Liberation News Service

Robert Parry, Mocking the Downing Street Memo, www.consortiumnews.com, 6/18/05: If American progressives think they have enough media clout to make a real issue of George W. Bush’s possible impeachment over the Iraq War, they should read the account of Rep. John Conyers’s rump hearing on the Downing Street Memo that appeared in the Washington Post.
The story by political correspondent Dana Milbank drips with a sarcasm that would never be allowed for a report on, say, a conservative gathering or on a topic involving any part of the American political spectrum other than the Left.
“In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe,” Milbank wrote. “They pretended a small conference room was the Judiciary Committee hearing room, draping white linens over folding tables to make them look like witness tables and bringing in cardboard name tags and extra flags to make the whole think look official.”
And the insults – especially aimed at Rep. Conyers – just kept on coming…
Washington Post editors – having already dismissed the leaked British government documents about the Iraq War as boring, irrelevant news – are now turning to the tried-and-true tactic for silencing any remaining dissent, consigning those who won’t go along to the political loony bin.
Those of us who have covered Washington for years have seen the pattern before. A group without sufficient inside-the-Beltway clout tries to draw attention to a scandal that the Post and other prestigious news arbiters have missed or gotten wrong. After ignoring the grievances for a while – and sensing that the complainers have no real muscle – the news arbiters start heaping on the abuse…
Though there have been a few positive developments in liberal media – particularly the growth of AM progressive talk radio at Air America and Democracy Radio – Left funders still show few signs of understanding how valuable media could be to a liberal political renaissance.
The latest trend in liberal grant-giving has been for “media reform,” such as trying to “save PBS” even as it adds more and more conservative programs. But the Left funders still shy away from the construction of media outlets and the creation of independent journalistic content…
Certainly, any thoughts about impeaching Bush are little more than pipedreams given the reality of today’s national media. In that sense, the Post’s attacks on the Downing Street Memo hearing should serve as a splash of cold water in the face of the American Left.
While Web sites and progressive talk radio have helped puncture the image of Bush’s invulnerability, a much broader media infrastructure would be needed if issues, such as the Iraq deceptions, are to be forced consistently into the national debate.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/061705.html

Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), Congressman Conyers hammers the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. www.rawstory.com, 6/17/05: Dear Sirs, I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.
In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that "only one" member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline "Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight". Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.
The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats "pretended" a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing…
By the way, the "Downing Street Memo" is actually the minutes of a British cabinet meeting. In the meeting, British officials - having just met with their American counterparts - describe their discussions with such counterparts. I mention this because that basic piece of context, a simple description of the memo, is found nowhere in Milbank's article.
The fact that I and my fellow Democrats had to stuff a hearing into a room the size of a large closet to hold a hearing on an important issue shouldn't make us the object of ridicule. In my opinion, the ridicule should be placed in two places: first, at the feet of Republicans who are so afraid to discuss ideas and facts that they try to sabotage our efforts to do so; and second, on Dana Milbank and the Washington Post, who do not feel the need to give serious coverage on a serious hearing about a serious matter-whether more than 1700 Americans have died because of a deliberate lie. Milbank may disagree, but the Post certainly owed its readers some coverage of that viewpoint.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Congressman_Conyers_hammers_the_Washington_Posts_D_0617.html

David Paul Kuhn, Just hearsay, or the new Watergate tapes?, Guardian, 6/17/05: Forced to the basement of the US Capitol and prevented from holding an official hearing, Michigan representative John Conyers defied Republicans and held a forum on Thursday calling for a congressional inquiry into the infamous British document known as the "Downing Street memo".
Three dozen Democratic representatives shuffled in and out of a small
room to join Mr Conyers in declaring that the Downing Street memo was
the first "primary source" document to report that prewar intelligence
was intentionally manipulated in order make a case for invading Iraq.
Not only did Republican leaders consign the Democrats to the basement,
but Democrats also claimed that the House scheduled 11 votes concurrent
with the forum to maximise the difficulty of attending it. Because the
forum wasn't an official hearing, it won't become a part of the
Congressional record - but members worked to make sure that the attending media and activists captured their words for posterity.
The Downing Street memo, so far disputed by Washington and London in
some of its details, but not its authenticity, reports on minutes of a meeting between the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and his national security team on July 23 2002.
First reported by the London Sunday Times on May 1 this year, the
internal memo states that, in the opinion of "C" (Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British secret intelligence service), "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [Bush administration's] policy". The author of the memo added that it "seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action".
Since then, several other British government memos have become public
that also make the case that the White House was planning the war long before it admitted to doing so.
The Democratic representatives attending the forum said they believed
that if such information had got out prior to the war, neither the House nor the Senate would have supported the October 11 2002 congressional vote giving the president the power to order the invasion.
To the Democrats taking turns to speak at the forum on Thursday, the
memo was tantamount to the first word of tapes in the Nixon White House during the Watergate scandal. Impeachment was on these representatives' minds as four long-time critics of the war in Iraq, including the former ambassador Joe Wilson, repeatedly urged Congress to hold an official inquiry into the validity and origins of the Downing Street memo.
"We sent our troops to war under dubious pretences," asserted Mr
Wilson, who travelled, at the government's behest, to Niger in February 2002.
There, he discovered President Bush's claim that Iraq was attempting to obtain uranium in Africa was false. The White House later retracted the accusation.
Speaking on the question of impeachment, representative Charles B
Rangel, D-NY, asked, point blank: "Has the president misled, or deliberately misled, the Congress?"
The answer is at the heart of Mr Conyers' push for further
investigation. Misleading Congress is an impeachable offence, and Mr Conyers' petition for an inquiry into the memo seemed a first step in that direction - though no one made that call outright.
"Many of us find it unacceptable to put our brave men and women in
harm's way, based on false information," Mr Conyers said.
Though most of those at the forum voted against the war in Iraq, Mr
Conyers, who is the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, insisted the forum was not partisan politicking, but a function of their oversight duty.
As members of Congress crammed into the small room, no bigger than 30ft by 50ft, Democratic representatives spoke and then scurried out to make scheduled votes. After being denied a hearing, then forced to the basement, which representative Jim McDermott, D-Wash, called unprecedented, the Democrats believed Republicans had purposely scheduled 11 votes to interrupt the forum.
"Absolutely, it was absolutely timed," Mr McDermott said in an
interview after the forum. "There was no need to do it then. And they were having a major appropriations hearing at the same time. That was also to keep people away, because appropriations are your chance to get money for your district that you've been working all year on."
McDermott spoke as representative Maxine Waters, D-Calif, delayed her
aide and sprinted down the hall in her high heels to do an interview
with Pacifica Radio. Covered mostly by liberal media outlets, the forum got some mainstream news attention, from the AP to the Baltimore Sun to CNN.
Democrats who dropped by included representatives Barney Frank, of
Massachusetts, Charles Rangel, of New York, Virginia's Jim Moran, and
Barbara Lee of Oakland, California.
Following the forum, Mr Conyers led Democratic representatives and
activists on a march to the White House, hoping to deliver a letter with more than 550,000 signatures of the public and more than 120 members of Congress, mostly - but not all - Democrats. The White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press that Conyers was "simply trying to rehash old debates".
As he left, the mild but indefatigable Mr Conyers was a little angry
that the forum was denied a proper room in the Capitol.
"They tried to shut us out," he said after the hearing. "They tried to cut us off. They put us in a tiny room. The significance shouldn't be lost on anybody."
• David Paul Kuhn is Salon's Washington correspondent
This article has been provided by Salon through a special arrangement
with Guardian Newspapers Limited. © Salon.com 2004 Visit the Salon site at salon.com
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
http://www.guardian.co.uk

F.A.I.R., Justifying the Silence on Downing Street Memos, www.fair.org, 6/17/05: One of the features of the newfound media interest in the Downing Street Memo is a profound defensiveness, as reporters scramble to explain why it received so little attention in the U.S. press. But the most familiar line--the memo wasn't news because it contained no "new" information--only raises troubling questions about what journalists were doing when they should have been reporting on the gulf between official White House pronouncements and actual White House intentions.
There are two important points in the Downing Street Memo, and media apologists have marshaled slightly different--though equally unconvincing--arguments as to why each did not deserve coverage. The first point is that the White House was intent on going to war long before it announced the decision to invade Iraq; "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action," the memo states, citing British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
The Washington Post editorialized (6/15/05): "The memos add not a single fact to what was previously known about the administration's prewar deliberations. Not only that: They add nothing to what was publicly known in July 2002." The New York Times reported (6/14/05) that "the documents are not quite so shocking. Three years ago, the near-unanimous conventional wisdom in Washington held that Mr. Bush was determined to topple Saddam Hussein by any means necessary." NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell similarly remarked on June 14 (Media Matters, 6/15/05) that you had to be "brain dead not to know" what the White House was doing.
But if everyone knew it was a lie when Bush and the White House repeatedly denied that they had decided to go to war (as with Bush's March 6, 2003 statement, "I have not made up our mind about military action"), why were reporters not exposing this bad faith at every turn?
…The second issue raised by the Downing Street Memo regards the fixing of intelligence. On this question, media responses differ somewhat: The memo is inconclusive, some say, or investigations into intelligence tampering have shown that such claims are without merit. The June 15 Washington Post editorial claimed that "the memos provide no information that would alter the conclusions of multiple independent investigations on both sides of the Atlantic, which were that U.S. and British intelligence agencies genuinely believed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that they were not led to that judgment by the Bush administration."
The investigations the Post is alluding to are irrelevant, since they did not specifically address the question of how the White House handled intelligence reports on Iraq…
More important, however, is the fact that the Downing Street Memo does suggest that the British government did not believe the evidence of Iraq's WMD programs was strong. As the memo states, "the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
The case for the politicization of intelligence is not difficult to make--it merely involves citing evidence the media ignored at the time. In its March 3, 2003 issue, Newsweek reported what should have been a bombshell: The star defector who supplied some of the most significant information about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction had told investigators that those weapons no longer existed.
Iraq defector Hussein Kamel--Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, who ran Iraq's unconventional weapons programs--was debriefed in 1995 about the status of those programs. Some of what Kamel said to the weapons inspectors would become very familiar: 30,000 liters of anthrax had been produced by the Iraqi regime, for example, and four tons of the VX nerve agent. These specific quantities were cited repeatedly by White House officials to make the case for war, and were staples of media coverage in the run-up to war.
But Kamel told the inspectors something else: that Iraq had destroyed these stockpiles soon after the Gulf War. "All weapons-- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear-- were destroyed," Kamel told the inspectors…
At the time, FAIR pointed out (2/27/03) that White House officials were misleading the public by selectively citing the Kamel interview: "Their repeated citations of his testimony--without revealing that he also said the weapons no longer exist--suggests that the administration might be withholding critical evidence."
Despite their obvious importance, the Kamel revelations were barely mentioned in the mainstream media. This fact is worth remembering when journalists claim that pre-war media coverage was remarkably prescient about the White House's intentions. The truth is that the Downing Street Memo is a reminder of how poorly the media served the public before the war-- which might explain their reluctance to take it seriously.
http://www.fair.org/?page=2556

LNS Articles of Impeachment, No. 1, Part III:

Theft of the Election
Complicity of the Corporatist News Media
The War in Iraq is Worse than Immoral or Illegal, It is Stupid

Theft of the 2004 Election

Gore Vidal, Something Rotten in Ohio, 6/9/05, The Nation: One of the most useful members of the House—currently the most useful—is John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who, in his capacity as ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, led the committee’s Democratic Congressmen and their staffers into the heart of the American heartland, the Western Reserve; specifically, into the not-so-red state of Ohio, once known as “the mother of Presidents.”
He had come to answer the question that the minority of Americans who care about the Republic have been asking since November 2004: “What went wrong in Ohio?” He is too modest to note the difficulties he must have undergone even to assemble this team in the face of the triumphalist Republican Congressional majority, not to mention the unlikely heir to himself, George W. Bush, whose original selection by the Supreme Court brought forth many reports on what went wrong in Florida in 2000.
These led to an apology from Associate Justice John Paul Stevens for the behavior of the 5-to-4 majority of the Court in the matter of Bush v. Gore. Loser Bush then brought on undeclared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the greatest deficits in our history and the revelations that the policies of an Administration that—much as Count Dracula fled cloves of garlic—flees all accountability were responsible for the murder and torture of captive men, between 70 percent and 90 percent of whom, by the Pentagon’s estimate, had been swept up at random, earning us the hatred of a billion Muslims and the disgust of what is called the civilized world.
Asked to predict who would win in ’04, I said that, again, Bush would lose, but I was confident that in the four years between 2000 and 2004 creative propaganda and the fixing of election officials might very well be so perfected as to insure an official victory for Mr. Bush. As Representative Conyers’s report, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio (www.house.gov/conyers), shows in great detail, the swing state of Ohio was carefully set up to deliver an apparent victory for Bush even though Kerry appears to have been the popular winner as well as the valedictorian-that-never-was of the Electoral College.
I urge would-be reformers of our politics as well as of such anachronisms as the Electoral College to read Conyers’s valuable guide on how to steal an election once you have in place the supervisor of the state’s electoral process: In this case, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who orchestrated a famous victory for those who hate democracy (a permanent but passionate minority). The Conyers Report states categorically, “With regard to our factual findings, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State Kenneth J. Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.” In other words, the Florida 2000 scenario redux, when the chair for Bush/Cheney was also the Secretary of State. Lesson? Always plan ahead for at least four more years.
It is well-known in the United States of Amnesia that not only did Ohio have a considerable number of first-time voters but that Blackwell and his gang, through “the misallocation of voting machines, led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters.”
For the past few years many of us have been warning about the electronic voting machines, first publicized on the Internet by investigator Bev Harris, for which she was much reviled by the officers of such companies as Diebold, Sequoia, Es & S, Triad; this last voting computer company “has essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to provide ‘cheat sheets’ to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election officials how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand count mandated by state law.”
Yet despite all this manpower and money power, exit polls showed that Kerry would win Ohio…
Needless to say, this report was ignored when the Electoral College produced its unexamined tally of the votes state by state. Needless to say, no joint committee of the two houses of Congress was convened to consider the various crimes committed and to find ways and means to avoid their repetition in 2008, should we be allowed to hold an election once we have unilaterally, yet again, engaged in a war—this time with Iran. Anyway, thanks to Conyers, the writing is now high up there on the wall for us all to see clearly: “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.” Students of the Good Book will know what these words of God meant to Belshazzar and his cronies in old Babylon.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0609-21.htm

Bob Fitrakis, Deep Throats and Stolen Votes, Columbia Free Press, 6/3/05: Ironically this week, Mark Felt, former Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, revealed that he was Watergate’s “Deep Throat” and perhaps the most famous whistle-blower in our nation’s history, but the embattled Deputy Director of the Hocking County Board of Elections (BOE) Sherole Eaton, Ohio’s most well-known whistle-blower, may be fired for courageous attempt to expose alleged election tampering.
Eaton suggests that there are many potential Deep Throats throughout the Buckeye State: “…There are staff on other boards that would not come forward with things, and they have shared things with me. They were afraid they’d lose their jobs,” she told the Free Press.
The Executive Committee of the Hocking County Democratic Party met behind closed doors at a Logan, Ohio senior center on Thursday, May 26 to discuss the forced resignation of Eaton by the Hocking County BOE. Sources within the Democratic Party told the Free Press that a majority of the Executive Committee members were backers of Eaton and confronted Democratic BOE members Gerald Robinette and Susan Hughes who had voted to fire Eaton.
Eaton made national news during the Ohio presidential recount when she swore in an affidavit that Michael Barbarian, a Triad technician, had removed a hard drive from the BOE’s main vote tabulator and replaced it with another. She further alleged that Barbarian offered a “cheat sheet” so that the computer tally would match a small random hand count of votes. Under Ohio law, if 3% of the votes match the certified total, the remaining 97% of the votes do not have to be hand recounted.
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1140

Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

Bill McConnell, Media Soft on Bush, Says Conyers, Broadcasting & Cable, 6/3/05: Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, says big media, especially cable news channels, are giving the Bush Administration a free pass by focusing on celebrity news and other "trivial matter" rather than examining White House policies.
Conyers based his assertion on a new survey of cable news treatment of important or high-profile stories by the Congressional Research Service, which gathers data at lawmakers' request to help them write bills or prepare for hearings. Conyers used the CRS sampling to charge that cable news outlets gave big play to some inconsequential stories while largely ignoring a lot of news casting Bush Administration policies in a negative light.
For instance, according to the study, April 28 revelations of a British government memo indicating intelligence services had concluded prior to the start of the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction were ignored by CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports and Anderson Cooper 360, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olberman and Fox's Big Story. Days later, those same shows were leading or devoting a lot of time to the runaway bride saga.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/060705L.shtml

BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL, Bushevik Mafia and the Cowering Media: It's simply a fantasy of pro-democracy advocates to believe that decency and patriotism will triumph over the demagogues and thugs of the Republican Party. The parties are playing by two different sets of rules, and the mob has won out over Constitutional process.
Which brings us to the issues of "Rathergate" and "Koran Flushgate." The "disputed" stories by both CBS and Newsweek were virtually entirely accurate in terms of substance. If we look at "Koran Flushgate," for example, this past weekend's revelations confirm that whether our soldiers urinated on a Koran or flushed it down the toilet is a distinction without a difference…
But, remember, the purpose of "Rathergate" and "Koran Flushgate" was to discombobulate and intimidate the media into not printing or televising anything overtly critical of the Bush regime. Rove cleverly knows how to use the media to cannibalize itself. All he has to do is toss them some red herring and they are off like jackals, devouring each other, while the crimes of the White House go unnoticed and unreported. Furthermore, reporters, editors and publishers become even MORE intimidated about printing or airing a story critical of the Bush Administration.
It is a technique worthy of the mob reigning supreme over the modern technological media, in combination with the fear that the media barons have of offending their corporate benefactors in the White House, Republican Congress and GOP judiciary.
The Mainstream Media seems to have abandoned all common sense.
Newsweek didn't cause any riots; the Christian Crusade against the "Infidel" led by Bush is what caused the riots. The record of humiliating, brutalizing, torturing and killing Muslims is as clear as the barbaric photos that came out of Abu Ghraib (and there are others, apparently even more malicious, that the Bush Administration won't release to the public).
The thugs in the White House know how to throw the press into a hysterical fit of irrelevance. But the truth is that Karl Rove could just gently blow and the White House Press Corpse, with the exception of Helen Thomas, would fall over.
The Busheviks don't need to beat up too heavily on the D.C. press. Most of them just want to transcribe the latest propaganda pronouncement and get to lunch.
The White House is saving the domestic mob enforcers for the rest of us.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/05/06/edi05051.html

The War in Iraq is Worse than Immoral or Illegal, It is Stupid, Insanely Stupid

Michael Smith, Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse,’ Times of London, 6/12/05: MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.
This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1650822,00.html

www.juancole.com, The Zarqawi Myth, 6/5/05: Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (actually Ahmad al-Khalayleh of Zarqa) has been elevated by the Bush administration to an almost mythic position as the fomenter of much of the violence in Iraq. It isn't true. Most of the violence in Iraq is being undertaken by Baathists or Iraqi nationalists trying to drive the US out.
I haven't commented much about the alleged activities of Zarqawi, mostly reported from anonymous and easily manipulated web sites. He was said to have had a meeting with lieutenants, maybe in Syria, maybe in Anbar. He was said to be at Ramadi. Ramadi was apparently locked down by the US military as a result. He was said to be wounded at Ramadi. Now some sites are saying he is dead. Those that maintain that he is still alive argue over he should "step down" in favor someone else to head up "Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia."
It turns out that the "meeting in Damascus" scenario is probably just propaganda. The Baath Party in Syria has a deep fear of Sunni fundamentalists. He is an unlikely ally for them.
I don't trust those jihadi web sites. I think someone is jerking the US press around, and it could be anybody, including USG.
It doesn't matter, anyway. We historians don't believe in the great man theory, unlike the Bush administration. Zarqawi leads a social movement of several hundred persons, if he exists at all. If he is killed, the social movement will just go on.
http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/zarqawi-myth-jordanian-terrorist-abu.html

John Nichols, State Dems Should Push Iraq Pullout, Capital Times, 6/7/05: When Wisconsin Democrats gather for their state convention in Oshkosh this weekend, they should join the Democratic parties of the states of California, Massachusetts and New Mexico in officially calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
The movement by state parties to pass "bring the troops home" resolutions, which has been spearheaded by the Progressive Democrats of America organization, is an important component of the burgeoning campaign to prevent the loss of more lives in the Iraqi quagmire. While it is true that a growing number of Republicans have come out against the war, it remains essential that Democrats in Congress give voice to the sentiment of the 57 percent of Americans who, according to last month's CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, no longer believe the war is worth the human and economic toll it has imposed on the United States.
Why does it matter for state Democratic parties to pass anti-war resolutions?
Democrats at the federal level need to feel pressure from the grass roots…
Borrowing from the resolutions already enacted by the state parties of California, Massachusetts and New Mexico, Wisconsin Democrats ought to vote this weekend for a resolution that simply states:
WHEREAS: The Bush administration, using false intelligence estimates, misled the country into an illegal, unnecessary and unwise invasion and occupation of Iraq, against a country that had neither attacked nor posed an immediate threat to the United States, thus jeopardizing our national security; and
WHEREAS: As a result of that action, more than 1,650 American troops have been killed and more than 12,500 other brave Americans have been maimed or injured, and tens of thousands of Iraqis, including many innocent civilians, have also lost their lives, been injured, and seen their property and country's infrastructure destroyed; and
WHEREAS: The invasion and occupation have created a severe burden on our economy, stretched the capacity of our armed forces including Reserve and National Guard troops who are serving unexpectedly long and difficult tours in Iraq, and continues to cause deep concern at home and abroad about the policies and intentions of the United States to the point where the United States is widely regarded with suspicion, hostility and distrust, and elections in Iraq confirmed that Iraqis wish the United States to withdraw
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the Wisconsin Democratic Party calls for termination of the occupation at the earliest possible time with the withdrawal of American troops, coupled with the creation of an international body that can assist the Iraqi people in freely and peacefully determining their own future, and that we participate in multi-lateral reconstruction.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/060805L.shtml

Bush Abomination's #1 Failure: National Security
Bush Abomination's #2 Failure: Economic Security
Bush Abomination's #3 Failure: Environmental Security
Illegitimate, Incompentent, Corrupt...
John P. O'Neill Wall of Heroes
Kulchur War, Defense of Science, Separation of Church & State

Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security

Center for American Progress, Integrated Power: A National Security Strategy for the 21st Century, Executive Summary, 6/7/05: The United States can best protect the American people and advance its interests by adopting a new national security strategy based on an integrated approach to using American power. The Center for American Progress in its new national security strategy, Integrated Power, argues that America's interests are best achieved through a multidimensional approach that spurns the false dichotomy between the concepts of "hard" and "soft" power and views them instead as two strands of the same cord. By merging the many and varied powers of the United States - military, economic, political, cultural, and diplomatic, among others - the country will be in the strongest position to address threats, prevent conflicts, and recapture its moral leadership...
Here, our recommendations diverge significantly from the Bush administration's approach. In particular, Integrated Power recommends:
Attack Global Terrorist Networks
• Enlarge the active duty Army by 86,000 troops.
• Reengage in the Middle East peace process.
• Create a credible exit strategy from Iraq; clearly state our intention not to maintain any permanent military bases in Iraq or Afghanistan.
• Enhance intelligence and law enforcement capabilities and punish terrorist financers.
• Engage in a broad public diplomacy campaign designed to counter distorted perceptions of U.S. policies and values.
Counter the Nuclear Threat
• Engage in both multilateral and bilateral discussions with Iran and North Korea.
• Condition fulfillment of $3 billion of foreign aid to Pakistan on full access to A.Q. Khan
• Double funding to secure nuclear weapons and materials.
• Stop developing new nuclear bunker buster weapons.
• Develop a new nuclear posture for deployment and disarmament of our nuclear force.
Protect the Homeland
• Improve intelligence sharing within the federal government and establish Homeland Security Operations Centers in critical locations to improve the flow of threat information between federal and state and local authorities.
• Implement action plans to protect critical infrastructure such as ports, nuclear power plants, and chemical plants.
• Reexamine visa policies that have significantly slowed the flow of scholars, scientists, and students coming to the United States.
Prevent Conflict, Promote Prosperity
• Support the "responsibility to protect" doctrine and exert leadership to stop genocide in Darfur.
• Establish a new Department of International Development to oversee foreign assistance and conflict-prevention programs.
• Meet Millennium Development goals by increasing foreign assistance five-fold to 0.7 percent of GNP by 2015.
• Lead an aggressive effort to achieve final agreement in the Doha Development Round of international trade negotiations.
Advance Democracy
• Go beyond rhetoric and provide enduring support for democratic institutions and the rule of law.
• Monitor and press for human rights no matter the country.
• Work with democratic allies to support opposition movements in countries oppressed by tyranny.
Pursue Energy independence
• Recognize that energy policy is integral to our national security policy and work to achieve energy independence.
• Increase energy efficiency in transportation, new buildings, and household appliances.
• Deploy renewable energy sources by requiring that 25 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources, investing in biofuels, and investing in the development of future fuels.
• Modernize America's energy infrastructure.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=742277

Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure: Economic Security

Paul Krugman, Losing Our Country, New York Times, 6/10/05: Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages.
Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty.
But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.
Why is this happening? I'll have more to say on that another day, but for now let me just point out that middle-class America didn't emerge by accident. It was created by what has been called the Great Compression of incomes that took place during World War II, and sustained for a generation by social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions and progressive taxation. Since the 1970's, all of those sustaining forces have lost their power.
Since 1980 in particular, US government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families - and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless. From tax cuts that favor the rich to bankruptcy "reform" that punishes the unlucky, almost every domestic policy seems intended to accelerate our march back to the robber baron era.
It's not a pretty picture - which is why right-wing partisans try so hard to discredit anyone who tries to explain to the public what's going on…
The fact is that working families aren't sharing in the economy's growth, and face growing economic insecurity. And there's good reason to believe that a society in which most people can reasonably be considered middle class is a better society - and more likely to be a functioning democracy - than one in which there are great extremes of wealth and poverty.
Reversing the rise in inequality and economic insecurity won't be easy: the middle-class society we have lost emerged only after the country was shaken by depression and war. But we can make a start by calling attention to the politicians who systematically make things worse in catering to their contributors. Never mind that straw man, the politics of envy. Let's try to do something about the politics of greed.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061005G.shtml

Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

John Vidal, Revealed: How Oil Giant Influenced Bush, Guardian, 6/8/05: President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian…
In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable…
Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in the US government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by Greenpeace under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is not the case.
"Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you [the Global Climate Coalition]," says one briefing note before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US industry group, which was dominated by Exxon…
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/060805Y.shtml

Steve Connor, G8 scientists tell Bush: Act now - or else, An unprecedented warning as global warming worsens, Independent/UK, 6/8/05: An unprecedented joint statement issued by the leading scientific academies of the world has called on the G8 governments to take urgent action to avert a global catastrophe caused by climate change.
The national academies of science for all the G8 countries, along with those of Brazil, India and China, have warned that governments must no longer procrastinate on what is widely seen as the greatest danger facing humanity. The statement, which has taken months to finalise, is all the more important as it is signed by Bruce Alberts, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, which has warned George Bush about the dangers of ignoring the threat posed by global warming…
Lord May of Oxford, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's national academy of sciences, lambasted President Bush yesterday for ignoring his own scientists by withdrawing from the Kyoto treaty. "The current US policy on climate change is misguided. The Bush administration has consistently refused to accept advice of the US National Academy of Sciences ... Getting the US on board is critical because of the sheer amount of greenhouse gas emissions they are responsible for," Lord May said…
1958: A US scientist, Charles Keeling, begins measuring the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) on an extinct volcano in Hawaii. It stands at 315 parts per million (ppm).
1968: The US spacecraft 'Apollo 8' takes the first pictures of Earth from a distance, beautiful but fragile - which help start modern environmentalism. The C02 level has reached 323ppm.
1972: The UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm - the moment when the world first recognises environmental threats to the Earth as a whole. CO2 now at 327ppm.
1988: The world wakes up to the danger of climate change, with an outspoken warning from scientists, and a speech by Margaret Thatcher. CO2 level stands at 351ppm.
1992: The Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro sees more than 100 countries sign the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the first global warming treaty. CO2 now at 356ppm.
1995: The Kyoto protocol to the UN's climate treaty is signed in Japan, binding countries, including the US, to make cuts in their CO2 emissions. The CO2 level has now reached 360ppm.
2000: Obvious that the 1990s were the hottest decade in the global temperature record, with 1998 the hottest year in the northern hemisphere for 1,000 years. CO2 is 369ppm.
2001: George Bush withdraws the US, the world's biggest CO2 emitter, from Kyoto, alleging it will damage America's economy - jeopardising the whole process. CO2 level now at 371ppm.
2003: First two weeks of August are the hottest period ever recorded in western Europe: 35,000 people die. New record high temperature for Britain. CO2 now at 375ppm.
2004: After much dithering, Russia ratifies Kyoto, enabling the protocol to enter into force despite the desertion of the United States. But that doesn't stop the CO2 level rising to 377ppm.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=645071

JUSTIN M. NORTON, Mayors Sign Urban Environmental Accords, Associated Press, 6/6/05: Mayors from around the world on Sunday signed an international treaty calling for increased use of public transportation and drastic cuts to the amount of trash sent to landfills.
The signing of the "Urban Environmental Accords" capped the United Nations World Environment Day Conference in San Francisco. The nonbinding accords list 21 specific actions that can make cities greener.
San Francisco was the first U.S. city to host the annual conference…
The accords call for policies to expand affordable public transportation coverage for city residents within a decade. They also call for increasing access to safe drinking water, with a goal of access for all by 2015.
Other goals include creating an accessible park or recreation space within a half-mile of every city resident by 2015 and achieving zero growth in the amount of waste being sent to landfills and incinerators by 2040.
Among the most pressing issues was a recommendation to increase the use of renewable energy to meet 10 percent of a city's peak electric load within seven years.

Illegitimate, Incompetent, Corrupt…

Jason Nisse, US Probes Isle of Man Scheme Used by Billionaire Bush Donors, Independent UK, 6/5/05: The Manhattan District Attorney, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are jointly probing a tax-shelter plan run out of the Isle of Man.
The scheme, devised by one of America's biggest banks and used by two billionaire donors to George Bush's election campaign among others, is being probed for possible breaches of securities and anti-money-laundering rules.
The investigating bodies believed that up to $100m (£55m) of tax was saved through one scheme alone, and as much as $700m in taxes may have been avoided over an 11-year period…
Earlier this year the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, started probing allegations that some of these trusts were controlled by the people passing on the stock options. Both the IRS and the SEC have now joined in this probe.
They have contacted the regulators on the Isle of Man asking for information on one particular scheme used by two Texan billionaire brothers, Charles and Sam Wyly.
The duo, who made their money in computing and retailing, not only gave over $200,000 to President Bush's re-election campaigns, but also bankrolled TV adverts attacking his rivals, John Kerry and Senator John McCain…
The Isle of Man authorities have passed documents to US investigators relating to 20 different entities linked to the Wyly brothers that are registered in the Irish Sea tax haven. One, Devotion Ltd, is a holding company with two directors and no employees; it is run, according to SEC filings, from a remote farm on the island. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/060505X.shtml

Tim Jones, Lost coins are a hot potato for GOP, Ohio party bigwig under investigation in the disapperance of at least $12 million in worker's compensation funds invested in his business, Chicago Tribune, 6/3/05: In what is all-too-predictably being labeled "Coingate," state and federal authorities have sicced their investigative dogs on the activities of Thomas Noe, a Toledo coin collector who was chairman of President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign in northwest Ohio and who, over the years, has been a lawn sprinkler of campaign cash to major Republican candidates in the state.
Noe is in trouble because an estimated $12 million to $13 million in state money from a worker's compensation fund is missing after being invested in rare coin funds that Noe controls.
Authorities say they are pursuing criminal charges, and Noe, the gregarious, 50-year-old bankrolling confidant of Ohio Republicans, has become political poison. His former friends, including the governor, couldn't be running any faster to get away from him and the taint of scandal.
Gov. Bob Taft, U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine and three other statewide officeholders with gubernatorial ambitions announced this week that they are giving up about $60,000 they had received from Noe.
In Washington, the Republican National Committee said Thursday it would donate to charities $6,000 that the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC received from Noe and his wife, Bernadette. The Bush campaign received more than $100,000 raised by Noe. RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said remaining contributions "appear to be completely appropriate."
Bush met with Noe last October to thank him and his wife for their fundraising efforts. Bush narrowly won Ohio, whose 19 electoral votes enabled him to secure a second term.
In the meantime, a federal grand jury this week began investigating contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign that had any connection to Noe…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0506030150jun03,1,4870310.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

John O’Neill Wall of Heroes

Illegal Detentions in Iraq by US Pose Great Challenge: Annan, Reuters, 6/9/05: Thousands of people are detained in Iraq without due process in apparent violation of international law, the United Nations said on Wednesday, adding that 6,000 of the country's 10,000 prisoners were in the hands of the U.S. military.
In Iraq, "one of the major human rights challenges remains the detention of thousands of persons without due process," Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council.
According to the Iraqi Justice Ministry, there were about 10,000 detainees in all of Iraq as of April, "6,000 of whom were in the custody of the Multinational Force" commanded by the United States, Annan said.
"Despite the release of some detainees, their number continues to grow. Prolonged detention without access to lawyers and courts is prohibited under international law including during states of emergency," his report said…
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0609-04.htm

Amanda Griscom Little, Esprit de Gore, Gore is transforming into fiery climate evangelist, Grist, 6/8/05: Last Saturday in San Francisco, the self-described "guy who used to be the next president of the United States" delivered an hour-long multimedia presentation on the scientific evidence of global warming to hundreds of guests crammed into a tent for the culmination of the city's five-day-long U.N. World Environment Day celebration. The audience, peppered with celebrities, members of Congress, U.N. officials, and dozens of mayors from around the world, erupted into a standing ovation when Gore wrapped up his quasi-evangelical call to action.
Thrusting his fists skyward, he rattled off the seemingly insurmountable challenges civilization has overcome in the past -- slavery, communism, restricted suffrage, segregation, disease, apartheid -- and roared, "So now we are called to use our political institution, our democracy, our free speech, our reasoning capacity, our citizenship, our hearts, and talk with one another, reason with one another, see the reality of this problem, act as Americans, and understand that it's a different issue than any we've ever faced." Then the crescendo: "We have to make our stand!" he thundered. "This is our home! We must keep our eyes on the prize! Help solve this problem!"
Not all of the speech was so histrionic. There were frequent moments of comic relief, including parodic animation from the producers of The Simpsons about how global warming works. And Gore succeeded in telling the climate-change story with surprisingly good narrative rhythm and in accessible terms rather than overly wonky or academic language -- something few public figures have managed, or even attempted, to do…
Other highlights of the presentation included a gasp-inducing photo montage of the "drunken" forests, collapsed homes, and ruptured highways that are among the casualties of melting permafrost, and detailed scenarios about the cities that would be lost given various potential changes in sea levels. When showing downtown Manhattan submerged, with the World Trade Center among the casualties, he alluded to the Sept. 11 attacks: "Never again, we said." Then added, "Is it only terrorists that we're worried about? Is that the only threat to the future that is worth organizing to respond to?"
Perhaps most persuasive was Gore's argument that mandatory caps on planet-warming emissions can give countries a big economic advantage in the 21st-century global marketplace, by driving innovation and boosting demand for hot new technologies related to renewable energy and efficiency. "We cannot even sell our cars in China because we don't meet their emissions standards!" he balked.
Google cofounder Sergey Brin, whose company was a World Environment Day cosponsor, reinforced this point later in the evening with a speech asserting that the coming paradigm shift toward clean technologies is an industrial movement that will dwarf even the digital revolution in terms of economic potential and historical meaning…
Former Republican Rep. Pete McCloskey said the performance was "Dynamite! If that isn't the kick in the pants that will galvanize the American public, I don't know what is." Culinary celeb Alice Waters added, "It should be required viewing for every person in this country."
That's precisely what Hollywood producer-cum-eco-activist Laurie David aims to make happen. On Saturday, before the event, she met with Gore and a team of directors to discuss hitherto undisclosed plans to make a feature-length film out of his climate-change presentation. "It's a documentary of this brilliant briefing that he's been crisscrossing the country to deliver, with his own personal story woven through," David told Muckraker. "The idea is to make it as much a wake-up call on the climate crisis as it is a window into Al Gore and his 20-year commitment to this issue." She describes the stylistic approach as "equal parts Fog of War and Bowling for Columbine." If the deal goes forward -- and all the funding has been secured, so it's looking like a go -- David hopes to have the documentary released by December, in time for Academy Awards consideration.
http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2005/06/09/little-gore/index.html

Ann Wright, Resigned Foreign Service Officer Speaks Out—We Stand for Something Different, Foreign Policy In Focus, 6/2/05: When I resigned, two years ago, in opposition to the war in Iraq, in the first two days after my resignation I received over 400 emails from Foreign Service officers and members of international organizations. Most were saying that we are so glad that I had joined two other Foreign Service officers who didn’t want this kind of mess on our karma. It did take me 35 years to finally kind of see the light on some things. See the light and after having been involved in a lot of other types of things through my diplomatic services. In Somalia, as head of the United Nations Justice Office in Mogadishu, setting up the police judicial system, prison system. In Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, opening up embassies there. Then in Sierra Leone and Micronesia. Then re-opening the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan in December of 2001 and staying there for four months.
Then going on to Mongolia, which turned out to be my last assignment. And there in Mongolia, seeing the—seeing in spades why America is so despised right now. I saw the extortion that the Bush administration is using on the world to wage his war on Iraq. when you extort small little countries like Mongolia by telling them that you’re going to cut off all their economic aid, you’re going to cut off all their aid—they were only getting $10 million dollars in economic aid—and all their military aid, which only was peacekeeping training for their tiny little military—unless they voted with the United States on the Article 98 provision of the International Criminal Court. So vote against the International Criminal Court, and tell us how many soldiers you’re going to put into the Coalition of the Willing.
Such a contrast with the Global Good Neighbor Policy—we need to be moving in that direction.
The Mongolians are tough people. They say, “We were the last ones in Baghdad before you all,”—remember Genghis Khan. Well, the Mongolians were very good diplomatically; they kept us at bay. Having to go in as a diplomat to say, “If you don’t vote against Article 98, you know, we’ll have to cut off your aid.” That was part of the puzzle that forces you finally to say, “I have had enough, I am not going to do any more of this stuff.”
This extortion was also true with on of the items you mention in the Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations—the Millennium Challenge Account. Well, the Mongolians were rising to the top tier of those countries that possibly would be eligible for part of this $5 billion in this new development account.
We were always wondering what in the world was the Bush administration of all administrations doing kicking five billion dollars into international aid? Why was that? Well, looking back on it, I think it truly was from the very early days of the administration—it was going to be used as a bargaining tool on the war in Iraq. And indeed, they created it for that purpose, so that they could, for little countries like Mongolia, that maybe they would get 100 million dollars out of this big pot of money. It was a major, major, major deal for the Mongolians to finally say and to move off their principles of initially saying we think the International Criminal Court is a very good idea and we don’t think going to war in Iraq is a good idea.
When they were extorted by our administration, by our country, by the government that maybe half the country elected. That’s horrible stuff. We are the bad neighbors that we are, and I was a part of it, tragically, in way too many ways. The world needs to know America stands for something different. Americans need to know that we stand for something different, and I think your document does a very, very fine job of getting us moving in a dialogue that will help us try to move out of this horrible predicament that we’re in right now.
http://www.irc-online.org/content/ggn/bio.wright.php.

Tom Bowman, Unceremonious End to Army Career, Outspoken general fights demotion, The Baltimore Sun, 5/29/05: John Riggs spent 39 years in the Army, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery during the Vietnam War and working his way up to become a three-star general entrusted with creating a high-tech Army for the 21st century.
But on a spring day last year, Riggs was told by senior Army officials that he would be retired at a reduced rank, losing one of his stars because of infractions considered so minor that they were not placed in his official record.
He was given 24 hours to leave the Army. He had no parade in review, no rousing martial music, no speeches or official proclamations praising his decades in uniform, the trappings that normally herald a high-level military retirement.
Instead, Riggs went to a basement room at Fort Myer, Va., and signed some mandatory forms. Then a young sergeant mechanically presented him with a flag and a form letter of thanks from President Bush.
"That's the coldest way in the world to leave," Riggs, 58, said in a drawl that betrays his rural roots in southeast Missouri. "It's like being buried and no one attends your funeral."
So what cost Riggs his star?
His Pentagon superiors said he allowed outside contractors to perform work they were not supposed to do, creating "an adverse command climate."
But some of the general's supporters believe the motivation behind his demotion was politics. Riggs was blunt and outspoken on a number of issues and publicly contradicted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by arguing that the Army was overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan and needed more troops…
"They all went bat s- - when that happened," recalled retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, a one-time Pentagon adviser who ran reconstruction efforts in Iraq in the spring of 2003. "The military part of [the defense secretary's office] has been politicized. If [officers] disagree, they are ostracized and their reputations are ruined."
A senior officer's loss of a star is a punishment seldom used, and then usually for the most serious offenses, such as dereliction of duty or command failures, adultery or misuse of government funds or equipment.
Over the past several decades, generals and admirals faced with far more serious official findings - scandals at the Navy's Tailhook Convention, the Air Force Academy and Abu Ghraib prison, for example - have continued in their careers or retired with no loss of rank…
Garner and 40 other Riggs supporters - including an unusually candid group of retired generals - are trying to help restore his rank.
But even his most ardent supporters concede that his appeal has little chance of succeeding and that an act of Congress might be required…
In 2001, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army's top officer, asked Riggs to take over the Army's transformation task force. The group was organized to create an Army for the 21st century, centered on the Future Combat System, a series of armored vehicles, drone aircraft and sensors that would give soldiers greater control over future battlefields.
Those who worked with Riggs, as well as his endorsement letters, say the general worked hard at trying to turn the Army into a high-tech force.
The December 2002 Scientific American magazine singled him out as one of the country's top 50 technology leaders for his work…
In a January 2004 interview with The Sun, Riggs said the Army was too small to meet its global commitments and must be substantially increased.
The interview made him the first senior active-duty officer to publicly urge a larger Army - and the first to publicly take on Rumsfeld and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who had repeatedly told lawmakers that such increases were not necessary.
After the interview appeared, Pentagon sources said, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz stormed into the office of the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., and demanded an explanation for Riggs' views. Riggs said Casey called him that day and ordered him not to talk about troop increases but to "stay in your lane."
Casey, Riggs said, then asked him when he was planning to retire…
Former Army Secretary Thomas White, who was fired by Rumsfeld over policy differences and was succeeded by Brownlee, praised Riggs' work and said he found the reduction in rank puzzling. But White, a retired Army brigadier general, questioned the notion that the officer corps had suddenly become politicized.
"It's always been political," White said. "It operates in a capital filled with politicians. I don't know if it's more or less than it was 20 years ago."
Nonetheless, several senior officers said they privately fear that Riggs' treatment could have a chilling effect on the willingness of other officers to provide their candid views, forcing them instead to bend to the political winds. Five of the retired officers who wrote letters urging that Riggs' rank be restored agreed either to be interviewed or to let their letters be quoted.
One of those was Shinseki, who himself had a stormy relationship with Rumsfeld and battled with the secretary over troop levels and spending programs. At his retirement ceremony in June 2003, Shinseki warned "our soldiers and families bear the risk and hardship of carrying a mission load that exceeds the force capabilities we can sustain."
Neither Rumsfeld nor his top deputies were in attendance.
In his letter of support for Riggs, Shinseki said, "There was no one who was more professional, more honest, more selfless, more dedicated, nor more loyal to the Army and to its soldiers than John Riggs."
Riggs has become an outcast, saddled with a reduction in rank that is one of the harshest and rarest punishments in an institution built on honor and rank…
But Garner, the retired lieutenant general, has a more hardened view of the Army's top brass and is troubled by what happened to Riggs, "this superb soldier."
"The real tragedy here," Garner said in an interview, "is that none of the leadership of the Army has the guts to stand up and say it's wrong."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.riggs29may29,1,2860514.story?coll=bal-home-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

Kulchur War, Defense of Science, Separation of Church & State

LNS Oceania Review June 2005 Editorial

At least 1,669 US soldiers have died in the Bush Abomination's foolish military adventure in Iraq. That's at least 88 more than the May Day issue of LNS Oceania Review, and well over the average of one US soldier per day. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. Nothing more. Our young men and women in the military are losing their lives (in more ways than one) everyday in the Mega-Mogadishu of Iraq and yet the opposition leaders prattle on about health care, social security and education...Meanwhile, W Jong Il, the Maximum Leader of the Minimally Minded, pouts and gloats atop the edifice of the new One Party apparatus being relentlessly, ruthlessly installed before our eyes. There are political commissars in the corporations to make sure you donate to the right PACs. There are political commissars in the churches to make sure you vote for the right candidate. There are political commissars in the newsrooms to make sure you only hear what they want you to hear or at least that you hear what you have to hear how they want you to hear it...Two consecutive presidential elections have been stolen, war crimes have been perpetrated in our name, treason has been committed against the Republic (pre- and post-9/11), our national treasury has been gutted and we as a nation have been plunged into economic disaster by robber barons, we have lost four years already in a race against time to save the planet from environmental disaster, and yet in spite of it all, the US news media is unabashedly carrying the filthy water of the Bush cabal. They are wholly complicit...We are living in the midst of a prolonged national nightmare. When will the political leadership of the opposition wake up? Perhaps not at all. They should declare a national emergency on the floors of both the House and the Senate. They should refuse to cooperate in any way on any issue with the illegitimate regime or its lackeys and co-conspirators in the wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party. Instead, they talk about "why we lost" and "how we were beaten," they talk about "new agendas" and "reaching people in red states," and "what's wrong" in their political style or approach and how to "fix it." They prattle on about health care, social security and education -- as if we just have "do a better job at getting our message across." Some say “we should move to the right,” some say “we should move to the left.” At best, they are living in deep denial; but, sadly, it is more likely that Mark Crispin Miller was right when he told me they are simply "craven." [NOTE: make no mistake, however, the many failures of the Democratic Party do not absolve or vindicate the shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader for his betrayal of all that is good.] What will it take to turn this country around and restore the Republic? Here is an agenda to share with your friends: 1. A return to fair elections and a free press in the USA, 2. An independent investigation of the Bush abomination on charges of treason and war crimes, 3. Strong medicine to put the nation on the road to recovery from the economic and environmental disasters induced by the Bush Abomination. But this agenda, the only one that address the grim realities of our circumstances, will require political leadership willing to risk everything, "lives, fortunes and sacred honor," to restore the republic.
The LNS Oceania Review June 2005 is organized into ten sections in three parts *plus* a special supplement on the most abhorrent stories of the month. [NOTE: We are no longer posting full texts, only excerpts and URLs.]
The Liberation News Service began publishing on a daily basis everyday, like a shaman’s drum beat in a rain dance, until the 2004 election in an attempt to right the wrong of the coup in 2000. Subsequently, we published a series weekly and bi-weekly Post Coup II Supplements to document the theft of the 2004 election. Since the swearing in of W Jong Il for his second term, we have published a monthly digest, the LNS Oceania Review, to provide some context for the second term and what it would mean to us all. Now, we are entering yet another phase. Moving forward, we will be publishing brief and timely bulletins as we see fit and we will keep the LNS searchable database live and current, refreshing as needed, for researchers and students.
Down the road, there will be more...Stay tuned…
Meanwhile…Remember, and resist…Listen to Air America! Donate to F.A.I.R. and www.mediamatters.org. Listen to Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! Subscribe to The Nation. Support the bastions of the Internet-based information rebellion, www.truthout.org, www.consortiumnews.com, www.buzzflash.com, www.gregpalast.com, etc.
As Dunston Woods, LNS Foreign Correspondent says, "We didn't start the Kulchur War, but we will damn well finish it!"

LNS Oceania Review June 2005 Part I:

1. Death of the Republic?
2. Theft of 2004 Election
3. Complicity of the Corporatist News Media
4. The War is Iraq is Worse than Immoral or Illegal, It is Stupid, Insanely Stupid

Death of the Republic?

Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune Memorial Day Editorial, 5/30/05l: In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.
The "smoking gun," as some call it, surfaced on May 1 in the London Times. It is a highly classified document containing the minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting at 10 Downing Street in which Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair on talks he'd just held in Washington. His mission was to determine the Bush administration's intentions toward Iraq…
It turns out that former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill were right. Both have been pilloried for writing that by summer 2002 Bush had already decided to invade...
As this bloody month of car bombs and American deaths -- the most since January -- comes to a close, as we gather in groups small and large to honor our war dead, let us all sing of their bravery and sacrifice. But let us also ask their forgiveness for sending them to a war that should never have happened. In the 1960s it was Vietnam. Today it is Iraq. Let us resolve to never, ever make this mistake again. Our young people are simply too precious.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5427823.html

Bill Gallagher, Niagara Falls Reporter, 5/10/05: When historians write about our times, they'll shake their heads and wonder how so many people could believe so many lies for so long. They might actually write two parallel books -- one describing the cascading lies and deceptions George W. Bush and the Republicans sold and the other telling the truth.
We're told, in effect, that trampling on civil liberties and eroding freedom are a sure way to protect us from terrorists who envy our freedom. That colossal lie will be one of the lasting stains on this era, and I fear the day coming when the Busheviks or their political heirs, gripped in fascist fever, will silence those who expose the fraud…
The Sunday Times of London got hold of the minutes of a 2002 meeting Blair had with members of his cabinet to discuss consultations with the Bush people on U.S. intentions toward Iraq…
The words of Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, blow the lid off the lies. Known as "C" in spy talk, his read on the U.S. position contained in the memo tells all…
George W. Bush lied to the world when he said he sought peace in Iraq and war was a "last resort." That's what historians will write and they now have a document proving it.
Journalism is often called the first draft of history. For the most part, America's big corporate media's first draft of Bush's war has been devoted to his propagating lies. That's very dangerous in a fragile democracy.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0510-32.htm

Bill Moyers, Closing Address, National Conference on Media Reform, 5/16/05: Without a trace of irony, the powers-that-be have appropriated the newspeak vernacular of George Orwell’s “1984.” They give us a program vowing “No Child Left Behind” while cutting funds for educating disadvantaged kids. They give us legislation cheerily calling for “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests” that give us neither. And that’s just for starters.
In Orwell’s “1984”, the character Syme, one of the writers of that totalitarian society’s dictionary, explains to the protagonist Winston, “Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?” "Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? The whole climate of thought,” he said, “will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy – or worse…
I would like to give Mr. Tomlinson the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t. According to a book written about the Reader’s Digest when he was its Editor-in-Chief, he surrounded himself with other right-wingers -- a pattern he’s now following at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. There is Ms. Andrews from the White House. For Acting President he hired Ken Ferrer from the FCC, who was Michael Powell’s enforcer when Powell was deciding how to go about allowing the big media companies to get even bigger. According to a forthcoming book, one of Ferrer’s jobs was to engage in tactics designed to dismiss any serious objection to media monopolies. And, according to Eric Alterman, Ferrer was even more contemptuous than Michael Powell of public participation in the process of determining media ownership. Alterman identifies Ferrer as the FCC staffer who decided to issue a ‘protective order’ designed to keep secret the market research on which the Republican majority on the commission based their vote to permit greater media consolidation.
t’s not likely that with guys like this running the CPB some public television producer is going to say, “Hey, let’s do something on how big media is affecting democracy.”
Call it preventive capitulation.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0516-34.htm

Sidney Blumenthal, www.salon.com, 5/26/05: President Bush's drive for absolute power has momentarily stalled. In a single coup, he planned to take over all the institutions of government. By crushing the traditions of the Senate he would pack the courts, especially the Supreme Court, with lock-step ideologues. Sheer force would prevail. But just as his blitzkrieg reached the outskirts of his objective he was struck by a mutiny. Within a span of 24 hours he lost control not only of the Senate but, temporarily, of the House of Representatives, which was supposed to be regimented by unquestioned loyalty. Now he prepares to launch a counterattack -- against the dissident elements of his own party.
Bush's wonder weapon for total victory was a device called the "nuclear option." Once triggered, it would obliterate a 200-year-old tradition of the Senate…
By depriving Democrats of the filibuster, Bush intended to transform the Senate into his rubber stamp…
Over the weekend, two elders, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., together privately pored over the Federalist Papers, written by the constitutional framers, to refresh their thinking about the inviolability of the Senate. On Monday, seven Republicans and seven Democrats signed a pact that preserved the filibuster under "extraordinary" circumstances and allowed several of Bush's appointments to be voted on.
The mutiny is broader than is apparent. More than the seven Republican signatories supported the accord, but they let the others take a public stance without revealing themselves. Bush's radicalism offended their conservatism…
The day after Bush was frustrated by Republicans in the Senate, 50 Republicans in the House deserted him on the issue of stem cell research. His policy limiting scientific work that might cure many diseases is a sop to the religious right, which views the stem cell question as an extension of abortion. (Historians will discover that in early August 2001 Bush was immersed in delivering a nationally televised speech on stem cells while ignoring the CIA memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.") Debate in the House was marshaled by Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who argued that Bush's policy must be supported because "Jesus of Nazareth" began life as an embryo. (DeLay was apparently oblivious to his heresy on the doctrine of Immaculate Conception.) Bush promised to veto the stem cell bill passed with massive Republican defections, the irony of his opposition to the filibuster going unmentioned. http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0524-15.htm

Eric Alterman, How to lose a country in seven easy steps, MSNBC, 5/26/05: Point one: The Bush administration is, as this piece in today’s Washington Post puts it, working to “consolidate influence in a small circle of Republicans and to marginalize dissenting voices that would try to impede a conservative agenda
Point Two: They are doing so with a historically unprecedented, at least in this country, degree of secrecy, and therefore lack of accountability
Point Three: These same people, acting with unprecedented centralization of power, and secrecy, have taken it upon themselves to suspend the most basic rights enumerated in our constitution, and are carrying out the functional equivalent of a police state on Guantanamo Bay, and at various prisons around the world
Point Four: While they pay rhetorical tribute to “democracy,” they side with tyrants whenever convenient.
Point Five: In response to even the most carefully documented evidence, the White House simply refuses to engage and, instead, impugns the character of those who present it, like this: “In response, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said, 'I think the allegations are ridiculous, and unsupported by the facts.'" They also take Orwellian doublespeak to a level that would have embarrassed Orwell. “'We've also - are leading the way when it comes to spreading compassion,’ Mr. McClellan said."
Point Six: And one reason they get away with it is that many in the media, even alleged “liberals” are eager to help. And I don’t mean just Fox, Rush, and the entire structure of the conservative echo machine. (See below)
Point Seven: No less important in allowing it all to take place, is that the so-called “Gang of 500,”—the insiders of the mainstream media, do not really care about any of the above. Here, according to the (functional, but not intentional) commissars at “The Note” are the top concerns of the day:
1. Waiting for the Rosen verdict (and wondering if it will have any political impact either way).
2. Watching the filibuster deal starting to fray over some of the ambiguities.
3. Measuring George Voinovich's emotional state as the Bolton vote approaches.
4. Calibrating if Sen. McCain's political stock is up or down since Monday in a macro sense, and in which direction it is headed.
5. Picking through the tea leaves on stem cells and the highway bill and trying to figure out what will happen.
6. Potential French rejection of the EU treaty and its effect on trans-Atlantic power balances (permit us a brief moment of wonkiness).
Call me shrill, ideological, or whatever you like, but I think we’re losing our Constitution, our civil liberties, and in many significant respects, our country. When future historians look back on this period, they will wonder, most of all, I think, how we let it go without a fight. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/

Robert Parry, The Answer is Fear, www.consortiumnnews.com, 5/26/05: One benefit of the new AM progressive talk radio in cities around the United States is that the call-in shows have opened a window onto the concerns – and confusion – felt by millions of Americans trying to figure out how their country went from a democratic republic to a modern-day empire based on a cult of personality and a faith-based rejection of reason.
“What went wrong?” you hear them ask. “How did we get here?”
You also hear more detailed questions: “Why won’t the press do its job of holding George W. Bush accountable for misleading the country to war in Iraq? How could the intelligence on Iraq have been so wrong? Why do America’s most powerful institutions sit back while huge trade and budget deficits sap away the nation’s future?”
There are, of course, many answers to these questions. But from my 27 years in the world of Washington journalism and politics, I would say that the most precise answer can be summed up in one word: fear.
It’s not fear of physical harm. That's not how it works in Washington. For the professionals in journalism and in intelligence, it’s a smaller, more corrosive fear – of lost status, of ridicule, of betrayal, of unemployment. It is the fear of getting blackballed from a community of colleagues or a profession that has given your life much of its meaning and its financial sustenance…
So, what’s the answer? If a big part of the problem is fear, how can fear be overcome?
It’s simply not enough to tell journalists, politicians and others that they must buck up and do the right thing, especially when people who do show courage are systematically destroyed and made into object lessons for colleagues left behind.
If individuals are expected to be courageous, there must be courageous institutions to surround and protect them. That’s why the creation of a counter-infrastructure – one that will take on both the powerful conservative infrastructure and the cowardly mainstream media – is so vital.
Examples of how this counter-dynamic could work can be found in the take-no-prisoners ethos of the anti-Bush Internet sites, or in the irreverent comedy of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” or in the unabashed liberalism of the fledgling progressive talk radio.
All have shown toughness in refusing to genuflect before Bush and his enormous political power.
Just as cowardice can come in small pieces, none seeming to be that important alone but which added together can destroy a worthy cause, so courage can build one piece on top of another until a solid foundation is established from which a mighty edifice can rise.
But it is urgent that progressives begin immediately to invest in the building blocks of this new infrastructure. It's the only hope for a healthy political balance to be restored.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/052605.html

John Nichols, Hersh Sees Democracy in Peril, Capital Times (Madison, WI), 5/17/05: Seymour Hersh, arguably the greatest journalist of our time and certainly the most necessary, joined me last week at a University of Illinois conference that asked the question: "Can freedom of the press survive media consolidations?"
The Pulitzer-winning journalist reworked the question, asking: "Can freedom of the press survive the Bush presidency?"
No one is sharper in his rebukes of U.S. officials than Hersh, the man who exposed the My Lai massacre, CIA domestic spying, the role of the United States in the 1973 coup in Chile that deposed elected President Salvador Allende, Israel's nuclear ambitions and, most recently, the failures of the U.S. government in the pursuit of Osama bin Laden and the prison torture scandal at Abu Ghraib…
Hersh suggests that, unlike Kissinger, who lied but did so from a basis of knowledge, Bush spreads misinformation that the president, himself, actually thinks is true…
The problem, says Hersh, is that Bush gets information tailored to satisfy his biases and to mirror the warped view of public affairs peddled by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other adherents of the neoconservative line…
Unfortunately, Hersh does not have an easy answer for the current crisis. "I don't know how we're going to get out of this," he says. "We're not going to find leadership in Congress. ... The media, for the most part, is not doing its job."
And that is what has Hersh really worried…
"We need to do something different," says Hersh, who argues that it is necessary restore a measure of seriousness to mainstream media and to explore new options for alternative media.
The issue at stake is not one of administration, nor even one of war. It is not even the question of whether freedom of the press will survive in an era of media consolidation. It is a question of whether democracy, which the founders believed needed a free flow of information and honest debate, will survive.
"A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both," warned James Madison. "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."
In this time of tragedy in Iraq and farce in so much of our media, Hersh says, "It turns out our democracy is much more fragile than we think. We're in peril."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0517-30.htm

Charlotte Higgins, Final Star Wars Bears Message for America, Lucas wins festival trophy and hopes his epic will awaken US to democracy in peril, The Guardian UK, 5/16/05: The republic is crumbling under attack from alien forces. Democracy is threatened as the leader plays on the people's paranoia. Amid the confusion it is suddenly unclear whether the state is in more danger from insurgents, or from the leader himself.
It sounds more like a Michael Moore polemic than a Star Wars movie. But George Lucas, speaking as his latest epic was given its world premiere at Cannes yesterday, confirmed that Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, could be read as a parable about American politics.
When he conceived his series of films in the 1970s, he says, he was thinking about Vietnam and Nixon, investigating "democracy, and how a senate could give itself over, could surrender itself to a dictator".
He found historical echoes down the ages. "I looked at ancient Rome, and how, having got rid of kings, the Senate ended up with Caesar's nephew as emperor ... how democracy turns itself into a dictatorship. I also looked at revolutionary France ... and Hitler.
"It tends to follow similar patterns. Threats from outside leading to the need for more control; democracy not being able to function properly because of internal squabbling."
"I hope that situation never arises in our country," he said. "Maybe the film will awaken people to this danger."
http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2005/story/0,15927,1484795,00.html

Ted Sorenson, What JFK Might Tell Our Leaders, Boston Globe, 5/28/05: Tomorrow would have been John F. Kennedy's 88th birthday. Were he still alive, I have no doubt that, with his customary idealism and commitment to country, he would still be offering advice to our current leaders in Washington. Based upon his words of more than 40 years ago, he might well offer the following:
To President George W. Bush on Iraq, Iran, and North Korea: ''The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough -- more than enough -- of war." (American University commencement, 1963)…
To Vice President Dick Cheney on international organizations, alliances, and consultations: ''The United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. We are only 6 percent of the world's population . . . we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind." (University of Washington, 1961)
To Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on terrorism: ''If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." (Inaugural address, 1961)
To United Nations ambassador-designate John Bolton on diplomacy: ''Civility is not a sign of weakness. The United Nations [is] our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace." (Inaugural address, 1961)
To Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on space: ''We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. This new ocean must be a sea of peace, [not] a new terrifying theater of war." (Rice University, 1962)…
To White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on negative news media: ''It is never pleasant to be reading things that are not agreeable news, but it is an invaluable arm to the presidency as a check on what is going on . . . [e]ven though we never like it . . . and wish they didn't write it . . . we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press." (Television interview, 1962)
To pastor-in-chief Pat Robertson on church-state separation: ''I believe in an America where no [clergyman] would tell his parishioners for whom to vote, where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the public acts of our officials, where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference. The presidency must not be the instrument of any one religious group." (Houston ministers, 1960)…
How I miss his friendship. How our nation misses his wisdom.
Theodore C. Sorensen is former special counsel to President Kennedy.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0528-20.htm

Theft of 2004 Election

Jim Lampley, Huffington Post, 5/10/05: At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Election Day, I checked the sportsbook odds in Las Vegas and via the offshore bookmakers to see the odds as of that moment on the Presidential election. John Kerry was a two-to-one favorite. You can look it up.
People who have lived in the sports world as I have, bettors in particular, have a feel for what I am about to say about this: these people are extremely scientific in their assessments. These people understand which information to trust and which indicators to consult in determining where to place a dividing line to influence bets, and they are not in the business of being completely wrong. Oddsmakers consulted exit polling and knew what it meant and acknowledged in their oddsmaking at that moment that John Kerry was winning the election.
And he most certainly was, at least if the votes had been fairly and legally counted. What happened instead was the biggest crime in the history of the nation, and the collective media silence which has followed is the greatest fourth-estate failure ever on our soil.
Many of the participants in this blog have graduate school educations. It is damned near impossible to go to graduate school in any but the most artistic disciplines without having to learn about the basics of social research and its uncanny accuracy and validity. We know that professionally conceived samples simply do not yield results which vary six, eight, ten points from eventual data returns, thaty's why there are identifiable margins for error. We know that margins for error are valid, and that results have fallen within the error range for every Presidential election for the past fifty years prior to last fall. NEVER have exit polls varied by beyond-error margins in a single state, not since 1948 when this kind of polling began. In this past election it happened in ten states, all of them swing states, all of them in Bush's favor. Coincidence? Of course not.
Karl Rove isn't capable of conceiving and executing such a grandiose crime? Wake up. They did it. The silence of traditional media on this subject is enough to establish their newfound bankruptcy. T