Just Another Serial Killer

It’s pretty clear that putting Arabs in control of our ports is nothing more than a Bush administration smoke screen so they can make yet another end run around Congress to get something else they want.

While the dog pack is snapping and snarling over this tattered bit of flesh, the Bush putsch will sneak yet another crazy idea—yet to be discovered—over on us.

ARABS guarding our PORTS!? How much more stupid will these people get? What’s next? Those pesky pedophiles guarding our children’s schools so law enforcement can keep an eye on them with less expenditure of scarce government funds, thanks to the Bush budget? Giving control of our National Parks to lumber mills? Giving control of medicine to the drug-makers? Giving control of environmental regulations to oil companies? Censoring American freedoms? Illegal surveillance? Censoring science? Vote fraud? Corruption on a massive scale?

Uhm…

Wait—this is democracy by dyslexia. Anyone who has ever known or worked for a dyslexic male knows what’s happening here—and has seen it on a smaller scale.

I’m not attacking dyslexics, for Chrissake, just pointing out that they are different. Their minds work differently from non-dyslexic minds. Bush is a dyslexic.

Cheney and the other boys are using Bush to realize their ends. When Cheney takes over, he’ll put it all right—his way.

God forbid. We will then have a stone killer who has never faced a real, determined adversary as Ruler of our country—not a soldier—just another serial killer.

That Was Then—This Is Now.

Last election the Republicans got away with encroachments and underhanded dealings such as requesting church directories using the thinking that “church members vote Republican when they vote”.

Maybe so—last time—but after New Orleans and the Republican-created and maintained Diaspora of her citizens; after tax cuts for the rich and entitlement cuts for the poor; after years of witnessing the Bush administration’s free ride on the backs of America’s poorest and most disadvantaged, can these Republicans be so removed from reality that they imagine they will still get away with using the poor to destroy the poor?

Obviously, the answer is “yes”, and that, in a nutshell, is what continues to be so maddening about the Bush administration’s usurpation of America, and also what makes the Bush administration nearly undefeatable—that unstinting willingness to keep coming back even though their doings are revealed as underhanded, illegal, certainly immoral, and without precedent in a democracy.

In all the Bush administration’s dealings, that single-minded allegiance to some as yet unknown god of their own (Greed, one supposes); that commitment to going back again and again to draw water from the well of poverty despite revelations of incompetence, malfeasance, sedition, and the ultimate destruction of America; that high-handed disregard for the protests of the American people and honest elected officials, continues to serve to further the decadent and secret ends of Bush and his ilk.

We, The People, are not nearly as ignorant and torpid as the Bush administration would imagine based on our reactions to their criminal acts. Rather, We, The People, are naive, spoiled by generations of elected leaders who really did have our best interests at heart, and vulnerable in our belief that good trumps evil.

In this case, evil is winning. And We, The People, are waking up to an unrecognizable America brought to us by the dirty-deeds-done-dirt-cheap Bush Republicans.

This is usury at its most cynical.

Zealots Rule, Or, What Bush Doesn’t Want Us To Know

Four articles in today’s newspapers with links to the originating paper, when taken separately, don’t amount to much more than discussion and comment signifying nothing.

But as with most news coming to us these days, when these articles are seen as a whole indicating where the Bush mess is taking us, we have to question not only the legalities of these actions, but the potential end result of whatever motivation spurs the Bush administration to undertake the illegal and dangerous acts for which it is becoming infamous.

A Saudi Arabian company is now in charge of our major ports—when, supposedly, Homeland Security considers our ports the weakest link in keeping acts of terrorism out of America.

Having lived for years on a body of water facing one of our major ports, and witnessing ships coming through Commencement Bay to the Port of Tacoma laden with God knows what, one confronts the knowledge that anything can be smuggled into our ports from chemicals to gases to explosives—anything—simply because of the hugeness of the ships and the cargo containers, each the size of a semi-trailer and each loaded with different goods.

Now, the Saudis are “in charge” of our ports.

How far are we willing to let this administration go in destroying America?

Obviously, things are not right with this group of traitors, and obviously we need to do something to get them either under control or out of office. Or in jail, where they really belong.

Greenland’s glaciers (and one supposes, all the world’s glaciers) are melting twice as fast as we’ve been led to believe, and the Bush administration is “drafting new rules for media contact” for NASA.

And perhaps, most frightening of all in today’s news, is the storming of a library in Bethesda, Maryland by Homeland Security agents and “demanding the attention” of all patrons who were then told that the “viewing of internet porn” is “forbidden”.

Next time it will be your library, and next time the library workers won’t be able to stop them.

What then, folks?

Appalling Hypocrisy

What’s appalling is that either our elected officials are so stupid and ill-informed that they don’t know what is happening to freedom in America, or they have the hubris to think that we, The People, are so stupid that we won’t see and remark on the hypocrisy of criticizing American internet companies for helping the Chinese censor their citizens while daily our American freedoms are being taken from us by the zealots in the Bush administration.

Along with the hubris inherent in chastising Google and others for helping China censor information available on the internet while these same American officials and their ilk support increasing inroads into American freedoms, there’s the hypocrisy of these elected officials in their actions to appear to be in favor of furthering freedoms for the Chinese while allowing the Bush zealots to tamper with American freedoms under the guise of “national security”, or “child pornography”, while shilling for lobbyists and private interests.

It would seem that the attacks against our most popular search engines are really a mask for attempts to destroy those same companies which are perhaps becoming too large, powerful, and popular with the American people. This attack on our search engines and the companies who maintain them is not the first attack on these companies, and consequently on Americans’ access to unlimited information by way of the internet.

As recently as last week, our so-called “government” was going after Google and attempting to sway public opinion against Google, and other search engines by forcing subpoenas down the throats of the same search engines this government is now chastising for knuckling under to Chinese censorship.

It seems that any possible reason to attack our search engines is fair game these days. The question is, “Why?”.

What could possibly motivate such a sustained and concerted effort to bring dishonor to Google?

If one looks back to the recent news articles, perhaps there is some sort of clue as to why our government in the guise of looking after our best interests is trying to destroy one of the finest companies to ever come out of American ingenuity.

For one thing, Verizon recently accused Google of getting a “free lunch” at the expense of Verizon. No mention was made in the allegations that we, the consumers, pay for the internet services we enjoy and thus, there is no ‘free lunch’ for Google to enjoy.

For another, our government, under the guise of “cracking down on internet pornography”
recently demanded that Google turn over millions of our search records that ultimately have no real value in any search for child pornographers, but only serve to destroy confidence in Google, and allow the beginnings of censorship in America such as our government rails against today as regards China’s censorship of her citizens.

As the grandmother to seven, this writer’s opinion is that parents bear the ultimate duty to protect and monitor their children’s use of the internet. That there are countless applications available to limit children’s access to inappropriate sites online seems to carry no weight with our lawmakers. Creating laws that would affect negligent parents makes far more sense than creating laws that limit the internet.

What does appear to carry weight with these so-called ‘elected officials’ is that Verizon and other companies want to horn in on the internet and thereby make the services we now enjoy for free something that we would have to pay these parties to use.

What does appear to motivate our government is more politics in the name of greed.

Hopefully, Google will prevail. Hopefully, the American people will come to their senses in time to see that any and all laws currently issuing forth from our government are solely based on personal advantage and the hunger for wealth at the expense of the poor.

The articles mentioned here are just a few examples of what is going on as regards our precious internet access and freedom and they are not the only events currently working against the ideal of free and uncensored internet access.

Better writers and journalists than this writer might consider adding two to two and seeing if four is the result in any matters relative to Congress, our elected representatives and the Bush administration. A modicum of investigation produces the exact same conclusion no matter what issue is involved.

Nothing is being accomplished in Washington, D.C. for altruistic reasons. Greed and payoff masquerading as concern for the American public are the current fashionable motivations.

Extortion By Bush, And Other Criminals

Below are fine examples of how our so-called “government” is working these days: some new example of treachery and betrayal of American freedom comes out and becomes public knowledge, the Bush regime calls a meeting, and suddenly our “elected” representatives who are entrusted to protect the best interests of Americans are waffling and knuckling under to yet another extortion by the Bush people.

This writer, personally, suspects that due to the amount of surveillance and spying that has already gone on in this country, that the Bush cabal has the “goods” on everybody’s secret life who might affect the outcome of any particular stinking change that Bush and his people want to bring about in order to further put this country in the grip of this fascist wannabe government.

Let’s face it: everybody has secrets—or someone they love has secrets. Everybody has parts of their life they don’t want to see exposed—all of us are vulnerable to the kind of disclosure of personal information that the Bush administration has, no doubt by now, managed to glean from the highest spy sources in the known universe.

When the Mafia does it, we called it extortion. When the Bush people do it, we call it National Security.

Bull shit.

That’s what this grandma calls it—bull shit. Get a clue, people—our country is in the hands of terrorists who are much more dangerous than Muslim extremists.

And don’t count on the next election bringing any change—the vote is already rigged.

If you don’t believe that, take a Google search on electronic voting machines.

It is now time to get mad—get angry—demand change, and demand adherence by the Bush administration to the laws of our land immediately.

Failing that, we need to impeach this administration. Time is of the utmost importance.

Also, since when are American values so skewed that other nations and “media watchdogs” are demanding that WE release imprisoned journalists? How does the incarceration of any journalist fit the American definition of Freedom of The Press? Why are journalists, of any alleged loyalties, imprisoned by Americans?

Congressional Probe of NSA Spying Is in Doubt
White House Sways Some GOP Lawmakers

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 15, 2006; A03

Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.

The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a Democratic-sponsored motion to start an inquiry into the recently revealed program in which the National Security Agency eavesdrops on an undisclosed number of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents without obtaining warrants from a secret court. Two committee Democrats said the panel -- made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats -- was clearly leaning in favor of the motion last week but now is closely divided and possibly inclined against it.

They attributed the shift to last week's closed briefings given by top administration officials to the full House and Senate intelligence committees, and to private appeals to wavering GOP senators by officials, including Vice President Cheney. "It's been a full-court press," said a top Senate Republican aide who asked to speak only on background -- as did several others for this story -- because of the classified nature of the intelligence committees' work.

Lawmakers cite senators such as Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) to illustrate the administration's success in cooling congressional zeal for an investigation. On Dec. 20, she was among two Republicans and two Democrats who signed a letter expressing "our profound concern about recent revelations that the United States Government may have engaged in domestic electronic surveillance without appropriate legal authority." The letter urged the Senate's intelligence and judiciary committees to "jointly undertake an inquiry into the facts and law surrounding these allegations."

In an interview yesterday, Snowe said, "I'm not sure it's going to be essential or necessary" to conduct an inquiry "if we can address the legislative standpoint" that would provide oversight of the surveillance program. "We're learning a lot and we're going to learn more," she said.

She cited last week's briefings before the full House and Senate intelligence committees by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and former NSA director Michael V. Hayden.

"The administration has obviously gotten the message that they need to be more forthcoming," Snowe said.

Before the New York Times disclosed the NSA program in mid-December, administration briefings regarding it were highly secret and limited to eight lawmakers: the top Republican and Democratic leader of the House and Senate, respectively, and the top Republican and Democrat on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The White House characterized last week's closed-door briefings to the full committees as a significant concession and a sign of the administration's respect for Congress and its oversight responsibilities. Many Democrats dismissed the briefings as virtually useless, but senators said yesterday they appear to have played a big role in slowing momentum for an inquiry.

John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the Senate intelligence committee's vice chairman, has drafted a motion calling for a wide-ranging inquiry into the surveillance program, according to congressional sources who have seen it. Rockefeller declined to be interviewed yesterday.

Sources close to Rockefeller say he is frustrated by what he sees as heavy-handed White House efforts to dissuade Republicans from supporting his measure. They noted that Cheney conducted a Republicans-only meeting on intelligence matters in the Capitol yesterday.

Senate intelligence committee member Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) said in an interview that he supports the NSA program and would oppose a congressional investigation. He said he is drafting legislation that would "specifically authorize this program" by excluding it from the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which established a secret court to consider government requests for wiretap warrants in anti-terrorist investigations.

The administration would be required to brief regularly a small, bipartisan panel drawn from the House and Senate intelligence committees, DeWine said, and the surveillance program would require congressional reauthorization after five years to remain in place.

Snowe said she is inclined to support DeWine's plan. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who also signed the Dec. 20 letter seeking an inquiry, said yesterday that the FISA law should be amended to include the NSA program and to provide for congressional oversight.

As for Rockefeller's bid, Hagel said: "If some kind of inquiry would be beneficial to getting a resolution to this issue, then sure, we should look at it. But if the inquiry is just some kind of a punitive inquiry that really is not focused on finding a way out of this, then I'm not so sure that I would support that."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

An Arrogance of Power

By David Ignatius
Wednesday, February 15, 2006; A21

There is a temptation that seeps into the souls of even the most righteous politicians and leads them to bend the rules, and eventually the truth, to suit the political needs of the moment. That arrogance of power is on display with the Bush administration.

The most vivid example is the long delay in informing the country that Vice President Cheney had accidentally shot a man last Saturday while hunting in Texas. For a White House that informs us about the smallest bumps and scrapes suffered by the president and vice president, the lag is inexplicable. But let us assume the obvious: It was an attempt to delay and perhaps suppress embarrassing news. We will never know whether the vice president's office would have announced the incident at all if the host of the hunting party, Katharine Armstrong, hadn't made her own decision Sunday morning to inform her local paper.

Nobody died at Armstrong Ranch, but this incident reminds me a bit of Sen. Edward Kennedy's delay in informing Massachusetts authorities about his role in the fatal automobile accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969. That story, and dozens of others about the Kennedy family, illustrates how wealthy, powerful people can behave as if they are above the law. For my generation, the fall of Richard Nixon is the ultimate allegory about how power can corrupt and destroy. It begins not with venality but with a sense of God-given mission.

I would be inclined to leave Cheney to the mercy of Jon Stewart and Jay Leno if it weren't for other signs that this administration has jumped the tracks. What worries me most is the administration's misuse of intelligence information to advance its political agenda. For a country at war, this is truly dangerous.

The most recent example of politicized intelligence was President Bush's statement on Feb. 9 that the United States had "derailed" a 2002 plot to fly a plane into the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles. Bush spoke about four al Qaeda plotters who had planned to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door. But a foreign official with detailed knowledge of the intelligence scoffed at Bush's account, saying that the information obtained from Khalid Sheik Mohammed and an Indonesian operative known as Hambali was not an operational plan so much as an aspiration to destroy the tallest building on the West Coast. When I asked a former high-level U.S. intelligence official about Bush's comment, he agreed that Bush had overstated the intelligence.

Perhaps the most outrageous example of misusing intelligence has been the administration's attempt to undercut Paul Pillar and other former CIA officials who tried to warn about the dangers ahead in Iraq. I'm not talking about the agency's botched job on weapons of mass destruction but about its warnings that postwar Iraq would be chaotic and dangerous. Pillar said so privately before the war, and he helped draft an August 2004 national intelligence estimate warning, correctly, that the situation in Iraq was deteriorating and heading for "tenuous stability" at best.

Bush was unhappy at this naysaying, just as he has grumbled about pessimistic reports from the CIA station in Baghdad. When Pillar made similar warnings about Iraq at a private dinner in September 2004, the White House went ballistic -- seeing Pillar as part of a CIA conspiracy to undermine the president's policies. Soon after, Bush installed a former Republican congressman, Porter Goss, who began a purge at the agency that has driven out a generation of senior managers. Pillar and many, many others have retired, leaving the nation without some of its best intelligence officers when we need them most.

Bush and Cheney are in the bunker. That's the only way I can make sense of their actions. They are steaming in a broth of daily intelligence reports that highlight the grim terrorist threats facing America. They have sworn blood oaths that they will defend the United States from its adversaries -- no matter what . They have blown past the usual rules and restraints into territory where few presidents have ventured -- a region where the president conducts warrantless wiretaps against Americans in violation of a federal statute, where he authorizes harsh interrogation methods that amount to torture.

When critics question the legality of the administration's actions, Bush and Cheney assert the commander in chief's power under Article II of the Constitution. When Congress passes a law forbidding torture, the White House appends a signing statement insisting that Article II -- the power of the commander in chief -- trumps everything else. When the administration's Republican friends suggest amending the wiretapping law to make its program legal, the administration refuses. Let's say it plainly: This is the arrogance of power, and it has gone too far in the Bush White House.

davidignatius@washpost.com

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

The Silencing Of Science

By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, February 15, 2006; A21

One of the benefits of writing newspaper articles is that sometimes, instead of sending anonymous insults, readers call you up and tell you interesting things. Two weeks ago, after news broke that a NASA press officer had resigned amid revelations that he'd tried to muffle the agency's top climate scientist, I got several such calls. All were from people with similar tales of government-funded scientists intimidated by heavy-handed public relations departments. Curiosity piqued, I followed one up, at least as far as the nervous scientists and the equally nervous government press officers would let me. Here's what I learned.

The story begins with the publication of an article -- "Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere" -- in the June 2003 issue of the journal Science, which is not exactly beach reading. Yet although crammed with graphs, equations and references to chlorofluorocarbons, the basic premise isn't hard to explain: The five authors, all affiliated at the time with the prestigious California Institute of Technology, wanted to explore the potential long-term impact of hydrogen fuel cells on the Earth's atmosphere.

For those who've forgotten, hydrogen fuel cells were, three State of the Unions ago, the thing that was going to save Americans from their oil addiction and stop the auto emissions that help cause global warming. Nowadays switch grass and biomass are the hot alternative fuels, but back in 2003, the president won applause for proposing "$1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles." On Capitol Hill, there were demonstrations of one such "Freedom Car," and the president called on scientists to be "bold and innovative" in their hydrogen research.

Unfortunately for the authors of "Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere," their research, while bold and innovative, didn't exactly mesh with the hype. According to their model, tiny leaks from hydrogen cells, if such cells are ever mass-produced, could cause serious environmental damage. But they made no suggestion of inevitability: One of the study's authors, John Eiler of Caltech, pointed out that foreknowledge of potential environmental problems could "help guide investments in technologies to favor designs that minimize leakage." Presumably thinking along the same lines, NASA, which had helped pay for the research, prepared a news release and news conference on the paper.

Abruptly, both were canceled. Although "we often hear that releases are held up for political reasons," one NASA employee told me, "that one was a surprise: It went all the way to the top and then got killed." In fact, the release and the conference were "killed" by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. An official there told me this was because the office wanted to give Energy Department scientists a chance to respond to the study before it was publicized: "Our role is to facilitate interagency cooperation." Coincidentally or not, it also happens that Spencer Abraham, then the energy secretary, was that same week preparing to depart for Brussels, where he was to tell Europeans that U.S. hydrogen research proved the Bush administration cared about the environment.

All of that part of the story is confirmed. The rest -- the story of how none of the scientists ever got government grants for further research on this subject -- is complicated by rumor and hearsay. Eiler, seeing that the Energy Department was looking for proposals to study the environmental impact of hydrogen, applied for a grant to do so. He was turned down on the grounds that he thought were "peculiar" -- that the department was not, in fact, interested in proposals on the subject. Today he gets his only money for related research from the private sector. The National Science Foundation officially rejected another researcher's grant application -- and then unofficially told him that some in the foundation thought the timing of the Science magazine paper had been deliberately designed to embarrass the energy secretary. One of the authors has now changed his research focus, he e-mailed me, to something that "has less politics." Others refused to talk about the paper at all.

None of this means that there really was any government interference in the funding. Another eminent scientist who does related research, Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, told me that while he considered the Science paper "groundbreaking" and "pioneering," because it was "the first to actually go after this issue," he disagreed with the conclusions and methodology, and said that perhaps grant reviewers did too. The science and technology policy office says it is "preposterous" to think that the White House was involved in funding issues. Abraham remembers the trip to Europe but (very plausibly) doesn't recall anything about this contrarian paper at all.

I'm thus left with nothing to report -- except that a fuss over a press release and a rumor about who said what to whom at the National Science Foundation left some scientists feeling, rightly or wrongly, that they'd better stay away from "political" subjects if they want government grants. And, three years down the road, they have.

applebaumanne@yahoo.com

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Media watchdog urges US to free two journalists

By Anna Willard
Reuters
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; 1:11 PM

PARIS (Reuters) - An international media watchdog urged the United States on Tuesday to free two journalists held separately at a U.S. prison in Iraq and at a military base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, saying they had been detained unfairly.

"These journalists have been denied justice and not allowed to see family or lawyers," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement accompanying a new report into the arrests of journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

RSF also said it was investigating the detention by U.S. authorities of three journalists working for Reuters in Iraq although they were recently released.

The U.S. government made no immediate comment on the report.

Abdel Amir Yunes Hussein, 26, who works for U.S. network CBS News, has been held at the Camp Bucca prison in Iraq since last April, the media watchdog said. It said U.S. authorities suspected him of having ties with insurgents.

Sami al-Hajj, a 36-year-old cameraman for satellite television station Al Jazeera, has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 after being arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, it said. He has been accused of making videos of Osama bin Laden.

RSF said he had told a human rights lawyer who visited him in Guantanamo that he had been interrogated more than 130 times and tortured, including sexually.

The media watchdog said it was seeking details about the two journalists from the U.S. Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act.

Citing the same act, it is also demanding information about the three Reuters reporters who have now been freed.

Majid Hameed, who was working as a free-lance reporter for Reuters, was detained in September at a friend's funeral and Samer Mohammed Noor and Ali al-Mashadani were detained two months apart in 2005. All were released in January.

© 2006 Reuters

Wake Up, America

Wake Up, America

Here are two links that might inspire thoughtfulness in some readers. Kindly take a look at what these two links have to say.

Loose Change II http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801&q=loose+change

Empire Burlesque http://www.chris-floyd.com and

Collected Writings: Past Articles by Chris Floyd http://collectioncf72.blogspot.com/2005/04/pin-heads-new-bush-push-for-theocracy.html

This web log doesn’t get a lot of readers—mostly family and friends that I con into visiting, but the important thing is that this writer is in the company of many, many other bloggers who are starting to join together. The amount and variety of information, and the fact that internet friends from all over the world can connect with each other to share information and pass on links to information is priceless.

Take a look at the documentary, “Loose Change II”, and decide what you think. Take a look at Chris Floyd’s article (which I found originally in The Moscow Times) “Pin Heads, The New Bush Push For Theocracy”. If these two things don’t scare the hell out of you, you’re braver than this writer and deserve what comes when refusal to believe what you see in front of you allows a reality to be created that does not have your best interests at heart.

Perhaps we all deserve that. We’ve allowed it to get this far and there may be no way to stop the morphing of America into a slave state run by idiots.

It’s Time To Call This Conspiracy A Conspiracy

We, the American people have made a mistake. We have elected George W. Bush to the Presidency of The United States of America. It is now time to rectify that mistake and remove this man and his entire cabal from office.

Most of us are don’t have time each day for a careful reading of the news which would allow us to recognize the complete picture of the threat Bush policies represent to our country. Instead, we content ourselves with news from television, radio, and our favorite ISP, which entertain and inform with mere snippets of news, and generally, our hometown paper, which may or may not have a biased view of the events reported.

Censorship by omission is as deadly as slanting the news in one direction or the other, as the headlines and links to the stories from today’s offering of news from a wide variety of sources will indicate. Any person seeking the news of the day with the time constraints of employment, survival, or at their work computer would not have time to either find or read all the articles today that give a clear picture of the unfortunate state of our country these days.

American freedoms are being attacked from all sides, simultaneously and concertedly. This indicates much more than the simple incompetence and misdemeanor malfeasance of the Bush administration with which many of us dismiss this bunch of pirates. This indicates more than “simple greed”, as many of us excuse or, at least, feel comforted by defining the actions of the Bush cabal.

The actions listed just in today’s news—one day—show that there is a concentrated and intense movement in our country by this group to destroy the very fabric of American freedom in order to further an agenda with what can only be at this point an as yet undefined goal, but one which severely limits American rights, and instills fear of discovery for perhaps altruistic, patriotic blogging, or simply innocent search or research. This agenda is evident on ALL fronts that represent American freedom.

We Americans expect our politicians to cease and desist when they are found engaged in suspicious or criminal acts, or when they are accused of some sort of malfeasance. In this case, that is not the case. The Bush agenda seems to be motivated with a drive beyond comprehension to continue the secret agenda which will only destroy our country. Despite discovery; despite reporting by the American press, and despite the growing outcry of American citizens, the Bush agenda continues to make daily inroads into historic American freedoms.

The question is: How do we stop this assault on freedom and liberty?

Impeachment proceedings brought with all due haste will, no doubt, bring these matters to a boil and allow the American people to see the intent and the reach of the Bush cabal. If the reaction to impeachment proceedings follows the pattern of lawlessness which earmarks the Bush administration they will simply refuse to comply with impeachment.

Then we will have something more to work with than the nebulous and diffuse machinations of this administration which are not currently easily defined as deliberate actions to destroy America from within.
That Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has recently taken it upon himself to change the order of succession of the Presidency in The Department of Defense (see full article below) from military officials to hand-picked civilian officials sympathetic if not owned by the Bush cabal is surely indication enough that this conspiracy to destroy American freedom is more than just routine incompetence and certainly indicates advanced planning should impeachment topple the Bush regime.

That these actions were accomplished without the consent of Congress, and without benefit of Constitutional Amendment is highly indicative of the hubris with which these people perceive American historical values and the willingness and the ability of the American people to challenge these schemes.
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CNET NEWS

Police blotter: Patriot Act e-mail spying approved

Federal judge OKs prosecutors' Patriot Act request for e-mail surveillance without any evidence of wrongdoing by the target.
12 hours, 8 minutes ago
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The New York Times

February 10, 2006

Official Resigns Public TV Post

STEPHEN LABATONand ELIZABETH JENSEN

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — The top television executive at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced on Thursday that he would be stepping down. This is the latest in a string of departures of officials and consultants who played central roles in an effort by conservatives to bring what they viewed as more balance to public television and radio.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Lance Dickie / Seattle Times editorial columnist

Catching the health-reform bug
The nation's health-care system has not gotten bad enough yet for real change to occur. Just wait. An increasingly anxious middle class...
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The New York Times

White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm

By ERIC LIPTONThe Bush administration was alerted to broken levees and flooding in New Orleans hours after their collapse, documents show.
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The New York Times

Seized With Heavy Hand at Border, for Paperwork Errors

By NINA BERNSTEINLow-level gatekeepers in the customs and immigration system are using their discretionary power over travelers who pose no security risk.
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The New York Times

Voting Rights Under Siege

The Republican majority in the State House in Pennsylvania is pushing to pass one of the most odious felon-voting bans ever seen above the Mason-Dixon line.
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Wired News

Takeoff Delay Slows Secure Flight

The Transportation Security Administration suspends the controversial, ire-drawing program, saying its IT system needs a comprehensive audit. No word on whether any security flaws or breaches have been discovered. Feb 9, 2006 12:12 PM
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Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 12:00 AM

Rumsfeld alters succession

By Josh White The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122901242.html

WASHINGTON — There is a new pecking order at the Pentagon should Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld not be able to perform his duties, one that favors his inner circle and pushes the three service secretaries down the line of succession.

The new list — approved by President Bush last week — still has Rumsfeld's top deputy as his replacement should the defense secretary die or resign.

But it now puts the undersecretaries for intelligence, policy and acquisition next in line, bumping the secretaries of the Army, Air Force and Navy into lower slots.

The secretary of the Army has traditionally been No. 3.While the change does not have much impact on day-to-day matters, military experts said it illustrates Rumsfeld's interest in keeping his top advisers in line to run the department in the event of a catastrophe.

Pentagon officials have said the move keeps defense policymakers who are responsible for broad departmental issues at the top of the line, moving down those civilian leaders who have specific concentrations on one of the services.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the moves allow people who are "in a position to have a broader perspective on the department overall" to take over the entire Defense Department if needed.

He said that while the service secretaries have deep knowledge, they are more narrowly focused on military matters, such as training and equipping troops.

"They have shifted the line of succession from people who run particular parts of the Pentagon to policymakers who see the entire defense posture," said Loren Thompson, an expert at the Lexington Institute.

He said senior administration officials are preoccupied with what would happen in the event a large-scale attack — such as a nuclear explosion — were to occur in Washington, and that matters of succession have become an important topic. "It has as much urgency today as it did during the Cold War," he said.

The move gives Stephen Cambone, undersecretary for intelligence, second billing after acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, who has not been confirmed as deputy secretary.

England gave up his position as secretary of the Navy on Thursday after serving in both roles for the past eight months, according to the Pentagon.

Michael O'Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution, said Rumsfeld often pays attention to such "symbolic issues" to send a message."Rumsfeld doesn't do things randomly," O'Hanlon said.

"His inner circle is the key group."

Edwin Dorn, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a former undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said the change in succession intrigues him because the relatively new intelligence position appears to outrank everyone else.

He said he wondered if the department is trying to emphasize intelligence matters over ground forces.

"Obviously Rumsfeld believes intelligence is more important than war fighting," Dorn said.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

Beheading the Hydra--Again

There is every reason to acknowledge with all haste that the Bush cabal is attempting to subvert, control, and censor the information we receive on a daily basis. In order to continue their apparent attempts to subvert American democracy, they will necessarily have to control the information we receive.

This is just common sense and should not be all that hard to acknowledge and accept as a Bush agenda.

The facts of the matter are before us on a daily basis, and no matter whether one is liberal, conservative, Republican, or Democrat, we all have the same love for our country and our liberty.

We must realize that depriving Americans of their freedoms is essential to whatever plan is at work in this (so-called) elected administration.

We must realize that not all Republicans are guilty of this treason, nor are all Democrats free from hidden agenda, and we must realize through the efforts of our honest and hard-working press that treasonous and criminal conspirators are as guilty of these acts as our press indicates.

That Tom Delay is now holding a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department and consequently the current investigation and prosecution of Jack Abramoff is indication enough that this putsch will not stop their nefarious business just because they are discovered and outed by our press.

Time after time, when the press has reported on the questionable, criminal, and traitorous acts of this administration, those acts have continued.

This many-headed Hydra which is the current administration has a drive to continue to subvert the very fabric of American freedom and democracy that has never before been seen in this country.

We must wake up.

We must question every act that the Bush administration performs.

We must get this group of traitors out of office with all haste while we can still do so.

Every day that passes with the Bush administration in office is a further erosion of the principles of American democracy and freedom.

Any fool can see what is happening.

Why are we not crying out for immediate change?

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCERhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/258773_youngs09.htmlBe a careful media consumer

Thursday, February 9, 2006

JULIA A. YOUNGS P-I COLUMNIST

Warning -- the article you are about to read is biased.

Of course, we expect to find opinions on the Editorial page -- that's kind of the point. But the warning applies to every article you read. Yes, as you have long suspected, the media are biased. To the left? Yes. But also to the right. Communication does not occur in a socio-politico vacuum, and each of us runs it through our contextual filters.
Here in Seattle, we pride ourselves on being a well-informed, educated lot, and to a certain extent, that has been true. We read our papers, watch our newscasts and even catch a bit of NPR on the radio. But, beware: Our cultural value of "being informed" can no longer be maintained by using our old patterns.
News bias occurs in one of three ways: intentional misreporting, topic selection and spin. Obviously, the least subtle and least common is intentional misreporting. At least, we hope it is. Of course, the cynics among us often wonder if it is possible that Walter Cronkite truly believed that we lost the Tet offensive when he recorded his now infamous "We are Mired in Stalemate" report, or if CBS/Dan Rather actually believed the phony Bush service memos to be true for as long as he publicly asserted them so.
Topic selection is another form of bias: In its most flagrant form it is simply lack of coverage of those aspects of life contrary to a given position. Usually, however, it is much more subtle, and even unintentional. If it's not on the contextual radar, it may not get reported. For example, how many of us heard about Diwali on Nov. 1 last year? Not many, but it is very significant to the Hindus among us -- newsworthy, in fact. In the same way, unintentional ideological bias can creep into news reporting. Additionally, it is difficult to convincingly present an alternative viewpoint that you cannot fathom a rational person holding.
Finally there is the issue of content spin -- how something is reported. We all know Greg Nickels is mayor of Seattle but how many of us in our city of intellectual elitism know that Nickels never graduated from college? Still, spin can be unintentional as well. Perhaps Dan Rather did think, beyond all seeming common sense, that those memos were real. Perhaps The New York Times editors really did believe the staged missile photo to be legitimate. Of course, the cynical side will note that the old saying in journalism about stories that editors really want to run: "too good to check." And we wonder: Were these stories just too good to check?
Then of course, there is the issue of sensationalism -- embodied by the phrase "if it bleeds, it leads." Gore and drama have always caught our attention. Unfortunately in our present sound-bite culture, we often will not stick around if a piece is not relentless in its sensational presentation. For example, last week marked the end of a trial in Spokane, one that I had the opportunity to observe. The next day, I read the 405 words allocated by The Associated Press to summarize the almost four-week trial and its result. It's amazing that the article spent most of its few words on the three most sensational and inflammatory aspects of the case, and completely neglected to mention what the party's contentions actually were. Sensationalism sells but it doesn't necessarily inform.
So, if all media are biased, what's an enlightened news-media consumer to do? First, sigh in relief that we now have the resources to recognize and remedy the problem in relatively short order. Despite assertions to the contrary, the issue is not a new one. The phrase "yellow journalism" was coined in the late 19th century and biased journalism has been largely credited with our entry into the Spanish-American war. Even God has had troubles with faulty reporters -- Adam was not exactly unbiased in his reports on Garden of Eden activities.
Second, recognizing that all reports are biased, be careful in media consumption. If something strikes a passionate chord, pursue it. In modern times, mainstream media are merely a jumping-off point. Check facts, find background stories and consider why something is emphasized, or not. We may not be omniscient but we do have the Internet, and we have friends and libraries to show us how to use it.
The best tools that we have are critical thinking, and an open mind. We must always remember that our favorite sources may not be our best ones, even, or perhaps especially, if they think like us.
Julia Youngs is a Kirkland attorney, and can be reached by e-mail at juliayoungs@hotmail.com.
© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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February 9, 2006
Editorial
Censoring Truth
The Bush administration long ago secured a special place in history for the audacity with which it manipulates science to suit its political ends. But it set a new standard of cynicism when it allowed NASA's leading authority on global warming to be mugged by a 24-year-old presidential appointee who, quite apart from having no training on that issue, had inflated his résumé.
In early December, James Hansen, the space agency's top climate specialist, called for accelerated efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming. After his speech, he told Andrew C. Revkin of The Times, he was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for aggressive action.
This was not the first time Dr. Hansen had been rebuked by the Bush team, which has spent the better part of five years avoiding the issue of global warming. It was merely one piece of a larger pattern of deception and denial.
The administration has sought to influence the policy debate by muzzling the people who disagree with it or — as was the case with two major reports from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and 2003 — editing out inconvenient truths or censoring them entirely.
In this case, the censor was George Deutsch, a functionary in NASA's public affairs office whose chief credential appears to have been his service with President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee. On his résumé, Mr. Deutsch claimed a 2003 bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas A&M, but the university, alerted by a blogger, said that was not true. Mr. Deutsch has now resigned.
The shocker was not NASA's failure to vet Mr. Deutsch's credentials, but that this young politico with no qualifications was able to impose his ideology on other agency employees. At one point, he told a Web designer to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang.
As Dr. Hansen observed, Mr. Deutsch was only a "bit player" in the administration's dishonest game of politicizing science on issues like warming, birth control, forest policy and clean air. This from a president who promised in his State of the Union address to improve American competitiveness by spending more on science.

· Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
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Senators Mull an Internet With Restrictions
by CELIA VIGGO WEXLER & DAWN HOLIAN
[posted online on February 8, 2006]
It may have been the first and last hearing the US Senate holds on Net neutrality--the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content or use any applications they choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by an Internet service provider. In the time it takes to watch Wedding Crashers, nine experts on Tuesday galloped through testimony before a handful of Senate Commerce Committee members in a hearing room packed with telecommunications and cable lobbyists.
The experts largely fell into two camps. Representatives of major telephone and cable companies and conservative academics urged government to get out of the way, encourage the growth of high-speed Internet networks and enable Internet system operators to "recoup their investments" without statutory or regulatory constraints. On the opposing side were the Internet "evangelists" and innovators who urged Congress to enact into law longstanding principles that preserve an open Internet where no company can restrict any individual's access to content or place barriers on any lawful application or activity.
Those representing telephone and cable companies promised that they would never--ever--interfere with the public's ability to access any lawful information on the Internet. Walter McCormick Jr., president of the United States Telecom Association (USTA), pledged, "We will not block, impair or degrade content, applications or services" that customers want to access. "Our culture, our history, our business has been focused for more than a century on connecting our customers with those they choose." He added that if a phone customer wants to call Sears, "We don't connect them with Macy's."
Unfortunately, the heads of the companies that the USTA represents have not been making the same promises. Indeed, Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota noted that the Washington Post story he had read on Tuesday "while eating my Cheerios" cited Verizon vice president John Thorne accusing Google of "enjoying a free lunch" at the expense of Verizon and other network builders.
"Verizon accused Google of freeloading," Dorgan said. "I've had both DSL and broadband from cable, and I've paid for [both of those services].... This is not a free lunch for any one of these content providers, to come into my home or the home of anyone in this country. The access lines are being paid for by the consumer."
Kyle McSlarrow, president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, urged Congress to "let the marketplace develop, as it has, without government regulation." The cable companies he represents, he said, won't block access to content over the public Internet, but they do want the "ability to manage the network."
The USTA's McCormick stressed that Net neutrality "isn't a problem that Congress needs to address. Consumers expect Internet freedom. And if we don't provide it, then the consumer will choose to do business with someone else."
Google vice president and "Internet evangelist" Vinton Cerf disagreed. "There is not enough competition" for high-speed Internet, Cerf said, noting that only 53 percent of Americans have any choice among broadband service providers and that 19 percent of Americans have no access to high-speed Internet.
In an argument that some senators seemed to have difficulty following, Cerf, Stanford Law School professor and open-access guru Lawrence Lessig, and Vonage head Jeffrey Citron argued that one could not assume the continued existence of the freewheeling Internet that fosters innovation. That is because the FCC changed the rules, upending a forty-year commitment to open access and nondiscrimination. That decades-old commitment made it possible for "innovation without permission" and the development of the World Wide Web, Yahoo, Google and Amazon, Cerf said.
Those policies were altered in 2002, noted Lessig, when the FCC changed how it would regulate Internet service providers. Companies that built and maintained the Internet pipes had been regulated like telephone companies, and they were not permitted to discriminate among content providers or Internet applications.
Under the FCC's current regulatory regime, these old constraints are gone. That leaves the door open for companies like Verizon and AT&T to drastically change the rules, hogging bandwidth for their own products, like the films and games they'd like to sell to subscribers, and charging other content providers a premium for quality access to their customers, leaving little space for other content and applications. "The only companies that could afford to buy access to the fast lanes on the Internet...are companies that already have succeeded in the marketplace," Lessig said. "The next generation of Yahoos and Googles...would face barriers to entry."
"At the root, the network neutrality debate is about who will control innovation and competition on the Internet," Citron added. "Imagine if the electric company could dictate which television or toaster you could plug into the wall.... What would happen tomorrow if one of the network operators decided to block Google, Vonage, Yahoo or Amazon? What would be the legal recourse?... There is nothing in the statute or regulation today that protects consumers or Internet application providers from potential network discrimination."
Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, chair of the Commerce Committee, called Net neutrality "one of the most difficult but important" issues on his committee's plate. Tuesday's hearing was one of thirteen on various aspects of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which Congress will rewrite in the next year or two. What wasn't clear is to what extent Stevens and his committee will revisit Net neutrality. At the end of the hearing, Stevens thanked the participants for coming a long way and having so little time to speak their piece. One hopes that for all our sakes, Stevens and his committee find the time to contemplate the implications of what they do or fail to do as they legislate the future of the Internet.
This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/wexler
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DeLay Lands Coveted Appropriations Spot

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press WriterWed Feb 8, 5:39 PM ET
Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay, forced to step down as the No. 2 Republican in the House, scored a soft landing Wednesday as GOP leaders rewarded him with a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee.
DeLay, R-Texas, also claimed a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is currently investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with lawmakers. The subcommittee also has responsibility over NASA — a top priority for DeLay, since the Johnson Space Center is located in his Houston-area district.
"Allowing Tom DeLay to sit on a committee in charge of giving out money is like putting Michael Brown back in charge of FEMA — Republicans in Congress just can't seem to resist standing by their man," said Bill Burton, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
GOP leaders also named California Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee. Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, vacated that post after winning a campaign to replace DeLay.
McKeon is a seven-term conservative who has a generally good relationship with educators. He authored a 2001 law to remove disincentives for workers who would have lost part of their Social Security benefits when switching jobs to become public school teachers.
DeLay was able to rejoin the powerful Appropriations panel — he was a member until becoming majority leader in 2003 — because of a vacancy created after the resignation of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif. Cunningham pleaded guilty in November to charges relating to accepting $2.4 million in bribes for government business and other favors.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

Anarchy

The Bush administration is either so bereft of good common sense, suffering from some as yet diagnosed mental defect, or just plain evil, that they are continuing with this budgetary madness which takes away from the poor and gives to the rich and in the process, creates what can only become anarchy and at the least highly increased crime statistics which will affect all Americans, rich, poor, and in between, with the reactions of the hungry and disenfranchised to cuts in programs which benefit these desperately poor Americans.

Americans will feed their families by whatever means necessary.

The Bush administration has, perhaps, gotten this far by appealing to the interests of the rich. However, the rich and well off must finally look at what the Bush tax cuts really mean to the wealthy when there are no food stamp programs; when medicine for a sick child is not available; when families face eviction from affordable housing; when funds for transportation to a minimum wage job are not available.

The Bush administration is friend to no American and only serves the interests of corporate greed and brightens the glint in the eyes of our enemies as they witness the destruction and the complacent and tacit consent of Americans to this continuing destruction of the American standard of living.

This is how we become the victims of terrorists: by allowing these robberies of our long held values to take place, by standing idle and uncounted when the very foundations of American freedom are altered by greed and the machinations of traitors calling themselves patriots.

This is how we lose the respect of the world and this is how we become a defeated country merely awaiting invasion of our shores by enemies who would see us destroyed simply because we were once the strongest country on Earth.
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A Trillion Little Pieces

President Bush's $2.77 trillion budget is fiction masquerading as fact, a governmental version of the made-up memoirs that have been denounced up and down the continent lately. The spending proposal is built around the pretense that the same House and Senate that are set to consider a record deficit of $423 billion will now impose a virtual freeze on everything other than Pentagon and homeland security outlays. The budget writers even fantasized an end to Social Security's lump-sum death benefit — a whopping $255 per recipient — as if Congress would dare to do something so heartless and easy to exploit in an election year.

The point of all these imaginary financial projections is to give the president leeway to cement in place hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts the nation can ill afford and does not need. The cuts were made temporary in the first place because there was no way to even pretend that budgets could be balanced in the future with such an enormous loss of revenue.

Now, to pay for his top priorities — the military and tax cuts — the president is relying on proposed spending cuts. While Congress will never make some of them, it may make others, but only at the peril of the poor and the middle class. Those cuts include basic needs in education, environmental protection, medical research, low-income housing for the elderly and the disabled, community policing, and supplemental food for the needy.

The budget is steeped in campaign-year pretensions, billboarding $65 billion in "savings" across the next five years — more than half of it in Medicare — even as tax revenue is further choked. A Congress up for re-election should be wary of taking that path, particularly as the open-ended costs of the Iraq war dwarf all promised savings.

Mr. Bush was praised last week for calling for an end to dependency on oil imports without dragging out the ill-advised — and meaningless — administration fixation on oil drilling in protected parts of Alaska. Yet there it is, back again in the budget. There is little new in the plan, except for small but worthy initiatives that would be paid for with cuts in equally useful programs already on the books.

The president's plan was, on the whole, depressingly familiar. The administration that produced shattering deficits is at it again. Even the fiction was plagiarized from failed budgets of the past.

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company