News


to Me



...like a new Pearl Harbor



"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it."
  — Dwight David Eisenhower



"I fully understand that the intelligence was wrong,
and I'm just as disappointed as everybody else is."
  — George W. Bush, April 7, 2006



"I will not convene an accountability board
to judge the performances of any individual
CIA officers."   — J. Porter Goss



"Once a government is committed to the
principle of silencing the voice of
opposition, it has only one way to go, and
that is down the path of increasingly
repressive measures, until it becomes a
source of terror to all its citizens and
creates a country where everyone lives in
fear."
  — Harry S Truman



"It is the Iraqis' country, 28 million of
them. They are perfectly capable of running
that country. . . . Our problem is that
anytime something needs to be done, we have a
feeling we should rush in and fill the vacuum
and do it ourselves."
  — Donald Rumsfeld, 29 November 2005



Prosecutor turned up on US terror watch list

The name of the Justice Department's former
top criminal prosecutor turned up on the
government's terror watch list.

This terrorism-era roster, which likely has
caused thousands of innocent Americans to be
questioned or searched, popped up with the
name of former Assistant Attorney General Jim
Robinson.

Bush: Telecom Immunity More
Important Than Surveillance Powers

Even though the White House "strongly
support[s]" the FISA bill, and contends it
is necessary to provide "our intelligence
professionals the tools they need to keep our
Nation safe," and urges the Senate "to act as
soon as it returns from its recess," the Bush
Administration is willing to veto the
legislation and forgo these tools unless the
telecom immunity is given effect
immediately.

Beware Bush's preemptive
strike on torture

So what of those responsible for torturing
detainees? There is the distinct possibility
that in his administration's waning days Bush
will issue a preemptive pardon for all those
who have or may have committed federal crimes
relating to detainee interrogations. He might
even invoke his father's Orwellian praise of
the Iran-Contra defendants, who were pardoned
because of their "patriotism" and "long and
distinguished record of service to the
country," and who the elder Bush believed had
been caught up in "the criminalization of
policy differences."

Bush signs bill overhauling
eavesdropping rules

President Bush signed a bill Thursday that
overhauls rules about government
eavesdropping and grants immunity to
telecommunications companies that helped the
U.S. spy on Americans in suspected terrorism
cases.

Judiciary may hold hearings on impeachment

After insisting for nearly two years that
impeachment was strictly "off the table,"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be changing
her tune.

The Democratic leader said Thursday that the
House Judiciary Committee could be holding
hearings on impeachment articles introduced
by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) sometime in
the near future. After introducing 35
articles of impeachment against President
Bush last month, Kucinich is planning to
introduce another single article Thursday,
accusing the president of misleading the
country into war with Iraq.

Inside the Bush White House's
Nonstop Propaganda War

The moral of McClellan's story is deeper than
he knows, deeper by far than some Book of
Virtues parable about Washington's "culture
of deception." The philosophical takeaway
here is the historical shift from the
Enlightenment worldview, whose commitment to
reasoned debate and empirical truth used to
be the cornerstone of our little experiment
in democracy, to the faith-based worldview of
fundamentalism -- not just the Christian
fundamentalism of the religious right, but
fundamentalisms of every sort. The Iraq War
came about, in large part, because of a
harmonic convergence of personal passions,
political agendas and ideological crusades,
all faith-based rather than fact-driven.

Time for a Grand Inquest
Into Bush's High Crimes

According to the leading case on presidential
powers, if Bush's extreme assertions of power
are not challenged by the Congress, they end
up not simply creating new law, they could
end up rewriting the Constitution
itself. Inaction can alter the Constitutional
division of powers by establishing the
president's claims as authority that the
Congress or the courts may not infringe.

Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt

Though she likes their buttery, salty taste,
Charlene said the cookies also give her
stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby
sometimes seems colicky too," she said.

Moscow Trials

At the time, most Western observers who
attended the trials said that they were fair
and that the guilt of the accused had been
established. They based this assessment on
the confessions of the accused, which were
freely given in open court, without any
apparent evidence that they had been
extracted by torture or drugging.

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream

The BBC report provides a good account of the
basic story. Some of the wealthiest men in
America approached Marine Corps Major General
Smedley Butler, beloved of many World War I
veterans, many of them embittered by the
government's treatment of them. Prescott
Bush's group asked Butler to lead 500,000
veterans in a take-over of Washington and the
White House. Butler refused and recounted the
affair to the congressional committee. His
account was corroborated in part by a number
of witnesses, and the committee concluded
that the plot was real. But the names of
wealthy backers of the plot were blacked out
in the committee's records, and nobody was
prosecuted. According to the BBC, President
Roosevelt cut a deal. He refrained from
prosecuting some of the wealthiest men in
America for treason. They agreed to end Wall
Street's opposition to the New Deal.

Rudy's Ties to a Terror Sheikh

The contradictory and stunning reality is
that Giuliani Partners, the consulting
company that has made Giuliani rich, feasts
at the Qatar trough, doing business with the
ministry run by the very member of the royal
family identified in news and government
reports as having concealed KSM--the
terrorist mastermind who wired funds from
Qatar to his nephew Ramzi Yousef prior to the
1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and
who also sold the idea of a plane attack on
the towers to Osama bin Laden--on his Qatar
farm in the mid-1990s.

A pragmatist's view on FISA

Folks, if you think FISA is the last bastion
of the Fourth Amendment, I have bad news for
you. If FISA is indeed the last bastion, the
Fourth Amendment is already gone. The
current bill will not fix the problem, no
matter whether telecoms are given the
affirmative defense of acting under color of
law. The problem exists in the USA PATRIOT
Act, not in FISA.

Chris Floyd: Torturegate

As I noted in a recent piece, Barack
Obama--who has been busy this week bolstering
"Blue Dog" supporters of executive tyranny
and appointing a gaggle of dim warhawks,
has-beens and imperial factotums as his
national security team)--has given every
indication he too sees the Administration's
high crimes as "dumb policies" that don't
require any legal redress

Occupations abroad always lead to the
erosion of liberties at home: Information
Clearing House

Jonathan Friedman, a CIA counter-terrorism
lawyer, told military and intelligence
officials that "torture is basically subject
to perception". "If the detainee dies,"
continued Friedman, "you're doing it wrong."

Throughout, innocence, guilt, facts and
evidence have been little more than
technicalities. Indeed, the enterprise has
been a huge faith-based initiative - guided
by the notion that if you believe you are
doing the right thing, it doesn't matter what
you actually do.

Gov't says FBI agents can't testify about 9/11

Government lawyers say the ongoing
investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks could
be compromised if the airline industry is
allowed to seek more information from the FBI
to defend itself against lawsuits brought by
terrorism victims.

In papers filed late Tuesday, the government
urged a judge to block aviation companies
from interviewing five FBI employees who the
companies say will help them prove the
government withheld key information before
the 2001 attacks.

The lawyers said it would be impossible to
interview the employees without disclosing
classified or privileged material that could
"cause serious damage to national security
and interfere with pending law enforcement
proceedings."

Village re-elects dead mayor

Romanian villagers re-elected a dead man as
their mayor because they preferred him to his
living opponent.

Neculai Ivascu had run the village of
Voinesti since 1990 but died of liver disease
just before voting began.

Ivascu still managed to win the election by
23 votes.

One resident was quoted as saying, "I know he
died but I don't want change."

Election authorities have ultimately awarded
the post to the runner-up but some villagers
and members of Ivascu's political party want
a new vote.

As talks lag, Iraq ponders ordering U.S. troops out

Earlier, al-Maliki said talks with the United
States on a status of forces agreement
"reached an impasse" after U.S. negotiators
presented a draft that would have given the
United States access to 58 military bases,
control of Iraqi airspace and immunity from
prosecution for U.S. troops and private
contractors.

Congress Nears Deal on Surveillance Bill

The main sticking point between the House and
Senate has been President Bush's demand that
phone companies that cooperated in the
wiretapping program after the Sept. 11
attacks be given blanket immunity from legal
action by customers who claim their rights
were violated by warrantless surveillance.
The Senate went along with the plan but the
House balked.

Matthews Promotes Russert to Master 9/11 Gatekeeper!

Today, Christ Matthews continued his ongoing
canonization of Tim Russert. Early in this
evening's Hardball show, Matthews repeated a
segment of his original tribute to Russert's
career. By doing so, he either shamelessly
established Russert as a leading 9/11 gate
keeper or a blithering idiot. I strongly
suspect the former.

Bush Executive Order Expands Biometric
Data Collection on New Groups of People,
Will Share Data with "Foreign Partners"

George Bush just issued a directive to expand
the acquisition of biometric information, and
to ensure that agencies across the executive
branch share it.

And the Bush Administration may
give it to foreign governments, too.

All this according to National Security
Presidential Directive Number 59, also known
as Homeland Security Presidential Directive
Number 24, which George W. Bush signed on
June 5.

Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Did "Everyone" Agree?

The claim that the entire world agreed Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction
before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has been
asserted countless times by the Bush
administration and its supporters since we
all learned it was the stuff of fiction.
"Everybody agreed," former White
House Press Secretary Tony Snow told Wolf
Blitzer in May 2007. "We all thought that the
intelligence case was strong," Condoleezza
Rice said in April 2007, adding that even,
"the U.N weapons inspectors [thought] Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction.... So there's no blame here of
anyone." Etc., etc.

George W Bush: My warlike talk was a mistake

Embarking on his final visit to Europe as
president, Mr Bush said his gun-slinging talk
leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq made
the world think he was a "guy really anxious
for war" against Saddam Hussein.

Zimbabwe passes net bugging law

Critics say the law does not make provision
for such decisions to be reviewed by the
judiciary.

"This law is about the interception of
fundamental rights of our citizens and this
house should refuse such frivolous and out
rightly undemocratic laws," Nelson Chamisa,
an MP for the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), said during the
parliamentary debate.

"Most provisions are injurious and the law
will be used as an arrow aimed against trade
unions, civil society, media and political
parties involved in genuine political
engagements," he said.

High oil prices? Weak dollar? Blame Bush

You can start with the economic policies
followed by the Bush administration. During
Bush's 7½ years in office, we have maintained
large trade deficits with the rest of the
world and run up large domestic budget
deficits to pay for our misadventure in Iraq
and large tax cuts for the wealthy. Also,
according to a monograph recently issued by
the Center for American Progress, the Federal
Reserve's low-interest policy has caused a 14
percent decline in the value of the dollar
since last September.

The center estimates that "nearly 40 percent
of the increased price American consumers are
paying for oil is attributable to the weak
dollar," even after factoring in the effects
of increased global demand from countries
such as China.

Democrats, including Pelosi,
Told of Waterboarding in 2002

The Washington Post has disclosed sources
saying that Democratic leadership, including
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were told of
waterboarding in secret briefings in
September 2002. While some have already
denied any recollection of the discussion of
waterboarding, the Post is reporting that
such briefings occurred in 2002 and the only
objection heard from members of Congress was
whether the torture technique was harsh
enough.

Kucinich introduces Bush impeachment resolution

Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich
took to the House of Representatives floor
on Monday evening to introduce a 35-count
resolution to impeach President George
W. Bush.

Kucinich claimed Bush "fraudulently"
justified the war on Iraq and misled "the
American people and members of Congress to
believe Iraq possessed weapons of mass
destruction so as to manufacture a false case
for war."

Citing History, Bush Suggests His
Policies Will One Day Be Vindicated

Unfortunately for the president, many
historians have already reached a conclusion.
In an informal survey of scholars this
spring, just two out of 109 historians said
Bush would be judged a success; a majority
deemed him the "worst president ever."

Bush's 'war crimes' & misdemeanors

The FBI's 'evidence of "war crimes" went up
the chain of command, all the way to the
White House, the NSC and the Principals
Committee--precisely where the abusive
policies had been developed in the first
place.

Before senior FBI officials grasped this
high-level support for the mistreatment of
detainees, some FBI agents were instructed to
compile the evidence for a "war crimes" file
at Guantanamo.

McClellan to testify in
House in CIA leak probe

McClellan's lawyers said he has accepted
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John
Conyers' invitation to testify June 20. The
attorneys said McClellan will appear and be
sworn during the proceedings.

McClellan said he was misled by others,
possibly including Cheney, about the role of
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the leak and has
said publicly that Bush and Cheney "directed
me to go out there and exonerate Scooter
Libby."

Ashcroft in Conference

Months later, at the House Judiciary
Committee hearing at which John Ashcroft
testitifed, the ranking minority member, John
Conyers of Michigan, accused him and the Bush
administration of assuming the "role of
legislator, prosecutor, judge, and jury."

The attorney general claimed, in his
testimony, that the president does have the
power to arrest citizens on any American
street, designate them "enemy combatants,"
and imprison them indefinitely, without
access to lawyers or their families.

US: Republicans prepare to
play terror card in 2008 election

Cheney names seven years, but not a single
episode in which they "tried to hit us."
Virtually every supposed terrorist plot
prosecuted by the government over the past
six-and-a-half years has shared one common
feature: the alleged conspiracy would never
have existed without the active intervention
of confidential informants.

Bush misused Iraq intelligence:
Senate report

It said that Bush's and Cheney's assertions
that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist
groups with weapons of mass destruction for
attacks on the United States contradicted
available intelligence.

Gary Leupp: Cheney Enrages Iraqis Over Security Deal

Last year union chief Subhi al-Badri
declared, "This law cancels the great
achievements of the Iraq people. If the Iraqi
Parliament approves this law, we will resort
to mutiny. This law is a bomb that may kill
everyone. Iraqi oil belongs to all future
generations." Even the Iraqi minister of
planning and development, Ali Baban, has
vowed to "resign one hour after [the] passing
[of the] oil and gas draft law." And the
Sadrists of course are bitterly opposed.

GoodCelery!

Modesto medical-marijuana operators
convicted in federal case

Two Modesto men are facing mandatory 20-year
prison sentences after being convicted of
running a medical-marijuana operation that
federal prosecutors labeled a criminal
enterprise, authorities said today.

McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too

If elected president, Senator John McCain
would reserve the right to run his own
warrantless wiretapping program against
Americans, based on the theory that the
president's wartime powers trump federal
criminal statutes and court oversight,
according to a statement released by his
campaign Monday.

McCain's new tack towards the Bush
administration's theory of executive power
comes some 10 days after a McCain surrogate
stated, incorrectly it seems, that the
senator wanted hearings into telecom
companies' cooperation with President Bush's
warrantless wiretapping program, before he'd
support giving those companies retroactive
legal immunity.

FISA Zombie

There just isn't enough money at stake to
explain this. Nobody's suing for the money,
they are suing for the discovery. Something
bad happened here and the Democrats are
helping the Republicans cover it up.

New agreement lets US strike
any country from inside Iraq

The agreement is also likely to give American
forces permanent military bases in the
country, as well as the right to move against
any country considered to be a threat against
world stability or acting against Iraqi or
American interests.

Frida Berrigan, The Pentagon Takes Over

As a result, according to Tim Shorrock,
investigative journalist and author of Spies
for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence
Outsourcing, the Pentagon now controls more
than 80% of U.S. intelligence spending, which
he estimated at about $60 billion in 2007. As
Mel Goodman, former CIA official and now an
analyst at the Center for International
Policy, observed, "The Pentagon has been the
big bureaucratic winner in all of this."

It is such a big winner that CIA Director
Michael Hayden now controls only the budget
for the CIA itself -- about $4 or 5 billion a
year and no longer even gives the President
his daily helping of intelligence.

Could the U.S. ultimately end up
privatizing its entire mission in Iraq?

Finally, the U.S. is seeking to
privatize its own Iraqi prisons.
Another contract noticed last week
previews the opening, apparently in
September, of a U.S.-run prison, now
labeled a Theater Internment Facility
Reconciliation Center, which is to be
located at Camp Taji, 12 miles north of
Baghdad. The new contract calls for
providing food for "up to 5,000 detainees"
and will also cover 150 Iraqi nationals,
who apparently will work at the
facility. The contract is to run for one
year, with an option year to follow.

These latest contract announcements come in
addition to the massive amount of U.S. arms
that the Pentagon has encouraged the Iraq
military to buy.

So far, the Iraqi government -- which long
relied on Russian-made military supplies --
has committed to buy about $3 billion in
U.S. weapons

US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships

Information about the operation of prison
ships has emerged through a number of
sources, including statements from the US
military, the Council of Europe and related
parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of
prisoners.

The analysis, due to be published this year
by the human rights organisation Reprieve,
also claims there have been more than 200 new
cases of rendition since 2006, when President
George Bush declared that the practice had
stopped.

Vincent Bugliosi: George Bush's Unseemly
Response to the Suffering He Has Caused

Bush spent all or a part or 908 days, an
incredible 36 percent of his time, on
vacation or at retreat places. Hard to
believe, but true. Nine hundred and eight
days is two and a half years of Bush's
presidency. Two and a half years of the less
than seven years of his presidency in which
his main goal was to kick back and have fun.

Book Unflattering to Bush
Draws His Campaign's Fire

Asked about the book, Scott McClellan, a
spokesman for the White House, said
yesterday: "It is a book filled with garbage,
garbage that was discredited, disavowed and
dismissed years ago. This is not the first
time we have seen such baseless and trashy
fabrications from the author."

Tomgram: Kill Them! We Are
Going to Wipe Them Out!

"'Kick ass!' [Bush] said, echoing Colin
Powell's tough talk. 'If somebody tries to
stop the march to democracy, we will seek
them out and kill them! We must be tougher
than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not
even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send
that message. It's an excuse to prepare us
for withdrawal.

"There is a series of moments and this is one
of them. Our will is being tested, but we are
resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong!
Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident!
Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We
are not blinking!'"

Obama Would Overturn
Unconstitutional Executive Orders

During a fund-raiser in Denver, Obama--a
former constitutional law professor at the
University of Chicago Law School--was asked
what he hoped to accomplish during his first
100 days in office.

"I would call my attorney general in and
review every single executive order issued by
George Bush and overturn those laws or
executive decisions that I feel violate the
constitution," said Obama

The+president+continues+to+believe+
that+people+need+to+travel.

Housing bailout bill creates
national fingerprint registry

"We know that today the rules governing
mortgage brokers and lenders are inadequate,"
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a
statement. "There is just a thin patchwork of
regulation that varies from state to
state. This legislation will create basic
minimum standards for states to utilize to
protect consumers." Feinstein and Mel
Martinez (R-Fla.) wrote a separate bill
introduced in February that has been glued
onto the revised Senate housing legislation.

What's a little odd is the lack of public
discussion about this new fingerprint
database.

John Bolton escapes citizen's
arrest at Hay Festival

Mr Monbiot said moments later he was
"disappointed" that he had been blocked
from making the citizen's arrest.

"This was a serious attempt to bring one of
the perpetrators of the Iraq war to justice,
for what is described under the Nuremberg
Principles as an international crime," he
said.

During Mr Bolton's talk, to a packed-out
audience, Mr Monbiot had asked Mr Bolton what
difference there was between him and a Nazi
war criminal.

Mr Bolton said the war was legal, partly
because Iraq had failed to comply with a key
and binding UN resolution after the end of
the Gulf War in 1991.

Arresting John Bolton

1. John Bolton orchestrated the sacking of
the head of the Organisation for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Jose
Bustani. Bustani had offered to resolve the
dispute over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction, and therefore to avert armed
conflict. He had offered to seek to persuade
Saddam Hussein to sign the Chemical Weapons
Convention, which would mean that Iraq was
then subject to weapons inspections by the
OPCW. As the OPCW was not tainted by the
CIA's infiltration of UNSCOM, Bustani's
initiative had the potential to defuse the
crisis over Saddam Hussein's obstruction of
UNMOVIC inspections.

Slavery and Involuntary Servitude

The federal prison industry produces 100% of
all military helmets, ammunition belts,
bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants,
tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war
supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the
entire market for equipment assembly
services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92%
of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of
home appliances; 30% of
headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of
office furniture. Airplane parts, medical
supplies, and much more: prisoners are even
raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.

Bush Straddles His Hard
Line in Engaging Sudan

Bush has spoken to or exchanged letters with
Bashir on numerous occasions, underscoring
how White House policy has departed from his
pointed public call to shun talks with
radical tyrants and dictators. His appointees
have also pursued aggressive diplomacy with
North Korea and Libya and have even conducted
limited business with Cuba, Syria and Iran.

In the case of Sudan, experts are deeply
divided about how much the administration's
engagement has improved conditions in a
country beset for decades by mass violence
and famine. It has at least provoked charges
of hypocrisy, because Bush recently accused
those advocating talks with Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other radical figures
of "appeasement."

Cannabis blunder at Tokyo airport

A customs officer hid a package of the banned
substance in a side pocket of a randomly
chosen suitcase in order to test airport
security.

Sniffer dogs failed to detect the cannabis
and the officer could not remember which bag
he had put it in.

Conservative Icon Says Republicans Face
'Looming Disaster,' Calls on Leadership to
'Resign Immediately'

"To Republican leaders, I say: You turned
against the principles you once espoused--
conservative principles--and, in turn,
conservatives and the American people have
turned against you. Things will not get
better until you accept responsibility, and
resign.

You have stayed too long. For the future of
the Republican Party, for America and the
cause of freedom: Go!

Eminent domain measures would have
little effect, analysis finds

Proposition 98 would bar governments from
taking private property to transfer to
another private party, most often done by
redevelopment agencies to revitalize
officially blighted neighborhoods. It also
would ban rent control. Its backers include
anti-taxers, apartment and mobile home
owners, and some farmers.

Out-Foxing Fox: Times
Totes Water for War Crime Spin

That's the reality: Iran brokered a temporary
peace between two warring factions of the
American-backed government--in part to keep
American forces, particularly airpower, from
turning Sadr City into a charnel house. But
that is not how it was portrayed by the
ever-faithful toter of White House water,
Michael Gordon.

The Wrecking Ball of Innovation

"In 1968 the CEO of General Motors took home,
in pay and benefits, about sixty-six times
the amount paid to a typical GM worker; in
2005 the CEO of Wal-Mart earned nine hundred
times the pay of his average
employee. Indeed, the wealth of the Wal-Mart
founders' family that year was estimated at
about the same ($90 billion) as that of the
bottom 40 percent of the US population: 120
million people. If the overall economy has
grown "exuberantly" but "median household
income has gone nowhere over the last three
decades,...where has all the wealth gone?
Mostly to the very top." As for the intrepid
boldness of the latest generation of "wealth
creators": Reich lists the tax breaks,
pension guarantees, safety nets,
"superfunds," and bail-outs provided in
recent years to savings and loans, hedge
funds, banks, and other "risk-takers" before
dryly concluding that arrangements "that
confer all upside benefit on private
investors and all downside risk on the public
are bound to stimulate great feats of
entrepreneurial daring."

FBI files indict Bush,
Cheney and Co. as war criminals

The report makes it absolutely clear that
torture was ordered and planned in detail at
the highest levels of the government--
including the White House, the National
Security Council, the Pentagon and the
Justice Department. Attempts to stop it on
legal or pragmatic grounds by individuals
within the government were systematically
suppressed, and evidence of this criminal
activity covered up.

Zimbabwe inflation now over 1 million percent

Independent finance houses said in an
assessment Tuesday that annual inflation rose
this month to 1,063,572 percent based on
prices of a basket of basic foodstuffs.
Economic analysts say unless the rate of
inflation is slowed, annual inflation will
likely reach about 5 million percent by
October.

As stores opened for business Wednesday, a
small pack of locally produced coffee beans
cost just short of 1 billion Zimbabwe
dollars. A decade ago, that sum would have
bought 60 new cars.

Moles Wanted

...video footage captured a "protestor"--
in reality an undercover cop--telling
his captor, "I'm on the job," and being
subsequently let go.

As Global Wealth Spreads, the IMF Recedes

The IMF, founded in 1944 to foster the
reconstruction of the global economy in the
wake of World War II, is entering its largest
period of upheaval since the fall of the
Berlin Wall. Over the next year, the
Washington institution will slash its
2,900-person workforce by 13 percent through
a combination of buyouts and some layoffs,
reflecting a loan portfolio shrinking so fast
that the IMF is seeking to sell off $6
billion in gold reserves to create a new
long-term source of income.

Exposure

The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib.
"We had some kind of incinerator at the
end of our building," Specialist Megan
Ambuhl said. "It was this huge circular
thing. We just didn$(Bt (Bknow what was
incinerated in there. It could have been
people, for all we knew--bodies."
Sergeant Davis was not in doubt. "It had
bones in it," he said, and he called it
the crematorium. "But hey, you$(Bre(B at
war," he said. "Suck it up or drive
on."

Israel engages in indirect
peace talks with Syria

"Syria and Israel have started indirect peace
talks under the auspices of Turkey," the
statement said. It said the two enemies "have
declared their intent to conduct these talks
in good faith and with an open mind," with a
goal of reaching a comprehensive peace.

Iraq agrees to weapons inspections
September 17, 2002

"I am pleased to inform you of the decision
of the Government of the Republic of Iraq to
allow the return of the United Nations
weapons inspectors to Iraq without
conditions," the letter said.

"The Government of the Republic of Iraq has
based its decision concerning the return of
inspectors on its desire to complete the
implementation of the relevant Security
Council resolutions and to remove any doubts
that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass
destruction."

Demolished by the Pakistan army: the
frontier village punished for harbouring
the Taliban

Cooperation is hobbled by the two countries'
divergent perspectives. Pakistani officers
privately consider the Taliban insurgency as
a Pashtun rebellion against a puppet,
western-backed government in Kabul. And they
make it clear that their priority is to quell
violence inside Pakistan - and not
necessarily hunt for al-Qaida fugitives

Cameron said McCain "suggested Obama is
naïve" for Iran stance, but didn't note that
Gates also reportedly said the U.S. should
"talk with" Iran

As Media Matters for America has noted,
according to a May 15 Washington Post
article, Gates said of Iran, "We need to
figure out a way to develop some leverage
... and then sit down and talk with
them. ... If there is going to be a
discussion, then they need something, too. We
can't go to a discussion and be completely
the demander, with them not feeling that they
need anything from us."

Growing Responsibility
for the Bush Torture Regime

"Whether it's the war in Iraq or illegal
surveillance or the abolition of habeas
corpus and now the systematic use of torture,
it$(Bs (Bthe Bush administration that conceived
of the policies, implemented them and
presided over their corrupt application. But
it$(Bs (BCongressional leaders who were the key
allies and enablers, never getting their
hands dirty with implementation--and thus
feigning theatrical, impotent outrage once
each abuse was publicly exposed--but
nonetheless working feverishly the entire
time to enable all of it every step of the
way."

Coming to a marketer near you: Brain scanning

EmSense has focused its brain scans on voters
watching both the Democratic and Republican
primary races to determine how they react to
various candidates. That generated stories -
and questions about whether such techniques
were appropriate.

Unlike its San Francisco rival, Berkeley's
NeuroFocus will not use its brain scanning
technology in politics.

S.F Mayor Wants to Make E-Cars
More Common Than Cable Cars

Mayor Gavin Newsom is talking to Project
Better Place about building a network of
charging stations and automated
battery-exchange stations similar to those
the Silicon Valley startup is developing for
Israel and Denmark. The mayor reportedly also
is talking to several companies that would
work alongside Project Better Place to
develop the infrastructure.

Boehner's wiretapping stance draws ire

When a federal judge ordered Rep. Jim
McDermott to pay House Minority Leader John
A. Boehner and his attorneys more than $1
million in damages and legal fees for leaking
an illegally taped phone call to the media,
Boehner said he pursued the case because
"no one--including members of Congress
--is above the law."

No gas! Boise man gets
around in solar-powered car

The car is one of only a handful of
solar-powered cars in the Treasure Valley and
can be charged using its solar panels, or by
plugging it into a power source.

Yoo: Impeach Bush? Why Not?

"I think if people in Congress wanted to
impeach President Bush they could, not
because he committed a crime but because
they think he's a bad president.

That was the phrase ["high crimes and
misdemeanors"] that came from Britain,
and the British used to, under that phrase,
remove people just because they screwed up
a war."

Rumsfeld On 2006 Election: "The
Correction For That...Is An Attack"

"The perception of the threat is so low in
this society that it's not surprising that
the behavior pattern reflects a low threat
assessment. The same thing's in Europe,
there's a low threat perception. The
correction for that, I suppose, is an
attack."

Helping 9/11's Survivors

The Survivors' Fund, the only charity
established after Sept. 11, 2001,
specifically in response to the attack on the
Pentagon, was far from the largest or
best-known relief effort aimed at victims and
their loved ones. Measured by efficacy,
however, it may have been unsurpassed.

The fund, which collected $25 million largely
in response to full-page ads placed on its
behalf by The Post, did no active
fundraising.

Nixon's Savage Attack on the Greatest
Anti-War Movement in U.S. History

Every morning each was issued a couple of
shopping bags filled with drugs of all kinds,
especially nasty stuff like speed, coke,
heroin and worse. Their job was to spread out
to San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose State
and any other anti-war center and give away
the drugs. Everyday for months the U.S. Army
dumped dozens of shopping bags full of
poisons on the young people of America.

When I first moved to the Haight that spring
It was filled with bright colors, happy
people, free love, peace and a lot of grass.

By the end of summer the colors were dark,
the smiles replaced by far too many vacant
stares and overwhelmed "free clinics" dealing
primarily with massive drug problems. Many
died, others became little better than veges.

The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy:
Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke | AlterNet

It is virtually impossible to overstate the
profligacy of what our government spends on
the military. The Department of Defense's
planned expenditures for the fiscal year 2008
are larger than all other nations' military
budgets combined. The supplementary budget to
pay for the current wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, not part of the official defense
budget, is itself larger than the combined
military budgets of Russia and
China. Defense-related spending for fiscal
2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first
time in history. The U.S. has become the
largest single seller of arms and munitions
to other nations on Earth. Leaving out
President Bush's two on-going wars, defense
spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The
defense budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest
since the second world war.

Jesus Made Me Puke : Rolling Stone

"When the word of God is in your mouth," he
said, "the demons can't come out of your
body. You have to keep a path clear for the
demon to come up through your throat. So
under no circumstances pray to God. You can't
have God in your mouth. You can cough, you
might even want to vomit, but don't pray."

The Pentagon's Sleight of Hand
in Crafting War Propaganda

Well before the September 11th attacks, the
Pentagon was already preparing a system for
achieving what inside officials called
"information dominance" to sell the case for
an Iraq invasion.

Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law

This comment shows that Rumsfeld knows about
the law against information operations that
propagandize U.S. audiences. Although it is
illegal to target propaganda at the America
people, the law does not forbid propaganda --
even covert propaganda -- aimed at foreign
audiences. Rumsfeld has been warned, however,
that in today's world with "bloggers and
internets and emails," even information
operations overseas reach "multiple
audiences" including U.S. citizens who are
"hearing you here as well and therefore
that's propagandizing." The irony, of course,
is that Rumsfeld made these comments in a
meeting with military analysts whom he had
recruited specifically for information
operations targeting U.S. audiences. If
Rumsfeld knew that there were legal concerns
even about operations targeted at foreign
audiences, he certainly knew that it was
illegal to target the American public.

Selling the War with Iran

There is no proxy war in Iraq, because the US
and Iran share the same proxy and the US
installed that proxy and empowered it. Today,
to the extent that we can talk about an Iraqi
"state," it is dominated by the Supreme
Council and its Badr militia. The Sadrist
movement of which the Mahdi Army is a loose
militia is also the largest humanitarian
organization in Iraq, providing homes,
security, rations, clothes and other services
to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It is a
complex movement and certainly is as guilty
of crimes as all the other groups that took
part in the Iraqi civil war, including the
Americans.

Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels

Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank
the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed
motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the
defendants convicted in the attack have
escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni
officials.

Henley Everywhere 2008

Everyone recognizes that the opinions of
those of us who were right about Iraq then
are crucial to formulating sane, just policy
now. It's a lot of pressure, so please
forgive anything glib or short you read
herein: between articles, interviews,
think-tank panels and presentations before
government agencies and policy organs I'm not
permitted to mention, I'm a little frazzled.

The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy:
Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke

It was believed that the U.S. could afford
both a massive military establishment and a
high standard of living, and that it needed
both to maintain full employment. But it did
not work out that way. By the 1960s it was
becoming apparent that turning over the
nation's largest manufacturing enterprises to
the Department of Defense and producing goods
without any investment or consumption value
was starting to crowd out civilian economic
activities. The historian Thomas E Woods
Jr. observes that, during the 1950s and
1960s, between one-third and two-thirds of
all U.S. research talent was siphoned off
into the military sector. It is, of course,
impossible to know what innovations never
appeared as a result of this diversion of
resources and brainpower into the service of
the military, but it was during the 1960s
that we first began to notice Japan was
outpacing us in the design and quality of a
range of consumer goods, including household
electronics and automobiles.

The Government Is Trying to
Wrap Its Mind Around Yours

Since installing Perceptrak, Johns Hopkins
has reported a 25 percent reduction in crime.

But that's only the beginning. Police may
soon be able to monitor suspicious brain
activity from a distance as well.

Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'

By Nat Parry
February 21, 2006
During the Senate Judiciary Committee's
hearing on the wiretap program, Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-California, complained that the
House and Senate Intelligence Committees
"have not been briefed on the scope and
nature of the program."

Feinstein added that, therefore, the
committees "have not been able to explore
what is a link or an affiliate to al-Qaeda or
what minimization procedures (for purging the
names of innocent people) are in place."

Carter: Israel rejected Hamas truce offer

In an article published by the New York
Times, Carter said that Hamas would accept
any truce agreed upon by Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas, on the condition that it had been
approved by the elected parliament. Carter
also said Hamas would disarm its military
wing in Gaza if a non-political security
force was established in the Strip.

Cheney lawyer claims Congress
has no authority over vice-president

The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney
claimed today that the Congress lacks any
authority to examine his behaviour on the
job.

The exception claimed by Cheney's counsel
came in response to requests from
congressional Democrats that David Addington,
the vice-president's chief of staff, testify
about his involvement in the approval of
interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.

Greenspan, Bush to blame for U.S. crisis -Stiglitz

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan and the government of U.S.
President George W. Bush were to blame for
the U.S. financial crisis, Nobel laureate
economist Joseph Stiglitz said in a magazine
interview.

Last day to save Christian radio?

Broadcasters don't like another element of
the rule change--one that would require
stations to have at least one employee on
duty during all hours of operation.

Breakthroughs in automated programming have
made that unnecessary in recent years, so the
rule change would mean more expense for some
smaller-market stations.

Israelis Claim Secret Agreement With U.S.

Israeli officials say they have clear
guidance from Bush administration officials
to continue building settlements, as long as
it meets carefully negotiated criteria, even
though those understandings appear to
contradict U.S. policy.

Cheney's Compulsive Obsession
with Iraq WMDs & Syrian Nukes

One of the real puzzles that few seem to have
the answer to is exactly why Syria would want
a Yongbyon-style nuclear reactor and
reprocessing facility even if it could have
one. As reported on TWN yesterday, Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad has stated to
Western visitors that "his engineers are so
incompetent that if they tried to build a
nuclear facility it would become another
Chernobyl."

US-contracted ship fires
on Iranian boat: report

The ship was contracted by the U.S Military
Sealift Command, which delivers supplies to
US troops overseas. The showdown involved a
cargo ship known as Westward Venture and
several Iranian speedboats, reported MSNBC's
Jim Miklaszewski.

"Since it is chartered by the US military it
then essentially becomes a US military
vessel, with the necessary armaments on board
to protect the cargo and the crew on board,"
he reported.

The Origins of the "Message Machine"

Q & A With David Barstow - New York Times
Q. In speaking of Torie Clarke, the former
Pentagon public relations executive, the
article states: "...even before Sept. 11, she
built a system within the Pentagon to recruit
key influentials -- movers and shakers from
all walks who with the proper ministrations
might be counted on to generate support for
Mr. Rumsfeld's priorities." I'm wondering
what Mr. Rumsfeld's priorities were before
9/11, and why was the Pentagon building a
network of "influentials" to shape public
opinion before 9/11?
--SLOreader, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Subsidizing Corporate Crime and
Rewarding Constitutional Abuses

Government handouts to corporations might
seem untenable at a time when more and more
Americans suffer every day from the impacts
of a mounting economic crisis. Yet efforts to
bolster the economy have largely taken the
form of corporate welfare--much like an
appalling effort, in the closing days of the
Bush administration, to subsidize corporate
violations of the rule of law and individual
liberties.

Senator: VA lying about number of veteran suicides

The Veterans Administration has lied about
the number of veterans who've attempted
suicide, a senator charged Wednesday, citing
internal e-mails that put the number at
12,000 a year when the department was
publicly saying it was fewer than 800.

Congressman Hodes Calls for Hearing on
Bush Administration Manipulation of Iraq War
News Analysts

A hearing also could examine whether some of
these analysts were given military contracts
with the Defense Department in exchange for
reading Bush Administration talking points on
the public airwaves.

'Disneyland' comes to Baghdad with
multi-million pound entertainment park

The 50-acre (20 hectare) swath of land sits
adjacent to the Green Zone and encompasses
Baghdad's existing zoo, which was looted,
left without power and abandoned after the
American-led invasion in 2003. Only 35 of 700
animals survived--some starved, some were
stolen and some were killed by Iraqis fearing
food shortages.

Hope Abandoned: Obama Stands Up
for Murder and Plunder

It was a "no holds barred" enterprise, as
Helms termed it, for which the Special Group
Augmented assigned such "planning tasks" as
using biological and chemical warfare against
Cuban sugar workers; employing Cuban
gangsters to kill Cuban police officials,
Soviet bloc technicians, and other targeted
people; using agents to sabotage mines; and,
in what was called Operation Bounty, paying
cash bonuses of up to $100,000 for the murder
or abduction of government officials.

More of this kind of thing, then, from
Obama when he reaches the White House?

Making Martial Law Easier - New York Times

The provision, signed into law in October,
weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of
liberty. One is the doctrine that bars
military forces, including a federalized
National Guard, from engaging in law
enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was
enshrined in law after the Civil War to
preserve the line between civil government
and the military. The other is the
Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the
major exemptions to posse comitatus. It
essentially limits a president's use of the
military in law enforcement to putting down
lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion,
where a state is violating federal law or
depriving people of constitutional rights.

Investigation into Whether America
is Still a Constitutional Government

Alexandrovna not only believes that we have
been in a state of emergency since 2001
(which the White House itself has verified,
see above), but that the government has been
using its emergency powers -- i.e. powers
justified by a state of emergency -- in
spying, carrying out military actions inside
the U.S. (see this), and taking other
extra-Constitutional actions.

Is that why the government:

* Suspended habeas corpus?

* Has been spying on Americans?

* Won't enforce the laws?

* Is basically "deputizing" corporations
to act as sheriffs in the event of
martial law?

* Is training pastors to preach obedience
to martial law?
Are all of these actions based upon a COG
form of government?

Remember also that provisions of the
Homegrown Terrorism are already being
implemented, even though the Senate has not
yet approved that law (and see this). How
could that happen if COG plans were not in
effect?

Bacteria implicated in obesity

Clearly the vast majority of doctors and
researchers studying obesity are missing a
major part of the picture. It is impossible
for seriously overweight people who have
accumulated high bacterial loads to starve
themselves in order to resolve their weight
issues. How many of us have a friend or
family member who cannot lose weight despite
their continuous attempts to eat healthy food
and exercise? It is time that these people
stop being blamed for their inability to shed
pounds and instead become informed of the
treatment that will allow them to target the
bacteria causing their disease. If no
measures are taken to control the bacteria
that contribute to obesity, the results of
the above studies suggest that diet and
exercise have little effect.

Justice Department Increasingly
Avoiding Corporate Prosecutions

Now, the back story on this is, the
corporate crime lobby, both Democrats and
Republicans, have for years, throughout most
of the century, wanted to get rid of
corporate criminal liability. And the Chicago
School theorists put it this way: a
corporation is not a person. Or as Jeffrey
Parker put it, a corporation has no mind and
therefore can commit no crime. And if a
corporation isn't a person, it shouldn't be
treated as a person in the criminal justice
system. That's their argument.

Well, my argument is, if a corporation is not
a person and shouldn't be treated as a person
in the criminal justice system, then it
shouldn't have the constitutional rights of a
person. It should be stripped of its rights
to free speech, commercial and political
speech. It should be stripped of its rights
to a trial by jury. It should be stripped of
its protection against unreasonable searches
and seizures. You can't have it both ways,
but they want it both ways.

Fake Photos Helped Lead US to Invade Iraq

In a town hall meeting in Bloomsburg,
Pa. this week, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a 12-term
congressman, said that shortly before
Congress was scheduled to vote on authorizing
military force against Iraq, top officials of
the CIA showed select members of Congress
three photographs it alleged were Iraqi
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), better known
as drones. Kanjorski said he was told that
the drones were capable of carrying nuclear,
biological, or chemical agents, and could
strike 1,000 miles inland of east coast or
west coast cities.
...
Several years later, Kanjorski said he
learned that the pictures were "a god-damned
lie," apparently taken by CIA photographers
in the desert in the southwest of the US. The
drone story itself had already been
disproved, although not many major media
carried that story.

"Bilal Hussein Exonerated" by Scott Horton

AP Photographer Bilal Hussein has been in
American detention since April 2006. As the
second anniversary of his captivity
approaches, Bilal has achieved a major
breakthrough. Yesterday in Baghdad, an Iraqi
Judicial Commission reviewing his case took
ten days to reach a conclusion: No basis
existed for the terrorism-related charges
which had been brought against him. The
conclusion was a sweeping repudiation of
accusations U.S. military figures have
brought against him, backed by no evidence,
but by a handful of strangely motivated
American wingnut bloggers.

Lawyers group wants 'torture memo'
author fired from Berkeley law school

According to Yoo, the federal statutes
against torture, assault, maiming and
stalking do not apply to the military in
the conduct of the war.

The federal maiming statute, for example,
makes it a crime for someone "with the intent
to torture, maim, or disfigure" to "cut,
bite, or slit the nose, ear or lip, or cut
out or disable the tongue, or put out or
destroy an eye, or cut off or disable a limb
or any member of another person." It further
prohibits individuals from "throwing or
pouring upon another person any scalding
water, corrosive acid, or caustic substance"
with like intent.

Conyers Invites Yoo To Answer
Questions About "torture Memo"

Yoo, a former general counsel to the Senate
Judiciary Committee, has "expressed
reluctance" to answer any questions before
the Judiciary panel on previous occasions,
according to the chairman's letter, so
Conyers threatens to compel his testimony -
presumably through subpoena - if he does not
appear voluntarily.

Constitutional Exception Not Valid, Mukasey Says

Under sharp questioning from Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.) at an Appropriations
Committee hearing, Mukasey said that the
"Fourth Amendment applies across the board,
regardless of whether we're in wartime or in
peacetime," even though the memo by the
department's Office of Legal Counsel had
concluded otherwise.

Lawmakers pressed Mukasey to publish the
unclassified document after department
spokesmen said it was being withheld under a
doctrine of attorney-client
confidentiality. Members of the House and
Senate have also sought other controversial
memos issued by the OLC that underpinned the
administration's counterterrorism efforts.

Dan Froomkin - White House Torture Advisers

Top Bush aides, including Vice President
Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist
suspects from the White House basement,
according to an ABC News report aired last
night.

Discussions were so detailed, ABC's sources
said, that some interrogation sessions were
virtually choreographed by a White House
advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the
group included then-national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state
Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet
and then-attorney general John Ashcroft.

Memo linked to warrantless
surveillance surfaces

For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11
terror attacks in 2001, the Bush
administration believed that the
Constitution's protection against
unreasonable searches and seizures on
U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to
protect against terrorism.

That view was expressed in a secret Justice
Department legal memo dated Oct. 23,
2001. The administration on Wednesday
stressed that it now disavows that view.

The October 2001 memo was written at the
request of the White House by John Yoo, then
the deputy assistant attorney general, and
addressed to Alberto Gonzales, the White
House counsel at the time. The administration
had asked the department for an opinion on
the legality of potential responses to
terrorist activity.

2 held in Picatinny security scare

The SUV, which had a small, white, bumper
sticker that read "I Love Israel" on the rear
bumper, was towed away around 7:45 p.m. A
container for diapers was visible in the
trunk near a pair of flip-flops and other
items, and a box of baby wipes apparently had
been placed on the street with other items
from the vehicle.

The investigation into the content of the
photos is ongoing and is being led by the
Department of Defense, according to the
Morris County Prosecutor's Office.

A Rockaway Township police officer on the
scene said there were no injuries.

Why doesn't the 9/11 Commission
know about Mukasey's 9/11 story?

UPDATE IV: House Judiciary Committee Chairman
John Conyers, along with two Subcommittee
Chairs, just sent a letter to Michael Mukasey
demanding answers to all the right questions
about his 9/11 claims as well as the bizarre
(though unsurprising) reference in the Yoo
Memorandum to the suspension of the Fourth
Amendment inside the U.S. That letter will
need to be followed up with action, but it's
a good start.

Iran torpedoes US plans for Iraqi oil

Out of the dramatic developments of the past
week, several questions arise, the principal
being that the Bush administration's
triumphalism over the so-called Iraq "surge"
strategy has become irredeemably farcical,
and, two, US doublespeak has become badly
exposed. What stands out is that Washington
promoted the latest round of violence in
Basra, whereas Iran cried halt to it. The
awesome influence of Tehran has become all
too apparent. How does Bush come to terms
with it?

What has happened is essentially that Iran
has frustrated the joint US-British objective
of gaining control of Basra, without which
the strategy of establishing control over the
fabulous oil fields of southern Iraq will not
work.

Mukasey hints US had attack warning before 9/11

Mukasey argued that officials "shouldn't need
a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq
picks up a phone and calls somebody in the
United States because that's the call that we
may really want to know about. And before
9/11, that's the call that we didn't know
about. We knew that there has been a call
from someplace that was known to be a safe
house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came
to the United States. We didn't know
precisely where it went."

Blogger Glenn Greenwald picked up on
Mukasey's statement, suggesting, "If what
Muskasey said this week is true -- and that's
a big 'if' -- his revelation about this
Afghan call that the administration knew
about but didn't intercept really amounts to
one of the most potent indictments yet about
the Bush administration's failure to detect
the plot in action. Contrary to his false
claims, FISA -- for multiple reasons -- did
not prevent eavesdropping on that call.

British researchers create human-animal
hybrid embryo amid political row

The embryos were created by injecting DNA
taken from human skin cells into eggs derived
from cow ovaries with almost all their
genetic material stripped away, and lasted
for three days in a laboratory.

The Newcastle University spokesman said that
the research would likely be published in
"months rather than weeks".

At present, researchers wanting to create
such embryos have to apply for a license from
the Human Fertilisation and Embryology
Authority, which currently regulates the
practice in Britain, and hybrid embryos have
to be destroyed after 14 days.

The Swamp: Justice interrogation
memo: Constitution not in play

Yoo was long a proponent of an aggressive
approach in the war against terrorism and a
believer in executive branch authority. But
the memo was withdrawn as formal government
policy less than a year after it was written.

In the March 14, 2003 memo, Yoo says the
Constitution was not in play with regard to
the interrogations because the Fifth
Amendment (which provides for due process of
law) and the Eighth Amendment (which prevents
the government from employing cruel and usual
punishment) does "not extend to alien enemy
combatants held abroad."

The inside drama behind the
warrantless wiretapping story.

For more than an hour, we told Bush's aides
what we knew about the wiretapping program,
and they in turn told us why it would do
grave harm to national security to let anyone
else in on the secret. Consider the financial
damage to the phone carriers that took part
in the program, one official implored. If the
terrorists knew about the wiretapping
program, it would be rendered useless and
would have to be shut down immediately,
another official urged: "It's all the
marbles." The risk to national security was
incalculable, the White House VIPs said,
their voices stern, their faces drawn. "The
enemy," one official warned, "is inside the
gates." The clichés did their work; the
message was unmistakable: If the New York
Times went ahead and published this story, we
would share the blame for the next terrorist
attack.

John Yoo's war crimes

The DOJ is not the law. They are not above
the law and they do not make the law. They
are merely charged with enforcing it. The
fact that they assert that blatantly illegal
conduct is legal does not make it so. DOJ
officials, like anyone else, can violate the
law and have done so not infrequently. High
DOJ officials -- including Attorneys
General -- have been convicted of crimes in
the past and have gone to prison.

Attorney General Mukasey lies
about 9/11 and international spying

In a recent speech at San Francisco's
Commonwealth Club, Attorney General Michael
Mukasey defended the Bush-Cheney
administration's illegal domestic spying
agenda by proclaiming that the 9/11 attacks
could have been prevented if the government
had been able to monitor overseas phone calls
to the United States.

Like every other member of the Bush-Cheney
administration, Mukasey is lying.

Debate and Protest at Spy Program's Inception

In the past, the White House has said there
was widespread agreement among administration
officials about the president's authority to
order warrantless surveillance inside the
United States. Former Attorney General
Alberto R. Gonzales told Congress that there
was never any disagreement within the
administration over the issue. After it was
disclosed that senior Justice Department
officials had threatened to resign over
aspects of the program in 2004, lawmakers
attacked the truthfulness of Mr. Gonzales's
remarks, and the inspector general's office
is now reviewing his remarks as well.

Engineers society accused of disaster probe cover-ups

After the 2001 attack on the World Trade
Center and the levee failures caused by
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the federal
government paid the American Society of Civil
Engineers to investigate what went wrong.

Critics now accuse the group of covering up
engineering mistakes, downplaying the need to
alter building standards, and using the
investigations to protect engineers and
government agencies from lawsuits.

Botach Tactical and AEY
Inc., family arms dealerships

The media are captivated by the idea that a
boy genius and his twenty-something buddies
cooked up a $300 million arms deal. No doubt,
Efraim has a very impressive CV for an arms
dealer his age. (He was allegedly caught on
tape negotiating with Albanian officials.)
Yet, the record suggests that members of
Efraim's family probably had a much greater
role in this enterprise than they're letting
on. At the very least, family connections
help explain Efraim's extraordinary success
in securing contracts.

Now that Efraim has left the country, the
Michael Diveroli appears to be shifting the
blame to his absent son.

RIAA Wants Songwriter Royalty Lowered

"Lest there be anyone left who believes the
RIAA's propaganda that its litigation
campaign is intended to benefit the
'creators' of the music, Hollywood Reporter
reports that the RIAA is asking the Copyright
Royalty Board to lower songwriter royalties
on song file downloads, from the present rate
of 9 cents per song--about 13% of the
wholesale price--down to 8% of wholesale.
Meanwhile, the big digital music
companies, such as Apple, want the royalty
rate lowered even more, to something like 4%
of wholesale. So any representations by any
of these companies that they are concerned
for the 'creators' of the music must
henceforth be taken with a boxcar-load of
salt."

HUD chief quitting, cites family reasons

Jackson, 62, has been fending off allegations
of cronyism and favoritism involving HUD
contractors for the past two years. The FBI
has been examining the ties between Jackson
and a friend who was paid $392,000 by
Jackson's department as a construction
manager in New Orleans after Hurricane
Katrina.

Is a New, Dangerous Biohazard
Site Coming to Your State Soon?

Every potential location for the bioterror
facility lies close to large human and animal
populations. In Manhattan, Kansas, for
example, the lab would be located not only in
an agricultural region, and not only in the
nation's second most tornado-prone state, but
also within hailing distance of a
senior-citizen home, a student housing area,
an affordable-housing complex, a student
recreation facility, a football stadium, and
a basketball arena.

Spy chief believes House will
agree to immunity for telcoms

The Vietnam veteran, who said he's tried to
retire three times, waved a copy of the
Constitution and implored students to read it
by day's end.

"This is a precious document. It is why we
have survived. It is why we will survive. And
it is why we will prevail in the future," he
said. "What's the magic? The magic is how it
starts: We the people. For the first time in
history, government was about the people, not
a leader."

Mukasey backs Bush efforts on wiretapping

Mukasey did not specify the call to which he
referred. He also did not explain why the
government, if it knew of telephone calls
from suspected foreign terrorists, hadn't
sought a wiretapping warrant from a court
established by Congress to authorize
terrorist surveillance, or hadn't monitored
all such calls without a warrant for 72 hours
as allowed by law. The Justice Department did
not respond to a request for more
information.

'We just want to be a family,' says
Oregon's pregnant man - Americas, World

A first pregnancy almost killed him--he
conceived triplets ectopically and had to
undergo emergency surgery. But now, according
to his first-person account, he is pregnant
with a child, a girl, who is due in July.

Exclusive: 22-year-old Pentagon arms
dealer also marketed to civilians

One of the biggest mysteries surrounding AEY
remains how the company run by a few
inexperienced 20-somethings managed to
procure hundreds of millions of dollars worth
of government contracts; the House Oversight
Committee is planning an investigation. AEY's
vice president was 25-year-old David Packouz,
who is a licensed masseur. Another
25-year-old, Levi Meyer, briefly served as a
general manager. Myer told the Times, "I'm
not involved in that mess anymore."

Florida filings also list a Yeshaya Diveroli
as secretary of AEY.

Secret film will show slaughter to the world

After these animals have spent a night
supposedly relaxing in the netted-off capture
cove (in an attempt by the whalers to make
their meat more tender), they are driven to
the neighboring "killing cove." There, behind
huge blue tarps strung across the cove to
keep prying eyes away--in much the same way
that Japanese police cordon off crime scenes
--the dolphins meet their gruesome predawn
end.

Spy-in-the-sky drone sets sights on Miami

A small pilotless drone manufactured by
Honeywell International, capable of hovering
and "staring" using electro-optic or infrared
sensors, is expected to make its debut soon
in the skies over the Florida Everglades.

If use of the drone wins Federal Aviation
Administration approval after tests, the
Miami-Dade Police Department will start
flying the 14-pound (6.3 kg) drone over urban
areas with an eye toward full-fledged
employment in crime fighting.

Police Blotter: Mom's Nose Threatened

6:10 p.m. A woman called in because her
16-year-daughter was threatening to remove
her nose ring.

Barack Obama Speaking About Medical Marijuana

"As for medical marijuana ... I'm not
familiar with all the details of the
initiative that was passed, but I think the
basic concept of using medical marijuana for
the same purposes and with the same controls
as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think
that's entirely appropriate."

"I'm not going to be using Justice Department
resources to try to circumvent state laws on
this issue."

Lawyer: Gitmo trials pegged to '08 campaign

'We need to think about charging some of the
high-value detainees because there could be
strategic political value to charging some of
these detainees before the election,'
England is quoted as saying.
...
Davis, who had approved charges against
Hamdan, served as former chief Pentagon
prosecutor until he resigned over what he
called political interference by general
counsel William J. Haynes.

Haynes has since quit.
...
The Mizer motion is also the latest attack on
the legitimacy of war-court prosecutions by a
variety of feisty uniformed defense
attorneys, who have doggedly used civilian
courts and courted public opinion against the
process since the earliest days.

IRAQ: Fever Named After Blackwater

Iraqi doctors in al-Anbar province warn of a
new disease they call "Blackwater" that
threatens the lives of thousands. The disease
is named after Blackwater Worldwide, the
U.S. mercenary company operating in Iraq.

"This disease is a severe form of malarial
infection caused by the parasite plasmodium
falciparum, which is considered the worst
type of malarial infection," Dr. Ali Hakki
from Fallujah told IPS. "It is one of the
complications of that infection, and not the
ordinary picture of the disease. Because of
its frequent and severe complications, such
as Blackwater fever, and its resistance to
treatment, P. falciparum can cause death
within 24 hours."

New evidence suggests second shooter killed RFK

Van Praag's analysis led him to conclude that
a second gun that was fired matched a type
owned by one of the security guards in
Kennedy's entourage.

"When that security guard was asked about
owning that gun at first he admitted, 'Yes I
owned that kind of gun but I got rid of it
two months before the assassination.'"
correspondent Amy Parmenter said on MSNBC
Wednesday. "It turns out upon further
investigation, in fact, he did not get rid of
that gun until five months after the
shooting. Of course, you can see where we're
going with this. ... That security guard, was
in fact behind Senator Kennedy when the fatal
shot was fired."

Genetic Testing Gets Personal

Concerns persist. If people want to use their
information in a meaningful way, they will
probably want to share it with their
physician, said Francis S. Collins, director
of the National Human Genome Research
Institute and a leader of the Human Genome
Project, completed in 2003, which cobbled
together the first complete human DNA
sequence. And medical records are not totally
opaque to prying eyes.

"People ought to think about that," said
Collins, who confessed to feeling both
excited and concerned about consumer-driven
genomics. "We don't want employers to use
genetic information to make hiring or firing
or promotion decisions on the basis of fears
that an employee may get sick." It is
"enormously frustrating," he added, that
bills prohibiting genetic discrimination have
been passed by both chambers of Congress but
are stalled because of an unrelated power
struggle on Capitol Hill.

US 'deploys nuclear sub to Persian Gulf'

An American nuclear submarine has crossed the
Suez Canal to join the US fleet stationed in
the Persian Gulf, Egyptian sources say.

Cheney: Iran might be next US target

The official added Cheney had told US troops
in a military base in Iraq that "Iran has got
to be very high on that list (of the
countries that might be attacked)".

Saving the Republic

That the constitutionally ordained war powers
of Congress have been usurped by the president
with congressional and public acceptance is
alarming for twofold reasons: First, the rule
of law requires that claimed constitutional
defects be cured by constitutional amendments,
not by fiat; second, presidents are inclined
to contrive excuses for war to achieve fame
and run roughshod over constitutional
limitations at the expense of American
taxpayers and courageous American soldiers.

Pentagon report finds no evidence
of Saddam attempt to assassinate Bush

The study found that the IIS kept remarkably
detailed records of virtually every operation
it planned, including plots to assassinate
Iraqi exiles and to supply explosives and
booby-trapped suitcases to Iraqi
embassies. But the Pentagon researchers found
no documents that referred to a plan to kill
Bush. The absence was conspicuous because
researchers, aware of its potential
significance, were looking for such
evidence. "It was surprising," said one
source familiar with the preparation of the
report (who under Pentagon ground rules was
not permitted to speak on the record). Given
how much the Iraqis did document, "you would
have thought there would have been some
veiled reference to something about [the
plot]."

Ten reasons your taxes are going up no matter what

We've been mislead by Washington's Enron-
style accounting that hides many costs:

* Supplemental financing bills, outside the budget
* No veterans health-care estimates included
* No equipment replacement costs to restore our military
* Nothing about increases in state and homeland security

The real cost isn't $800 billion, it's
already $3 trillion. And still, it doesn't
include ...

* Interest on the ever-increasing $9.3 trillion federal debt
* Damage to our credibility from a weak dollar
* Out-of-control inflation in energy
* And the brutal damage to Iraq and other Gulf states

Washington's hiding all that from us. We were
sold a war-on-the-cheap, to cost a mere $50
billion to $60 billion, to be self-financed
out of oil revenues. Today we're spending $50
billion every month! This war is already an
economic disaster for America and the bill's
still coming due.

How war hero John McCain betrayed the
Vietnamese peasant who saved his life

And when a furious mob at the water's edge
began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr
On drove them back.

Nearly three decades later, a Vietnamese
government commission confirmed he was indeed
the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi,
McCain embraced and thanked Mr On and
presented him with a Senate memento.

From that brief encounter to his death at the
age of 88 two years ago, Mr On never heard
from the senator again, and three years after
their meeting, McCain published an
autobiography that makes no mention of his
apparent debt to Mr On.

It is a snub Mr On took to his death.

Telecom lobbyists tied to McCain

McCain is a senior member of the Senate
Commerce Committee, which oversees the
telecom industry and the Federal
Communications Commission. He has repeatedly
pushed industry-backed legislation since
2000, particularly during a second stint as
committee chairman from 2003 through
2005. His efforts to eliminate taxes and
regulations on telecommunications services
won him praise from industry executives.

People who lobbied for telecom companies on
those issues include McCain's campaign
manager, his deputy manager, his finance
chief, his top unpaid political adviser and
his Senate chief of staff. Telecom companies
have paid the lobbying firms that employed
those top five McCain advisersmore than $4.4
million since 1999, lobbying records show.

Americans Losing Faith In Leadership

For the first time ever in a Newsweek poll,
a majority of Americans (58 percent) now
believe the Bush administration knowingly
misled the American people in building its
case for war against Saddam Hussein

Happy Anniversary, America!
How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?

I don't think it took a giant leap of logic
to understand that this war was bogus from
the beginning, even based on what was known
at the time. The war was sold on three basic
arguments, each of which could have been
easily dismantled even then with a little
thoughtful consideration.

The first was WMD, of course. So, okay,
perhaps your average American didn't know
that the United States government (including
many in the current administration) had
actually once supplied Saddam Hussein the
material to make these evil weapons, and had
covered for him at the UN and elsewhere when
he used them. Although this historical myopia
is very much part of the problem, of
course. Americans are so ready to denounce
supposed enemies without doing the slightest
bit of historical homework to become
acquainted with the slightest bit of history
to make sense of the situation. If you don't
know that the US actually canceled elections
and helped assassinate a 'democratic'
president in Vietnam, of course you're going
to support war there. If you don't know that
the US toppled a democratically elected
Iranian government to steal the country's oil
and then installed a brutal dictatorship in
its place, of course you're going to be angry
at US diplomats being held hostage. And if
you don't bother to learn the true history of
Iraq, perhaps you'll find the WMD argument
quite persuasive.

Egyptian killed by US military ship: security source

The ship, Global Patriot, had arrived from
the Red Sea and was waiting in the Gulf of
Suez to sail to the Mediterranean when a
group of Egyptians seeking to sell
merchandise approached the boat on small
barges, the source said.

Americans on board told the barges to stop
and opened fire when they continued to
approach.

NSA DIRECTOR ODOM DISSECTS IRAQ BLUNDER

Even if the invasion had gone well, Odom says
it wouldn't have mattered: "The invasion
wasn't in our interests, it was in Iran's
interest, Al Qaida's interest. Seeing America
invade must have made Iranian leaders
ecstatic. Iran's hostility to Saddam was hard
to exaggerate.. Iraq is now open to Al Qaida,
which it never was before- it's easier for
terrorists to kill Americans there than in
the US.. Neither our leaders or the
mainstream media recognize the perversity of
key US policies now begetting outcomes they
were designed to prevent--3 years later the
US is bogged down in Iraq, pretending a
Constitution has been put in place, while the
civil war rages, Iran meddles, and Al Qaida
swells its ranks with new recruits. The US
Army is stretched to the breaking point and
the majority of Americans have deep
doubts. We have lost our capacity to lead and
are in a state of crisis--diplomatic and
military."

Odom believes in an immediate phased
withdrawal. "There isn't anything we can do
by staying there longer that will make this
come out better. Every day we stay in, it
gets worse and the price gets higher."

Mickey Edwards - Dick Cheney's Error

Cheney told Raddatz that American war policy
should not be affected by the views of the
people. But that is precisely whose views
should matter: It is the people who should
decide whether the nation shall go to
war. That is not a radical, or liberal, or
unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of
America's constitutional system.

In Europe, before America's founding, there
were rulers and their subjects. The Founders
decided that in the United States there would
be not subjects but citizens. Rulers tell
their subjects what to do, but citizens tell
their government what to do.

Saddam's Files

The study found that the IIS kept remarkably
detailed records of virtually every operation
it planned, including plots to assassinate
Iraqi exiles and to supply explosives and
booby-trapped suitcases to Iraqi
embassies. But the Pentagon researchers found
no documents that referred to a plan to kill
Bush. The absence was conspicuous because
researchers, aware of its potential
significance, were looking for such
evidence. "It was surprising," said one
source familiar with the preparation of the
report (who under Pentagon ground rules was
not permitted to speak on the record). Given
how much the Iraqis did document, "you would
have thought there would have been some
veiled reference to something about [the
plot]."

Worried Yet? Saudis Prepare for "Sudden
Nuclear Hazards" After Cheney Visit

Last Friday, Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia
for high-level meetings with the Saudi king
and his ministers. On Saturday, it was
revealed that the Saudi Shura Council -- the
elite group that implements the decisions of
the autocratic inner circle -- is preparing
"national plans to deal with any sudden
nuclear and radioactive hazards that may
affect the kingdom following experts'
warnings of possible attacks on Iran's
Bushehr nuclear reactors,"

Beach man told FBI of
alleged Spitzer sexscapades

Stone, known for shutting down the 2000
presidential election recount effort in
Miami-Dade County, is a longtime Spitzer
nemesis whose political experience ranges
from the Nixon White House to Al Sharpton's
presidential campaign. His lawyer wrote the
letter containing the call-girl allegations
after FBI agents had asked to speak to Stone,
though he says the FBI did not specify why he
was contacted.

Dick Cheney's Error

"So," Mr. Vice President?

Policy, Cheney went on to say, should not be
tailored to fit fluctuations in the public
attitudes. If there is one thing public
attitudes have not been doing, however, it is
fluctuating: Resistance to the Bush
administration's Iraq policy has been
widespread, entrenched and
consistent. Whether public opinion is right
or wrong, it is not to be cavalierly
dismissed.

U.S. Pushed Allies on Iraq, Diplomat Writes

In the months leading up to the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration
threatened trade reprisals against friendly
countries who withheld their support, spied
on its allies, and pressed for the recall of
U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to
endorse the war, according to an upcoming
book by a top Chilean diplomat.

Conyers: Impeachment If Bush Invades Iran

The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
said he would pursue articles of impeachment
for the president should he pursue war in
Iran without Congress' approval.

"If Bush goes into Iran, he should be
impeached," said Conyers. "And we've sent him
a letter to that [e]ffect."

Dozens of children in U.S. face life in prison

Elsewhere in the world, life sentences with
no chance of parole are rare for underage
offenders. Human Rights Watch estimates that
only 12 people outside the United States face
such sentences.

Judicial reform advocates say the
U.S. provision is an example of how harsh
sentences have helped cause a jump in
incarceration rates since the 1970s. The
United States jails a higher percentage of
its population than anywhere else in the
industrialized world, these advocates say.

Bush erroneously says Iran
announced desire for nuclear weapons

"Secondly, they've declared they want to have
a nuclear weapon to destroy people, some in
the Middle East . And that is unacceptable to
the United States and it's unacceptable to
the world."

Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear
warheads, and its supreme leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, issued a religious edict in
2005 forbidding the production, stockpiling
and use of such weapons.

Asked about the president's comment, Gordon
Johndroe , a White House spokesman, said Bush
had "shorthanded" Iran's desire "to wipe
Israel off the map," its refusal to heed
U.N. Security Council demands to suspend its
enrichment work and Iran's continued
development of ballistic missiles.

White House back pedals
on Bush comments on Iran bomb

The White House on Friday sought to back
pedal on comments by President George W. Bush
accusing Iran of having said it was seeking a
nuclear bomb.

The Islamic regime has always denied in
recent years trying to arm itself with an
atomic bomb, saying its nuclear program was a
peaceful, civilian effort to meet its
electricity needs.

But Bush in an interview with a US-controlled
Farsi-language radio station said Iran has
declared it wants nuclear weapons "to destroy
people."

Revisiting History

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) discusses
legislation he is preparing to introduce that
would remove federal penalties for possession
and personal use of small amounts of
cannabis.

He calls it the "Make Room for the Serious
Criminals Bill."

Police: 'You fit the profile'

Police records show the officers called out a
"Signal 38" to alert a dispatcher they were
onto something suspicious and about to pull
someone over. They would later write in a
report that they had pulled her over for
"failure to signal," although no ticket was
issued, according to police records shared
with the Times Union.

The actions of police in the minutes that
followed would end in controversy rather than
with an arrest. They would also leave
Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from
Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the
officers allegedly inserted his finger into
Shutter's vagina on a public street during an
apparent search for drugs.
...
Shutter said she grew increasingly unnerved
by her experience with internal affairs --
which is known as the Office of Professional
Standards -- because male detectives twice
requested she wear clothes from the night of
the incident to re-enact the body search.
...
"He said 'you're lucky' ... and that I better
not drive around there again," Shutter said.

White House: Computer hard drives tossed

Older White House computer hard drives have
been destroyed, the White House disclosed to
a federal court Friday in a controversy over
millions of possibly missing e-mails from
2003 to 2005.

The White House revealed new information
about how it handles its computers in an
effort to persuade a federal magistrate it
would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail
recovery plan that the court proposed.

Snooping far too typical

The misuse came to light in 2004 when an
employee helped leak information to the media
during a heated race for Milwaukee mayor that
a candidate, acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, was
often behind in paying his heating
bills. Pratt lost to the current mayor, Tom
Barrett.

Top Spy Opposes House Spying Bill,
Thinks Spying Truth Commission Redundant

The supposedly non-partisan straight shooting
Director of National Intelligence Michael
McConnell doesn't like the new House spying
bill, despite the fact it legalizes driftnet
email and phone searches conducted on
American soil as he has long been pushing
for.

In particular, McConnell said in written
statement (.pdf) released Tuesday that he
can't support the bill since it doesn't give
amnesty to phone companies that violated
federal privacy laws at the behest of a
government that also hands them fat secret
contracts.

Also, he objects that the bill would create a
commission with subpoena power to investigate
and publicly report on what the five year
warrantless wiretapping program was actually
about.

Why the NSA's snooping is unprecedented

Poindexter envisioned a "privacy appliance,"
a device that would strip any identifiers
from the information--such as names or
addresses--so that government miners could
see only patterns. Then if there was reason
to believe that the information belonged to a
group that was planning an attack, the
government could seek a warrant and disable
the privacy control for that specific
data. TIA funded research on a privacy
appliance at the Palo Alto Research Center, a
...
The NSA's domestic eavesdropping program,
however, appears to have none of these
safeguards. When Congress killed TIA's
funding in 2003, it effectively ended
research into privacy-protection
technology. According to former officials
associated with TIA, after the program was
canceled, elements of it were transferred
into the classified intelligence budget. But
these did not include research on privacy
protection.

The Fear Factory : Rolling Stone

According to a study by the Center on Law and
Security at the New York University School of
Law, only ten percent of the 619 "terrorist"
cases brought by the federal government have
resulted in convictions on "terrorism-
related" charges--a category so broad as to
be meaningless. In the past year, none of the
convictions involved jihadist terror plots
targeting America. "The government releases
selective figures," says Karen Greenberg,
director of the center. "They have never even
defined 'terrorism.' They keep us in the dark
over statistics."

Inside the Data Mine

With the recent communications revolution and
the downsizing of the NSA, former NSA
Director (now Director of CIA) Michael Hayden
made it his goal to "get the technology of
the global telecommunications revolution
inside this agency." To do that, Hayden
brought new executives into the NSA,
including Harry Gatanas, a military and
intelligence veteran turned business
executive. Gatanas told the press: "Really,
nothing is sacred. If it's not a core
competency, then we'll look at the potential
of outsourcing it."

Wiretapping's true danger

In the FISA debate, Bush administration
officials oppose any explicit rules against
"reverse targeting" Americans in
conversations with noncitizens, though they
say they'd never do it.

House Passes FISA Amendments Act

Speaker Pelosi: "Why would the Administration
oppose a judicial determination of whether
the companies already have immunity? There
are at least three explanations:

First, the President knows that it was the
Administration's incompetence in failing to
follow the procedures in statute that
prevented immunity from being conveyed--
that's one possibility. They simply didn't do
it right. Second, the Administration's legal
argument that the surveillance requests were
lawfully authorized was wrong; or public
reports that the surveillance activities
undertaken by the companies went far beyond
anything about which any Member of Congress
was notified, as is required by the law.

None of these alternatives is attractive but
they clearly demonstrate why the
Administration's insistence that Congress
provide retroactive immunity has never been
about national security or about concerns for
the companies; it has always been about
protecting the Administration."

The $2 Trillion Nightmare

"For a fraction of the cost of this war,"
said Mr. Stiglitz, "we could have put Social
Security on a sound footing for the next
half-century or more."

Bill makes possession of saliva a felony

Legislators study ban on the hallucinogenic
herb salvia divinorum

Bush dials back Watergate-era
reforms on spying safeguards

"Under the old rules, whenever the
oversight board learned of intelligence
activity that it believed might be
"unlawful or contrary to executive
order," it had a duty to notify both the
president and the attorney general. But
Bush's order deleted the board's
authority to refer matters to the Justice
Department for a criminal investigation,
and the new order said the board should
notify the president only if other
officials are not already "adequately"
addressing the problem.

Bush's order also terminated the board's
authority to oversee each intelligence
agency's general counsel and inspector
general, and it erased a requirement that
each inspector general file a report with the
board every three months. Now only the agency
directors will decide whether to report any
potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they
have no schedule for checking in.

President Ford created the independent board
in 1976 to blunt Congressional calls for
additional legislative checks on the
Intelligence Community. A White House
spokesman denied Bush's order reduced the
board's authority.

Patriot missiles: Iraq Veterans Against the War

In January 2003, O'Brien was deployed to
Afghanistan for eight months. While he was
there, he had many experiences that made him
uncomfortable. Several times he witnessed an
Afghan civilian die on the operating table
after treatment from a mobile military
surgical unit. Rather than prepare the corpse
for the family, O'Brien witnessed the
surgeons and the medics use the body to
practise on.

"One doctor said, 'Come up and feel his
heart!' This is what a heart feels like."

Bush, Democrats clash over
new spy bill, immunity

While the House bill would not grant
immunity, it would allow phone companies to
present their defense in a closed-door
U.S. district court, with the judge given
access to confidential documents about the
surveillance