the growing scandal surrounding the use of DU munitions in the Iraq War.

http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml

Heads roll at Veterans Administration
Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed
by Bob Nichols
2/23/05
Project Censored Award Winner


Considering the tons of depleted uranium used by the U.S., the Iraq war can truly be called a nuclear war.
Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War.

Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.”

Bernklau continued, “This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed.”

He added, “Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.

“The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” wrote Bernklau. “He, and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, (it) ... is far too big to hide or to cover up!”

“Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that ‘Gulf Era Veterans’ now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans,” said Berklau.

“The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’”

When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for “destroying things and killing people,” Fulk was more specific: “I would say it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people!”

Principi could not be reached for comment prior to deadline.

References

1. Depleted uranium: “Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets: A death sentence here and abroad” by Leuren Moret, http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml.

2. Veterans for Constitutional Law, 112 Jefferson Ave., Port Jefferson NY 11777, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director, (516) 474-4261, fax 516-474-1968.

3. Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter. Email Gary Kohls, gkohls@cpinternet.com, with “Subscribe” in the subject line.

Email Bob Nichols at bobnichols@cox.net.

---

Wonder how our soldiers are going to feel about this. If it ever gets around to being reported by our mainstream media.

The effects on veterans, and their families are going to be horrific. And, as we know, the president bush is intent on cutting medical benefits for our veterans. That's how he supports them, I guess. And we also need to remember that there are literally tons of DU dust contaminating the soil and buildings of Iraq. That's not going to make us a lot of friends there, either.

When the president bush talks about terrorism and atrocities, he needs to be reminded of his own acts of terrorism and atrocities.

Republicans Are Chastened About Social Security Plan

The New York Times 2/27/05

…The story was much the same throughout the country, as Republicans - some already skittish over Mr. Bush's plan - spent the week trying to assuage nervous constituents. Instead of building support for Mr. Bush's proposal to allow younger workers to divert payroll taxes into private retirement accounts, some of the events turned into fractious gripe sessions and others did not go nearly as well as their hosts had hoped.

Those listening sessions also forced Republicans to confront another reality: opposition to the spending cuts outlined in Mr. Bush's 2006 budget. The $2.57 trillion budget will dominate the Congressional agenda for the next three weeks. But instead of fighting Democrats, Republicans - many of whom campaigned on slashing spending and cutting the federal deficit - are at odds with themselves over which programs to cut and which to spare….

…The story was much the same throughout the country, as Republicans - some already skittish over Mr. Bush's plan - spent the week trying to assuage nervous constituents. Instead of building support for Mr. Bush's proposal to allow younger workers to divert payroll taxes into private retirement accounts, some of the events turned into fractious gripe sessions and others did not go nearly as well as their hosts had hoped.

Those listening sessions also forced Republicans to confront another reality: opposition to the spending cuts outlined in Mr. Bush's 2006 budget. The $2.57 trillion budget will dominate the Congressional agenda for the next three weeks. But instead of fighting Democrats, Republicans - many of whom campaigned on slashing spending and cutting the federal deficit - are at odds with themselves over which programs to cut and which to spare….

---

So. The president bush’s Social Security so-called “reform plan” seems to be heading off the road, as it should. What is also encouraging, according to this article, is that his plan to divide the generations on this question appears to be failing.

I think many Americans acknowledge that Social Security could use some adjustment. What the president bush and his allies are proposing is akin to bringing your car in because you have a slow leak in one of your tires, and then allowing the mechanic to rebuild the engine, do some body work, and not look at the tire. And what’s even worse, said mechanic is an inept workman, such as our beloved president bush, and so you drive out in worse shape than you drove in. And you’re broke down a few miles out of town, and out of money.

Bush Urges Haste on Social Security Reform

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush.html?

… Bush is making the trips in hopes of persuading voters to pressure Congress to tackle the future solvency problems of the politically sensitive Social Security system. His message is twofold: reassure those born before 1950 that their Social Security benefits will not change in any way and tell younger workers that ``Social Security is heading toward bankruptcy.''

``Massive numbers of baby boomers, like me, will soon begin to retire,'' Bush said in his radio remarks. ``People are living longer and benefits are scheduled to increase dramatically, and fewer workers will be paying into the system to support each retiree.'' …

… Before leaving Washington for an extended recess, Republican lawmakers were coached on how to reassure older Americans that Social Security will remain unchanged for retirees as well as workers age 55 and up. Suggested talking points also focused extensively on the demographic difficulties that loom for younger workers. They touched only lightly on personal accounts….

---

Well. The president bush is obviously intent on creating a generational split, and a generational war. This will fit right in with the class warfare he’s waging.

Apparently, he feels that the only way he’s going to be able to sell this dog is to divide the American people, and pit the generations against themselves.

And incidentally, and not by coincidence, all these so-called “SocSec reformers”, seem to have no stake whatsoever in Social Security. It seems mighty uppity for them to be speaking about it at all.

Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo today talks about a new actuarial memo put out by the Social Security administration. In one of the solutions in the memo, removing the cap on earnings subject to the payroll tax (currently $90,000) would extend the viability of the Trust Fund out beyond 2079. Besides fixing the so-called “crisis” it would also work to rebuild the social contract among the American people that the bushistas are so blithely destroying.

Military Recruiters Face Resistance from Young Anti-War Activists

http://www.amsterdamnews.org/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=54103&sID=4

By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Amsterdam News
Wednesday 23 February 2005

The military spends about $3 billion each year to convince young people that enlistment will give them college money, job training and an alternative to working at McDonald's.

In the wake of the growing conflict in Iraq, which has resulted in over a thousand U.S. casualties, the military has become more aggressive in scouting out high school students willing and able to serve.

In many New York City public schools that are predominantly Black and Latino, military recruiters are a heavy presence, promising young people financial security and a fulfilling career. Recruiters roam the halls, set up tables and even pull students out of class.

But in recent months, a group of teenagers and anti-war veterans have been canvassing the neighborhoods where the recruiters frequent, hoping to convince students to consider other options.

"We've heard everything up to and including having a desk in the guidance counselor's office," said Amy Wagner of Youth Activists-Youth Allies (YaYas), a group that focuses on counter-recruitment. "When the kid comes in to talk to the counselor about college, before the kid can get there, they've got somebody in their face saying, 'You want to go to college? How are you going to pay for college?"'

…

Besides speaking out in their own schools, the YaYas hold workshops for teenagers and make presentations to PTAs. They encourage students to post literature in the guidance office and set up counter-recruitment tables next to military recruiters. Most importantly, they want young people to make an informed choice, Wagner said.

For instance, most students don't know that:

- Two-thirds of recruits don't get any college money, according to the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.
- Most people in the military do not have time to attend college while in the service.
- To qualify for college money recruits have to pay $100 per month for a year.
- The unemployment rate for veterans is three times higher than the national average.
- People who sign up with the Delayed Entry Program are told they can't change their minds, but getting out is as simple as writing a letter.
- The enlistment contract is for eight years.
- There are other ways to finance college, like federal financial aid, private scholarships, going to community college or joining AmeriCorps.

But educating youth is not just about these facts and figures, Wagner said. The war in Iraq makes their work much more urgent, she said.

"They're still telling people you can go to Germany, Japan, but the reality is the vast majority are going to Iraq," Wagner said. "You risk losing life and limb; you risk being a murderer." …

---

It is heartening to see young people resisting military recruitment at schools.

The pitch the recruiters use is, to put it tactfully, full of lies and misleading information. Back in the 60’s and 70’s it was the same. However, today, the military has become more and more aggressive in filling their maw with cannon fodder. They do present the military as the only option for many of our disadvantaged and disenfranchised youth. The empire needs bodies to throw into the melee, and doesn’t care where they come from.

With the president bush’s cloud cuckoo-land dreams of empire and conquest, recruitment in the military, in the reserves, and the National Guard as well, are down. So in order to fill their quotas military recruiters are becoming more and more aggressive and misleading. They take advantage of impressionable youth by presenting the military as the only viable option open to them.

Now, of course, with the right-wing regressives destroying the future of our children and grandchildren, this is becoming distressingly more true than not. Which serves their purposes well, on several levels.

It is becoming more and more obvious to those who can still think, the bushistas are intent on creating a two class society. By removing the taxes on unearned income, they are putting the entire burden on the workers of this country. With the downward pressure on wage income, the willful neglect and destruction of our public education system, and the shredding of the social safety nets, if nothing changes, in a couple of generations, they will have their two class society; the aristocracy and the serfs.

To see the majority of young people of this country openly flaunting their tolerance for others, and defying the military machine is indeed heartening. After all, they ARE our future.

Calling Congress To Account

TomPaine.com
Ellen Miller
February 24, 2005

The business of Capitol Hill has become a feeding frenzy for corporate campaign contributors, to the tune of $600 million in the last election cycle. Case in point: Rep. Jim McCrery, Bush's right-hand man for Social Security, who has accepted hundreds of thousands from Wall Street securities firms. But corruption only thrives when Congress is allowed to operate beyond the reach of the public eye. Ellen Miller—with the Project For An Accountable Congress—explains why constituents must be the checks and balances on corruption.

Ellen Miller is deputy director of the Campaign For America's Future and co-director of Project For An Accountable Congress

Americans know all too well the corrupting influence of money on the political process. But combine rigidly ideological politicians with a party that has an iron lock on power in Washington and you’ve got the most corrupt Congress in recent memory.

The right wing has control of the White House and both houses of Congress, eliminating the checks and balances on power that America’s founders intended. Campaign contributions—even after reforms—have soared. The business of Capitol Hill has become a feeding frenzy for corporate campaign contributors.

The top 50 industry contributions added up to more than $600 million in the last election cycle alone.

Watch how swiftly the Senate will reward their credit card company contributors by passing the bankruptcy bill. Barely a month after the swearing in of the 109th Congress, lawmakers paid off corporations with the passage of the class action bill—which shields them from liability for negligence and curbs a citizen’s right to sue.

Now do we have your attention? Next on the agenda, Republicans in Congress will be pushing a budget that cuts funding for schools even as it slashes taxes for millionaires, and an energy plan that pays off big oil interests, while making us more dependent on foreign oil. That's just a flavor of what the right-wing agenda has in store for this Congress.

Corruption in Congress only survives when politicians are free to operate outside of the public's watch. By shining a bright light into Congress' shadowy halls and back rooms, we can make sure that what happens in the dark is exposed in lawmaker's hometowns—where, after all, it counts the most. If the corruption of Congress is just seen as an institutional problem no one gets the blame. That's why the Campaign for America’s Future is looking at individual lawmakers whose positions and votes on issues—juxtaposed with their campaign money and questionable ethics—make them stand out as the emblems of the rampant corruption that has overtaken the institution.

One of the leaders of this corrupt and unethical Congress is House Majority leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay. Not only has DeLay been rebuked multiple times by the usually moribund bipartisan House Ethics Committee, he also faces indictment in a fundraising scandal in Texas where a number of his aides have already been brought to justice. Instead of removing DeLay from his leadership post, though, the Republican majority shot the judge. Earlier this month, they booted the Ethics Committee chair, removed the two Republicans from the committee who threatened to act independently and replaced them with DeLay loyalists.

With DeLay setting the tone, there is no question that the corporate feeding frenzy will ensue.

Likely the biggest payoff will be to securities and commercial banking companies that are among the biggest contributors to Congress—to the tune of more than $100 million in the last election cycle—when President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security starts to move through Congress.

Enter Rep. Jim McCrery , a Republican from Louisiana. He’s the new chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee, and the lynchpin in President Bush’s plan to ram his plan through Congress.

Rep. McCrery has pocketed more than $200,000 since 2000 from the banking and securities companies that will benefit from privatization of the Social Security system. In the last cycle alone, his contributions from this sector increased by 42 percent. Imagine what the contributions will look like in this election cycle!

These companies have reason to give McCrery big bucks. Dr. Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, has estimated that the president’s Social Security privatization plan could result in nearly $1 trillion for financial services firms.

McCrery—after initially resisting the president’s privatization plan—recently embraced it. But this is about more than just a flip-flop. Thousands of people in his district and tens of millions nationwide will see their guaranteed benefits cut because of decisions McCrery will make. He can’t make those decisions fairly with Wall Street’s money in his pocket.

His judgment on Social Security cannot be trusted. His campaign contribution record and his ties to lobbyists (two former staffers now work for the trade association pushing the legislation to privatize Social Security) should make anyone—particularly his own constituents in Louisiana—question whether he will be exercising his responsibilities on their behalf or helping out his Wall Street backers. How can Rep. McCrery possibly make decisions about Social Security in the interest of his constituents when his biggest campaign contributors have him in their pocket?

Some might say that the situation with McCrery is business as usual in Congress. But according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that politicians often do special favors for people and groups who give them campaign contributions. We say that Congressman better keep his eyes open.

Even the conservative-leaning Supreme Court has recognized the link between money and lawmakers' judgement. In ruling on the McCain-Feingold legislation, the Court said, “To claim that [campaign contributions] do not change legislative outcomes surely misunderstands the legislative process.”

We’d love to get into a debate with Rep. McCrery about whether campaign cash corrupts the political process. Or better yet, it's a debate he should have with his constituents.

When Ordinary is Not Enough

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/02/24_ordinary.html

February 24, 2005
By Pamela Troy

...I reject the notion that as an outsider, a member of the vast "bewildered herd" that makes up the mainstream media's audience, I should just meekly take this player's word for it when he utters such nonsense. At my age that old punch line, "who do you believe, me or your own lyin' eyes?" no longer works.

Now the Guckert/Gannon scandal has broken, and we've all seen yet another version of that conversation writ large, the spectacle of presumably intelligent, well-read insiders like Howard Kurtz, Wolf Blitzer and Aaron Brown gazing politely off into space and indicating that they really just don't see why those peasants in the blogosphere are making such a fuss about a right-wing shill with nonexistent journalistic credentials being given a pass to White House press conferences while using an alias.

There's no arguing with deliberate obtuseness. The question is, why do they do this? And how can they do it on national television without appearing at least slightly embarrassed?

We all know the usual answers. They do it because, as mainstream journalists, they want to protect their turf from the encroachments of the Internet. They do it because they are beholden to, or friendly with many of those powerful folks who are likely to be embarrassed by the Guckert affair. But while these things may be true, there are more insidious reasons that account, not just for the mainstream press uttering twaddle, but for the mainstream press sticking to the twaddle long after it's been revealed as twaddle, and earnestly repeating it in one-on-one conversations off-camera and away from the microphones.

...The greater the power wielded by an individual or an institution, the greater the responsibility they bear and the higher those moral stakes become. Our national media wields a considerable amount of power and responsibility. They are supposed to use that power as a check on other powerful institutions. They are supposed to keep government and corporations honest, get the truth to their readers and viewers.

Our national media has shirked that responsibility. By abandoning the pursuit of truth in favor of a form of stenography, of he said/she said journalism, they have allowed lies to go unchallenged and the power of the press to be transformed into a propaganda vehicle for the Bush administration and its corporate buddies. The damage this has already done to our country and the terrible impact it has already had on individual American lives, is undeniable. When the history of the Bush administration is written – and I have enough faith in humanity to believe that the Bush faux patriotism extant today will someday be remembered with the same contempt that we now remember McCarthyism and Jim Crow – the mainstream press as it is now will not be regarded as heroes.

They know this. They aren't stupid and they aren't ignorant of history. But knowing something and admitting it to oneself are two different things...

---

During the run-up to the Iraq war, the national media parroted the statements of the president bush and his administration uncritically, and stifled the voices in opposition to this adventure.

After thousands of people were killed, we got some lame apologies from the same media for not being more critical of the assertions that they printed.

The consequences of this failure are horrific, as we see on the news daily. And because of the security situation in Iraq, the reporters still on the scene can't travel from the "Green Zone" in Baghdad. So we really don't know what's really going on in that country. All that they really report on is the press releases the military gives them.

So we get their lame excuses and apologies, and they continue on as if nothing happened. The same stenography journalism is being practiced.

Now as the president bush is threatening war with Iran, and gutting social Security, where is our esteemed 'free press' to challenge the administration falsehoods?

Do they feel, along with the president bush administration, that they American people lack intelligence? Are we children to be fed whatever statements the administration offers up?

I really doubt that I could look my grandchildren in the eyes if I were to assist plunging America into disaster because I was too lazy, or to craven, to challenge the president bush.

My occupation is not journalism, and I have a full-time job. But in less than an hour, I can find out more information about the administration lies than we see printed in our newspapers, or broadcast on the 'news'. Journalists get paid to do that, and they have a lot more resources than I do.

Well, I guess I'll have to wait for their lame apologies again, and again, it will be too late. And, as we've seen, insincere.

Wag-the-Dog Protection

the New York Times

By PAUL KRUGMAN
February 22, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST

The campaign against Social Security is going so badly that longtime critics of President Bush, accustomed to seeing their efforts to point out flaws in administration initiatives brushed aside, are pinching themselves. But they shouldn't relax: if the past is any guide, the Bush administration will soon change the subject back to national security.

The political landscape today reminds me of the spring of 2002, after the big revelations of corporate fraud. Then as now, the administration was on the defensive, and Democrats expected to do well in midterm elections.

Then, suddenly, it was all Iraq, all the time, and Harken Energy and Halliburton vanished from the headlines.

I don't know which foreign threat the administration will start playing up this time, but Bush critics should be prepared for the shift. They must curb their natural inclination to focus almost exclusively on domestic issues, and challenge the administration on national security policy, too.

I say this even though many critics, myself included, would prefer to stick with the domestic issues. After all, domestic issues, particularly Social Security, are very comfortable ground for moderates and liberals. The relevant facts are all in the public domain, voters clearly oppose the administration's hard-right agenda, and Mr. Bush's attack on Social Security stumbled badly out of the gate. It's understandable, then, that critiques of the administration's national security policy have faded into the background in recent months.

But a president can always change the subject to national security if he wants to - and Mr. Bush has repeatedly shown himself willing to play the terrorism card when he is losing the debate on other issues. So it's important to point out that Mr. Bush, for all his posturing, has done a very bad job of protecting the nation - and to make that point now, rather than in the heat of the next foreign crisis.

The fact is that Mr. Bush, while willing to go to war on weak evidence, hasn't taken the task of protecting America from terrorists at all seriously.

Consider, for example, the case of chemical plants.

Just days after 9/11, many analysts identified sites that store toxic chemicals as a major terror risk, and called for new safety rules. But as The New York Times reported last fall, "after the oil and chemical industries met with Karl Rove ... the White House quietly blocked those efforts."

Nearly three and a half years after 9/11, those chemical plants are still unprotected.

Other major risks identified within days of the attack included the possibility of terrorist attacks on major ports or nuclear plants. But in the months after 9/11, the administration flatly refused to allocate the sums that members of the House and Senate from both parties thought necessary to secure these sites.

And when the administration does spend money protecting possible terrorist targets, politics, not national security, dictates where the money goes. Remember the "first responders" program that ended up spending seven times as much protecting each resident of Wyoming as it spent protecting each resident of New York?

Well, it's still happening. An audit of the Homeland Security Department's (greatly inadequate) program to protect ports found that much of the money went to unlikely locations, including six sites in landlocked Arkansas, where the department's recently resigned chief of border and transportation security is reported to be considering a run for governor.

Nor are Mr. Bush's national security failures limited to nonmilitary policy. The administration appears to be in a state of denial over the effects of the endless war in Iraq on U.S. military readiness, particularly the strains on the reserves and the National Guard.

The ultimate demonstration of Mr. Bush's true priorities was his attempt to appoint Bernard Kerik as homeland security director. Either the administration didn't bother to do even the most basic background checks, or it regarded protecting the nation from terrorists as a matter of so little importance that it didn't matter who was in charge.

My point is that Mr. Bush's critics are falling into an unnecessary trap if they focus only on domestic policies, and allow Mr. Bush to keep his undeserved reputation as someone who keeps Americans safe. National security policy should not be a refuge to which Mr. Bush can flee when his domestic agenda falls apart.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

In an interesting addition to this, Scott Ritter, in a talk in Olympia, WA on Feb 18 made the charge that the president bush has approved plans to begin bombing Iran in June of this year.

Scott Ritter says US attack on Iran planned for June

Mr Ritter, you will recall, is the ex-UNSCOM inspector who was running around the country in late 2002, trying to tell the American people that Iraq had, in fact, been disarmed. This also tallies with speeches made by both Powell and Rice in 2001 to the same effect. So I would have the tendency to give his words more credibility than the lame rice's statement that there are no plans to invade Iran "at this time"

One would have to admit that this would certainly distract the american people from the domestic problems of the president bush.

I can only hope that the American people and the American Congress will have the courage to stand up and tell the president bush that this would be unacceptable.

He was allowed to begin one unprovoked war. He still has yet to answer for that one, and its consequences. Much less offer a coherent explanation for what the hell we're in Iraq for anyway. Let's not let him start another. And at the same time, we cannot allow that distraction to provide cover for the administration's failed domestic policies, or its disastrous domestic policy proposals.

It's time to keep the president bush under the spotlight. And also all his proposals, so making it difficult for him and his allies in Congress to loot any more from the American people, both financially and morally.

Injustice, in Secret

washingtonpost.com

Monday, February 21, 2005; Page A26


Attorneys for the Justice Department appeared before a federal judge in Washington this month and asked him to dismiss a lawsuit over the detention of a U.S. citizen, basing their request not merely on secret evidence but also on secret legal arguments. The government contends that the legal theory by which it would defend its behavior should be immune from debate in court…

…It should have been unthinkable for the government to propose such a step.

Wow, do we live in a great country or what?

Can you imagine being in that situation? What is wrong with the people of this country that they can allow things like this to remain unchallenged. Have we all forgotten that if we allow this to one person, know matter who, we have given our permission for OUR government to do the same to us. Of course, after the morally twisted opinions and justifications by Gonzalez, et al, to allow torture, and unbridled power to the president bush, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to us.

But I can see where the president bush would see this as a time and money saver. Arrest a person on secret charges, using secret evidence, and base it all on secret legal arguments. Why would anyone need to go to court anymore. Just pop the bullet into his head at a cost of pennies to the taxpayer. Now, of course, for lesser crimes, we would still need to lock ‘em up, so our great corporations such as Microsoft, will continue to have a captive workforce, so to speak.

But how to sort them out? I guess without knowing any of the charges or evidence, we’ll just have to leave it to our betters to decide who gets the bullet, and who gets to work at taking airline reservations. And as an added benefit, we wouldn’t need all those pesky lawyers.

With all the savings from abolishing the criminal court system, I’m sure the president bush could eke out another couple of percentage points in tax cuts for our deserving rich.

---

I’m sure sorry Hunter S. Thompson decided to leave this dimension.
The Proverbial 'Live Boy'
We’ll miss you.

Democracy in Iraq

http://www.juancole.com/2005/02/at-least-55-dead-over-100-wounded-in.html

…Al-Hayat reports that a decision on the new prime minister [Iraq] will not be announced until at least Wednesday. The decision was postponed in part because of Ashura, and in part because of the difficulty in getting a "green light" from Washington in the wake of Ambassador John Negroponte's appointment as intelligence czar. (US news sources have not spoken as openly of the need for a green light from Washington, but al-Hayat's sources are frank about it. This frankness agrees with the comment made by one embassy official that Iraq cannot select a prime minister who is unacceptable to Washington.

well, well. So much for the Bush administration’s claim to be bringing democracy to Iraq, or anywhere else for that matter.

So, let’s recap.
WMD’s and “imminent threat” – nope
The liberation of the Iraqi people – nope
Bring democracy to Iraq – nope

Hey, George, let’s cut the crap. I know the real reasons for your invasion of Iraq. The world knows the real reasons for your invasion of Iraq. In fact, the Iraqi’s know the real reasons.

So, George, when you gonna grab ‘em and tell the American people. Or are you one of Arnold’s ‘girlie-men’ ?

You know, George, or maybe your momma never told you ?, that when you get to lying, your stories begin to get all tangled up. As Judge Judy would say, “Don’t pee on my leg, and tell me it’s raining.

Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police

Kitty Genovese murder

New York Times
Martin Gansberg
March 27, 1964

For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.
…
The brutal murder on March 14, 1964 of Kitty Genovese and the disturbing lack of action by her neighbors became emblematic in what many perceived as an evolving culture of violence and apathy in the United States. In fact, social scientists still debate the causes of what is now known as "the Genovese Syndrome."

So, you ask, what does a 41 year-old murder have to do with today? Well, America, I’ll tell you.

Right now, today, Kitty’s right outside your fucking window. Get off your ass, and do something about it.

Your country is screaming for help, the poor in this country are screaming for help, people who can’t afford health insurance are screaming for your help, the environment is screaming for your help. The children in Iraq have been screaming for your help for years.

The Bush administration, by their own admission, is the most corrupt and immoral group of people this country has ever seen in power. They are looting the Treasury, and bragging about it. They are killing women, children, and men in Iraq, poisoning their land with their DU weaponry, looting the country of its industries, and bragging about it, and telling you how holy and good it is. And Congress, both Republicans and Democrats aren’t going to do shit about it. Didn’t do shit about Gonzalez, didn’t do shit about Rice, and didn’t do shit when the chief asshole Bush said “hee, hee, hee, there never was any WMD.”
The mainstream media ain’t gonna do anything about it either.

And how do I know Congress isn’t going to do anything, or the media, or the Supreme Court? Because they’ve already had FOUR YEARS to do something, and they haven’t.

So. It’s going to be up to us. What are you going to tell your kids and your grandkids you did to try to help your country, the poor, the Afghans, the Iraqis? Nothing? What are you going to do to try to stop the insane Mr Bush?

Are you going to be sitting around like Kitty Genovese’s neighbors listening to her screams, afraid to “get involved”, afraid to be inconvenienced?

Well, my friends, the Bush administration is going to just toss you aside like a used kleenex when they are done with you. Because, that is all you are to them.

US N-strategy calls for outsourcing strikes

Daily Times - Pakistan

* Study says nuclear warheads will be transferred to US non-nuclear allies

* Experts view it as an attempt to skirt international law

WASHINGTON: US nuclear strategy calls for outsourcing nuclear strikes, in case of a major conflict in Europe, to NATO allies that do not have such weapons, in what experts view as an attempt to skirt international law, according to an authoritative report made public here.

The study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national security and environmental think-tank, is based mainly on declassified official documents and provides a detailed analysis of the US nuclear arsenal in Europe as well as of doctrines justifying its presence there more than a decade after the end of the Cold War.

But for the first time, the document revealed on Wednesday a specific number of nuclear warheads which, under US and NATO war plans, will be transferred to US non-nuclear allies to be delivered to targets by their warplanes.

If war were to break out in Europe, as many as 180 nuclear bombs would be earmarked for delivery by the air forces of Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey, Germany and Italy, the report said.

The weapons are part of a 480-warhead nuclear arsenal the United States kept in Europe in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The arsenal, according to the study, is being kept at eight air force bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and Britain.

Plans call for the remaining 300 weapons to stay in US hands and to be delivered by US F-15s and F-16s fighter jets, the report said. The arrangement, the council insists, “skirts international law” because the Nonproliferation Treaty prohibits a nuclear state from transferring nuclear weapons to a non-weapon state, and prohibits a non-nuclear state from receiving such weapons.

The research organization dismisses the argument that if war breaks out, the Nonproliferation Treaty would no longer apply.

It argues that preparations for delivering the 180 nuclear bombs are taking place in peacetime, and “equipping non-nuclear countries with the means to conduct nuclear warfare is inconsistent with today’s international efforts to dissuade other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

“If China deployed nuclear bombs in North Korea, equipped North Korean aircraft with mechanical and electronic devices to deliver the weapons, and trained North Korean pilots to draw up nuclear strike plans, there would be hell to pay, and rightly so,” said Hans Kristensen, the author of the report. “Yet that is precisely what the United States is doing in Europe.” The Defense Department declined to comment on the report, citing its longstanding policy of not publicly discussing deployments of nuclear weapons.

The report also sheds light on a secret 1994 US Air Force document that lists 15 nuclear bombing ranges scattered all over Europe, including one in Suippes, France, despite the fact that France is not part of NATO’s nuclear command structure. Moreover, it lists one such training range in the North African nation of Tunisia that is not a member of Western military alliance at all.

“It is unclear whether Tunisia knows that Ben Ghilouf is for nuclear training,” the study said.

According to the report, the start of President George W Bush’s first term in office was marked by a quiet withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Greece, a full-fledged NATO ally. In April 2001, US Air Force headquarters in Europe issued a secret order to move 20 nuclear bombs out of Araxos Air Base in Greece to an unknown destination.

afp

Bush names Negroponte as national intelligence director

World Socialist Web Site

A veteran of US subversion and dirty wars
By Bill Van Auken
18 February 2005
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org

President Bush’s nomination Thursday of John Negroponte as US director of national intelligence serves as another warning that his second term will be marked by an escalation of military aggression abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home.

The new post is supposed to centralize and coordinate the work of 15 separate civilian and military intelligence agencies in the “war on terrorism.” Its creation marks the most sweeping change in the laws governing national intelligence since the onset of the Cold War more than half a century ago.

Negroponte’s qualifications for this position include his involvement in the covert operations of the CIA when, as US ambassador to Honduras, he was a central organizer of the “contra” war that claimed tens of thousands of lives in neighboring Nicaragua. He was implicated as well in the operations of death squads in Honduras itself. More recently, as US ambassador to the United Nations, he pushed for the passage of Security Council resolutions based on false intelligence that paved the way for the US invasion of Iraq.

In June 2004, Negroponte took over the American embassy in Baghdad, as the US wound up its Coalition Provisional Authority and installed a puppet Iraqi regime under an interim prime minister, the long-time CIA asset Iyad Allawi. While remaining largely behind the scenes, Negroponte played the role of colonial proconsul, overseeing the occupation of Iraq during a period that saw a steady escalation of US violence, including the destruction of Fallujah.

Bush made the announcement at a White House briefing that lasted more than half an hour. After praising Negroponte for his “unique set of skills,” he declared, “If we’re going to stop the terrorists before they strike, we must ensure that our intelligence agencies work as a single, unified enterprise.”

The White House press corps responded to the announcement with its habitual subservience, ignoring Negroponte’s past and passing over the significance of the reconfiguration of the vast US intelligence apparatus as a “unified enterprise.”

Most coverage has been limited to questioning whether the creation of a new “intelligence czar” can overcome the bureaucratic turf interests of the multiple agencies involved and, in particular, whether it will have any effect on the massive intelligence operations of the US military. There has been speculation that the new office could face much the same fate as the Department of Homeland Security, which exerts little real control over the various agencies that it formally incorporated.

According to the official story in Washington, the creation of the national intelligence director (NID) post is part of a shakeup within US intelligence in a response to the events of September 11, 2001, and is aimed at preventing future terrorist attacks.

Establishing the new post was one of the central recommendations of the bipartisan commission formed by the administration to investigate the September 11 attacks. The commission’s findings were based on the premise that 9/11 attacks were the result of a “failure of intelligence,” and, in particular, a lack of coordination between the CIA and the FBI.

However, information that emerged in the course of the panel’s investigation and subsequently has exposed the falsity of the administration’s claims that it had no warning of threatened terrorist attacks within the US and that no one had contemplated the possibility that hijacked planes would be used as missiles. What the commission failed to probe was why these warnings were ignored and why the country’s security forces were effectively demobilized on the day of the attacks. It never even considered the most salient question arising from September 11: did elements within the administration or the intelligence apparatus allow the attacks to happen in order to create the pretext for already planned wars of conquest in the oil-rich regions of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf?

The supposed remedy to September 11 amounts to giving more power to conspiratorial agencies whose own role in the events of that day is far from clear.

The new NID post will supposedly have budget-setting power over the various civilian and military agencies, and will oversee a National Counterterrorism Center, which will be empowered not only to collect intelligence, but also to order covert operations.

The fundamental change embodied in this unification of intelligence agencies is the abrogation of the legal prohibition against the CIA and military intelligence engaging in domestic spying and covert operations. This ban was put in place as part of the National Security Act of 1947, amid warnings by both Democrats and Republicans that the newly formed CIA could turn into an “American Gestapo.”

Now, under Negroponte, the framework is being erected for precisely such an all-encompassing secret police apparatus, with extraordinary powers and resources to spy on and suppress anyone seen as a threat to the American ruling elite and its government.

Ironically, while Negroponte is ostensibly tasked with unifying the disparate intelligence agencies, he has been accused of launching his own rogue intelligence operation in Iraq. The US think tank Stratfor, which has close links to US military and intelligence circles, reported that Negroponte ran his own “parallel intelligence service” in Iraq, because he did not trust the CIA’s Baghdad station chief.

There has been a proliferation of such informal intelligence services, Stratfor noted, most famously the Pentagon’s “counter-terrorism evaluation group,” created to substantiate the bogus claims of ties between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda.

The spread of such off-the-books operations, Stratfor noted, “sets up the new national intelligence director (NID)—yet to be appointed—for failure As long as government agencies and on-the-side intel projects undermine each other, the NID will not be able to bring all intelligence efforts under one umbrella. The proliferation of small, separate intelligence groups also hurts collection efforts by impeding the government’s ability to paint a clear picture of the realities on the ground—in Iraq and elsewhere.”

Negroponte’s objective was just that—to counteract the assessment of the CIA, whose station chief filed an end-of-the year report giving a bleak assessment of the US occupation and warning that resistance could spiral out of control. Negroponte answered the assessment with a lengthy dissenting report of his own, painting a far rosier picture of what is widely seen as a debacle, not only in the CIA, but within the State Department and military as well.

As national intelligence director, Negroponte will doubtless continue along these lines, pressing the CIA and other intelligence agencies to tailor their assessments to meet the political needs of the administration. In this regard, he will be aligned with the new director of the CIA, Peter Goss, who issued a memo to the intelligence agency’s employees last November warning them not to “identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies.”

Before Iraq, Negroponte’s formative experience in matters of intelligence was his stint as US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. He was sent to take over the embassy in Tegucigalpa after his predecessor failed to heed warnings to keep quiet about the growing wave of assassinations, disappearances, jailings and torture carried out by the military-dominated regime.

Negroponte not only halted any reporting of human rights violations, he oversaw their escalation during his four years in the country. He secured a 20-fold increase in US aid to the Honduran military—from $4 million a year to nearly $80 million. He also presided over a vast expansion of CIA activities in the country, with the local station becoming the agency’s largest anywhere in the world.

The CIA’s operations included the organization, training and equipping of a military unit known as Battalion 3-16, which carried out the abduction, illegal detention, torture and murder of thousands of Hondurans, including journalists, union activists, student leaders and others perceived to be opponents of the military and of US policy in the region. Those who survived reported being brutally beaten, shocked with electrodes, subjected to sexual abuse and kept naked in cells with little or no food or water. Many also testified that they were interrogated by US personnel during their captivity.

Throughout this period, Negroponte issued regular reports praising Honduras as a model democracy, while he actively suppressed attempts by embassy staff to issue written memos on human rights abuses.

Honduras was crucial to US policy in the region, functioning as a military base for Washington’s covert war against Nicaragua—a war that would claim some 50,000 lives, mostly as a result of terrorist attacks by the CIA-organized “contra” army. Negroponte served as a key link between the contras and the illegal network formed by the Reagan administration under Lt. Col. Oliver North to provide covert funding after Congress had voted to end US aid to the mercenary force.

The Nicaraguan government went to the World Court to demand an end to the US sponsored aggression. The ruling from The Hague found Washington guilty of “unlawful use of force”—a legal term for state terrorism. Much of this terrorism was launched from bases in Honduras that were constructed and maintained under the supervision of Negroponte. Washington responded by rejecting the court’s authority.

Whatever ultimate authority is invested in the post of national intelligence director, the elevation of Negroponte to titular chief of all US civilian and military intelligence agencies is an unmistakable signal that Washington intends to escalate a criminal policy that has already produced unprovoked wars, assassinations and the widespread use of torture. The integration of the CIA, FBI, military intelligence and other agencies under his leadership increases the danger that these same criminal methods will be turned against those who oppose this policy within the United States itself.


Copyright 1998-2004
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved

and so, let's catch up a little here.

We have Alberto "the Torturer" Gonzalez as our new Attorney General, Condoleeza "lying toady" Rice for Secretary of State, and Mr Bush is adding John "the Killer" Negroponte to the line-up.

And half of America still think Mr Bush is sane? Or has any concern for America? Or even cares what you or I think?

And the Dems are going to roll over on this too. And the media isn't going to tell you what kind of a soulless person Negroponte is. He'll fit right in, because nobody in the Bush administration has a soul, or morals, or Christian values. And nobody in Congress has the balls to stand up and say "enough".

And so, America, I'm going to ask you. How much corruption, murder, war crimes, nepotism, the looting of the American treasury, the theft of your childrens' future is going to be too much. Where are you going to finally draw the line, or will you just sit back and let it happen. Read Come let us reason together by Jack Dalton. He asks the question better than I can.

“Enemy Combatant” Negroponte will be the Nation’s First Intelligence Chief.

www.politicalstrategy.org

“Enemy Combatant” Negroponte will be the Nation’s First Intelligence Chief.
By Tom Ball
02/17/05

After stints as US Ambassador to Honduras and then to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte will be rewarded with an appointment as the Director of National Intelligence, a new position that will oversee the country's 15 intelligence agencies and exercise broad control over a multi-billion dollar intelligence budget. Congratulations Johnny.

Most people remember Negroponte as the facilitator of Reagan-approved atrocities in Honduras and proud Iran-Contra criminal. I know, it's hard to believe, but one of Bush's appointments might not actually meet the high standards we would like to believe the US Government sets for its officials. In fact, he and his buddies, Caspar Weinberger, Elliot Abrams, Robert McFarlane, John Poindexter, Otto Reich, George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan, and Oliver North committed acts that, outside conservative circles, spur outrage and disbelief.

Negroponte's role in the Iran Contra Cabal:

Negroponte served as Reagan's Ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. He was personally responsible for carrying out the Reagan administration's illegal policy of training and arming Contra rebels inside Honduras for the purpose of overthrowing Nicaragua's Sandinista government. He also oversaw the build-up of the Honduran military, while turning a blind eye to their campaigns of death and torture.
This was a period when the Honduran military's notorious Battalion 316, trained by the CIA, killed or “disappeared" at least 184 political opponents. Hundreds of articles in Honduran newspapers reported on the brutality of the government's death squads.


Negroponte was a 'good soldier', willingly playing his part in a group that trained, funded, traded and negotiated with, and otherwise supported various terrorist groups in both hemispheres -- a group idolized by the political right-wing.

This was a group that was largely released from accountability for their atrocities via pardons by George H. W. Bush.

"President [George H. W.] Bush, [on] December 24, [1992] granted pardons to former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five other individuals for their conduct related to the Iran-Contra affair. Bush said Weinberger -- who had been scheduled to go on trial in Washington January 5 on charges related to Iran-Contra -- was a "true American patriot," who had served with "distinction" []"
As a little background, Caspar Weinberger was the Secretary of Defense under Reagan. He was charged with four counts of lying to congressional Iran-Contra investigators in 1987 and 1990. Weinberger had concealed from congressional investigators his personal notes that detailed events related to Iran-Contra and which reportedly undermined what then-President Reagan said about the origins and operations of the covert arms-for-hostages dealings.

Among the other five individuals were:

Robert McFarlane, Reagan's National Security Adviser who pleaded guilty to four counts of withholding information from Congress.

And...

Elliott Abrams, Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State. Abrams pleaded guilty to two counts of lying to Congress during the Iran-Contra hearings. He is currently working for you and me as the National Security Council Director. Not surprisingly, Abrams' post in the George W. Bush Administration did not require Senate approval.

So what did these "true American patriots" do that would put such a black cloud over Negroponte's appointment? Well, in concert with the rest of the Reagan Administration, they merely:

1) Had "Dealings with the enemy" (Iran), a designated terrorist nation at the time and current member of the "axis of evil".

2) Violated arms-export controls. The Independent Counsel concluded that: "The sales of arms to Iran contravened United States Government policy and [] violated the Arms Export Control Act"

3) Acted as "Enemy-Combatants". (as the Reagan Administration was supporting Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war).

4) Supported terrorism in Nicaragua. The Independent Counsel concluded that: "The provision and coordination of support to the contras violated the "Boland Amendment" ban on aid to military activities in Nicaragua"

Of course, according to George Sr, these activities were "All-American", a prelude of things to come with Bush Jr. He explained the pardons thusly:

"[The] common denominator of their motivation -- whether their actions were right or wrong -- was patriotism. ‘They did not profit or seek to profit from their conduct', Bush said, adding that all five 'have already paid a price -- in depleted savings, lost careers, anguished families -- grossly disproportionate to any misdeeds or errors of judgment they may have committed.'"
You see, it's O.K. to sell weapons to the enemy of the United States so long as the proceeds go to support terrorists in South America. Administration officials were quick to point out that the arms sales were in exchange for the release of hostages in Lebanon -- as though they wouldn't have otherwise covertly funded their terrorist friends in Nicaragua with covert weapon sales to Iran if there were no hostages in Lebanon. In addition, negotiating with terrorists (the Lebanese kidnappers) set such a catastrophic worldwide precedent as to be incomprehensible. Not surprisingly, the only "real" mistake that the Reagan Administration thinks they made was getting found out.

But we can't blame Bush for pardoning these Iran-Contra criminals. He had to. He was one of them.

"The Independent Counsel concluded that: the Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter."
By pardoning these criminals and painting their actions into a portrait of selfless patriotism, Bush was pardoning his own actions and painting himself as a selfless patriot.

The kicker is that although a president has unlimited pardon powers, it is highly unusual to pardon someone before trial and conviction. (The best-known precedent was the Nixon pardon) Indeed, if Weinberger was allowed to stand trail, there is little doubt that Bush and Reagan themselves would have been indicted and perhaps impeached for their brazen usurpation of American and international law.

Luckily, there is still one hope for justice. Let's look at two important facts:

1) The current Bush Administration has set a precedent, freely applying the label of "enemy combatant" to those it feels are working or have worked with the enemy against the United States.

2) The "Patriot" Act has a clause that eliminates the statute of limitations on such matters (USPA: Title VIII, Sec. 809).

Given that evidence already exists that Weinberger, McFarlane, Abrams and their associated group, (which included Negroponte) were involved in "aiding the enemy" it is certainly within recent character and precedent to take them into custody, indefinitely and without being charged, being named or being counseled. In fact, under current definitions and past evidence, the entire Reagan Administration qualifies as "enemy combatants". But this article is about despicable presidential appointments, not despicable presidential administrations.... Who am I kidding? Of course it is.

Book 'em Dano

a must read

The Furious Spinner
both posts of 2-17-05

For now, Dems will offer no Social Security reforms

The Hill

By Patrick O'Connor
February 8, 2005

During a Sunday morning interview on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) repeatedly declined to discuss specific Democratic alternatives to the Bush plan, focusing instead on the party’s broad goals for reform and the need to give Democrats a seat at the negotiating table.

This strategy is only partially voluntary, said one senior Democratic aide who did not want to be named, and is partly forced on the opposition by circumstances. As the minority in both houses of Congress, and with a Republican in the White House, the Democrats have no say in reform discussions unless Republicans invite them in.

Thus, the Democrats are biding their time and leaving it to the press and a handful of Republicans on the Hill to scrutinize the administration’s plan as details trickle out, the aide said. Democrats, meanwhile, are not forced to show their own cards.

“When you’re in the minority, you don’t have the luxury of delivering a defined plan,” the aide said. “Coming out with details of what we would do is irrelevant. Why take the criticism without the result?”

---

Patrick,

Actually, I think that's a good strategy. As far as the charge of obstructionism, that can be countered by pointing out how disastrous the Bush administration policies have been for America. I can't think of one, but perhaps you may know of just one of his policies that did not cause more problems than it cured.

For the Democrats to enter into the debate, they give political cover to the administration. It allows the Repulicans to say "see everyone agrees that there is a crisis, but they're just quibbling over the details". The plain fact is, is that there is NO Social Security crisis. Period. Since I started working 40 something years ago, I've been hearing that Soc Sec is only about 10 years or so from bankruptcy. And guess what, it's still there, 10 years or so from bankruptcy.

Until such time as Mr Bush actually proposes something that will help the majority of Americans, the only moral stand is to obstruct. To refuse to lend any bi-partisan face to any of it.

Mr Krugman, in today's NY Times, has a column speaking of Mr Bush's class-warfare budget. How moral is it to give tax breaks to those who don't need them, and strip away the safety net for the needy to pay for them.

How moral is it to present lies and exaggerations to justify an invasion of Iraq, with all that came out of that particular Pandora's Box. I'm sure you remember that in 2001, both Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice told us in speeches that Saddam Hussein was completely contained, and no threat to us, or his neighbors.

To return to the present debate, the only way that Mr Bush's "private accounts" can work, is for the economy to grow at a good pace. Now, of course, if that should happen, there will be more money placed into the Social Security trust fund. What Mr Bush is saying, is that the economy will be moribund, and so Soc Sec will run out of money, but the economy will grow at such a pace that those private accounts will give a return that will allow them to live a dignified retirement.

Such contradictions make me say "Go away, little man, and bring me something real."

Bush Social Security Scheme

Democratic Underground

By Carolyn Winter and Roger Bybee
Posted at Democratic Underground
February 9, 2005

As the authors point out, our response to the Bush Social Security plans must be unified, and focused. If we get distracted by debating rates of return, etc. we will easily lose sight of the fact that Mr Bush’s true purpose of this proposal is the disappearance of Social Security. Just a cursory glance of his plan shows that this would be the only possible outcome. Additionally, any debate over any of his points lends a bi-partisan legitimacy to them. It will give the bushistas the cover they need to say “See, everyone is talking about major reform, but quibbling over the details.”

I’ve read that by raising the limit of income subject to the payroll tax to $200,000 from the current $90,000, the system will be sustainable for decades into the future. And why shouldn’t the more well off pay more to guarantee a dignified and secure retirement for this country’s workers, who after all, are the true creators of wealth in this country, as in any other country. Which, not wanting to go off on a tangent, is a good argument for rescinding Mr Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, and lift the burden from the shoulders of the working class. Especially since they have done nothing for the workers of this country, except add to the national debt, which of course must be paid off by the taxes imposed on wage income, since Bush’s cuts are all directed to investment income.

Social Security, as its name implies, is a social contract between generations of workers. This is what Mr Bush proposes breaking. And the most curious thing of all, is that of ALL those proposing these drastic cuts and changes, not one of them will be depending on Social Security when they retire from a lifetime of labor. They have no stake whatsoever in that program.

As the authors say:

Our message to the public must underscore that the Bush plan is first and foremost a program for major benefit cuts, with the private accounts used to disguise the real aim of dismantling Social Security. We can assume that this strategy is only a part of the right-wing agenda to strengthen the leverage of Corporate America over the workforce by increasing economic insecurity.

We need to remind our Democratic friends that Bush has no plan to compromise, and neither should they. Plain and simple, propose a raise in the income level, and lets see what that does for the future of the system. Since there is no immediate crisis, as many, such as Paul Krugman of the NY Times, have pointed out, we can take the time to place fixes and tweaks on what is existing. Both Chile and Britain have tried privatization with results that are, shall we say, less than acceptable. In fact, the British are looking at our current system to fix the mess that’s been created there by Margaret Thatcher’s changes to their public pension plans.

We also need to remind both Republicans and Democrats that are up for re-election in 2006, that they are, in fact, up for re-election in 2006. They need to be made to understand that any attempt to provide any political cover for the bushistas would mean the end of their careers.

And finally, not to distract, but just as a “real-world test” to his proposal, since Jan 1, 2001, the stock markets haven’t done so well. As of the closing bell on Friday Feb 4, 2005, the Dow is down 0.656%, the Nasdaq is down 15.538%, the NYSE is up 3.914%, and the S&P is down 3.438%. Using these indexes as a guide, the average return over the past 4 years is -3.929%. So how in the hell can Mr Bush stand up in front of the American people, and say that the “markets” will make up any difference. Anyone retiring during a period such as this, and depending on their “private accounts” for their retirement financial security would be just plain fucked.

2005 = 1984:

American Progress Report

2005 = 1984: In an Orwellian touch, the REAL ID Act contains a provision that authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to "waive any and all laws in the course of securing the borders from illegal immigration." The bill also contains "exemption from judicial review that not only shields the waiver decisions from court scrutiny but also strips courts of any power to order remedies for anyone harmed by the consequences of such decisions." The provision "would empower the DHS Secretary to give no-bid contracts for border construction to private companies and then shield those contractors from all employment discrimination and workplace safety laws." Another big concern: the provision gives DHS free reign to waive environmental laws across thousands of acres of federal lands.

The corrupt Bush administration is really pushing this country further and further from its ideals, and the moral values of its peoples. I would hope that we all will find out how our senators and representatives plan to do about this law, and remind those up for re-election in 2006 how we feel about it.

Bush doesn't care

Birth of a Salesman: Pitching Social Security

An interesting article about Mr Bush’s honing of his con man skills. But the telling part of the article is about 3/4’s of the way through:

In Omaha on Friday, a divorced single mother named Mary Mornin tells the president, "I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters."

"Fantastic," the president exclaims, and he tells her she has "the hardest job in America, being a single mom."

Later, the 57-year old Mornin tells Bush that she works three jobs, which the president deems "uniquely American" and "fantastic." He asks her if she gets any sleep.

Mr Bush just doesn’t give a shit. And he is the President of the United States. It really is a scary thought.

The Guerrilla Campaign

The Guerrilla campaign

Oh yes. The bushistas talk about the January elections in Iraq, and turning it all over to a retrained Iraqi security force, as if that will make it all ok, and our national media has made it their mantra. Well. There are TONS of radioactive depleted uranium dust lying around the countryside and cities. Ever wonder what that will do to the people living there, and the children? The Iraqi infrastructure is destroyed; the water system, the sewage system, the electric system, the roads, the cities, the hospitals, the mosques and churches, the schools. Destroyed. Gone. Boy, I'll bet that's going to cause some inconveniance. What do you think? There are tens of thousands of maimed and crippled Iraqi people trying to survive in a ruined country with an economy that has been sold off from underneath them by the Coalition Provisional Authority, and so can't take care of even it's healthy citizens. Makes you kind of thankful to be living here, instead of there, doesn't it?

And you know what else? Mr Bush has still not been able to articulate a coherent reason of what the hell are we doing there in the first place. And what do we hear? "…staying the course…" . How sick.

Mr Bush and his administration, allies, collaborators, and enablers, all have much to abswer for