from the April 2007 Outlook
Drought – Drought conditions have worsened slightly in Arizona due to below-average winter precipitation, while most of New Mexico remains drought-free.

Temperature – Temperatures have been above average in most of the Southwest over the past thirty days.

Precipitation – During the past month precipitation has been below average for much of Arizona and New Mexico.

Climate Forecasts – Through September 2007, temperatures are expected to be warmer than average in the Southwest, while chances are equal for below-average, average, or above-average precipitation.

El Niño – Current sea surface temperatures indicate neutral ENSO conditions and there is a chance of La Niña event developing later this summer.

The Bottom Line – As the Southwest prepares to enter the climatologically dry spring, most of New Mexico has received above-average winter precipitation, while winter’s El Niño event failed to deliver above-average precipitation to most of Arizona.

==========

Limbaugh gave baseless interpretation of Clinton speech to claim she was “demeaning” blacks

On the April 23 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) made a “demeaning reference to the fact that [African-Americans are] janitors, or custodial workers, or cleaning people” during her April 20 speech at the National Action Network annual convention by saying the following: “The abuses that have gone on in the last six years — I don’t think we know the half of it yet. You know, when I walk into the Oval Office in January 2009, I’m afraid I’m going to lift up the rug and I’m going to see so much stuff under there! You know, what is it about us always having to clean up after people?”

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200704250004?src=other

==========

Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water

By Tara Lohan

25 Apr 2007

All across the United States, municipal water systems are being bought up by multinational corporations, turning one of our last remaining public commons and our most vital resource into a commodity. The road to privatization is being paved by our own government. The Bush administration is actively working to loosen the hold that cities and towns have over public water, enabling corporations to own the very thing we depend on for survival.

At:

http://alternet.org/envirohealth/50994/

==========

The GOP’s cyber election hit squad

By Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis

22 Apr 2007

Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret White House e-mail system for Karl Rove and dozens of White House staffers. This high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote– from server-hosting contracts, to software-writing services, to remote-access capability, to the actual server usage logs themselves – must be added to the growing congressional investigations.

At:

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2553

==========

CBO Report – Some Implications of Increasing U.S. Forces in Iraq

April 2007

At:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/80xx/doc8024/04-24-Iraq.pdf

==========

Biggest Bank Merger?

DOUG HENWOOD, dhenwood@panix.com

http://www.WallStreetTheBook.com

http://www.LeftBusinessObserver.com

AP reports that “ABN Amro NV agreed Monday to a $91.16 billion takeover by Barclays PLC and to sell its U.S. assets … Barclays CEO John Varley called the deal ‘the largest merger ever in global financial
industry,’ and said it holds out the promise of growth at a rate twice as fast as global gross domestic product.”

Henwood is editor of Left Business Observer and author of the book “Wall Street.” He said today: “The merger is bad for workers, since the economic rationale for the deal is to cut ‘duplicative’ functions, which means layoffs. From the point of view of consumers and economic policymakers, there’s little impact — it’s just not going to change that much.

“Though populists like to talk about the virtues of small, local banks, in fact most small institutions have more money than they can invest locally, and so lend their surplus cash into the money markets. Most mergers don’t work out as planned, even from the capitalists’ point of view — there’s a century of evidence behind that assertion, but it’s never stopped anyone — which suggests that managerial ego and empire building is the real motive for mergers, not the touted efficiencies.”

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

==========

The Establishment Rethinks Globalization

by William Greider

The church of global free trade, which rules American politics with infallible pretensions, may have finally met its Martin Luther. An unlikely dissenter has come forward with a revised understanding of
globalization that argues for thorough reformation. This man knows the global trading system from the inside because he is a respected veteran of multinational business. His ideas contain an explosive
message: that what established authorities teach Americans about global trade is simply wrong–disastrously wrong for the United States.

Martin Luther was a rebellious priest challenging the dictates of a corrupt church hierarchy. Ralph Gomory, on the other hand, is a gentle-spoken technologist, trained as a mathematician and largely apolitical. He does not set out to overthrow the establishment but to correct its deeper fallacies. For many years Gomory was a senior vice president at IBM. He helped manage IBM’s expanding global presence as jobs and high-tech production were being dispersed around the world. The experience still haunts him. He decided, in retirement, that he would dig deeper into the contradictions. Now president of the Alfred
P. Sloan Foundation, he knew something was missing in the “pure trade theory” taught by economists. If free trade is a win-win proposition, Gomory asked himself, then why did America keep losing?

…

Complete article at:

www.thenation.com/doc/20070430/greider

==========

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps – #3 of 10

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government – the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors – we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security – remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” – didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

…

3 Develop a thug caste

When leaders who seek what I call a “fascist shift” want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorise citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany. This paramilitary force is especially important in a democracy: you need citizens to fear thug violence and so you need thugs who are free from prosecution.

The years following 9/11 have proved a bonanza for America’s security contractors, with the Bush administration outsourcing areas of work that traditionally fell to the US military. In the process, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been issued for security work by mercenaries at home and abroad. In Iraq, some of these contract operatives have been accused of involvement in torturing prisoners, harassing journalists and firing on Iraqi civilians. Under Order 17, issued to regulate contractors in Iraq by the one-time US administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, these contractors are immune from prosecution

Yes, but that is in Iraq, you could argue; however, after Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security hired and deployed hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans. The investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed one unnamed guard who reported having fired on unarmed civilians in the city. It was a natural disaster that underlay that episode – but the administration’s endless war on terror means ongoing scope for what are in effect privately contracted armies to take on crisis and emergency management at home in US cities.

Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000. If you are reading history, you can imagine that there can be a need for “public order” on the next election day. Say there are protests, or a threat, on the day of an election; history would not rule out the presence of a private security firm at a polling station “to restore public order”.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

==========

Borowitz Report – Rich Little Shocker

U.S. Sends Rich Little to Iraq to Entertain Insurgents

Pentagon Hopes to Confuse the Enemy

As part of a bold new strategy to confuse the enemy, the Pentagon announced today that it was sending comedian/impressionist Rich Little to Iraq to entertain the insurgents.

While the U.S. has sent many comedians to Iraq to entertain the troops since the conflict begin there four years ago, Mr. Little’s mission marks the first time that the Pentagon has targeted the insurgents with comedy.

But after seeing Mr. Little perform at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night in Washington, the Pentagon decided that Mr. Little was just the man for the job, and “Operation Little Entertainment” was born.

Said one Pentagon planner, “If Rich Little can quiet down Iraq the way he silenced that room Saturday night, we’ll consider this mission a big success.”

En route to his first show in Baghdad, Mr. Little was bullish about his mission, polishing his impressions of such dead presidents as Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.

“I’m going to do Nixon, but instead of having him say ‘I’m not a crook,’ he’ll say ‘I’m not a Kurd,’” Mr. Little chuckled.

After his first performance for the insurgents, whom Mr. Little treated to his spot-on impressions of long-deceased actors like Tyrone Power and Alan Ladd, the new strategy seemed to be paying dividends, with many insurgents on the brink of giving up.

“I have had enough,” pleaded insurgent Hassan El-Medfaii, who attended Mr. Little’s show. “Please make the bombing stop.”

Elsewhere, in yet another display of prowess with the ladies, Angelina Jolie today left Brad Pitt for World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

==========

three thousand words

M.e Cohen: from here … to eternity

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/34529/

Mike Peters: mccain … any minute now

http://www.grimmy.com/images/MP_Archive/MP_2007/MP0425.gif

Bad Reporter(Don Asmussen): Sheryl Crow lunges, pokes Rove… and more

http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/04/25/950×314-badreporter.gif

Library of Congress blog    

At:

http://www.loc.gov/blog/

                          ==========

Citing Bush’s dismal approval ratings, Pinkerton claimed he is “hanging in there” and not in “such bad shape”

In his April 17 column, Newsday columnist James P. Pinkerton asked: “If [President] Bush is falling apart so dramatically that he is in danger of simply vanishing, how come he’s hanging in there in the polls?” Pinkerton noted that “Bush’s average approval rating” in April 2007 is 34.6 percent and was 35.6 percent in April 2006. He then added: “Neither number is impressive, but what’s clear is that Bush is hanging in there, approval-wise.” But in characterizing Bush as “hanging in there,” Pinkerton — exhibiting a tendency on the part of many in the media, repeatedly documented by Media Matters for America, of presenting Bush’s low poll numbers in as positive a light as possible — ignored Bush’s polling status relative to that of other recent presidents.

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200704240001?src=other

                          ==========

LIMBAUGH PLAYS “BARACK THE MAGIC NEGRO” ON HIS SHOW

By Storm Bear

And he’s still on the air?

Read more

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/50979/

                          ==========

Giuliani warns of ‘new 9/11′ if Dems win

24 Apr 2007

Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

At:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3684.html

                          ==========

Tillman’s Fictional Heroic Death: Did Bush Know? –Pentagon Refrains From Disciplining Anyone So Far Despite Mounting Evidence 

24 Apr 2007

The Bush administration and the Pentagon came under fire today for creating false myths of military heroes, and the criticism came from unlikely sources — one of the heroes, and the family of another. Former Army Ranger Kevin Tillman, who enlisted in the military along with his pro-football star brother, Pat, in 2002, charged the Pentagon with telling “deliberate and calculated lies” after his older brother was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004. And he speculated that the facts were known by the White House long before his family learned the truth of Pat’s death five weeks after it happened.

At:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3074651

                          ==========

Tillman/Lynch Falsehoods

JOHN R. MACARTHUR, [via Giulia Melucci] giulia@harpers.org,

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/3/lies-macarthur.asp

UPI reports that Army Ranger Pat Tillman’s brother Kevin Tillman told the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the government had told “deliberate and calculated lies” about his brother’s death. The panel also heard testimony regarding the alleged rescue of Jessica Lynch.

MacArthur is publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the book “Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War.” He said today: “During virtually every war, the government has tried to cover up incidents of ‘friendly fire’ and fragging (when enlisted men kill their officers). What’s remarkable about this government is the shamelessness with which they take their own poster boys, people who really thought they were doing the right thing, and use them like widgets.

“But this is largely an outcome of when the initial rationale for war is based on lies. The government claims it’s trying to free a people or get rid of weapons of mass destruction, when in fact it has other goals. When you start with lies and have to keep covering up, they multiply.”

In October 2002, MacArthur wrote the article “Sounds Fishy, Mr. President: To Drum Up Rage Against Iraq, Bush Senior and Junior Have Been Known to Tell Tall Tales.” In early 2003, he wrote the piece “The Lies We Bought: The Unchallenged ‘Evidence’ For War.”

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

                          ==========

War and the Police State: Complicity of the American People

by Donna J. Thorne
 

Global Research, April 21, 2007
GlobalResearch.ca 

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth…. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not..? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know.. it — now.”  Patrick Henry, 1775.

In this era of perpetual warfare, escalating domestic tyranny, government-sanctioned torture, and a Nazi-like pursuit of Middle-East domination, one would expect, at the very least, an audible outcry from the People who proclaim resolute devotion to the ideals of liberty and justice for all. Yet for the most part, Mainstream America continues to assume a posture of apathy, bitterness, or eery silence.

When confronted with hard facts and scientific evidence linking key government officials to the attacks of 9/11, ostensibly intelligent, levelheaded people angrily and defiantly reject said information without a moment’s deliberation. Sincerely compassionate and peace-loving individuals support the criminal invasion of Iraq and close their eyes to the U.S. slaughter of 600,000 Iraqi civilians, choosing instead to believe in the myth of American supremacy, at the heart of which lies the notion that foreigners alone are capable of such atrocities.

And now, in the aftermath of 9/11 and the subsequent establishment of Homeland Security, previously rigid supporters of civil rights quietly tolerate the piecemeal deconstruction of the U.S. Constitution under the pretext of protection, and to their own peril, disregard increasingly strident warnings and signs of a growing and imminent police state. Clearly, Mainstream America has surrendered to the subjugation of a power-crazed, despotic administration whose control continues to expand exponentially with each passing rumor of imminent peril .

Why,when confronted with a black-and-white record of autocratic offenses, are so many sensible Americans ignoring and even endorsing the current administration as it openly paves a tyrannical road to hell? Are we so deluded by rhetoric and weapons-grade propaganda, that we are no longer able to distinguish truth from fiction, thereby allowing, if not abetting our own enslavement ?

Inarguably, a collective set of circumstances exist to explain the acquiescence of the American People. What follows is the first in a series of explorations by which this writer will attempt to identify possible core factors contributing to the scourge of apathy in American society today.

Fear, the Nemesis of Rationality

…

Complete article at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=THO20070421&articleId=5454

From: www.GlobalResearch.ca

                          ==========

BILL MOYERS ON WHY THE PRESS BOUGHT THE IRAQ WAR

By Bill Moyers

The media took the Bush admin’s Iraq claims at face value, but it didn’t have to.

At:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/50785/

                          ==========

CIA WARNED OF POSSIBLE ATTACKS BY FRENCH INTELLIGENCE BEFORE 9/11

By Joshua Holland

Use of hijacked airplanes mentioned eight months before the fact …

At:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/50651/

                          ==========

Where Is Iraq Headed?

DAVID ENDERS, david.enders@gmail.com

http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/david_enders

Author of the book “Baghdad Bulletin,” Enders is a freelance correspondent with 18 months of experience in Iraq, focusing especially on America’s Shiite “allies.” He said today: “I interviewed Sadr in 2003, and at that time, the U.S. military’s official line was that he was ‘on drugs.’ A few months later his followers were in widespread revolt. Though the military tends to downplay Sadr less now than they did then, much of what he and his followers do is still transmitted to Americans as though it occurs in a vacuum. The rhetoric he has used in asking the cabinet members to withdraw has been consistent with his rhetoric throughout the last four years. Behind the scenes, Sadr thinks Maliki has double-crossed him and is selling him out to the U.S. via this new security plan. But this is minor.

“Sadr is thinking long-term survival — Maliki won’t last and Sadr knows it, and he’s making a pragmatic move not to be part of the Vichy government anymore. If anything, Sadr’s proven himself a canny and able observer/operator in Iraqi politics. Add to this the increased number of security breaches inside the Green Zone, and it looks more and more like we’re getting on to the fall of Saigon. A U.S.-backed Iraqi government was an unlikely proposition from the start; without Sadr’s approval, it really doesn’t exist. If Sadr feels like he’s running out of options, it’s bad news.

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

                          ==========

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps – #2 of 10

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government – the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors – we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security – remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” – didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

…

2 Create a gulag

Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal “outer space”) – where torture takes place.

At first, the people who are sent there are seen by citizens as outsiders: troublemakers, spies, “enemies of the people” or “criminals”. Initially, citizens tend to support the secret prison system; it makes them feel safer and they do not identify with the prisoners. But soon enough, civil society leaders – opposition members, labour activists, clergy and journalists – are arrested and sent there as well.

This process took place in fascist shifts or anti-democracy crackdowns ranging from Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s to the Latin American coups of the 1970s and beyond. It is standard practice for closing down an open society or crushing a pro-democracy uprising.

With its jails in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, of course, Guantánamo in Cuba, where detainees are abused, and kept indefinitely without trial and without access to the due process of the law, America certainly has its gulag now. Bush and his allies in Congress recently announced they would issue no information about the secret CIA “black site” prisons throughout the world, which are used to incarcerate people who have been seized off the street.

Gulags in history tend to metastasise, becoming ever larger and more secretive, ever more deadly and formalised. We know from first-hand accounts, photographs, videos and government documents that people, innocent and guilty, have been tortured in the US-run prisons we are aware of and those we can’t investigate adequately.

But Americans still assume this system and detainee abuses involve only scary brown people with whom they don’t generally identify. It was brave of the conservative pundit William Safire to quote the anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller, who had been seized as a political prisoner: “First they came for the Jews.” Most Americans don’t understand yet that the destruction of the rule of law at Guantánamo set a dangerous precedent for them, too.

By the way, the establishment of military tribunals that deny prisoners due process tends to come early on in a fascist shift. Mussolini and Stalin set up such tribunals. On April 24 1934, the Nazis, too, set up the People’s Court, which also bypassed the judicial system: prisoners were held indefinitely, often in isolation, and tortured, without being charged with offences, and were subjected to show trials. Eventually, the Special Courts became a parallel system that put pressure on the regular courts to abandon the rule of law in favour of Nazi ideology when making decisions.

Complete article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

                          ==========

three thousand words

Sandy Huffaker: I must win

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/34327/

David Horsey: take a bite…then we’ll know

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20070424/Cartoon20070424.gif

Tom Toles: I’ve worked out a compromise that we stay

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/uc/20070423/ltt070423.gif

Hurricane Forecasters Who Got Mild ‘06 Right Warn of Active ‘07

By Mike Baker
April 23, 2007

The up-and-coming hurricane researchers who accurately predicted a mild 2006 storm season, despite dire predictions of more established forecasters, said the 2007 season will be much more active — especially in the Gulf of Mexico.

Two teams of researchers at North Carolina State University, in their third year of hurricane forecasting, released separate results for the first time last week.

One team, funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, projected that 16 to 17 named storms would form in the Atlantic basin, including eight to nine hurricanes. Two or three hurricanes will make landfall on the East Coast, while one or two would strike the Gulf Coast, according to team predictions.

“Everything shows that it’s going to be a much busier year than last year,” said Len Pietrafesa, a professor of oceanic and atmospheric science at N.C. State who contributed to the team.

The second squad of forecasters estimated the Atlantic basin will brew 12 to 13 named storms and eight to nine hurricanes, including four or five major hurricanes. Researchers said there is a 75 percent chance a hurricane will make landfall along the eastern seaboard and an equally strong chance that a hurricane will hit the Gulf of Mexico coastline.

“All in all, it’s going to be an active year,” said lead researcher Lian Xie, an N.C. State professor of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2007/04/23/78875.htm

                          ==========

Limbaugh “Worst Person” for claiming VA Tech shooter was a “liberal”

On the April 20 edition of MSNBC’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh the “winner” of his nightly “Worst Person in the World” segment for claiming that the perpetrator of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech was a “liberal,” as Media Matters for America documented. Olbermann quoted Limbaugh saying: “This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich, and all this other — this guy is a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it’s a liberal that committed this act.”

Read more

http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200704230002?src=other

                          ==========

Gasoline at $4 Coming to a Pump Near You, Unfazed by Rising Tab

23 Apr 2007

Whether it’s $50 to fill up your Prius or $130 for the Ford Expedition, $4-a-gallon gasoline is coming to a pump near you. “Prices will depend entirely on whether we have a couple of refineries blow up,” [!?!] said Philip K. Verleger, an economist who runs a consulting firm in Newport Beach, California.

At:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=afOlUzd30YOo

                          ==========

Higher U.S. troop levels in Iraq likely beyond summer

22 Apr 2007

Remarks by senior U.S. commanders and officials and a change in Army deployment plans all suggest the higher level of American troops now building in Iraq is likely to remain for months beyond the summer. The Bush regime has avoided predicting how long it will keep the beefed-up force of about 160,000 troops ordered by the president in January.

At:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042200337.html

                          ==========

Northwest Execs Gain from Employees’ Pain

by James Parks, Apr 19, 2007

Jim WestFlight attendants and pilots at Northwest Airlines (NWA) and machinists are livid over a decision by the carrier’s top executives to reward themselves with nearly $400 million in bonuses after the company emerges from bankruptcy. While Northwest executives get bonuses, the employees whose wage and benefit concessions and hard work brought the company back from the brink of collapse are being left out in the cold.

Today, at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, members of the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) and the Machinists (IAM) will hold an informational picket and rally to highlight the need for fair and equitable treatment of Northwest employees.

Northwest Airlines declared bankruptcy Sept. 15, 2005, just days before new laws passed by Congress limiting executive compensation and bonuses in corporate bankruptcies took effect. The airline’s reorganization plan includes an executive stock plan that would award the top 400 executives as much as $995,000 each—a total of about $382 million.

For many corporations, bankruptcy no longer is a sign of a failed business. In fact, corporations are filing for bankruptcy not as a last resort, but as a business strategy to make more money—jettisoning pension plans on their way to Chapter 11 and throwing off long-term commitments they made to America’s working families.

Last year, Northwest pilots agreed to give up $358 million annually (including a 23.9 percent pay cut) during the next five years to help the company avoid liquidation. This sacrifice was in addition to the $265 million (including a 15 percent pay cut) annual wage concession Northwest pilots gave in December 2004. Altogether, Northwest pilots gave up a whopping $4 billion through 2011.

…

Complete article at:

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/04/19/northwest-ceos-gain-from-employees-pain/

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GAO Report – Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq: Conditions in Iraq Are Conducive to Fraud, Waste, and Abuse

Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq: Conditions in Iraq Are Conducive to Fraud, Waste, and Abuse GAO-07-525T, April 23, 2007:

“…Despite U.S. and Iraqi efforts to shift a greater share of the country’s defense on Iraqi forces, the security situation continues to deteriorate. Poor security conditions have hindered the management of the more than $29 billion that has been obligated for reconstruction and stabilization efforts since 2003. Although the State Department has reported that the number of Iraqi army and police forces that has been trained and equipped has increased from about 174,000 in July 2005 to about 323,000 in December 2006, overall security conditions in Iraq have deteriorated and grown more complex. These conditions have hindered efforts to engage with Iraqi partners and demonstrate the difficulty in making political and economic progress in the absence of adequate security conditions. GAO’s ongoing work has identified weaknesses in the $15.4 billion program to support the development and sustainment of Iraqi security forces.”

At:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07525t.pdf

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THE “SILENT” NINTH AMENDMENT GIVES AMERICANS RIGHTS THEY DON’T KNOW THEY HAVE

By Daniel A. Farber, Basic Books

The first Amendment right of free speech and the Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination are well known, but the Ninth Amendment is ignored. Pity, because it bears directly on abortion, the right to die, and gay rights.

Complete article at:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/50404/

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Fascist America, in 10 easy steps -  #1 of 10

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government – the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors – we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security – remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” – didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

1 Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a “war footing”; we were in a “global war” against a “global caliphate” intending to “wipe out civilisation”. There have been other times of crisis in which the US accepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the civil war, when Lincoln declared martial law, and the second world war, when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were interned. But this situation, as Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda notes, is unprecedented: all our other wars had an endpoint, so the pendulum was able to swing back toward freedom; this war is defined as open-ended in time and without national boundaries in space – the globe itself is the battlefield. “This time,” Fein says, “there will be no defined end.”

Creating a terrifying threat – hydra-like, secretive, evil – is an old trick. It can, like Hitler’s invocation of a communist threat to the nation’s security, be based on actual events (one Wisconsin academic has faced calls for his dismissal because he noted, among other things, that the alleged communist arson, the Reichstag fire of February 1933, was swiftly followed in Nazi Germany by passage of the Enabling Act, which replaced constitutional law with an open-ended state of emergency). Or the terrifying threat can be based, like the National Socialist evocation of the “global conspiracy of world Jewry”, on myth.

It is not that global Islamist terrorism is not a severe danger; of course it is. I am arguing rather that the language used to convey the nature of the threat is different in a country such as Spain – which has also suffered violent terrorist attacks – than it is in America. Spanish citizens know that they face a grave security threat; what we as American citizens believe is that we are potentially threatened with the end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, this makes us more willing to accept restrictions on our freedoms.

Complete article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

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Borowitz Report -  NBC News Policy Shocker

NBC News Issues Stricter Broadcast Standards for Future Mass Murderers

HD Quality ‘Essential,’ News Chief Says

Facing criticism over his network’s relentless airings of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho’s videos, NBC News president Steve Capus announced today that the network was issuing “stricter broadcast standards” for all future mass murderers.

Speaking at NBC News headquarters in New York, Mr. Capus said that while NBC will “continue to be the home for mass murderers’ videos going forward,” homicidal maniacs should “think twice before sending any old video into NBC News.”

“Here’s the deal,” Mr. Capus told reporters. “If you send in your creepy videotape to NBC and expect us to play it around the clock, we expect the video quality and production values to be up to our broadcast standards.”

Mr. Capus was harshly critical of the grainy video and muffled audio of Mr. Cho’s tape, saying that “we live in an HD age, and we think it is essential that our mass murderers’ tapes be of HD quality.”

In what was perhaps his most damning comment about the quality of Mr. Cho’s tape, Mr. Capus said, “I want all future mass murderers to remember that NBC stands for No Bad Camerawork.”

After reporters asked Mr. Capus if, in retrospect, he wished that the timing of the broadcast of Mr. Cho’s video had been different, the NBC News chief admitted that he did.

“We aired that video too soon after Mr. Cho’s rampage,” Mr. Capus said. “We should have held it until May sweeps.”

Elsewhere, after singer Sheryl Crow asked people to limit their use of toilet paper to curb global warming, President Bush said he would do his part by shitting on the Constitution.

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

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three thousand words

This Modern World: Convenient conclusions

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Mike Keefe: Bush-Approved Science Guy

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Trouble Town (Lloyd Dangle)” democratic voter fraud

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