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Just a few of the thousands of reasons we must clean house come November...
The Greed Factor
Sanctions against rogue regimes would have been abandoned if Dick Cheney had had his way
[A]s a private businessman, [Vice President Dick] Cheney apparently had more important interests than preventing [Saddam] Hussein from rebuilding his army. While he claimed during the 2000 campaign that, as CEO of Halliburton, he had “imposed a ‘firm policy’ against trading with Iraq,” confidential UN records show that, from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that sold more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was in charge. Halliburton acquired its interest in both firms while Cheney was at the helm, and continued doing business through them until just months before Cheney was named George W. Bush’s running mate....
From the Center for American Progress's Progress Report:
"Our highest responsibility is to the safety and security of the American people."
- Sen. Bill Frist, 9/15/04
VERSUS
Conservatives in Congress this week killed a series of proposed amendments to the Homeland Security spending bill, including funding increases to secure ports, airports, borders, chemical plants and rails, as well as to train and equip firefighters and other emergency responders.
- American Progress, 9/16/04
Far graver than Vietnam
Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
by Sidney Blumenthal for The Guardian
'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.
But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."
Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."...
Group Offers Bush Bleak Iraq Assessment
by Katherine Pfleger Shrader, Associated Press writer
WASHINGTON - The National Intelligence Council presented President Bush this summer with three pessimistic scenarios regarding the security situation in Iraq, including the possibility of a civil war there before the end of 2005.
In a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate, the council looked at the political, economic and security situation in the wartorn country and determined that — at best — a tenuous stability was possible, a U.S. official said late Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The document lays out a second scenario in which increased extremism and fragmentation in Iraqi society impede efforts to build a central government and adversely affect efforts to democratize the country.
In a third, worst-case scenario, the intelligence council contemplated "trend lines that would point to a civil war," the official said. The potential conflict could be among the country's three main populations — the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
It "would be fair" to call the document "pessimistic," the official added. But "the contents shouldn't come as a particular surprise to anyone who is following developments in Iraq. It encapsulates trends that are clearly apparent."
The intelligence estimate, which was prepared for Bush, considered the window of time between July and the end of 2005. But the official noted that the document draws on intelligence community assessments from January 2003, before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deteriorating security situation there.
This latest assessment was initiated by the National Intelligence Council, a group of senior intelligence officials that provides long-term strategic thinking for the entire U.S. intelligence community. It was completed in late August.
Acting CIA (news - web sites) Director John McLaughlin and the leaders of the other intelligence agencies approved the intelligence document, which spans about 50 pages....
C.I.A. Unit on bin Laden Is Understaffed, a Senior Official Tells Lawmakers
by James Risen
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks, despite repeated pleas from the unit's leaders for reinforcements, a senior C.I.A. officer with extensive counterterrorism experience has told Congress.
The bin Laden unit is stretched so thin that it relies on inexperienced officers rotated in and out every 60 to 90 days, and they leave before they know enough to be able to perform any meaningful work, according to a letter the C.I.A. officer has written to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees....
Why Bush Left Texas
by Russ Baker
Growing evidence suggests that George W. Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet.
A months-long investigation, which includes examination of hundreds of government-released documents, interviews with former Guard members and officials, military experts and Bush associates, points toward the conclusion that Bush's personal behavior was causing alarm among his superior officers and would ultimately lead to his fleeing the state to avoid a physical exam he might have had difficulty passing. His failure to complete a physical exam became the official reason for his subsequent suspension from flying status....
From the Center for American Progress's Progress Report:
Did Ashcroft Break the Law?
A new Government Accountability Office report found that Attorney General John Ashcroft spent more than $200,000 of taxpayer money on trips to 32 cities in August and September of 2003 to specifically whip up public support for the Patriot Act. In the process, Ashcroft may have broken the law. A 2002 federal law explicitly prohibits federal funds from being used by any executive branch agency – including the Justice Department – to lobby the public for support or defeat of legislation pending before the Congress. Ashcroft's trips came immediately after the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan amendment, sponsored by Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID), which would have limited the Patriot Act – something Ashcroft opposed and was using public money to campaign against. Ashcroft even traveled to Otter's home district to publicly lobby Otter's constituents against reforming the Patriot Act. Again, this behavior by a Cabinet secretary is prohibited by federal law. After two months of Ashcroft's taxpayer-financed trips, Congress reconvened from its summer recess and stripped out the provision from the final bill behind closed doors in a conference committee....
I place great value on the collective social contract that is the line -- the queue that forms when a group of individuals are awaiting admittance into a public event.
It stands alone as an impeccably equitable system, rewarding individuals in descending degree, each according to his specific deserts. Aside from the sort of unavoidable delays that can sometimes crop up-- car trouble, for instance, or a significant other who finds it physically impossible to get dressed in less than three-quarters of an hour -- the line affords each in attendance precisely the choice of seating he or she deserves.
Devote the time and take the trouble necessary to be first in line, and you shall, as is only fair, see spread before you, as you enter the venue, row after row of unoccupied seats, any one of which is yours for the taking (providing the event's seating is not previously assigned and designated upon each ticket).
Arrive late, and you're left scrambling for an acceptable spot, one that provides satisfactory sightlines and limited likelihood of a stiff neck.
What could be fairer?
And because I hold this unbiased and objective system dear, I take especial affront when attempts are made, as they almost always are, to skirt it.
One who knowingly attempts to jump a line is of the basest stuff. We all have our moments of selfcenteredness, but few are so clearly defined as when we strive to secure something other than our rightful place in a queue.
In doing so, one is, in effect, saying, "I am more important than these commoners. They may have arrived on the premises before me, but I nonetheless deserve to be admitted before them. My entitlement to comfort and convenience outweighs theirs."
Express those sentiments to me -- whether in so many words or by the act of cutting in line -- as I stand awaiting admittance to an evening's entertainment and you will, rest assured, be called on the carpet.
I am a fairly easygoing fellow, but amiability must have its limits.
I'm a patron of Film Forum, a three-screened non-profit theatre in New York City that features classic pictures, independent features, documentaries, foreign films, and the like. So frequently do I find myself at Film Forum that I now indulge in an annual membership there, at a level that affords me "priority" seating -- which means I don't have to stand in line, even for sold-out show -- I am allowed to enter in advance of non-members and those who have ponied up less dough for their annual memberships than have I.
When I first signed on for this rarefied level of membership, I felt terribly guilty at taking advantage of this perquisite, but those days are long past. I now revel in it (but only inwardly -- I have no desire to flaunt my privilege before those who are unable or unwilling to match my level of support for Film Forum).
Last night, I was standing in a short priority-seating line in the lobby, awaiting entrance to a sold-out double bill of F.W. Murnau silents, when I noticed a writer of some prominence at the concession counter (he will go unnamed here, as the tale I have to tell is not flattering to him). As it happened, I'd had a brief conversation with this scribe just a few days prior, and it occurred passingly to me that I might approach him and say hello.
But, really, I had nothing to say to him and, as I'd gotten a slightly odd vibe from him during our brief weekend encounter, I decided instead to keep my nose buried in the novel I was reading.
There was a lengthy line outside of non-priority attendees outside waiting for admittance, but, popcorn in hand, this scribe joined the queue behind me. He didn't appear to have the envelope the box office gives out to designate a priority membership, so I suspected he should really have been in the line outside. But it was not my job to tell him (and, as I've stated, I had no desire to speak to him), so I kept reading my book. A theatre employee would surely make an announcement, I presumed -- they always do -- that would let him know the line he belonged in was outside.
And, sure enough, that's just what happened. No more than five minutes went by before a young woman announced, "The ticketholders line for the Murnau films is outside."
"Hey," our scribe calls out, in a confrontational tone, "what if you've been standing here in this line for fifteen or twenty minutes?"
It was an interesting question, but given the he'd been standing there no more than five minutes, it was a purely hypothetical one.
"This line is for priority members," the young employee explained.
"You didn't announce that; I've been standing here for fifteen minutes," the author prevaricated
"There's a sign outside that explains that that line is for the Murnau movies."
"I came from the other direction; I didn't walk by that sign."
"I'm sorry, sir, but this line is for priority members."
The exchange continued for a bit, but the young woman, bless her heart, remained politely resolute.
So did the author, now duly informed that he was in the wrong queue, join the line outside? No, he remained in the priority line behind me. I don't know if he felt at all ashamed at having caused something of a clamor in addressing the young woman, but I was embarrassed for him.
Ten more minutes went by, the theatre was cleared after the earlier screening, and finally the priority members were allowed in. I was curious to know if the hissy fit I felt certain the author intended to throw was going to work, so, just before I entered the theatre, I looked back toward the lobby to see if he was there right behind me or if, perhaps, he was still arguing with the theatre employee, trying to gain the early admittance he coveted.
He was nowhere in sight. He had, by all appearances, been banished to the end of the line outside, where he, I found myself dearly hoping, was now positioned behind a dozen or more patrons who had arrived in the interim between his taking up of arms with the theatre employee and her final vanquishing of him.
I went on to thoroughly enjoy my evening of cinema, awash in the warm glow of justice served.
The proof continues to pile up even as the media focuses on memos.
Professor says Bush revealed National Guard favoritismNEW YORK (CNN) -- A business school professor who taught George W. Bush at Harvard University in the early 1970s says the future president told him that family friends had pulled strings to get him into the Texas Air National Guard.
Yoshi Tsurumi, in his first on-camera interview on the subject, told CNN that Bush confided in him during an after-class hallway conversation during the 1973-74 school year.
"He admitted to me that to avoid the Vietnam draft, he had his dad -- he said 'Dad's friends' -- skip him through the long waiting list to get him into the Texas National Guard," Tsurumi said. "He thought that was a smart thing to do."
While the campaign has not responded directly to Tsurumi's allegations, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said last week, "Every time President Bush gets near another election, all the innuendo and rumors about President Bush's service in the National Guard come to the forefront."
Bush has said in the past that neither he nor his father sought special treatment for him. "Any allegation that my dad asked for special favors is simply not true," he said in 1999.
Tsurumi said Vietnam was a top topic among the 85 students in his class, when he was a visiting associate professor at Harvard from 1972 to 1976. He now teaches at Baruch College in New York.
"What I couldn't stand -- and I told him -- he was all for the U.S. to continue with the Vietnam War. That means he was all for other people, Americans, to keep on fighting and dying."...
There's more here.
Just more proof that Dubya was, and is, a chickenhawk -- willing, even anxious, to have wars waged, but fervently unwilling to help fight them. And he's been lying about it ever since.
George Orwell's 1984 is widely acknowledged as a frighteningly prescient work, but in a piece written for BushFlash.com, Maureen Farrell reminds us that Orwell didn't have the market cornered on eerily sibylline fiction.
Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, published in 1935, concerns, as Farrell writes, "a charismatic Senator who claims to champion the common man, Windrip is in the pocket of big business (i.e. Corpos), is favored by religious extremists, and though he talks of freedom and prosperity for all, he eventually becomes the ultimate crony capitalist. Boosted by Hearst newspapers (the FOX News of its day), he neuters both Congress and the Supreme Court, before stripping people of their liberties and installing a fascist dictatorship."
I've never been one to ascribe to conspiracy theories or worst-case scenarios, but the bunch of thugs currently running the show in Washington has me fearing the worst. I've placed a hold on It Can't Happen Here at the library, but I'm afraid it might well give me nightmares.
Read Farrell's piece and track down the novel -- if you dare.
Here's a new MoveOnPAC ad, and it, too, is a good one. It was directed by Allison Anders and stars Illeana Douglas and Ione Skye.
When are the people of Florida going to stand up to their corrupt and blatantly partisan state officals?
Fla. official allows Nader onto ballot
Democrats howl; court review slated
by Jim Loney, ReutersMIAMI -- Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's name can appear on Florida ballots for the election, despite a court order to the contrary, Florida's elections chief told officials yesterday in a move that could help President Bush in the key swing state.
The Florida Democratic Party reacted with outrage, calling the move ''blatant partisan maneuvering" by Governor Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, and vowed to fight it.
In a memo to Florida's 67 county supervisors of elections, Dawn Roberts, director of the Division of Elections, said the uncertainty of Hurricane Ivan forced her to act. The massive storm could hit parts of the state by week's end, forecasters say.
The ruling came in an ongoing legal battle over whether Nader should be allowed on the Florida ballot as the Reform Party candidate....
Florida Circuit Court Judge Kevin Davey issued a temporary injunction last week preventing the state from putting Nader on the 2004 ballot, siding with a Democratic challenge that the Reform Party did not qualify as a national party under state law.
A hearing on a permanent injunction is scheduled for tomorrow. But Roberts said Hurricane Ivan had raised ''a substantial question as to when such a hearing" will be held....
There's more here.
This is a total crock. Ivan is not expected to hit anywhere near Tallahassee, where the hearing was scheduled to take place. This is just another instance of Florida election officials taking the law into their own hands.
They are shameless, and yet the people of Florida seem to take precious little notice of the string of injustices and outrages undertaken in their name.
Tonight at midnight, the ten-year-old assault weapons ban expires.
Our duly appointed president claimed to support its extension, but lifted not a finger to bring that extension about.
I wonder how well he'll sleep the first time an innocent citizen is gunned down by an AK-47 purchased over the next few days?
We know that law enforcement officers across the country fervently urged the renewal of this ban, so we know that Dubya wasn't turning tothem for counsel.
Given that he's a man of purportedly deep and devout faith, I wonder if Dubya prayed about this issue? I sort of suspect not. I'm not sure one can concoct a Biblical defense for making assault weapons again readily available. I just have trouble imagining the Prince of Peace supporting the notion of an Uzi in every household.
As the Center for American Progress points out, "an al Qaeda training manual recovered in Afghanistan specifically urges terrorists to buy weapons like AK-47's in America. "
In just a few hours, it'll be much, much easier for terrorists to do just that.
A new MoveOnPAC ad -- animated this time (by Wild Brain, Inc.), with voices provided by Ed Asner, Kevin Bacon, and Scarlett Johansson:
I love these ads. I hope they're getting lots of air time.
More proof -- this time from that bastion of pinko propaganda, U.S. News and World Report -- that Bush, Inc., lied about Dubya's "service" record:
The service question
A review of President Bush's Guard years raises issues about the time he served
by Kit R. RoaneLast February, White House spokesman Scott McClellan held aloft sections of President Bush's military record, declaring to the waiting press that the files "clearly document the president fulfilling his duties in the National Guard." Case closed, he said.
But last week the controversy reared up once again, as several news outlets, including U.S. News, disclosed new information casting doubt on White House claims.
A review of the regulations governing Bush's Guard service during the Vietnam War shows that the White House used an inappropriate--and less stringent--Air Force standard in determining that he had fulfilled his duty. Because Bush signed a six-year "military service obligation," he was required to attend at least 44 inactive-duty training drills each fiscal year beginning July 1. But Bush's own records show that he fell short of that requirement, attending only 36 drills in the 1972-73 period, and only 12 in the 1973-74 period. The White House has said that Bush's service should be calculated using 12-month periods beginning on his induction date in May 1968. Using this time frame, however, Bush still fails the Air Force obligation standard....
There's more here.
Again, as far as I'm concerned, it's not so much that Dubya, like the posse of chickenhawks that people his administration, avoided serving in Vietnam. It's that he blew off his commitment to the National Guard and, worst of all, has been lying about it ever since.
Philip Revard has made two very valuable contributions to BuzzFlash.com.
In the first, he lists Dubya's Top Ten National Security Flip-Flops; in the second, his Top Ten Domestic Policy Flip-Flops.
I'm going to whet your appetite by showing you the top five in each category. Follow the above links to read the rest.
A Buzzflash Guest Contribution
by Philip RevardBush's Top Ten Domestic Policy Flip-Flops
1. Bush opposed extension of unemployment benefits, costing more than two million workers; then he flip-flopped and supported a limited extension, but only for a limited few workers. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 6/28/04; AP, 1/8/03]
2. Candidate Bush opposed providing government assistance to help automakers develop hybrid cars; now he's flip-flopped and proposed providing them money to develop them. [Chicago Sun-Times, 10/29/00; White House, 1/28/03]
3. Governor Bush opposed a patient's bill of rights; then during the 2000 campaign candidate Bush flip-flopped and said he supported it; then President Bush flip-flopped again and had his administration fight against it. [Houston Chronicle, 5/23/97; 2000
Presidential Debate, 10/17/00; LA Times, 3/24/04]4. Candidate Bush said he supported controls on greenhouse gases to fight global warming; then, President Bush flip-flopped and opposed them, supporting only "voluntary" reductions of gases. [Business Week, 4/9/01; AFP, 2/13/03]
5. Bush said gay marriage was a state issue; then he flip-flopped and said we needed a Constitutional amendment to ban it. [Presidential primary debate, 2/15/00; Bush, 2/24/04]
Top Ten National Security Flip-Flops1. Bush said we were winning the war on terror; then he flip-flopped and said we couldn't win the war on terror; then, a day later, he flip-flopped again and said we were and could win the war on terror. [NBC Today Show, 8/30/04; Rush Limbaugh interview, 8/31/04]
2. Bush repeatedly refused to admit he made mistakes with the Iraq war; then he flip-flopped and said he "miscalculated" and; then, flip-flopped again with the mother of all oxymorons and said the war was a "catastrophic success." [New York Times interview, 8/26/04; AP,
8/29/04]3. Bush said catching Osama bin Laden was his "#1 priority" and "we will not rest until we have found him."; then, a year later, he flip-flopped and said he didn't know where Osama was, didn't care, and that catching Osama was not a priority. [speech, 9/13/01; White House press conference, 3/13/02]
4. Bush opposed creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security; then he flip-flopped and supported it. [White House Press Briefing, 10/24/01; New York Times, 2/28/03]
5. Bush opposed creation of the 9/11 commission; then he flip-flopped and supported it. [Statement of Administration Policy, Executive Office of the President, 7/24/02; LA Times, 11/28/02]
It's a damn shame that the mainstream media have fallen down on the job in reporting nearly every one of these flip-flops, but given that they have, it falls to each of us to get the word out. Pass these on to every swing voter you know, people.
It's crunch time.
This Bob Herbert column from today's New York Times is a must-read. And it provides some must-have info that needs to be disseminated to voters across the country:
Protect the Vote
by Bob HerbertMore than 80 percent of the population of Detroit is black. This is very well understood by John Pappageorge, who is white and a Republican state legislator in Michigan. "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote," said Mr. Pappageorge, "we're going to have a tough time in this election."
Oops! Republicans aren't supposed to actually say they want to suppress black votes. That's so retro. It's so Jim Crow. This is the 21st century, and the thing now is to do the dastardly deed, but never ever acknowledge it.
That's where our friend Pappageorge went wrong.
After his startling quote was published several weeks ago in The Detroit Free Press, Mr. Pappageorge, who is 73, apologized and said he certainly never meant to suggest that anything racist or illegal take place. But he reiterated to me in a phone conversation last Friday that he did indeed mean that the vote in Detroit needed to be kept down.
A lot of other Republicans have similar views about the vote in areas with large African-American populations. Most blacks vote Democratic. If those votes can be suppressed, Republicans benefit. And there is increasing evidence that a big effort to suppress the vote among blacks and some other heavily Democratic voting groups is under way, which is why it is important to keep the following phone number handy:
1-866-OUR VOTE.
That's a hot line set up by the Election Protection Coalition, a group that was formed to identify and stamp out attempts to disenfranchise voters, especially in predominantly black and Latino precincts around the country....
Please pass this number on to every voter you know, particularly people of color. It could be the difference between a relatively honest, clean election and a sham like the 2000 fiasco.