New Developments II

[Sonic Youth]

Does this not sound like the actions of a drunken psychotic to you?


Blair talked Bush out of bombing Al Jazeera
22 November 2005
The Evening Standard

There were calls for Downing Street to publish the transcript of a conversation between Tony Blair and US President George Bush, amid claims that the Prime Minister persuaded Mr Bush not to launch a military strike on a TV station in a friendly Arab state.

According to unnamed sources quoted in the Daily Mirror, the memo - stamped Top Secret - records Mr Bush suggesting that he might order the bombing of Al-Jazeera's studios in Qatar.

And it allegedly details how Mr Blair argued against an attack on the station's buildings in the business district of Doha, the capital city of Qatar, which is a key ally of the West in the Persian Gulf.

Got that? He wants to bomb our ALLIES.

Al-Jazeera had sparked the anger of the US administration by broadcasting video messages from al Qaida head Osama bin Laden and leaders of the insurgency in Iraq, as well as showing footage of the bodies of US servicemen and Iraqi civilians killed in fighting.

According to the Mirror's source, the transcript records a conversation during Mr Blair's visit to the White House on April 16 last year, in the wake of a failed attempt to root out insurgents in the city of Fallujah, in which 30 US Marines died.

A spokesman for 10 Downing Street refused to discuss the leaked memo.

But former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle - a leading Labour opponent of the Iraq War - called for the document to be made public.

"I believe that Downing Street ought to publish this memo in the interests of transparency, given that much of the detail appears to be in the public domain," he told the Press Association.

"I think they ought to clarify what exactly happened on this occasion. If it was the case that President Bush wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in what is after all a friendly country, it speaks volumes and it raises questions about subsequent attacks that took place on the press that wasn't embedded with coalition forces."

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell told PA: "If true, then this underlines the desperation of the Bush administration as events in Iraq began to spiral out of control. On this occasion, the Prime Minister may have been successful in averting political disaster, but it shows how dangerous his relationship with President Bush has been."

-------------------------

EDIT:

U.S.: Al-Jazeera bomb story 'outlandish'
British paper: Blair talked Bush out of airstrike on network

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 Posted: 0033 GMT (0833 HKT)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The White House characterized as "outlandish" Tuesday a British newspaper report that President Bush once discussed bombing the headquarters of Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera with Prime Minister Tony Blair....


...."We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response," a White House official told CNN. A Pentagon official called the Daily Mirror report "absolutely absurd."

Al-Jazeera said it wanted to be "absolutely sure" the memo cited in the report is genuine and urged 10 Downing Street to confirm the information if true.

If the memo is accurate, the network's statement said, "it would be incumbent on them to explain their positions on statements regarding the deliberate targeting of journalists and news organizations."

Downing Street spokesman Ian Gleeson said Blair's office would have no comment since the memo the Daily Mirror cited is the subject of court action.

[Mister Tee]

This is not Bush news, but it's a huge, important story. Bye bye, middle-class.


GM to Cut 30,000 Jobs, Close 9 Plants
Nov 21, 9:23 AM (ET)

By DEE-ANN DURBIN[/b]

DETROIT (AP) - General Motors Corp. (GM) will eliminate 30,000 manufacturing jobs and close nine North American assembly, stamping and powertrain plants by 2008 as part of an effort to get production in line with demand.

Sonic, it may not be Bush news, but it's certainly GOP-aided news. GM is quite right to say health care costs are the primary reason for its probelms. Remember health care? Remember how fiercely Republicans fought any attempt to make changes in the system, to alleviate upcoming disaster?

This is what happens when you fail to deal with problems while they're still at a growing stage. The Republican policies of the past decade-plus, whether those of the GOPers in Congress stifling Clinton administration policy, or the active work of the Bush administration, have pushed us near the fiscal brink (that's on top of all the ethical and foreign fiascos they've inflicted upon us). By the time 2008 tolls around, the Republican party will be utter poison politically.

And, ironically, some form of national health insurance -- the bete noire of the right -- will probably be the only solution to the problems they've allowed to fester.

[OscarGuy]

They've finally grown some cojones:

Iraqi Leaders Call for Pullout Timetable

By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Writer 33 minutes ago

CAIRO, Egypt - Reaching out to the Sunni Arab community, Iraqi leaders called for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces and said
Iraq's opposition had a "legitimate right" of resistance.

The communique — finalized by Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni leaders Monday — condemned terrorism but was a clear acknowledgment of the Sunni position that insurgents should not be labeled as terrorists if their operations do not target innocent civilians or institutions designed to provide for the welfare of Iraqi citizens.

The leaders agreed on "calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces ... control the borders and the security situation" and end terror attacks.

The preparatory reconciliation conference, held under the auspices of the Arab League, was attended by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish lawmakers as well as leading Sunni politicians.

Sunni leaders have been pressing the Shiite-majority government to agree to a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The statement recognized that goal, but did not lay down a specific time — reflecting instead the government's stance that Iraqi security forces must be built up first.

On Monday, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr suggested U.S.-led forces should be able to leave Iraq by the end of next year, saying the one-year extension of the mandate for the multinational force in Iraq by the
U.N. Security Council this month could be the last.

"By the middle of next year we will be 75 percent done in building our forces and by the end of next year it will be fully ready," he told the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera.

Debate in Washington over when to bring troops home turned bitter last week after decorated Vietnam War vet Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and estimated a pullout could be complete within six months. Republicans rejected Murtha's position.

In Egypt, the final communique's attempt to define terrorism omitted any reference to attacks against U.S. or Iraqi forces. Delegates from across the political and religious spectrum said the omission was intentional. They spoke anonymously, saying they feared retribution.

"Though resistance is a legitimate right for all people, terrorism does not represent resistance. Therefore, we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worships," the document said.

The final communique also stressed participants' commitment to Iraq's unity and called for the release of all "innocent detainees" who have not been convicted by courts. It asked that allegations of torture against prisoners be investigated and those responsible be held accountable.

The statement also demanded "an immediate end to arbitrary raids and arrests without a documented judicial order."

The communique included no means for implementing its provisions, leaving it unclear what it will mean in reality other than to stand as a symbol of a first step toward bringing the feuding parties together in an agreement in principle.

"We are committed to this statement as far as it is in the best interests of the Iraqi people," said Harith al-Dhari, leader of the powerful Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard-line Sunni group. He said he had reservations about the document as a whole, and delegates said he had again expressed strong opposition to the concept of federalism enshrined in Iraq's new constitution.

The gathering was part of a U.S.-backed league attempt to bring the communities closer together and assure Sunni Arab participation in a political process now dominated by Iraq's Shiite majority and large Kurdish minority.

The conference also decided on broad conditions for selecting delegates to a wider reconciliation gathering in the last week of February or the first week of March in Iraq. It essentially opens the way for all those who are willing to renounce violence against fellow Iraqis.

Shiites had been strongly opposed to participation in the conference by Sunni Arab officials from the former Saddam regime or from pro-insurgency groups. That objection seemed to have been glossed over in the communique.

The Cairo meeting was marred by differences between participants at times, and at one point Shiite and Kurdish delegates stormed out of a closed session when one of the speakers said they had sold out to the Americans.

[Sonic Youth]

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>2,097</span>

A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq

Tuesday November 22, 2005 2:16 am

By The Associated Press

As of Monday, Nov. 21, 2005, at least 2,097 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,638 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.

The AP count is five higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EST Monday.

The British military has reported 98 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia one death each.

Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,958 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count. That includes at least 1,529 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

[Sonic Youth]

"Invest", quote-unquote.

The spoils of war
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
The Independent
Published: 22 November 2005


Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an "old colonial trap" if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control.

The Iraqi government has announced plans to seek foreign investment to exploit its oil reserves after the general election, which will be held next month. Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proved oil reserves, the third largest in the world.

According to the report, from groups including War on Want and the New Economics Foundation (NEF), the new Iraqi constitution opened the way for greater foreign investment. Negotiations with oil companies are already under way ahead of next month's election and before legislation is passed, it said.

The groups said they had amassed details of high-level pressure from the US and UK governments on Iraq to look to foreign companies to rebuild its oil industry. It said a Foreign Office code of practice issued in summer last year said at least $4bn would be needed to restore production to the levels before the 1990-91 Gulf War. "Given Iraq's needs it is not realistic to cut government spending in other areas and Iraq would need to engage with the international oil companies to provide appropriate levels of foreign direct investment to do this," it said.

Yesterday's report said the use of production sharing agreements (PSAs) was proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority. "The current government is fast-tracking the process. It is already negotiating contracts with oil companies in parallel with the constitutional process, elections and passage of a Petroleum Law," the report, Crude Designs, said.

Earlier this year a BBC Newsnight report claimed to have uncovered documents showing the Bush administration made plans to secure Iraqi oil even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. Based on its analysis of PSAs in seven countries, it said multinationals would seek rates of return on their investment from 42 to 162 per cent, far in excess of typical 12 per cent rates.

Taking an assumption of $40 a barrel, below the current price of almost $60, and a likely contract term of 25 to 40 years, it said that Iraq stood to lose between £74bn and $194bn. Andrew Simms, the NEF's policy director, said: "Over the last century, Britain and the US left a global trail of conflict, social upheaval and environmental damage as they sought to capture and control a disproportionate share of the world's oil reserves. Now it seems they are determined to increase their ecological debts at Iraq's expense. Instead of a new beginning, Iraq is caught in a very old colonial trap."

Louise Richards, chief executive of War on Want, said: "People have increasingly come to realise the Iraq war was about oil, profits and plunder. Despite claims from politicians that this is a conspiracy theory, our report gives detailed evidence to show Iraq's oil profits are well within the sights of the oil multinationals."

The current Iraqi government has indicated that it wants to treble production from two million barrels a day this year to six million. The US Energy Information Administration said such an increase would ease "market tensions" that have kept the price high. But governments and oil companies in the West said the report was purely hypothetical and that the issue was a matter for the Iraqi people. They also pointed out that Iraq needed money to rebuild in the sector.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said the country's oil industry was in desperate need of investment after years of under-investment, UN sanctions, vandalism by Saddam Hussein and more recent sabotage by insurgents and general looting. "The Iraqi government has made it clear that the decision is a matter for its authorities but they understand that it would require a lot of investment," he said. He said it was not surprising that Iraq should look to outside experts to help rebuild an industry that was the key source of revenue to help rebuild the country.

"We work closely with other departments such as the Treasury to give assistance and advice," he said, adding that the Foreign Office had not been involved in specific lobbying.

Gregg Muttitt, of Platform, a campaign group that co-authored the report, said Iraq had an existing - albeit damaged - network of oil expertise and could use current revenues or new borrowings to fund investment. The report named several companies, including the Anglo-Dutch Shell group, as jockeying for position before a new government is elected. In 2003, Walter van de Vijver, then head of exploration and production, said investors would need "some assurance of future income and a supportive contractual arrangement". The groupsaidyesterday that the involvement of foreign oil companies would be determined by the new Iraqi administration. "We aspire to establish a long-term presence in Iraq and a long-term relationship with the Iraqis, including the newly elected government."

No multinationals are operating in Iraq now because of the poor security situation.

[Sonic Youth]

This is not Bush news, but it's a huge, important story. Bye bye, middle-class.


GM to Cut 30,000 Jobs, Close 9 Plants
Nov 21, 9:23 AM (ET)

By DEE-ANN DURBIN

DETROIT (AP) - General Motors Corp. (GM) will eliminate 30,000 manufacturing jobs and close nine North American assembly, stamping and powertrain plants by 2008 as part of an effort to get production in line with demand.

The announcement Monday by Rick Wagoner, chairman and CEO of the world's largest automaker, represents 5,000 more job cuts than the 25,000 that the automaker had previously indicated it planned to cut.

GM said the assembly plants that will close are in Oklahoma City, Lansing, Mich., Spring Hill, Tenn., Doraville, Ga., and Ontario, Canada.

An engine facility in Flint, Mich., will close, along with a separate powertrain facility in Ontario and metal centers in Lansing and Pittsburgh.

Wagoner said GM also will close three service and parts operations facilities. They are in Ypsilanti, Mich., and Portland, Ore., and one unidentified site. A shift also will be removed at a plant in Moraine, Ohio.

"The decisions we are announcing today were very difficult to reach because of their impact on our employees and the communities where we live and work," Wagoner told employees. "But these actions are necessary for GM to get its costs in line with our major global competitors. In short, they are an essential part of our plan to return our North American operations to profitability as soon as possible."

GM said the plan is to achieve $7 billion in cost reductions on a running rate basis by the end of 2006 - $1 billion above its previously indicated target.

GM shares rose 77 cents, or 3.2 percent, in premarket trading. Its shares traded below $21 last week at an 18-year low.

Wagoner said last month the automaker would announce plant closures by the end of this year to get its capacity in line with U.S. demand. GM plants currently run at 85 percent of their capacity, lower than North American plants run by its Asian rivals. The plant closings aren't expected to be final until GM's current contract with the United Auto Workers expires in 2007.

GM has been crippled by high labor, pension, health care and materials costs as well as by sagging demand for sport utility vehicles, its longtime cash cows, and by bloated plant capacity. Its market share has been eroded by competition from Asian automakers led by Toyota Motor Corp. ™ GM lost nearly $4 billion in the first nine months of this year.

The automaker could be facing a strike at Delphi Corp. (DPHIQ), its biggest parts supplier, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month. GM spun off Delphi in 1999 and could be liable for billions in pension costs for Delphi retirees.

GM also is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting errors.

Last week, after the automaker's shares fell to their lowest level in 18 years, Wagoner sent an e-mail to employees saying the company has a turnaround strategy in place and has no plans to file for bankruptcy.

[Sonic Youth]

From Drudge.

Germans Say U.S. Used Bad Data to Justify Iraq Invasion
Sat Nov 19 2005 17:58:49 ET

The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush Administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the Iraq war.

The LOS ANGELES TIMES is planning to front the allegation is Sunday editions, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with the LOS ANGELES TIMES that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's claims in his pre-war presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

Curveball's German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly second-hand and impossible to confirm.

``This was not substantial evidence,'' said a senior German intelligence official. ``We made clear we could not verify the things he said.''

The German authorities, speaking about the case for the first time, also said that their informant suffered from emotional and mental problems. ``He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy,'' said a BND official who supervised the case. ``He is not a completely normal person,'' agreed a BND analyst.

Developing...

[Damien]

From Slate:

AMERICA'S LEAST WANTED
Another Bush earns his place on a Rushmore for the rejected.
By Bruce Reed

Friday, Nov. 18, 2005

Sinker: Back in August, when George W. Bush crossed the Mendoza Line with a disapproval rating in the Gallup Poll of 56 percent, he still had four men left to pass for the title of most unpopular president in modern history: Jimmy Carter (59 percent), George H. W. Bush (60 percent) Richard Nixon (66 percent), and Harry Truman (67 percent). I predicted that the way things were going, he could speed past Carter and Bush 41 "within the next month."

I was wrong—it took the president two months. This week's Gallup puts his disapproval at 60 percent, which means father and son share third place on the all-time list. Bush 43 always said he learned an important political lesson from Bush 41, and now we know what it was: Don't hit bottom too early. If you're going to be the third-most unpopular president, do it in your second term, so you have some time to stop and smell the Rose Garden.

It's an awesome achievement for one family to produce two of the four most unpopular presidents in modern times. If there were a Mount Rushmore for rejection, the Bushes would have half the place to themselves.

With the holidays coming, you can bet there will be a lot of good-natured joshing in the highly competitive Bush household about which man deserves full bragging rights. Bush the father, whose favorite sport was speed golf, can boast of his prowess in speed failure. Truman needed seven years to hit bottom, Nixon six, and Bush the son five. The elder Bush tanked in three and a half.

On the other hand, Bush the son may not have to wait long before he has the crown to himself. His unpopularity has been rising two points a month all year, which gives him an outside shot of catching Nixon by January.

The Bush White House is certainly doing everything in its power to fail on all fronts. Soaring heating oil prices, Republican chaos in Congress, and more trouble from the special prosecutor will help. But with Iraqi elections and the State of the Union coming up, it could take Bush as much as six months to pass Nixon and Truman. The president needs to remember the patience that got him this far: Rome wasn't lost in a day.

[Damien]

What a coincidence.

GOP calls for ethics investigation into Iraq war critic
11/18/2005 @ 9:07 pm
Filed by RAW STORY

On Keith Olbermann last night, Newsweek's Howard Fineman, who was outraged by this retaliatory tactic, said that the South Carolina Republican pushing it (I forget his name) has a direct line to Karl Rove.

[Sonic Youth]

What a coincidence.

GOP calls for ethics investigation into Iraq war critic
11/18/2005 @ 9:07 pm
Filed by RAW STORY


Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother’s lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee, ROLL CALL reports Friday. Excerpts:


"The calls come as Murtha, a former Marine and pro-military Democrat, has made headlines this week by coming out in support of a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

"According to a June 13 article in The Los Angeles Times, the fiscal 2005 defense appropriations bill included more than $20 million in funding for at least 10 companies for whom KSA lobbied. Carmen Scialabba, a longtime Murtha aide, works at KSA as well.

"KSA directly lobbied Murtha’s office on behalf of seven companies, and a Murtha aide told a defense contractor that it should retain KSA to represent it, according to the LA Times."

[Sonic Youth]

Congress Gives Itself a Pay Raise, Stages Circus Over War, Postpones Other Work

Nov 18, 10:01 PM (ET)
By DAVID ESPO


WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican-controlled Congress helped itself to a $3,100 pay raise on Friday, then postponed work on bills to curb spending on social programs and cut taxes in favor of a two-week vacation.

In the final hours of a tumultuous week in the Capitol, Democrats erupted in fury when House GOP leaders maneuvered toward a politically-charged vote - and swift rejection - of one war critic's call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. "You guys are pathetic, pathetic," Massachusetts Rep. Martin Meehan yelled across a noisy hall at Republicans.

On another major issue, a renewal of the Patriot Act remained in limbo as an unlikely coalition of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans sought curbs on the powers given law enforcement in the troubled first days after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Both the House and Senate were in session after midnight Thursday, working on the tax and deficit-cutting bills at the heart of the GOP agenda.

"What it does is start to turn down the escalating costs ... for our children and our grandchildren. One of the things that we cannot leave to that next generation is a huge deficit that they can't afford," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said after enactment of a $50 billion deficit-reduction bill.

Democrats dissented, with one eye on the 2006 elections.

"The Republicans are taking food out of the mouths of children to give tax cuts to America's wealthiest. This is not a statement of America's values," said the Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California. "Democrats believe that together, America can do better," she said, invoking the party's new campaign slogan.

The cost-of-living increase for members of Congress - which will put pay for the rank and file at an estimated $165,200 a year - marked a brief truce in the pitched political battles that have flared in recent weeks on the war and domestic issues.

So much so that the issue was not mentioned on the floor of either the House or Senate as lawmakers worked on legislation whose passage will assure bigger paychecks.

Lawmakers automatically receive a cost of living increase each year, unless Congress votes to block it. By tradition, critics have tried to block increases by attaching a provision to the legislation that provides funding for the Treasury Department. One such attempt succeeded in the Senate earlier in the year, but the provision was omitted from the compromise measure moved toward final approval.

The overall bill provided $140 billion for transportation, housing and other programs. It cleared the House on a vote of 392-31. Senate passage was by voice vote.

Pay raise harmony aside, Republicans spent the day celebrating a party-line, post-midnight vote in which the House cleared legislation to reduce deficits by $50 billion over five years. The vote was 217-215, with all the Democrats who voted in opposition, along with 14 GOP rebels.

Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri said Republicans would make their tax cut bill the top item on the agenda when lawmakers return to the Capitol in December.

The House-passed measure attacks deficits by limiting spending for the first time in a decade on Medicaid, food stamps, student loans and other benefit programs that normally rise with inflation and eligibility.

The House GOP leadership had hoped to clear the measure a week ago. It was forced to retreat when Republican moderates rebelled, even after Hastert agreed to strip out a controversial proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

The Senate-passed companion measure calls for less deficit reduction, $35 billion over five years, but includes the ANWR provision.

The differences are expected to make it difficult for the House and Senate to reach a compromise by year's end, particularly since Republicans can't count on any Democratic support.

The tax bill presents difficulties of its own for a GOP majority struggling to translate last fall's election gains into this year's legislative achievements.

The Senate cleared a measure after 1:30 a.m. that calls for $60 billion in cuts over five years.

The measure drew bipartisan support, passing on a vote of 64-33. Its provisions would continue a series of existing tax breaks that otherwise will expire, and shelters 14 million upper middle-income families from higher taxes.

The White House has threatened a veto, citing a provision that raises taxes on oil companies.

The House has yet to pass a companion measure. When it does, the tax on oil companies is unlikely to be included, and it is likely to be jettisoned before a compromise measure reaches the White House.

Hastert said Republicans want to "make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan ... a lot of people say: Look, this is a tough time, we just ought to pull out and leave. We pull out and leave, we strand an effort to make sure that we can tamp down terrorism, to tamp down a dictatorship, that we can stabilize an area in the Middle East," he added.

GOP aides conceded the maneuver was designed to put Democrats in a political squeeze - voting for withdrawal and exposing themselves to attacks from the White House, or voting against it and risk angering the voters that polls show want an end to the conflict.

Democrats angrily attacked the GOP move. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., called the measure "a piece of garbage" and an attack on Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated veteran and respected congressional voice on military matters.

House and Senate negotiators announced a tentative agreement earlier in the week to pass a seven-year extension of the Patriot Act. Key senators lawmakers involved in the talks balked at the terms, and officials said they would resume compromise efforts when Congress returns to work in December.

[Sonic Youth]

Damien, with criddic gone, is there even any point to this anymore?

[Sonic Youth]

Dishonest, reprehensible...


Cheney Sidesteps Travel Disclosure Rules
Unlike the rest of the White House, Cheney doesn't make his outside travel public

By Kate Sheppard and Bob Williams
The Center for Public Integrity

WASHINGTON, November 16, 2005 — Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff have been unilaterally exempting themselves from long-standing travel disclosure rules followed by the rest of the executive branch, including the Office of the President, the Center for Public Integrity has discovered.

Cheney's office also appears to have stuck taxpayers with untold millions in travel costs rather than accepting trip sponsors' funds that the rules would require to be disclosed.

It's not as if those in Cheney's office don't indulge in the type of junkets that are routinely funded by private sources. Instead of accepting reimbursement for such trips like other government travelers, it appears that his office labels them "official travel." As a result, however, the public is kept largely unaware of where he and his staff are traveling, with whom they are meeting with and how much it costs, even though tax dollars are covering the bill.

It's also not as if Cheney hasn't faced questions about secrecy and his travel in the past. In January 2003, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was reportedly Cheney's guest aboard Air Force Two on a flight south for a winter duck hunting trip at a property owned by an oil executive in southern Louisiana.

The trip took place shortly after the Supreme Court had agreed to hear Cheney's appeal of a lawsuit that sought to force him to disclose the details about the national energy policy task force he chaired behind closed doors in 2001. Cheney had refused to disclose the substance of the discussions or to list those who met with the task force; that list was believed to include major players in the energy industry.

Some would credit the vice president's office for not accepting outside cash to cover his travel costs. That may be true, but critics point out that the Office of the Vice President's lack of disclosure also creates an opaque situation, with little or no transparency or accountability and at a substantial cost to taxpayers.

According to the White House Web site, Cheney made 275 speeches and appearances between 2001 and June 1, 2005, including 23 speeches to think tanks and trade organizations and 16 at colleges and universities. Before his term in office, the cost associated with travel, lodging and food for the vice president and his staff to attend such events was routinely reimbursed by the sponsor and reported to the Office of Government Ethics, which collects and distributes travel disclosure reports for the executive branch per disclosure rules. During the Clinton administration, former Vice President Al Gore's office disclosed more than $1 million in outside-funded travel from 1997 to 2000.

The rules in question cover the thousands of trips by government officials each year that are sponsored by outside groups such as trade associations, academic institutions and many other organizations. The private sector reimburses elected officials and bureaucrats for such trips, but laws require officials to disclose where they went, how much it cost and who paid for it.

The Ethics Reform Act of 1989 requires every executive "agency" to file a semiannual report of payments accepted from non-federal sources. Regulations implementing this provision state that the term "includes an independent agency as well as an agency within the Executive Office of the President."

President George W. Bush's office accepts reimbursement for travel and has reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel funded by private sources in fiscal years 2003 and 2004, including trips taken by high-profile staffers such as Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales. Public records show that all but one of the other offices within the Executive Office of the President also have filed travel disclosure reports showing privately funded trips. The lone exception, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, appears to have filed no financial disclosure forms at all.


Long article. Read more here:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=760

[Damien]

From the Arkansas Democrat Gazette:

REWRITING HISTORY
by
Gene Lyons

November 16, 2005

Seemingly stung by polls showing that 57 percent of Americans now believe that he “deliberately misled” the nation into war with Iraq, President Bush did what a successful con man always does in a tight spot : He doubled his bet, resorting to falsehoods so brazen as to invite citizens almost to doubt the evidence of their senses. Who are you going to believe, your president or your lying eyes ? On Veterans Day, Bush chose another of the handpicked audiences he likes best—soldiers at a Pennsylvania Army depot—to accuse Democratic critics of a “deeply irresponsible” effort “to rewrite the history of how [the Iraq ] war began.” He alleged that Congress saw the same intelligence regarding Iraq’s mythical weapons of mass destruction that the White House saw ; consequently, “when I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support.” The president also claimed that a “bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community’s judgments.” None of these things is true.

Taking the last first, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has pointedly refused to probe White House arm-twisting and the selective use of evidence. Indeed, Democrats recently called a surprise closed session to demand answers, provoking GOP Majority Leader Sen. Bill Frist to pitch a hissy fit.

It’s also categorically false to say that Congress approved removing Saddam from power. “Regime change” never came to a vote. The White House strenuously insisted that its October 2002 Iraq resolution was not a de facto declaration of war.

Bush vowed to work through the U. N. Security Council and to exhaust every peaceful remedy for the alleged Iraqi threat. He portrayed himself as reluctant to fight.

“I am very firm in my desire to make sure that Saddam is disarmed,” he said two days after the vote. “Hopefully, we can do this peacefully. The use of the military is my last choice, is my last desire.”

In rationalizing his own vote, Sen. John Kerry echoed Bush, saying, “As the president made clear earlier this week, ‘Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable.’ It means ‘America speaks with one voice.’”

Silly man. Kerry believed, or pretended to believe, like many politically timid Democrats, Bush’s deeply cynical assurances.

After U. N. weapons inspectors threatened to deprive Bush of his war in March 2003 by reporting that Iraq had no nuclear weapons program, he went back on his word. Bush warned the inspectors to leave Iraq, then invaded. The right-wing noise machine vilified Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the U. N. inspectors who’d successfully disarmed Iraq during the 1990 s, as spineless or worse. (They’ve since won the Nobel Peace Prize. ) The “embedded” mainstream media treated the president’s bait-and-switch as a trifling matter and conquering Baghdad as a stirring adventure.

More than 2, 000 American dead, maybe 50 times that many Iraqis, a nightmarishly bungled occupation and hundreds of billions of wasted dollars later, Americans are like drunks waking up hung over from a lost weekend.

But did the Bush administration spike the punch ? Absolutely, it did.

Recently, it was reported that one al-Qa’ida prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was the source of bogus administration charges that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were working together. This “intelligence” was obtained by sending him to Egypt for what Newsweek described last year as “more fearsome” interrogation. The Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that his story made no sense ; he’d made it up. The DIA conclusion was kept hidden. Al-Libi has since recanted.

But didn’t “everybody,” even Howard Dean and France, think Iraq had WMD ? Yes and no. “Weapons of mass destruction” is a purposefully broad propaganda term. While nasty, the chemical munitions most observers suspected that Saddam kept hidden away posed no threat to the U. S.

Iraq’s nuclear threat, however, was largely a figment of the fevered imaginations of ideologues around Vice President Dick Cheney. Almost all the intelligence was highly suspect, or worse. Take the famous aluminum tubes that Condi Rice insisted could only be used to manufacture centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. She said so on national TV after a nicely timed leak to Judith Miller put them on The New York Times front page. Cheney pronounced them “ irrefutable evidence, “ and Bush touted them, too. In reality, nuclear scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory had physically examined the tubes and pronounced them useless for centrifuges. State Department experts reached the same conclusion. That crucial evidence was omitted from the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate. It’s the same everywhere you look. With regard to nuclear weapons, the Bush administration promoted junk intelligence to the status of Holy Writ, hiding or stifling dissenting views. Everybody who’s ever been employed by a large bureaucracy knows how that works. The only real question is how successfully they hoaxed themselves before they began lying to the rest of us.

[Sonic Youth]

Cheney calls war critics 'dishonest, reprehensible'
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
Thu Nov 17,12:54 AM ET
Reuters


In the sharpest White House attack yet on critics of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday that accusations the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify the war were a "dishonest and reprehensible" political ploy.

Cheney called Democrats "opportunists" who were peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods" to gain political advantage while U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.

Democrats cried foul but President George W. Bush, at a news conference in Kyongju, South Korea, defended Cheney. He said it was "patriotic as heck" to disagree with him but that Democrats were irresponsible for accusing him of misleading Americans about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

"What bothers me is when people are irresponsibly using their positions and playing politics. That's exactly what is taking place in America," he said.

Presidential counselor Dan Bartlett said Bush would keep fighting on the issue. He told reporters with Bush in South Korea that the criticism had reached a critical mass and that it "requires a sustained response."

The comments were the latest salvo in an aggressive White House counterattack on war critics, launched as Democrats step up their criticism of the war and polls show declining public support for the conflict.

Cheney repeated Bush's charge that Democratic critics were rewriting history by questioning prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction even though many Senate Democrats voted in October 2002 to authorize the invasion.

"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone -- but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history," said Cheney, a principal architect of the war and a focus of Democratic allegations the administration misrepresented intelligence on Iraq's weapons program.

Cheney said the suggestion Bush or any member of the administration misled Americans before the war "is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."

"Some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing force against Saddam Hussein," he said in a speech to the conservative Frontiers of Freedom Institute.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada responded that "tired rhetoric and political attacks do nothing to get the job done in Iraq."

Reid, who voted to authorize the war and has led the push for a probe into the intelligence, said on the Senate floor that Cheney's speech showed "this administration intends to 'stay the course' and continue putting their political fortunes ahead of what this country needs -- a plan for success."

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who also voted for the war in 2002 and whom Bush defeated in the presidential election a year ago, accused Cheney of engaging "in the politics of fear and smear."

"It is hard to name a government official with less credibility on Iraq than Vice President Cheney," Kerry said.

'A PLAY FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE'

Bush, whose public approval ratings have dropped to the lowest point of his presidency, has given two speeches in the last five days blasting Democratic critics and trying to use their support for the war against them.

Twenty-nine Senate Democrats voted in favor of an October 2002 resolution authorizing military force in Iraq. Many have since said it was a mistake based on misleading information.

"What we're hearing now is some politicians contradicting their own statements and making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war," Cheney said.

Democrats have charged the administration, led by Cheney, manipulated the intelligence on Iraq to justify the war and leaked classified information to discredit critics.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a top aide to Cheney, was indicted last month for obstructing justice, perjury and lying after a probe into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Plame's husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, has said she was outed to get back at him for his criticism of the war.

Administration officials have acknowledged intelligence on Iraqi weapons was faulty, but say Democrats, Republicans and foreign intelligence agencies all believed Baghdad had deadly weapons before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.