[Liberation News Service]: LNS Post Coup II Supplement (Final): Part One -- A Farewell and A Call to Action

[richard power]

The LNS was developed as a response to the US
mainstream news media’s complicity in the theft of the
2000 US Presidential election.

Our hope was, by participating in the Internet-based
Information Rebellion, to help “restore the timeline.”

There was a strong feeling among many of us that the
illegitimate Bush regime represented sort of an
alternate timeline, and that if the judicially enabled
putsch of 2000 could be undone by a victory in the
2004 US Presidential election, we could restore the
timeline and return to that bridge to the 21st Century
that the Clinton-Gore administration had painstakingly
built while they were besieged on all sides by forces
of reaction within the US body politic and the
corporatist news media.

But now that a second consecutive national election
has been stolen here in the US, and the Bush
abomination has been locked in for another four years,
we must all accept that the timeline that once was is
lost, and the Bridge to the 21st Century that
epitomized it has been blown up. The question we must
answer is, “what now?”

This struggle is not an ideological struggle. It is a
struggle for reality itself. It is reality that is at
stake. Remember, in the troubled times ahead, 2+2=4.
Do not let any “faith-based” brown shirts take that
simple truth from you.

Those who fret about public policy and political
positioning, those who say that the solution is for
the Democratic Party to move to the right OR the left,
those who think it is simply an issue of running a
more effective political campaign, are all living in a
fantasy world. The Democratic Party will never win
another national election, unless it comes to grips
with the reality that the electoral system has now
been strategically compromised, that the news media is
wholly complicit in this crime and that its own Party
leadership is incapable of speaking truth to power
because of its beholdenness to corporate campaign
financing.

The LNS, over the years of its publication, has
stressed the Bush Abomination’s three colossal
failures: National Security, Economic Security and
Environmental Security. 

We have highlighted the worst misdeeds of this
illegitimate, incompetent and corrupt regime. We have
highlighted the courage and sacrifice of many
Americans and others around the world who have stood
up to resist this fascist enterprise. We have revealed
the shocking extent of the US regimestream news
media’s full partnership in the triad of shared
special interest (i.e., energy, weapons, media,
pharmaceuticals, tobacco, etc.) with the Bush Cabal
and its
wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party.

All of what we have aggregated and amplified will
continue on in our searchable database available for
educational purposes to anyone anywhere in the world
24x7. The archive stands as a monument to courage and
a testimony to cowardice.

Now, in our final issue, we propose the following
agenda to restore the Republic:

Election Reform: Implement international standards for
free, fair elections. Do not allow electronic voting
without paper receipts. Provide one simple, clean
nation-wide ballot design for President/Vice
President, US Senator and House of Representatives.
Make voter registration automatic, e.g., any citizen
who files a tax return is registered to vote, any
citizen who acquires a driver’s license is registered
to vote. Make voting in national elections are a
requirement, just as filing a tax return is a
requirement (allow write-ins and the right to decline
to select any candidate). Publicly fund all campaigns
for national office. Ban television and radio
advertisements and replace them with a series of
debates.

News Media Reform: Roll-back the monopolization of the
media industry, i.e. break up the propaganda empires
controlled by mega-corporations. Make it illegal for a
monopoly to control the headlines and the air waves in
a community or a state or at the national level.
Restore the “Fairness Doctrine.” Forbid correspondents
or commentators from receiving government money or
corporate gifts.

Renewable Energy: Make the reengineering of the US
automobile industry a national imperative. Ban the
manufacturing, or import, of automobiles with gasoline
engines. Make hybrid engines the default. Commit
massive US federal tax money to research and
retrofitting for cleaner, more efficient fuel
consumption, and to local and regional mass transit.
Make the utilization of alternative energy sources
(solar, wind, etc.) in plausible and feasible ways a
national imperative.

Note that these three agenda items are not ideological
in nature.

Note, furthermore, that if they are accomplished, all
ideological debates about abortion, “Guns, God and
Gays,” war and peace, separation of church and state,
etc. will be resolved at the ballot box by an informed
and engaged citizenry.

The days ahead are full of dangers and despair. 

The Bush abomination will now attempt to finish off
all real opposition and erase memory of all that the
American experiment was meant to achieve.

But now is not the time to turn away or slump over.
Now is the time to stand tall.

Gen. George Washington ordered that these words be
read to the revolutionary army when morale was
wavering after series of military defeats:

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country; but he that
stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered;
yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder
the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we
obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is
dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven
knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it
would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as
FREEDOM should not be highly rated." Tom Paine, The
American Crisis

Take them to heart. They are new again, they are on
fire again, they speak to us directly across centuries
and they are written in blood. What is underway in the
US in this decade is nothing more than a life and
death struggle with TYRANNY and for FREEDOM –- not a
military struggle in the Persian Gulf, but a
political, cultural and spiritual struggle here in
America itself.

Do you understand the nature of this tyranny? It has
many disguises…the campaign financing system, the
Electoral College, the military/entertainment complex
and the denizens of Beltwayistan, i.e., the
propapunditgandists who warp opinion and the
Democratic Party leadership that offers only faux
opposition, a false religious and moral piety that is
blind to the Prophetic and Humanist traditions (from
Thoreau and Emerson to Dr. King and Father Berrigan)
on which this Republic was established…

The war in Iraq is worse than immoral or illegal. It
is stupid, insanely stupid. 

US soldiers are still dying in Iraq. Two hundred more
since the US “election.” For what?  The neo-con wet
dream of a Three Stooges Reich. Nothing more.

Certainly, they are not dying to bring democracy to
the Middle East. While US soldiers are dying and being
wounded, scarred and maimed for life, physically and
psychologically, the institutions of American
democracy are being subverted and morphed beyond
recognition. 

Certainly, they are not dying to make America more
secure. We are far less secure today than we were the
day after the 9/11 attacks. We are isolated in the
world, the Western Alliance in fractured, our military
is over-extended, ill-equipped and demoralized, our
enemies are swelling their ranks with new recruits,
and homeland security remains woefully under-funded
and utterly mismanaged.

Our foe is not traditional conservatism, or even a
particular political ideology, our foe is not the
Republican Party of Goldwater or Rockefeller or even
Nixon. Our foe is more akin to Fascism (i.e.
“Corporatism,” as Mussolini himself dubbed it) and
Totalitarianism. “Neo-Liberalism,” for better and
worse, really was a form of liberalism, but
“Neo-Conservatism” is not really a form of
conservatism, it is, as LNS Foreign Correspondent
Dunston Woods observes, a form of Totalitarianism.
Some of the Bush Cabal are so-called
“neo-conservatives” (e.g., Paul Woefulwitz), some are
not (e.g., Condesencia Rice), but all are true
“Neo-Totalitarians.” 

Tom Paine (1737-1809) formulated the name “United
States of America.”

He was the son of a corset maker. He was not, like
John Kerry, one of the ruling elite. Tom Paine was a
pamphleteer, i.e., a blogger. 

“Paine advocated a liberal world view, which was
radical at the time. He had no use for royalty, and
viewed government as a necessary evil. He opposed
slavery and was an early supporter of social security,
public education, genuinely unconditional grant and
many other ideas that came to fruition decades later.
He was a Deist and outspoken critic of organized
religion.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Less than twenty years after victory in the war of
independence, the new US government, which he had
helped birth, attempted to suppress his treatise on
“The Rights of Man.” He traveled to Paris to
participate in the French revolution, and was later
imprisoned and sentenced to death by Robespierre.

In prison, convinced he would soon be dead, Paine
wrote The Age of Reason, an assault on organized
religion.

Paine escaped execution and returned to America. 

Paine published his last great pamphlet, Agrarian
Justice, in the winter of 1795-1796. In this pamphlet,
Paine further developed ideas proposed in the Rights
of Man as to how the institution of land ownership
separated the great majority of persons from their
rightful natural inheritance and means of independent
survival. The U.S. Social Security Administration
recognizes Agrarian Justice as the first American
proposal for an old-age pension.
Paine died at 59 Grove Street in Greenwich Village, in
New York City on June 8, 1809. At the time of his
death, most U.S. newspapers reprinted the obituary
notice from the New York Citizen, which read in part:
"He had lived long, did some good and much harm." Only
six mourners came to his funeral. (Source: Wikipedia)
There are only five statues of him in the world.
Do not allow yourselves to be marginalized within your
own country.
Beat your Blue State chest! We are the tax base, we
pay the bill for this war that we oppose, we can turn
off the tap. We are the majority of the population, we
can fill the streets and shut down this rogue regime.
We have the ocean front property, we provide the
intellectual firepower for the information age. We are
the melting pot. We embody the US Constitution.
Gettysburg, Concord and the Liberty Bell are all in
the Blue State of Mind.
Urge your local governments to repudiate the Patriot
Act, demand withdrawal of US troops from Iraq,
reaffirm the separation of church and state, promote
Stem Cell research and take Kyoto-style action against
global warming.
Appeal to the UN. Appeal to the OECD and the OSCE.
Appeal to the Western Alliance. Petition them all for
help in thwarting fascism and neo-totalitarianism in
America.
Wage Kulchur War! Embrace division. Do not fret about
“bringing the country together.” They don’t. It’s
their way or the highway. Take the highway. 
Study the history of the Spanish Civil War.
Donate to www.BuzzFlash.com, www.TruthOut.com,
www.Democrats.com, BlackBoxVoting.org and, especially,
www.MediaMatters.org.
Participate in and donate to www.MoveOn.org. Subscribe
to The Nation and Salon. Support Amy Goodman’s
Democracy Now!
Tune in to Air America. Read the Guardian on-line.
Contribute to the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)
instead of the “Democratic National Committee” (DNC).
Refuse to contribute one penny to the DNC until it
takes up the mantle of real resistance instead of faux
opposition. 
Denounce the “Democratic Leadership Council” (DLC).
But remember, too, that the
shell-of-a-man-formerly-as-Ralph-Nader, financed in
large part by the Bush cabal, betrayed all that is
good in 2000 and again in 2004, and that the cowardice
and capitulation of the Democratic Party leadership
does not lessen his betrayal or in any way validate
his demagogic lie that there was no difference between
a vote for Bush and a vote for Gore or Kerry.
Teach your children well about Tom Paine, Harriet
Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Chief Seattle, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Caesar Chavez and Dr. Martin Luther King.
Purchase, aggregate and share the books and DVDs – in
particular, the works of Michael Moore, Mark Crispin
Miller, Craig Unger, Kitty Kelley, Michael Scheuer
(“Anonymous”), Richard Clarke and Cornell West -- that
have provided the antidote of truth to the lies of the
Bush Abomination, its
wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party
and the US regimstream news media.
Don’t be foolish, but don’t be afraid either. Speak
out. 
And stay tuned, we will return…
"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country; but he that
stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered;
yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder
the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we
obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is
dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven
knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it
would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as
FREEDOM should not be highly rated." Tom Paine, The
American Crisis

Theft of the 2004 Election

Rep. Conyers' Letter to Exit Polling Firms:  To be
frank, blaming such factors as distant restrictions on
polling places, weather conditions, the age of exit
poll workers, and the fact that multiple precincts
were contained at the same polling place, as your
report does, does not come close to explaining why the
exit polls overstated support for the Kerry/Edwards
ticket in 26 states and support for the Bush/Cheney
ticket in only 4 states. Many of the factors you point
to appear to merely be random characteristics of the
election and your exit polling, rather than
quantifiable and justifiable explanations.
Nor can I believe that the massive discrepancies can
credibly be written off to eagerness of Kerry voters
to participate in the exit polls. The stakes for our
democracy are simply too high for us to allow this
matter to pass without a serious and substantive
review of the exit poll data. While the election is
over, there is significant bipartisan sentiment in
Congress and around the nation for voting reform. A
complete and full release of the exit poll information
will therefore not only help to resolve lingering
doubts regarding irregularities in the 2004 election,
it will also go a long way towards helping Congress
understand how to best craft these reforms. I am
hopeful that the media companies that contract for
your services will also understand and support the
importance of providing full, complete, and
transparent information in this matter.

Bob Fertik, www.democrats.com: Since Election Night,
I've been angry over the refusal of the NEP and the
networks to explain the Exit Polls that proved Kerry
won Ohio, Florida, and the Presidency.
After all, the Ukrainian election was overturned
because exit polls showed Yuschenko won, even though
the government-controlled tabulations showed he lost.
Well, we finally got an "explanation" - and it's
utterly bogus. Here's the CNN version:
Report suggests changes in exit poll methodology
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Posted: 12:17 PM EST
Exit polls overstated John Kerry's share of the vote
on November 2, both nationally and in many states,
because more Kerry supporters participated in the
survey than Bush voters, according to an internal
review of the exit-polling process released Wednesday.
This is a complicated sentence, so let's make it
simpler.
What if more Kerry supporters participated in the
survey because there were more Kerry supporters?
In other words, what if Kerry actually got more votes
- just as Gore did?
If that statement isn't true, then the only other
explanation is that Bush voters refused to take the
exit poll.
That sounds nutty. What serious explanation can they
offer?
Well, they can't offer one.
The report said it is difficult to pinpoint precisely
why, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to
participate in the exit poll than were Bush voters.
"There were certainly motivational factors that are
impossible to quantify," the report said.
Why should we believe this media-spun "conspiracy
theory" about mysterious "motivatational factors" -
rather than believe the exit poll was accurate, and
Kerry won?

Conyers' Letter to Ohio Attorney General: I write to
express my concern regarding your recent request to
sanction those attorneys who brought a legal challenge
to last year's presidential election in Ohio. In
particular, I am concerned that by seeking official
censure and fines, you are engaged in a selective and
partisan misuse of your legal authority. As eager as
many disgruntled voters are to have a court of law
finally assess the merits of the challenge actions, I
have serious doubts about the validity of the
sanctions case your office is pursuing.
As an initial matter, one would be hard pressed to see
how the legal challenges brought under the Ohio
election challenge statute were "frivolous." First
off, it is widely known that the Ohio presidential
election was literally riddled with irregularities and
improprieties, many of which are set forth in the 102
page report issued by the House Judiciary Committee
Democratic Staff. <http://www.house.gov> As a matter
of fact, the problems were so great that Congress was
forced to debate the first challenge to an entire
state's slate of electors since the federal Electoral
Count law was enacted in 1877. In short, there is more
than an abundant record raising serious, substantive
questions about the Ohio presidential election.

Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

George Monbiot, Guardian: The U.S. media is
disciplined by corporate America into promoting the
Republican cause.
On Thursday, the fairy king of fairyland will be
recrowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in
midair by the power of imagination. He is the leader
of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms
unvisited by reality. And he remains the most powerful
person on earth. 
How did this happen? How did a fantasy president from
a world of make believe come to govern a country whose
power was built on hard-headed materialism? To find
out, take a look at two squalid little stories which
have been concluded over the past 10 days…
You can say what you like in the US media, as long as
it helps a Republican president. But slip up once
while questioning him, and you will be torn to shreds.
Even the most grovelling affirmations of loyalty won't
help. The presenter of 60 Minutes, Dan Rather, is the
man who once told his audience" "George Bush is the
president, he makes the decisions and, you know, as
just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell
me where." CBS is owned by the conglomerate Viacom,
whose chairman told reporters: "We believe the
election of a Republican administration is better for
our company." But for Fox News and the shockjocks
syndicated by Clear Channel, Rather's faltering
attempt at investigative journalism is further
evidence of "a liberal media conspiracy"…
 The role of the media corporations in the US is
similar to that of repressive state regimes elsewhere:
they decide what the public will and won't be allowed
to hear, and either punish or recruit the social
deviants who insist on telling a different story. The
journalists they employ do what almost all journalists
working under repressive regimes do: they internalise
the demands of the censor, and understand, before
anyone has told them, what is permissible and what is
not…
So, when they are faced with a choice between a fable
which helps the Republicans, and a reality which hurts
them, they choose the fable. As their fantasies
accumulate, the story they tell about the world veers
further and further from reality. Anyone who tries to
bring the people back down to earth is denounced as a
traitor and a fantasist. And anyone who seeks to
become president must first learn to live in
fairyland. 

Robert Parry: “Don’t take on the Bushes” is becoming
an unwritten rule in American journalism. Reporters
can make mistakes in covering other politicians and
suffer little or no consequence, but a false step when
doing a critical piece on the Bushes is a career
killer.
The latest to learn this hard lesson are four
producers at CBS, who demonstrated inadequate care in
checking out memos purportedly written by George W.
Bush’s commanding officer in the Texas Air National
Guard in the early 1970s. For this sloppiness, CBS
fired the four, including Mary Mapes who helped break
last year’s Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
A painful irony for the CBS producers was that the
central points of the memos – that Bush had blown off
a required flight physical and was getting favored
treatment in the National Guard – were already known,
and indeed, were confirmed by the commander’s
secretary in a follow-up interview with CBS. But even
honest mistakes are firing offenses when the Bushes
are involved.
By contrast, journalists understand that they get a
free shot at many other politicians who don’t have the
protective infrastructure that surrounds the Bush
family. Take for example the case of reporters for the
New York Times and the Washington Post who misquoted
Al Gore about his role in the Love Canal toxic waste
clean-up…
But what’s clear now – as the U.S. news media has
learned to tip-toe around Bush family scandals – is
the applicability of that the old adage about the
rich: “The Bushes aren’t like the rest of us.”

Daniel Schorr, Christian Science Monitor: Washington
these days feels a little like Moscow in Soviet times
when the government routinely dispensed information to
the public and the public routinely didn't believe it.
The two main newspapers were the Communist Party
organ, Pravda, (Truth) and the Soviet government
organ, Izvestiya (News). People used to say, "There is
no Izvestiya in Pravda and no Pravda in Izvestiya."
For three years our leaders told us that Iraq for sure
had weapons of mass destruction ... well, pretty sure
... well, maybe. One war later, after scouring the
countryside, the government admits that there weren't
any such weapons. If President Bush were to go on TV
one of these days and say that Iran has developed a
nuclear bomb, requiring American action, who would
believe him?
On a less momentous scale, who can believe TV news
reports when they may turn out to be
government-financed videos?

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

TOM LASSETER and JONATHAN S. LANDAY, Detroit Free
Press: Unless something dramatic changes, the United
States is heading toward losing the war in Iraq. 
A Knight Ridder Newspapers analysis of U.S. government
statistics shows the U.S. military steadily losing
ground to the predominately Sunni Muslim insurgency in
Iraq. 
The analysis suggests that, short of a newfound will
by Iraqis to reject the insurgency or a large
escalation of U.S. troop strength, the United States
won't win the war. 
Illegitimate, Incompetent, Corrupt

Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation: In 2004 the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the
Inspector Generals (IG) in various departments of the
federal government issued reports revealing fraud,
mismanagement and corruption. Here is my list of the
Bush Administration's Ten Most Outrageous Scandals
thus far uncovered by government investigators: 
1. Halliburton's Corruption. Nine different reports
compiled by the GAO, the Coalition Provisional
Authority's IG and the Defense Contract Audit Agency
faulted Halliburton's performance in Iraq, where it
has been awarded more than $10 billion in US
contracts. The government investigators cited, among
other things, significant cost overruns, the
overcharging of the Defense Department (and taxpayers)
by $61 million, illegal kickbacks, failure to police
subcontractors' billing and unauthorized expenses at
the Kuwait Hilton Hotel. The list of abuses will
likely get longer in 2005, as multiple criminal
investigations into Halliburton's work pick up steam. 
2. Iraq's Decline. In June 2004 the GAO provided a
bleak assessment of Iraq after fourteen months of US
military occupation, documenting that in critical
areas like security, electricity and the judicial
system Iraq is worse off now than it was before the
war. 
3. Abu Ghraib Prison Torture. In late August Maj. Gen.
George Fay released an official Army report charging
that US military personnel committed torture and that
civilian contractors and military intelligence
interrogators played a greater role in abusing
prisoners than previously thought. The Fay report
blamed "a lack of discipline on the part of leaders
and soldiers" and a "failure or lack of leadership" by
senior military commanders in Iraq. 

Peter Dizikes, Salon.com: Print it out, send it to
Harry Reid, or just read it and weep. Here are 34
scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's
presidency - every one of them worse than Whitewater.
        Once upon a time - about five years ago -
conservative pundits often talked about "scandal
fatigue." Remember scandal fatigue? It was an
affliction supposedly either turning voters against
Democrats or, alternatively, a weariness in the body
politic preventing Republicans from pursuing even more
grievances against Bill Clinton. By any objective
measure, however, after four years of George W. Bush's
presidency, the entire nation should be suffering from
utter scandal exhaustion. 
Consider the raw materials of scandal that this
administration has produced: False claims about Iraq's
supposed weapons of mass destruction. Torture in Abu
Ghraib. The virtually treasonous exposure of a CIA
agent by White House officials. And those are just the
best-known examples. 
After all, how many citizens can name all the ongoing
investigations of Halliburton, Vice President Dick
Cheney's old firm? Who remembers that the
administration illicitly diverted $700 million from
Afghanistan to Iraq? Or that, on Capitol Hill, Senate
Republicans stole strategy memos from Democrats, while
a House Republican said he was offered a bribe during
a crucial vote? Even a conscientious citizen cannot be
expected to keep score, so Salon has compiled a list…
Christopher Wolf, Joe Wilson’s lawyer, in a Letter to
the Editor of the Washington Post: In their Jan. 12
op-ed column ["The Plame Game: Was This a Crime?"]
Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford misrepresented
the scope of the Intelligence Identities Protection
Act, which certainly does cover former covert agents
who remain at risk (along with their contacts) even
after their covert operations end…The Plame
investigation is not a "game." Reporters may need to
be protected, but calling for a halt to the
investigation into the leaking of Ms. Plame's identity
to Robert Novak is not the way to do that.

John O’Neill Wall of Heroes

Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman,
www.commondreams.org:  For the past couple of years,
he's been giving 40 or so speeches a year, mostly in
the red zone, mostly to conservative groups. 
He speaks about the corporate attack on the country. 
"There is no difference between the reaction I get
from Republicans and Democrats, because Americans
share the same values," Kennedy told us. "If you talk
about these issues in terms of our national values,
everybody understands it." 
In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist
country and that the Bush White House has learned key
lessons from the Nazis. 
"While communism is the control of business by
government, fascism is the control of government by
business," he writes. "My American Heritage Dictionary
defines fascism as 'a system of government that
exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right,
typically through the merging of state and business
leadership together with belligerent nationalism.'
Sound familiar?" 
He quotes Hitler's propaganda chief Herman Goerring:
"It is always simply a matter to drag the people
along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce
the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same in any
country." 
Kennedy then adds: "The White House has clearly
grasped the lesson." 
Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini's insight that
"fascism should more appropriately be called
corporatism because it is the merger of state and
corporate power." 
"The biggest threat to American democracy is corporate
power," Kennedy told us. "There is vogue in the White
House to talk about the threat of big government. But
since the beginning of our national history, our most
visionary political leaders have warned the American
public against the domination of government by
corporate power. That warning is missing in the
national debate right now. Because so much corporate
money is going into politics, the Democratic Party
itself has dropped the ball. They just quash
discussion about the corrosive impact of excessive
corporate power on American democracy." 

www.commondreams.org: An unprecedented group of
national security whistleblowers and family members of
9/11 victims’ families will gather Wednesday, January
26th to demand that the government halt its
detrimental practice of silencing employees who expose
national security blunders.
The event comes as several 9/11 family member advocacy
groups and public interest organizations file a
friend-of-the-court brief in support of Sibel Edmonds’
case against the government.
Edmonds, a former Middle Eastern language specialist
hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002
after repeatedly reporting serious security breaches
and misconduct in the agency’s translation program.
She challenged her retaliatory dismissal by filing
suit in federal court. Last July, the district court
dismissed her case when Attorney General John Ashcroft
invoked the so-called state secrets privilege. The
ACLU is representing Edmonds in the appeal.

Movement for Active Democracy in Iceland: We, citizens
of Iceland, protest in the strongest possible terms
against the Icelandic authorities’ support for the
invasion of Iraq by the United States of America and
the “coalition of the willing” in March 2003. With
their declaration of support, the Icelandic
authorities violated Icelandic law,
international law – and Icelandic democratic
tradition.
The decision to support the invasion was made
unilaterally by the Prime
Minister and Foreign Minister of Iceland, without
prior discussion by
Iceland’s Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.
This is mandatory
under Icelandic law, which says that all major foreign
policy issues shall be
discussed by the committee. This decision has not been
debated, much less approved, either by the parliament
or by the Government of Iceland. 

Theft of the 2004 Election
Rep. Conyers' Letter to Exit Polling Firms: "The
stakes for our democracy are simply too high for us to
allow this matter to pass without a serious and
substantive review of the exit poll data." 
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
January 20, 2005
Warren Mitofsky
Mitofsky International
1776 Broadway - Suite 1708
New York, NY 10019
Larry Rosin
President
Edison Media Research
6 W. Cliff St.
Somerville, NJ 08876
Dear Mr. Mitofsky and Mr. Rosin:
I have reviewed the internal report you issued
yesterday concerning your exit polling in the 2004
election, and, unfortunately, it has not caused my
concerns and questions regarding the significant
discrepancies between your polling data and the final
electoral results to diminish.
In particular, I would note that there are a number of
concerns with the explanations you posited in your
internal report that do not credibly account for the
unprecedented five point differential between your
exit polls and the reported results. As I am sure you
know, Professor Steven Freeman of the University of
Pennsylvania has determined that such a differential
was of a less than 1 in a 1000 likelihood - virtually
impossible as a statistical matter. 
To be frank, blaming such factors as distant
restrictions on polling places, weather conditions,
the age of exit poll workers, and the fact that
multiple precincts were contained at the same polling
place, as your report does, does not come close to
explaining why the exit polls overstated support for
the Kerry/Edwards ticket in 26 states and support for
the Bush/Cheney ticket in only 4 states. Many of the
factors you point to appear to merely be random
characteristics of the election and your exit polling,
rather than quantifiable and justifiable explanations.
Nor can I believe that the massive discrepancies can
credibly be written off to eagerness of Kerry voters
to participate in the exit polls.The stakes for our
democracy are simply too high for us to allow this
matter to pass without a serious and substantive
review of the exit poll data. While the election is
over, there is significant bipartisan sentiment in
Congress and around the nation for voting reform. A
complete and full release of the exit poll information
will therefore not only help to resolve lingering
doubts regarding irregularities in the 2004 election,
it will also go a long way towards helping Congress
understand how to best craft these reforms. I am
hopeful that the media companies that contract for
your services will also understand and support the
importance of providing full, complete, and
transparent information in this matter.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Member
House Judiciary Committee
cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.
Chairman, House Judiciary Committee <<letter to
petro.wpd>> <<letter to mitofsky.wpd>>
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/01/ale05019.html
Exit Pollsters LIE About Kerry's Victory
by Bob Fertik on 01/19/2005 11:50pm. - revised
01/20/2005 10:15pm
Since Election Night, I've been angry over the refusal
of the NEP and the networks to explain the Exit Polls
that proved Kerry won Ohio, Florida, and the
Presidency.
After all, the Ukrainian election was overturned
because exit polls showed Yuschenko won, even though
the government-controlled tabulations showed he lost.
Well, we finally got an "explanation" - and it's
utterly bogus. Here's the CNN version:
Report suggests changes in exit poll methodology
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Posted: 12:17 PM EST
Exit polls overstated John Kerry's share of the vote
on November 2, both nationally and in many states,
because more Kerry supporters participated in the
survey than Bush voters, according to an internal
review of the exit-polling process released Wednesday.
This is a complicated sentence, so let's make it
simpler.
What if more Kerry supporters participated in the
survey because there were more Kerry supporters?
In other words, what if Kerry actually got more votes
- just as Gore did?
If that statement isn't true, then the only other
explanation is that Bush voters refused to take the
exit poll.
That sounds nutty. What serious explanation can they
offer?
Well, they can't offer one.
The report said it is difficult to pinpoint precisely
why, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to
participate in the exit poll than were Bush voters.
"There were certainly motivational factors that are
impossible to quantify," the report said.
Why should we believe this media-spun "conspiracy
theory" about mysterious "motivatational factors" -
rather than believe the exit poll was accurate, and
Kerry won?
Here are the possible explanations, all of which are
ludicrous. I'll add BradBlog's brilliant translations
in bold.
The report identified several factors that may have
contributed to the discrepancy, including:
•	Distance restrictions from polling places imposed
upon the interviewers by election officials at the
state and local level. {ed. note: Bush voters shot
straight up out of the polling place and down into
their car, unlike Kerry voters who walked by the
pollsters as they crossed the long distance from the
poll to their cars} 
•	Weather conditions, which lowered completion rates
at certain polling locations. {ed. note: It rained
more on the top of Bush voters heads than on the top
of Kerry voters at the same polling locations.} 
•	Multiple precincts voting at the same location as
the precinct in the exit poll sample. {ed. note: We
have no clue what this would have to do with anything,
and can't come up with a joke to make it more absurd
than it already sounds.} 
•	Interviewer characteristics, such as age, which were
more often related to the errors last year than in
past elections. {ed. note: Bush voters don't like
talking to younger people. Or, they don't like talking
to older people. Whereas Kerry voters, not that there
were more of them, will talk to anybody. Or they're
making all this bullshit up outta whole cloth.} 
The bottom line is simple: they are lying to us.
Clearly the exit polls proved John Kerry won.
George Bush stole a second term with the help of the
TV networks, who will use the inauguration to proclaim
Bush legitimate.
Bullshit. 
Impeach Bush Now!
Updates:
Here is the full 77-page report from Edison-Mitofsky
(the pollsters) for the National Election Pool (the
networks who paid them).
Rep. John Conyers didn't buy the bullshit either. In a
letter to exit pollsters Warren Mitofsky and Larry
Rosin, he wrote:
To be frank, blaming such factors as distant
restrictions on polling places, weather conditions,
the age of exit poll workers, and the fact that
multiple precincts were contained at the same polling
place, as your report does, does not come close to
explaining why the exit polls overstated support for
the Kerry/Edwards ticket in 26 states and support for
the Bush/Cheney ticket in only 4 states. Many of the
factors you point to appear to merely be random
characteristics of the election and your exit polling,
rather than quantifiable and justifiable explanations.
Nor can I believe that the massive discrepancies can
credibly be written off to eagerness of Kerry voters
to participate in the exit polls.
As a result, I would like to reiterate my request to
receive the actual raw exit poll data that you
obtained. I would also like to obtain copies of all
internal deliberations, memos and other materials of
your employees and consultants concerning or seeking
to explain the discrepancies.
You GO, Conyers!
The AP version by Seth Sutel has a simple conspiracy
theory: blame the children.
Younger interviewers often get lower response rates
from exit polls, Lenski said, but what was different
this time around was that that factor resulted in data
overstating the results for one candidate. 
"You look at the factors out there, and young voters
in this election were the strongest supporters of
Kerry by age group," he said. "Older voters seeing a
younger interviewer may have been less likely to
participate because they might believe that
interviewer might not agree with them politically." 
Edison/Mitofsky used a far greater proportion of
younger interviewers than VNS [its failed predecessor,
which was run by the same people] did, despite
considerable research from past elections documenting
"age-of-interviewer effects."
So were the interviewers too young in Ukraine? Why
should we believe any exit poll if such bizarre and
minor factors can produce results that are
statistically impossible - 250 million to one!
Here is Nightline's promo for their 1/19/05 show:
In this very partisan atmosphere, it may not surprise
you to hear that there are some people out there who
believe the winner of the 2004 U.S. presidential race
was John Kerry — that he should be the focus of the
extravagant inaugural parade that will make its way up
Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House tomorrow. These
very vocal critics believe that because of voting
irregularities in Ohio on Election Day, George Bush
actually lost the election. Some go even further to
say that the Republicans conspired to steal it.
Yup!
Here is Ohio activist Paddy Schaffer's report.
Nightline has officially labeled us the "Diehards."
I'd call us the "Truthtellers."
Warren Mitofsky went on ABC's Nightline show tonight
to claim that Bush won because he made errors in his
exit polls. He felt honored that the group Ted Koppel
referred to as "The Diehards" thought his work was so
correct that we would base our court suits on his
polls. He said he makes errors. Well, gee, I hope he
has trouble getting paying work in the future. Who
would want to pay for his polls when he admits he
botched the job on the Ohio exit polls.
The show also had lots of coverage of the Freedom
Winter bus riders, attorneys, and others that were
present in DC for the Press Conference at the National
Press Club... Finally the footage comes out, and we
make a lot of sense. The conclusion of the show is
that we are The Diehards, they want us to go away and
go back to sleep, and they even talked about lots of
other stolen elections and that we should just be sad
and nearly cry like Hubert Humphrey. It is so good to
know that I for one will not do that. And neither will
so many of you.
Instead, on Wednesday I spoke about our election
issues to two National Public Radio Hosts at the
Fawcett Center, their staffs, and a large audience.
After the live NPR radio show they hosted a banquet
room question and answer session with Neal Conan and
Fred Anderly. Although they did not call on the
several people in the audience that showed up with
elections issues to address during the live show, I
did get to speak then. 
I addressed the need of the people to have the media
cover the truth of what is happening, to cover the
lies of the politicians, and to cover the brave
politicians that speak the truth. I told them and the
audience that this applies not only to the war, the
economy, many areas of our lives, but that I was very
interested in how it effected our elections. I told
them about the first public hearing at the church, the
preplanning, and how we didn't know if no one would
show up, or thousands would show up. I lead them
through several public hearings, tons of evidence to
show there are problems, the fact that this research
and legal work has been volunteer work by people of
Ohio.... how the branches of government that should do
this work has done nothing...., and went to the scene
in the Senate Gallery where after working so hard,
with so many, on these issues.... I watched as our
Senators DeWine and Voinovich stood up and told the
nation that Ohio did not have even one problem, not
one. I asked that they, lead the media in showcasing
and honoring those that tell the truth, broadcast it,
and when they do not tell the truth, play it, hold
them responsible. The audience cheered and clapped,
more than half of them I'd say. Neil Conan made an
excuse for the liars.... that they believe what they
are saying. Alas............ the media doesn't get it,
half of the people do. Yet they all know, they all
heard it, they can't say they don't know about it.
Karen Holbrook (president of OSU) was in the audience,
as were most of the speakers from the live show. I had
many come up to me during and after the event to thank
me, to want to know more.... So I handed out copies of
the Freepress after talking with them. A few more know
what happened, the hosts know what happened in Ohio...
now what do they choose to do with the knowledge? We
shall see. 
To hold the government and media accountable, to
embrace and demand the truth, sounds great to me. To
have speakers show up at meetings all over the city,
state, and country, to expose what has happened, and
what is currently happening seems like one more area
to focus on. So many in that room, didn't understand
before I spoke, and now they do, or are beginning to
understand. The truth is so powerful. Keep finding it
and telling it. What would Jesus do...? He'd tell the
truth!
Speaking of truthtellers, Prof. Steven Freeman
answered Russ Baker's libelous attack on Freeman's
incredible work on the "unexplained exit poll
discrepancy." 
Baker dismisses my work based on an unnamed source
(why does he not name his source here?) who told him
"that it is 'all wrong.'" But the single shortcoming
identified – that my analysis is based on "'screen
shots' of raw numbers provided by CNN" – betrays a
complete ignorance of my analysis, of basic survey
research, and of the issues at hand. I did not use
"raw numbers," but rather the exit poll projections
provided by the National Election Pool (NEP) to its
media clients so that they could prepare their
coverage and write their articles. I used these data,
which were publicly available on election night, to
document the obvious fact of an unexplained
discrepancy between the exit poll projections and the
official count – a discrepancy still unexplained more
than two months later. I collected screen shots
because the National Election Pool (NEP) "corrected"
its numbers later on election night to conform to the
official count, leaving no public record of the
original projections.
Baker's work is normally excellent. But he blew this
one big time. Baker owes Freeman - and his readers -
an explanation and an apology. E-mail
russ at russbaker.com 
http://blog.democrats.com/node/2719
Conyers' Letter to Ohio Attorney General: Sanctioning
of Lawyers Involved with Ohio Election Challenge is a
"selective and partisan misuse of your legal
authority."
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
January 20, 2005
The Hon. Jim Petro
Attorney General
State of Ohio
State Office Tower
30 E. Broad St, 17th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Dear Attorney General Petro:
I write to express my concern regarding your recent
request to sanction those attorneys who brought a
legal challenge to last year's presidential election
in Ohio. In particular, I am concerned that by seeking
official censure and fines, you are engaged in a
selective and partisan misuse of your legal authority.
As eager as many disgruntled voters are to have a
court of law finally assess the merits of the
challenge actions, I have serious doubts about the
validity of the sanctions case your office is
pursuing.
As an initial matter, one would be hard pressed to see
how the legal challenges brought under the Ohio
election challenge statute were "frivolous." First
off, it is widely known that the Ohio presidential
election was literally riddled with irregularities and
improprieties, many of which are set forth in the 102
page report issued by the House Judiciary Committee
Democratic Staff. <http://www.house.gov> As a matter
of fact, the problems were so great that Congress was
forced to debate the first challenge to an entire
state's slate of electors since the federal Electoral
Count law was enacted in 1877. In short, there is more
than an abundant record raising serious, substantive
questions about the Ohio presidential election.
It is also noteworthy that the Ohio Secretary of State
intentionally delayed certifying the vote, thereby
insuring that the recount could not be completed by
the date the electoral college met on December 13. The
Ohio Secretary State also refused to respond to
numerous questions regarding the irregularities
submitted to him by several members of the House
Judiciary Committee, has refused to respond to a
single concern set forth in the Judiciary Report, and
also sought a protective order to avoid any discovery
related to the legal challenges. In short, Ohio
election officials have compounded public doubt
concerning the election by refusing to provide any
sort of accountability and acting in almost every
respect as if they have "something to hide."
Given this context, and to help assure the public that
you are not selectively pursuing sanctions in these
cases for partisan reasons, I would respectfully
request that you provide the House Judiciary Committee
and the public with an itemization of all sanctions
cases brought and considered by your office since
January, 2003. In addition, I would ask that you
provide to us and make public an itemization of cases
you have considered and pursued under Ohio's campaign
and election laws since January 2003. Finally, I would
like to receive a an estimate of the costs you would
expect to expend of Ohio taxpayer funds to pursue the
sanction case you are seeking against Mr. Fitrakis,
Susan Truitt, Cliff Arnebeck, and Peter Peckowsky.
If you believe the election challenge case should not
have been brought, I would suggest the more
appropriate course of actions may be revisiting the
law with the Ohio legislature, rather than pursuing
far-fetched sanction cases which on their face would
appear to be overtly partisan in nature.
I would appreciate it if you would respond to me
though my Judiciary Committee staff, Perry Apelbaum
and Ted Kalo, 2142 Rayburn House Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20515 (tel. 202-225-6504, fax
202-225-4423) by no later than January 27. Thank you.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Member
House Judiciary Committee
cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.
Chairman, House Committee on the Judiciary
Supreme Court, State of Ohio
Ohio Bar Association
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/01/ale05018.html
Complicity of the Corporatist News Media
 A Televisual Fairyland 
    By George Monbiot 
    The Guardian U.K. 
    Tuesday 18 January 2005 
The U.S. media is disciplined by corporate America
into promoting the Republican cause.
    On Thursday, the fairy king of fairyland will be
recrowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in
midair by the power of imagination. He is the leader
of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms
unvisited by reality. And he remains the most powerful
person on earth. 
    How did this happen? How did a fantasy president
from a world of make believe come to govern a country
whose power was built on hard-headed materialism? To
find out, take a look at two squalid little stories
which have been concluded over the past 10 days. 
    The first involves the broadcaster CBS. In
September, its 60 Minutes programme ran an
investigation into how George Bush avoided the Vietnam
draft. It produced memos which appeared to show that
his squadron commander in the Texas National Guard had
been persuaded to "sugarcoat" his service record. The
programme's allegations were immediately and
convincingly refuted: Republicans were able to point
to evidence suggesting the memos had been faked. Last
week, following an inquiry into the programme, the
producer was sacked, and three CBS executives were
forced to resign. 
    The incident couldn't have been more helpful to
Bush. Though there is no question that he managed to
avoid serving in Vietnam, the collapse of CBS's story
suggested that all the allegations made about his war
record were false, and the issue dropped out of the
news. CBS was furiously denounced by the rightwing
pundits, with the result that between then and the
election, hardly any broadcaster dared to criticise
George Bush. Mary Mapes, the producer whom CBS fired,
was the network's most effective investigative
journalist: she was the person who helped bring the
Abu Ghraib photos to public attention. If the memos
were faked, the forger was either a moron or a very
smart operator. 
    It's true, of course, that CBS should have taken
more care. But I think it is safe to assume that if
the network had instead broadcast unsustainable
allegations about John Kerry, none of its executives
would now be looking for work. How many people have
lost their jobs, at CBS or anywhere else, for
repeating bogus stories released by the Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth about Kerry's record in Vietnam?
How many were sacked for misreporting the Jessica
Lynch affair? Or for claiming that Saddam Hussein had
an active nuclear weapons programme in 2003? Or that
he was buying uranium from Niger, or using mobile
biological weapons labs, or had a hand in 9/11? How
many people were sacked, during Clinton's presidency,
for broadcasting outright lies about the Whitewater
affair? The answer, in all cases, is none. 
    You can say what you like in the US media, as long
as it helps a Republican president. But slip up once
while questioning him, and you will be torn to shreds.
Even the most grovelling affirmations of loyalty won't
help. The presenter of 60 Minutes, Dan Rather, is the
man who once told his audience" "George Bush is the
president, he makes the decisions and, you know, as
just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell
me where." CBS is owned by the conglomerate Viacom,
whose chairman told reporters: "We believe the
election of a Republican administration is better for
our company." But for Fox News and the shockjocks
syndicated by Clear Channel, Rather's faltering
attempt at investigative journalism is further
evidence of "a liberal media conspiracy". 
    This is not the first time something like this has
happened. In 1998, CNN made a programme which claimed
that, during the Vietnam war, US special forces
dropped sarin gas on defectors who had fled to Laos.
In this case, there was plenty of evidence to support
the story. But after four weeks of furious
denunciations, the network's owner, Ted Turner,
publicly apologised in terms you would expect to hear
during a show trial in North Korea: "I'll take my
shirt off and beat myself bloody on the back." CNN had
erred, he said, by broadcasting the allegations when
"we didn't have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt".
As the website wsws.org has pointed out, it's hard to
think of a single investigative story - Watergate, the
My Lai massacre, Britain's arms to Iraq scandal -
which could have been proved at the time by
journalists "beyond a reasonable doubt". But Turner
did what was demanded of him, with the result that, in
media fairyland, the atrocity is now deemed not to
have happened. 
    The other squalid little story broke three days
before the CBS people were sacked. A US newspaper
discovered that Armstrong Williams, a television
presenter who (among other jobs) had a weekly slot on
a syndicated TV show called America's Black Forum, had
secretly signed a $240,000 contract with the US
Department of Education. The contract required him "to
regularly comment" on George Bush's education bill
"during the course of his broadcasts" and to ensure
that "Secretary Paige [the education secretary] and
other department officials shall have the option of
appearing from time to time as studio guests". 
    It's hard to see why the administration bothered
to pay him. Williams has described as his "mentors"
Lee Atwater - the man who, under Reagan's presidency,
brought a new viciousness to Republican campaigning -
and the segregationist senator Strom Thurmond. His
broadcasting career has been dedicated to promoting
extreme Republican causes and attacking civil rights
campaigns. 
    What makes this story interesting is that the show
he worked on was founded, in 1977, by the radical
black activists Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, to "allow
black reporters to hold politicians and activists of
all persuasions accountable to black people". They
sold their shares in 1980, and the programme was later
bought by the Uniworld Group. With Williams's help,
the new owners have reversed its politics, and turned
it into a recruitment vehicle for the Republican
party. Williams appears to have been taking money for
doing what he was doing anyway. 
    These stories, in other words, are illustrations
of the ways in which the US media is disciplined by
corporate America. In the first case the other
corporate broadcasters joined forces to punish a
dissenter in their ranks. In the second case a
corporation captured what was once a dissenting
programme and turned it into another means of
engineering conformity. 
    The role of the media corporations in the US is
similar to that of repressive state regimes elsewhere:
they decide what the public will and won't be allowed
to hear, and either punish or recruit the social
deviants who insist on telling a different story. The
journalists they employ do what almost all journalists
working under repressive regimes do: they internalise
the demands of the censor, and understand, before
anyone has told them, what is permissible and what is
not. 
    So, when they are faced with a choice between a
fable which helps the Republicans, and a reality which
hurts them, they choose the fable. As their fantasies
accumulate, the story they tell about the world veers
further and further from reality. Anyone who tries to
bring the people back down to earth is denounced as a
traitor and a fantasist. And anyone who seeks to
become president must first learn to live in
fairyland. 
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012005I.shtml

The Bush Rule of Journalism 
By Robert Parry
January 17, 2005
“Don’t take on the Bushes” is becoming an unwritten
rule in American journalism. Reporters can make
mistakes in covering other politicians and suffer
little or no consequence, but a false step when doing
a critical piece on the Bushes is a career killer.
The latest to learn this hard lesson are four
producers at CBS, who demonstrated inadequate care in
checking out memos purportedly written by George W.
Bush’s commanding officer in the Texas Air National
Guard in the early 1970s. For this sloppiness, CBS
fired the four, including Mary Mapes who helped break
last year’s Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
A painful irony for the CBS producers was that the
central points of the memos – that Bush had blown off
a required flight physical and was getting favored
treatment in the National Guard – were already known,
and indeed, were confirmed by the commander’s
secretary in a follow-up interview with CBS. But even
honest mistakes are firing offenses when the Bushes
are involved.
By contrast, journalists understand that they get a
free shot at many other politicians who don’t have the
protective infrastructure that surrounds the Bush
family. Take for example the case of reporters for the
New York Times and the Washington Post who misquoted
Al Gore about his role in the Love Canal toxic waste
clean-up.
'Delusional' 
The misquote in late 1999 prompted knee-slapping
commentaries across the country calling Gore
“delusional” because he supposedly had falsely claimed
credit for the Love Canal clean-up by saying “I was
the one that started it all.” But Gore actually had
said, “that was the one that started it all,”
referring to a similar toxic waste case in Toone,
Tennessee.
Even after the error was pointed out by New Hampshire
high school students who heard Gore’s remark first
hand, the two prestige newspapers dragged their heels
on running corrections. While the newspapers dawdled,
the story of Lyin’ Al and Love Canal reverberated
through the echo chamber of TV pundit shows,
conservative talk radio and newspaper columns. Al Gore
was a laughingstock whose sanity was in doubt.
The Post finally ran a “correction” a week after the
misquote, although the newspaper continued to
misrepresent the context of Gore’s remark. The Post
falsely claimed that Gore’s use of the word “that”
referred to his congressional hearing on toxic waste
dumps, allowing the newspaper to pretend that Gore was
still exaggerating his role.
Three days later, the Times ran its brief correction,
which also failed to fully explain either the context
of the original quote or how the error had completely
distorted what Gore had actually said.
For their part, the two reporters – the Times’
Katharine Seeyle and the Post’s Ceci Connolly –
insisted that their accounts were essentially accurate
even though they clearly weren’t. At least publicly,
neither reporter was punished. Both continued to write
prominent stories for their newspapers. Connolly even
got a job moonlighting as a political commentator for
Fox News.
Meanwhile, the real losers – besides Gore – were the
American voters who got a distorted impression of a
major presidential candidate.
The Love Canal misquote – and the refusal of the two
newspapers to publish meaningful corrections – gave
momentum to what became a dominant narrative of the
campaign, that Gore was a dishonest braggart. The
media commentators also bandied about another bogus
quote attributed to Gore, that he had “invented the
Internet.” [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Al
Gore v. the Media.”]
Exit polls in 2000 found that doubts about Gore’s
honesty were a major factor why many voters cast their
ballots for George W. Bush.
Gore’s media-created reputation as dishonest and
slightly crazy continued to dog him, even after he
left office. In 2002, when Gore spoke out against
Bush’s rush to war with Iraq, the television pundits
and newspaper columnists again hooted him down, while
reprising his reputation as untrustworthy and daffy.
[See Consortiumnews.com’s “Politics of Preemption.”]
Facing this unrelenting media hostility, Gore chose
not to enter the presidential contest in 2004.
But Gore is certainly not alone as a public figure who
has suffered from the Washington press corps’
proclivity for bad journalism and no accountability.
Whitewater Case 
The Whitewater “scandal,” which haunted President
Clinton during his eight years in office, started in
March 1992 when New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth
wrote an imprecise account that combined a
prosecutorial tone with a misleading storyline.
Gerth’s chronology was so confusing that it led Times’
editors to give the story a faulty headline, “Clintons
Joined S&L Operator in an Ozark Real Estate Venture,”
which missed the crucial point that Clinton partner
Jim McDougal didn’t own a savings and loan when the
Clintons joined him in the Whitewater land deal.
McDougal bought a controlling interest in Madison
Guaranty Savings and Loan five years later.
In the 1996 book, Fools for Scandal, journalist Gene
Lyons also noted how Gerth juxtaposed unrelated facts
to give the impression that Beverly Bassett Schaffer
got her job as Arkansas Securities Commissioner in the
mid-1980s, presumably so she could give preferential
treatment to McDougal. 

“After federal regulators found that Mr. McDougal's
savings institution, Madison Guaranty, was insolvent,
meaning it faced possible closure by the state, Mr.
Clinton appointed a new state securities
commissioner,” Bassett Schaffer, Gerth wrote. 

But Lyons found no correlation between Bassett
Schaffer’s appointment in January 1985 and the Federal
Home Loan Bank Board report about Madison in January
1984, a year earlier. Lyons quoted Walter Faulk, who
was then director of supervision for the FHLBB in
Dallas, denying that Bassett Schaffer or Clinton
attempted to subvert normal procedures for coping with
a troubled S&L. 

Bassett Schaffer also said Gerth ignored a lengthy
explanation of her actions that she had supplied.
Nevertheless, Gerth’s story became the guiding light
for years of investigations by the news media,
Congress and special prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
Even years later, after Starr’s investigation failed
to make a case against Clinton over Whitewater, the
Times refused to address the inadequacies of its
original reporting on this central “scandal” of the
Clinton administration.
In fairness to Gerth, however, it's often true that a
groundbreaking story on a complex issue rarely gets
every detail or nuance right. Normally, some leeway is
given to reporters who pave the way for others to
follow.
Bush Rules
But that’s never the case when the Bushes are
involved. When a story puts the Bushes in a negative
light, no leeway is granted. A different set of rules
apply.
Unlike other political figures, the Bushes must be
given the benefit of the doubt, even if an innocent
explanation stretches credulity. Also, any ambiguity
in the reporting – such as sources who are less than
pristine or evidence that isn’t 100 percent clear –
must be interpreted in the Bushes’ favor.
Journalists or other investigators who violate these
Bush rules must expect that they are putting their
reputations and livelihoods in jeopardy.
Defiant journalists can expect the conservative news
media and right-wing interest groups to place critical
Bush stories under a microscope. Backgrounds of the
witnesses and even the journalists will be
investigated, with any blemishes that are found
quickly becoming “the story” in both conservative and
mainstream news outlets.
Even Republican investigators outside of journalism
can expect this treatment. Look, for instance, at the
harsh attacks on Iran-Contra special prosecutor
Lawrence Walsh – a lifelong Republican – when his
probe threatened the long-running cover-up that had
protected George H.W. Bush’s false claims that he was
“not in the loop” on the arms-for-hostage scandal.
[For details, see Walsh’s Firewall or Robert Parry’s
Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from
Watergate to Iraq.]
Part of the reason for this protective phenomenon
surrounding the Bushes is that the family straddles
two powerful political groupings: the East Coast
Establishment and the Texas oil money. George H.W.
Bush engineered this remarkable alliance of interests
in the years after World War II by putting down roots
in Texas, after being raised by a family with a
pedigree in the world of Wall Street investment
banking.
Plus, the Bushes – particularly George W. Bush – can
count on help from the attack dogs in the conservative
news media, ranging from Fox News and the Washington
Times, to Rush Limbaugh and right-wing bloggers.
Burned Books
When this powerful defense mechanism strikes, it can
leave some writers who have crossed the Bushes so
devastated that they eventually turn to suicide.
In 1999, biographer J.R. Hatfield wrote Fortunate Son,
an account of George W. Bush’s early life. Though most
of the biography was fairly routine, Hatfield ran into
trouble when he cited three sources alleging that the
elder George Bush intervened to pull his son out of
legal hot water over a drug arrest in 1972.
According to Hatfield’s account, George Bush senior
arranged to have his son’s legal trouble fixed by a
friendly judge in exchange for getting George Bush
junior to perform some community service. This claim
brought heated denials from both father and son,
although George W. Bush always ducked direct questions
about whether he had used cocaine or other illegal
drugs.
But the media sleuths didn’t demand a straight answer
from Bush about illegal drugs or other possible
arrests involving substance abuse – we learned later
that Bush was concealing a drunk-driving charge in
Maine. Instead, journalists turned their investigative
attention to Hatfield. The Dallas Morning News soon
discovered that the writer had served time in prison
for trying to kill two of his bosses at a Dallas real
estate firm.
Following that disclosure, Hatfield’s publisher, St.
Martin’s Press, recalled copies of Fortunate Son from
the bookstores and threw them into the furnace.
“They’re heat, furnace fodder,” declared Sally
Richardson, president of St. Martin’s trade division.
[NYT, Oct. 23, 1999]
The national press corps hailed the decision to recall
the book, while castigating Hatfield and St. Martin’s
for publishing it in the first place. Conservatives in
the news media were gleeful, hoping the controversy
would end the pesky questions about Bush’s cocaine
use.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s right-wing Washington Times
joked that Hatfield “surely thought he would set the
world on fire. He just didn’t figure that it was his
book that would be the kindling. … One hopes the
finality of the furnace puts an end to the story.”
[Washington Times, Oct. 28, 1999]
What was lacking in the intensive press coverage,
however, was any concern about the disturbing image of
a book being denounced by a well-connected political
family and then being burned. Through more than two
centuries of rough-and-tumble American politics, it is
hard to recall any precedent for this sort of book
burning.
In the years that followed, the discredited Hatfield
had trouble finding work and his life spiraled
downward. In July 2001, Hatfield, then 43, was found
dead in a hotel room in Springdale, Ark., having taken
an overdose of prescription pills.
Hatfield left behind a suicide note listing alcohol,
financial problems and the controversy over Fortunate
Son as his reasons for killing himself.
Guard Questions 
“The finality of the furnace” – as the Washington
Times called it – also kept the U.S. news media from
reexamining Hatfield’s allegations even as new
evidence emerged revealing that something had occurred
in the early 1970s that had deeply alarmed George H.W.
Bush.
According to Bush family friends, the elder George
Bush did intervene in 1972 to protect the younger
George Bush from the consequences of some unidentified
reckless behavior.
In early September 2004, some fresh details came out
in an interview that Salon.com had with the widow of
Jimmy Allison, a newspaper owner and campaign
consultant from Midland, Texas, who had served as “the
Bush’s family’s political guru.” Allison’s widow,
Linda, said the senior George Bush was desperate to
get his son out of Texas and onto an Alabama Senate
campaign that Jimmy Allison was managing.
“The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a
lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and
embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted
to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy’s wing,”
Linda Allison said. “I think they wanted someone they
trusted to keep an eye on him.” [Salon.com’s “George
W. Bush’s Missing Year,” Sept. 2, 2004]
Though Linda Allison’s disclosure dovetailed with the
general account that Hatfield had reported in 1999 –
that the senior George Bush was pulling strings to get
his wayward son out of trouble – the searing treatment
of Hatfield and then the bitter controversy over the
CBS memos in mid-September 2004 kept the major news
media from seriously reexamining Bush’s dubious
explanations of his youthful indiscretions.
Contra Cocaine
Another reporter who fell victim to the Bush rules of
journalism was the San Jose Mercury News’ Gary Webb.
In 1996, Webb wrote a three-part series that revived a
decade-old controversy about the Reagan-Bush
administration’s protection of Nicaraguan contra
groups that had turned to the cocaine trade to finance
their war against Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista
government. Though Webb’s series didn’t specifically
target one of the Bushes, it did reopen a controversy
from the mid-1980s that threatened the image of George
H.W. Bush.
Not only did some contra supporters claim that Bush’s
vice presidential office presided over contra-support
operations that had veered into drug trafficking, but
Bush then served as the top government official
responsible for drug interdiction. [For details, see
Robert Parry’s Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the
Press & ‘Project Truth’ – or Parry’s latest book,
Secrecy & Privilege.]
Rev. Moon’s Washington Times again stepped to the
fore, opening the assault on Webb’s series. The
right-wing newspaper was soon followed by the New York
Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.
In scathing front-page articles, the newspapers
largely accepted the then-dominant conventional wisdom
that the contra-cocaine allegations were a bogus
“conspiracy theory.” The big papers pounded Webb and
his series so hard that Mercury News editors backed
away from the stories and forced Webb to resign.
But Webb’s series did lead to internal investigations
by inspectors general at the CIA and the Justice
Department. In 1998, facts published by those
investigations showed that more than 50 contras and
contra entities were implicated in the drug trade and
that the Reagan-Bush administration had obstructed
criminal investigations of these contra-drug smuggling
operations.
If pieced together with other parts of the historical
record, the IG probes could have devastated George
H.W. Bush’s reputation, which was then underpinning
the presidential aspirations of George W. Bush.
Instead, the major newspapers avoided any detailed
examination of the CIA’s drug admissions and let the
contra-cocaine story die.
For Webb, however, his career remained in ruins.
According to family and friends, he grew despondent;
his marriage broke up; eventually, he lost a job he
had with the California state government; and in
December 2004, at the age of 49, he killed himself
with his father’s handgun. [See Consortiumnews.com’s
“America’s Debt to Journalist Gary Webb.”] 
Lessons Learned
So, by now, the Bush-journalism rules are well
understood by U.S. journalists, even if the rules are
never formally enunciated.
The consequences of crossing the Bushes – even if you
turn out to be right – can be devastating.
Understandably, journalists pull their punches when
the Bush family is involved.
Another example of how this dynamic has worked to
George W. Bush’s political advantage can be found in
the aftermath of the botched CBS memo story in
September 2004. While the news media was ripping into
Dan Rather and CBS, Bush slipped away almost unscathed
despite additional evidence that indeed he had shirked
his National Guard duty.
While doubting the authenticity of the CBS memos,
Marian Carr Knox, a former Texas Air National Guard
secretary, told interviewers that the information in
the purported memos was “correct.” Knox said her late
boss, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, indeed was “upset” that
Bush had refused to obey his order to take a flight
physical and that Bush’s refusal to follow the rules
had caused dissension among other National Guard
pilots.
But instead of focusing on the actions of a President
of the United States, the glare of attention remained
on CBS and its failure to follow proper journalistic
procedures. George W. Bush came out the victim, again.
‘Inadequate Time’
The dust-up left many American voters with the
impression that Bush was innocent of the charges that
he had skipped out on his National Guard duty.
That impression held even when an important new piece
of the puzzle was released by the U.S. government
about a week after the CBS memo flap – Bush’s
hand-written resignation letter from the Texas Air
National Guard.
After moving to Boston to attend Harvard Business
School, Bush was supposed to finish up his National
Guard service in Massachusetts. Instead, however, in
November 1974, Bush scribbled a note saying he wanted
out of the Guard.
Bush explained that he had “inadequate time to
fullfill (sic) possible future commitments.” His
request was granted. He was given an honorable
discharge. [See Reuters, Sept. 29, 2004] 
If given half the attention that CBS’ missteps were
getting at the time, the cavalier attitude of Bush’s
resignation letter might have done severe damage to
Bush, especially since he was forcing today’s National
Guardsmen to pull long and dangerous duty in Iraq.
After all, John Kerry was clobbered by questions
raised about the extent of his heroism in Vietnam
combat.
If dealing with a non-Bush, the U.S. news media also
might have made a story out of the discrepancy between
the privileged treatment that Lt. Bush got in the
1970s and the sacrifice expected of today’s Guardsmen.
For example, Charles and Billi Crockett were a married
couple serving in a National Guard unit from Sheldon,
Iowa, the 2168th transportation company. When their
Guard unit was sent to Iraq, the Crocketts were forced
to leave behind their two small daughters, possibly
for more than a year. The girls were placed with
relatives. [See PBS’ “Now With Bill Moyers”
transcript, Sept. 17, 2004. For more on Bush’s
National Guard story, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush
the Infallible.”]
But what’s clear now – as the U.S. news media has
learned to tip-toe around Bush family scandals – is
the applicability of that the old adage about the
rich: “The Bushes aren’t like the rest of us.”
________________________________________
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in
the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His
new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush
Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at
secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History:
Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/011705.html



Published on Friday, January 21, 2005 by the Christian
Science Monitor 

A Spin Cycle Out of Control
Bush Administration Propaganda Bears More than Passing
Resemblance to the Soviet Brand

by Daniel Schorr
 
Washington these days feels a little like Moscow in
Soviet times when the government routinely dispensed
information to the public and the public routinely
didn't believe it. The two main newspapers were the
Communist Party organ, Pravda, (Truth) and the Soviet
government organ, Izvestiya (News). People used to
say, "There is no Izvestiya in Pravda and no Pravda in
Izvestiya."
For three years our leaders told us that Iraq for sure
had weapons of mass destruction ... well, pretty sure
... well, maybe. One war later, after scouring the
countryside, the government admits that there weren't
any such weapons. If President Bush were to go on TV
one of these days and say that Iran has developed a
nuclear bomb, requiring American action, who would
believe him?
On a less momentous scale, who can believe TV news
reports when they may turn out to be
government-financed videos? Have you ever seen the
report on the drug benefits of the Bush Medicare act
that ran on 40 local TV stations, complete with the
"out-cue": "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting"?
The Department of Health and Human Services paid her
to play the role of reporter. Or, did you see the
report on the antidrug campaign produced by the Office
of National Drug Control Policy, narrated by
nonjournalist Mike Morris?
Or, more recently, the TV and newspaper comments of
Armstrong Williams, praising the Bush No Child Left
Behind education act, bought with $240,000 of
Education Department money?
Education Secretary Rod Paige, shocked, says he is
ordering an investigation of "perceptions and
allegations of ethical lapses."
Appropriation bills often contain a prohibition on the
use of taxpayer money for government propaganda. That
has certainly been violated many times. Would it be
too much to require that these pseudo-news reports at
least reveal the source of their funding? If people
knew it came from the government, they might not
believe it.
How did we ever get to this point?
Daniel Schorr is the senior news analyst at National
Public Radio.
© 2005 Christian Science Monitor
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0121-30.htm

The War in Iraq is Worse than Immoral or Illegal, It
is Stupid, Insanely Stupid
U.S. in danger of losing the war 
Analysis finds troubling trends in Iraq: Rising
fatalities, attacks 
January 22, 2005 
BY TOM LASSETER and JONATHAN S. LANDAY
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF 
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Unless something dramatic changes,
the United States is heading toward losing the war in
Iraq. 
A Knight Ridder Newspapers analysis of U.S. government
statistics shows the U.S. military steadily losing
ground to the predominately Sunni Muslim insurgency in
Iraq. 
The analysis suggests that, short of a newfound will
by Iraqis to reject the insurgency or a large
escalation of U.S. troop strength, the United States
won't win the war. 
Military thinkers say insurgencies are especially hard
to defeat because the insurgents' goal isn't to win in
a conventional sense but to survive until the will of
the occupying power is sapped. Recent polls suggest an
erosion of support among Americans for the war. 
The unfavorable trends are clear: 
Combat deaths: U.S. military fatalities from hostile
acts have risen from an average of about 17 per month
just after President George W. Bush declared an end to
major combat operations on May 1, 2003, to an average
of 82 per month. 
WOUNDED: The average number of U.S. soldiers wounded
by hostile acts per month has spiraled from 142 to 808
during the same period. Iraqi civilians have suffered
even more deaths and injuries, although reliable
statistics aren't available. 
INSURGENT ATTACKS: Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition
since November 2003, when statistics were first
available, rose from 735 a month to 2,400 in October.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, deputy operations
director of the multinational forces, said Friday that
attacks were currently running at 75 a day, about
2,300 a month, well below a spike in November during
the assault on Fallujah but nearly as high as
October's total. 
BOMBINGS: The average number of mass-casualty bombings
has grown from zero in the first few months of the
U.S.-led occupation to an average of 13 per month. 
ELECTRICITY: Electricity production has been below
prewar levels since October, largely because of
sabotage by insurgents, with just 6.7 hours of power
daily in Baghdad in early January, according to the
State Department. 
OIL: Iraq is pumping about 500,000 barrels of oil a
day fewer than its prewar peak of 2.5 million barrels
per day as a result of attacks, according to the State
Department. 
"All the trend lines we can identify are all in the
wrong direction," said Michael O'Hanlon of the
Brookings Institution, a Washington policy research
organization. "We are not winning, and the security
trend lines could almost lead you to believe that we
are losing." 
The combat numbers are based mainly on Defense
Department releases compiled by O'Hanlon. Since the
numbers can fluctuate significantly from month to
month, Knight Ridder examined the statistics for
fatalities, injuries, and mass-casualty bombings using
a technique mathematicians call a moving average --
averaging the number of attacks in one month with the
number of attacks in the two months immediately
preceding it in order to better reveal the underlying
trend. 
Lessel said that since the U.S. assault on the former
rebel stronghold of Fallujah in November, "we have
been making a lot of progress" against the insurgency.

He said the number of attacks, bombings and
kidnappings is down from November, experienced
insurgent leaders are being arrested or killed and
U.S. and Iraqi forces remain on the offensive. 
He also pointed to surveys that show 80 percent of
Iraqis wanting to vote in the Jan. 30 elections and
more than 90 percent opposing violence as a solution
to the crisis. In addition, the recruitment and
training of Iraqi security forces are being stepped
up, Lessel said. 
"I don't want to paint too rosy a picture. We still
have an insurgency that has a lot of capabilities," he
said. "When you ask is the insurgency growing, you
have to ask is it growing in terms of popular support,
and I don't see that happening." 
There are some additional bright spots. 
Millions of dollars are pouring into reconstruction
efforts in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad and
the southern town of Najaf, the scene of intense
fighting last year with Shi'ite rebels. Both places
are now relatively peaceful, and the danger of a
spreading insurgency backed by Iraq's Shi'ite majority
has been largely thwarted. 
About 14 million Iraqis, mostly Shi'ites, are
registered to vote in the elections for an interim
275-seat National Assembly. 
About 1,500 U.S.-funded reconstruction projects are
employing more than 100,000 Iraqis, and the
insurgents' campaign of attacks and threats has failed
to deter sign-ups for Iraq's new security forces. 
Despite these developments, however, the insurgency is
getting larger. Through all the major turning points
that raised hopes of peace in Iraq, from the capture
of Saddam Hussein to the handover of sovereignty seven
months ago, the country's insurgency has become
deadlier and more effective. 
Insurgency grows larger, smarter
At the close of 2003, U.S. commanders put the number
of insurgents at 5,000. Earlier this month, Gen.
Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, the director of the Iraqi
intelligence service, said there are 200,000
insurgents, including at least 40,000 hard-core
fighters. The rest, he said, are part-time fighters
and supporters who provide food, shelter, money and
intelligence. 
"Many Iraqis respect these gunmen because they are
fighting the invaders," said Nabil Mohammed, a Baghdad
University political science professor. 
The resistance has grown despite suffering huge
casualties to overwhelming U.S. firepower. Exact
statistics aren't available. 
The insurgents "are getting smarter all the time.
We've seen a lot of changes in their tactics that say,
one, they're getting help from outside, and two,
they're learning," said Sgt. 1st Class Glenn Aldrich,
35, of Houston, a 16-year Army veteran, after spending
an hour recently greeting Iraqis on a foot patrol
through a Baghdad neighborhood. 
Insurgent attacks have shifted from small groups of
men shooting at tanks with AK47s to powerful car bombs
and roadside explosives and well-planned assaults,
kidnappings and assassinations. 
U.S. soldiers have subdued Sunni hotbeds such as
Fallujah and Samarra. Yet these military victories
have failed to achieve the broader goal of weakening
the resistance. 
Hopes come with dire warnings
The Bush administration hopes to replace the 150,000
U.S. troops with well-trained Iraqis. And Bush
administration officials say the program to train and
equip new Iraqi security forces of more than 272,000
members is making progress. 
Yet several independent experts said it would take at
least two years before there are any meaningful
numbers of Iraqi forces with counterinsurgency skills
and as many as five years before the U.S. goal is
attained. 
"I think you can achieve success, but it will take a
while and, unfortunately, there will be a lot more
blood," said Peter Khalil, who was a senior security
adviser to the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq. 
U.S. military officials have repeatedly and accurately
predicted more violence in the approach to the
elections, which are likely to bring to power a
Shi'ite-dominated government after nearly a century of
Sunni rule in Iraq. 
Hopes that the elections might lessen the violence
recently have given way to more dire warnings, with
expectations that Sunni insurgents who feel
disenfranchised in the new Iraq will turn their guns
on the elected government. 
"I think that we will enter a different but still
dangerous period in the postelection time frame,"
Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S. forces in
northern Iraq, said on Jan. 15. 
Bush has promised to stay the course. 
Contact TOM LASSETER at 
tlasseter at krwashington.com and 
JONATHAN S. LANDAY at jlanday 
@krwashington.com. Ken Dilanian of the Philadelphia
Inquirer contributed to this report. 
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/iraq22e_20050122.htm


Illegitimate, Incompetent, Corrupt

comment | Posted January 13, 2005

Annals of Outrage
by Katrina vanden Heuvel 

 In 2004 the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
and the Inspector Generals (IG) in various departments
of the federal government issued reports revealing
fraud, mismanagement and corruption. Here is my list
of the Bush Administration's Ten Most Outrageous
Scandals thus far uncovered by government
investigators: 

1. Halliburton's Corruption. Nine different reports
compiled by the GAO, the Coalition Provisional
Authority's IG and the Defense Contract Audit Agency
faulted Halliburton's performance in Iraq, where it
has been awarded more than $10 billion in US
contracts. The government investigators cited, among
other things, significant cost overruns, the
overcharging of the Defense Department (and taxpayers)
by $61 million, illegal kickbacks, failure to police
subcontractors' billing and unauthorized expenses at
the Kuwait Hilton Hotel. The list of abuses will
likely get longer in 2005, as multiple criminal
investigations into Halliburton's work pick up steam. 


ADVERTISEMENT 2. Iraq's Decline. In June 2004 the GAO
provided a bleak assessment of Iraq after fourteen
months of US military occupation, documenting that in
critical areas like security, electricity and the
judicial system Iraq is worse off now than it was
before the war. 

3. Abu Ghraib Prison Torture. In late August Maj. Gen.
George Fay released an official Army report charging
that US military personnel committed torture and that
civilian contractors and military intelligence
interrogators played a greater role in abusing
prisoners than previously thought. The Fay report
blamed "a lack of discipline on the part of leaders
and soldiers" and a "failure or lack of leadership" by
senior military commanders in Iraq. 

4. The CIA's Pre-9/11 Intelligence Failures. Early
this month the New York Times and the Washington Post
reported that the CIA's IG will soon release a report
criticizing the CIA's senior leadership for failing to
"direct more resources to counterterrorism and
inadequately analyz[ing] the threat from Al Qaeda"
before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For
the first time, a government report will hold senior
CIA officials accountable, singling out George Tenet
and at least eleven others for "not liv[ing] up to the
standards of professional conduct required of them,"
says the Post. 

5. HHS's Deceptive Ad Campaign. In May the GAO
concluded that the Health and Human Services
Department conducted a secret propaganda campaign that
illegally spent taxpayer money to produce and
distribute videos touting the Administration's
Medicare prescription drug law. And this January, the
GAO said that the Office of National Drug Control
Policy ads warning of the dangers of drug abuse (aired
just before last year's Super Bowl) were a form of
"covert propaganda" because they promoted their
policies without identifying their origin. The ads,
said one GAO official, were "paid announcements" at
taxpayer expense that shamelessly sought to blur the
lines between government propaganda and a legitimate,
independent news feature. 

6. HHS's Scully Scandal. In September the GAO found
that HHS had illegally paid the salary of former
Medicare chief Thomas Scully, who threatened to fire
veteran Medicare actuary Richard Foster if he told
Congress that the Administration's Medicare
prescription drug legislation would cost $100 billion
more than the White House figure. According to the
Washington Post, "A 1998 federal law prohibits an
agency from paying a federal official who prevents
another employee from communicating with Congress." 

7. Government-wide Accounting Problems. In December
the GAO reported that the federal government's
accounting practices are unreliable and might not meet
widely accepted accounting standards. The report gives
the lie to GOP claims that it is a sound steward of
taxpayer money. 

8. Sex Education Misinformation. A report that comes
to us thanks to Representative Henry Waxman revealed
that most of the government-funded abstinence-only sex
education programs were giving students false
information. One curriculum rejects "the popular claim
that condoms help prevent the spread of STDs [sexually
transmitted diseases]" because it "is not supported by
the data." 

9. CAPPS II's Failures. In February the GAO uncovered
significant gaps in privacy protections in the
Administration's passenger profiling program developed
by the Transportation Security Administration. The
Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS
II) stored personal information in passengers'
profiles, provided inadequate appeals procedures and
failed to safeguard the accuracy of its databases. 

10. The Real Costs of War. In July the GAO criticized
the Administration for underestimating by $12.3
billion the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
This is part of a pattern of deception by the
Administration, which has repeatedly hidden the real
costs of the Iraq invasion and occupation from
Congress and the public. 

What's in store for 2005? We anticipate scandals to
come. But it should be noted that the GAO may face
White House-proposed budget cuts and that the Bush
Administration has developed a hostile policy toward
nonpartisan IGs in various federal agencies. Instead
of shooting the messenger, the Bush approach is
defunding the investigator. 
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050131&s=kvh
 
The Scandal Sheet 
    By Peter Dizikes 
    Salon.com 

    Tuesday 18 January 2005 

Print it out, send it to Harry Reid, or just read it
and weep. Here are 34 scandals from the first four
years of George W. Bush's presidency - every one of
them worse than Whitewater.
        Once upon a time - about five years ago -
conservative pundits often talked about "scandal
fatigue." Remember scandal fatigue? It was an
affliction supposedly either turning voters against
Democrats or, alternatively, a weariness in the body
politic preventing Republicans from pursuing even more
grievances against Bill Clinton. By any objective
measure, however, after four years of George W. Bush's
presidency, the entire nation should be suffering from
utter scandal exhaustion. 

    Consider the raw materials of scandal that this
administration has produced: False claims about Iraq's
supposed weapons of mass destruction. Torture in Abu
Ghraib. The virtually treasonous exposure of a CIA
agent by White House officials. And those are just the
best-known examples. 

    After all, how many citizens can name all the
ongoing investigations of Halliburton, Vice President
Dick Cheney's old firm? Who remembers that the
administration illicitly diverted $700 million from
Afghanistan to Iraq? Or that, on Capitol Hill, Senate
Republicans stole strategy memos from Democrats, while
a House Republican said he was offered a bribe during
a crucial vote? Even a conscientious citizen cannot be
expected to keep score, so Salon has compiled a list. 

    If the next four years of Bush and the GOP running
the federal government are anything like the previous
four, however, potential scandals will lead to few
political consequences for the Republicans. Bush
opponents will likely be disappointed if they are
waiting for a renewal of the supposed "second-term
scandal jinx" dogging Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and
Clinton. 

    After all, Washington Republicans are insulated by
a rabidly partisan Congress with no interest in
investigating the executive branch (and little taste
for disciplining itself). By contrast, presidents
Nixon, Reagan and Clinton each faced an adversarial
Congress. As the late Senate Watergate Committee
counsel Sam Dash noted in 2003 about congressional
oversight: "Although it worked then, it doesn't mean
it would work now." 

    Moreover, Congress allowed the independent-counsel
statute, the law that brought us Ken Starr, to expire
as Bush assumed office. And the right-wing media -
cable news, talk radio, several newspapers - are not
about to replicate the drumbeat of scandal they
pounded out while Clinton held office. Thus scandals
are not a defining part of the GOP's current identity.


    The Democrats, terminally cautious even in the
minority, seem unlikely to change this dynamic -
although Harry Reid, the Democrats' new Senate leader,
has announced his party will hold monthly oversight
hearings, beginning this January, on "unasked and
unanswered questions" about the Bush administration.
Reid's project, however, is an uphill battle. The
Democrats cannot compel anyone to testify, unlike
standard congressional committees, and memorable
rhetoric is not a party strength. "This is about
honesty and accountability and reforming our federal
government," Reid said in the prepared statement the
Democratic Policy Committee released about its
oversight plans. 

    Just think: Someone prepared that quote. To put it
more bluntly than Reid did: This is about the dozens
of scandals occurring while the Republican Party has
enjoyed almost complete control over the federal
government. This is about the GOP's utter disrespect
for the laws of the United States. This is about
stopping greed, bribery and influence-peddling. 

    Indeed, here are 34 Republican scandals worthy of
further attention, gathered into one place. The list
focuses on scandals involving apparently illegal
activity or violations of ethics codes. Not everything
that is politically, legally or ethically scandalous
constitutes a scandal. It is scandalous, for instance,
that House Republicans have further weakened their own
ethics committee. But that is not, properly speaking,
a political scandal. It is just contemptible
governance. 

    This list is also limited to events of the past
four years, or those coming to light in that time. It
covers both the executive branch and the Congress,
since the latter, especially the Senate, is
increasingly a mere adjunct to the White House.
However, the items are not arranged in terms of moral
or historical gravity. Abu Ghraib might create years
of anti-American hatred abroad, but it and some other
headline-generating events appear near the end of the
list, to help familiarize readers first with
lesser-known or now-overlooked scandals. Recall how
John Ashcroft broke the law? Know why Dick Cheney
wants to keep those energy task force documents
secret? Read on. You too, Harry Reid. 

Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft 

The scandal: From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on
the Senate Judiciary Committee illicitly accessed
nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential
Democratic strategy memos about President Bush's
judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos to shape
their own plans and leaked some to the media. 

The problem: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act states
it is illegal to obtain confidential information from
a government computer. 

The outcome: Unresolved. The Justice Department has
assigned a prosecutor to the case. The staff member at
the heart of the matter, Manuel Miranda, has attempted
to brazen it out, filing suit in September 2004
against the DOJ to end the investigation. "A grand
jury will indict a ham sandwich," Miranda complained.
Some jokes just write themselves. 


Doctor Detroit: The DOJ's Bungled Terrorism Case 

The scandal: The Department of Justice completely
botched the nation's first post-9/11 terrorism trial,
as seen when the convictions of three Detroit men
allegedly linked to al-Qaida were overturned in
September 2004. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft
had claimed their June 2003 sentencing sent "a clear
message" that the government would "detect, disrupt
and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells." 

The problem: The DOJ's lead prosecutor in the case,
Richard Convertino, withheld key information from the
defense and distorted supposed pieces of evidence -
like a Las Vegas vacation video purported to be a
surveillance tape. But that's not the half of it.
Convertino says he was unfairly scapegoated because he
testified before the Senate, against DOJ wishes, about
terrorist financing. Justice's reconsideration of the
case began soon thereafter. Convertino has since sued
the DOJ, which has also placed him under
investigation. 

The outcome: Let's see: Overturned convictions,
lawsuits and feuding about a Kafkaesque case. Nobody
looks good here. 


Dark Matter: The Energy Task Force 

The scandal: A lawsuit has claimed it is illegal for
Dick Cheney to keep the composition of his 2001
energy-policy task force secret. What's the big deal?
The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has suggested an explosive
aspect of the story, citing a National Security
Council memo from February 2001, which "directed the
N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task
Force as it considered the 'melding' of ...
'operational policies towards rogue states,' such as
Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and
existing oil and gas fields.'" In short, the task
force's activities could shed light on the
administration's pre-9/11 Iraq aims. 

The problem: The Federal Advisory Committee Act says
the government must disclose the work of groups that
include non-federal employees; the suit claims energy
industry executives were effectively task force
members. Oh, and the Bush administration has portrayed
the Iraq war as a response to 9/11, not something it
was already considering. 

The outcome: Unresolved. In June 2004, the U.S.
Supreme Court sent the case back to an appellate
court. 


The Indian Gaming Scandal 

The scandal: Potential influence peddling to the tune
of $82 million, for starters. Jack Abramoff, a GOP
lobbyist and major Bush fundraiser, and Michael
Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas),
received that amount from several Indian tribes, while
offering access to lawmakers. For instance, Texas'
Tigua tribe, which wanted its closed El Paso casino
reopened, gave millions to the pair and $33,000 to
Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) in hopes of favorable
legislation (Ney came up empty). And get this: The
Tiguas were unaware that Abramoff, Scanlon and
conservative activist Ralph Reed had earned millions
lobbying to have the same casino shut in 2002. 

The problem: Federal officials want to know if
Abramoff and Scanlon provided real services for the
$82 million, and if they broke laws while backing
candidates in numerous Indian tribe elections. 

The outcome: Everybody into the cesspool! The Senate
Indian Affairs Committee and five federal agencies,
including the FBI, IRS, and Justice Department, are
investigating. 


Halliburton's No-Bid Bonanza 

The scandal: In February 2003, Halliburton received a
five-year, $7 billion no-bid contract for services in
Iraq. 

The problem: The Army Corps of Engineers' top
contracting officer, Bunnatine Greenhouse, objected to
the deal, saying the contract should be the standard
one-year length, and that a Halliburton official
should not have been present during the discussions. 

The outcome: The FBI is investigating. The $7 billion
contract was halved and Halliburton won one of the
parts in a public bid. For her troubles, Greenhouse
has been forced into whistle-blower protection. 


Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices 

The scandal: In 2003, Halliburton overcharged the army
for fuel in Iraq. Specifically, Halliburton's
subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root hired a Kuwaiti
company, Altanmia, to supply fuel at about twice the
going rate, then added a markup, for an overcharge of
at least $61 million, according to a December 2003
Pentagon audit. 

The problem: That's not the government's $61 million,
it's our $61 million. 

The outcome: The FBI is investigating. 


Halliburton's Vanishing Iraq Money 

The scandal: In mid-2004, Pentagon auditors determined
that $1.8 billion of Halliburton's charges to the
government, about 40 percent of the total, had not
been adequately documented. 

The problem: That's not the government's $1.8 billion,
it's our $1.8 billion. 

The outcome: The Defense Contract Audit Agency has
"strongly" asked the Army to withhold about $60
million a month from its Halliburton payments until
the documentation is provided. 


The Halliburton Bribe-Apalooza 

The scandal: This may not surprise you, but an
international consortium of companies, including
Halliburton, is alleged to have paid more than $100
million in bribes to Nigerian officials, from 1995 to
2002, to facilitate a natural-gas-plant deal. (Cheney
was Halliburton's CEO from 1995 to 2000.) 

The problem: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign
officials. 

The outcome: A veritable coalition of the willing is
investigating the deal, including the Justice
Department, the SEC, the Nigerian government and a
French magistrate. In June, Halliburton fired two
implicated executives. 


Halliburton: One Fine Company 

The scandal: In 1998 and 1999, Halliburton counted
money recovered from project overruns as revenue,
before settling the charges with clients. 

The problem: Doing so made the company's income appear
larger, but Halliburton did not explain this to
investors. The SEC ruled this accounting practice was
"materially misleading." 

The outcome: In August 2004, Halliburton agreed to pay
a $7.5 million fine to settle SEC charges. One
Halliburton executive has paid a fine and another is
settling civil charges. Now imagine the right-wing
rhetoric if, say, Al Gore had once headed a firm fined
for fudging income statements. 


Halliburton's Iran End Run 

The scandal: Halliburton may have been doing business
with Iran while Cheney was CEO. 

The problem: Federal sanctions have banned U.S.
companies from dealing directly with Iran. To operate
in Iran legally, U.S. companies have been required to
set up independent subsidiaries registered abroad.
Halliburton thus set up a new entity, Halliburton
Products and Services Ltd., to do business in Iran,
but while the subsidiary was registered in the Cayman
Islands, it may not have had operations totally
independent of the parent company. 

The outcome: Unresolved. The Treasury Department has
referred the case to the U.S. attorney in Houston, who
convened a grand jury in July 2004. 


Money Order: Afghanistan's Missing $700 Million Turns
Up in Iraq 

The scandal: According to Bob Woodward's "Plan of
Attack," the Bush administration diverted $700 million
in funds from the war in Afghanistan, among other
places, to prepare for the Iraq invasion. 

The problem: Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 of the
U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the
power "to raise and support armies." And the emergency
spending bill passed after Sept. 11, 2001, requires
the administration to notify Congress before changing
war spending plans. That did not happen. 

The outcome: Congress declined to investigate. The
administration's main justification for its decision
has been to claim the funds were still used for, one
might say, Middle East anti-tyrant-related program
activities. 


Iraq: More Loose Change 

The scandal: The inspector general of the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Iraq released a series of
reports in July 2004 finding that a significant
portion of CPA assets had gone missing - 34 percent of
the materiel controlled by Kellogg, Brown & Root - and
that the CPA's method of disbursing $600 million in
Iraq reconstruction funds "did not establish effective
controls and left accountability open to fraud, waste
and abuse." 

The problem: As much as $50 million of that money was
disbursed without proper receipts. 

The outcome: The CPA has disbanded, but individual
government investigations into the handling of Iraq's
reconstruction continue. 


The Pentagon-Israel Spy Case 

The scandal: A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, may
have passed classified United States documents about
Iran to Israel, possibly via the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, a Washington lobbying group.


The problem: To do so could be espionage or could
constitute the mishandling of classified documents. 

The outcome: A grand jury is investigating. In
December 2004, the FBI searched AIPAC's offices. A
Senate committee has also been investigating the
apparently unauthorized activities of the Near East
and South Asia Affairs group in the Pentagon, where
Franklin works. 


Gone to Taiwan 

The scandal: Missed this one? A high-ranking State
Department official, Donald Keyser, was arrested and
charged in September with making a secret trip to
Taiwan and was observed by the FBI passing documents
to Taiwanese intelligence agents in Washington-area
meetings. 

The problem: Such unauthorized trips are illegal. And
we don't have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. 

The outcome: The case is in the courts. 


Wiretapping the United Nations 

The scandal: Before the United Nations' vote on the
Iraq war, the United States and Great Britain
developed an eavesdropping operation targeting
diplomats from several countries. 

The problem: U.N. officials say the practice is
illegal and undermines honest diplomacy, although some
observers claim it is business as usual on East 42nd
Street. 

The outcome: Little fuss here, but a major British
scandal erupted after U.K. intelligence translator
Katherine Gun leaked a U.S. National Security Agency
memo requesting British help in the spying scheme, in
early 2003. Initially charged under Britain's Official
Secrets Act for leaking classified information, Gun
was cleared in 2004 - seemingly to avoid hearings
questioning the legality of Britain's war
participation. 


The Boeing Boondoggle 

The scandal: In 2003, the Air Force contracted with
Boeing to lease a fleet of refueling tanker planes at
an inflated price: $23 billion. 

The problem: The deal was put together by a government
procurement official, Darleen Druyun, who promptly
joined Boeing. Beats using a headhunter. 

The outcome: In November 2003, Boeing fired both
Druyun and CFO Michael Sears. In April 2004, Druyun
pled guilty to a conspiracy charge in the case. In
November 2004, Sears copped to a conflict-of-interest
charge, and company CEO Phil Condit resigned. The
government is reviewing its need for the tankers. 


The Medicare Bribe Scandal 

The scandal: According to former Rep. Nick Smith
(R-Mich.), on Nov. 21, 2003, with the vote on the
administration's Medicare bill hanging in the balance,
someone offered to contribute $100,000 to his son's
forthcoming congressional campaign, if Smith would
support the bill. 

The problem: Federal law prohibits the bribery of
elected officials. 

The outcome: In September 2004, the House Ethics
Committee concluded an inquiry by fingering House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), saying he
deserved "public admonishment" for offering to endorse
Smith's son in return for Smith's vote. DeLay has
claimed Smith initiated talks about a quid pro quo.
The matter of the $100,000 is unresolved; soon after
his original allegations, Smith suddenly claimed he
had not been offered any money. Smith's son Brad lost
his GOP primary in August 2004. 


Tom DeLay's PAC Problems 

The scandal: One of DeLay's political action
committees, Texans for a Republican Majority,
apparently reaped illegal corporate contributions for
the campaigns of Republicans running for the Texas
Legislature in 2002. Given a Republican majority, the
Legislature then re-drew Texas' U.S. congressional
districts to help the GOP. 

The problem: Texas law bans the use of corporate money
for political purposes. 

The outcome: Unresolved. Three DeLay aides and
associates - Jim Ellis, John Colyandro and Warren
RoBold - were charged in September 2004 with crimes
including money laundering and unlawful acceptance of
corporate contributions. 


Tom DeLay's FAA: Following Americans Anywhere 

The scandal: In May 2003, DeLay's office persuaded the
Federal Aviation Administration to find the plane
carrying a Texas Democratic legislator, who was
leaving the state in an attempt to thwart the GOP's
nearly unprecedented congressional redistricting plan.


The problem: According to the House Ethics Committee,
the "invocation of federal executive branch resources
in a partisan dispute before a state legislative body"
is wrong. 

The outcome: In October 2004, the committee rebuked
DeLay for his actions. 


In the Rough: Tom DeLay's Golf Fundraiser 

The scandal: DeLay appeared at a golf fundraiser that
Westar Energy held for one of his political action
committees, Americans for a Republican Majority, while
energy legislation was pending in the House. 

The problem: It's one of these "appearance of
impropriety" situations. 

The outcome: The House Ethics Committee tossed the
matter into its Oct. 6 rebuke. "Take a lap, Tom." 


Busy, Busy, Busy in New Hampshire 

The scandal: In 2002, with a tight Senate race in New
Hampshire, Republican Party officials paid a
Virginia-based firm, GOP Marketplace, to enact an
Election Day scheme meant to depress Democratic
turnout by "jamming" the Democratic Party phone bank
with continuous calls for 90 minutes. 

The problem: Federal law prohibits the use of
telephones to "annoy or harass" anyone. 

The outcome: Chuck McGee, the former executive
director of the New Hampshire GOP, pleaded guilty in
July 2004 to a felony charge, while Allen Raymond,
former head of GOP Marketplace, pleaded guilty to a
similar charge in June. In December, James Tobin,
former New England campaign chairman of Bush-Cheney
'04, was indicted for conspiracy in the case. 


The Medicare Money Scandal 

The scandal: Thomas Scully, Medicare's former
administrator, supposedly threatened to fire chief
Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from
disclosing the true cost of the 2003 Medicare bill. 

The problem: Congress voted on the bill believing it
would cost $400 billion over 10 years. The program is
more likely to cost $550 billion. 

The outcome: Scully denies threatening to fire Foster,
as Foster has charged, but admits telling Foster to
withhold the higher estimate from Congress. In
September 2004, the Government Accountability Office
recommended Scully return half his salary from 2003.
Inevitably, Scully is now a lobbyist for drug
companies helped by the bill. 


The Bogus Medicare "Video News Release" 

The scandal: To promote its Medicare bill, the Bush
administration produced imitation news-report videos
touting the legislation. About 40 television stations
aired the videos. More recently, similar videos
promoting the administration's education policy have
come to light. 

The problem: The administration broke two laws: One
forbidding the use of federal money for propaganda,
and another forbidding the unauthorized use of federal
funds. 

The outcome: In May 2004, the GAO concluded the
administration acted illegally, but the agency lacks
enforcement power. 


Pundits on the Payroll: The Armstrong Williams Case 

The scandal: The Department of Education paid
conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000
to promote its educational law, No Child Left Behind. 

The problem: Williams did not disclose that his
support was government funded until the deal was
exposed in January 2005. 

The outcome: The House and FCC are considering
inquiries, while Williams' syndicated newspaper column
has been terminated. 


Ground Zero's Unsafe Air 

The scandal: Government officials publicly minimized
the health risks stemming from the World Trade Center
attack. In September 2001, for example, Environmental
Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman said New
York's "air is safe to breathe and [the] water is safe
to drink." 

The problem: Research showed serious dangers or was
incomplete. The EPA used outdated techniques that
failed to detect tiny asbestos particles. EPA data
also showed high levels of lead and benzene, which
causes cancer. A Sierra Club report claims the
government ignored alarming data. A GAO report says no
adequate study of 9/11's health effects has been
organized. 

The outcome: The long-term health effects of the
disaster will likely not be apparent for years or
decades and may never be definitively known. Already,
hundreds of 9/11 rescue workers have quit their jobs
because of acute illnesses. 


John Ashcroft's Illegal Campaign Contributions 

The scandal: Ashcroft's exploratory committee for his
short-lived 2000 presidential bid transferred $110,000
to his unsuccessful 2000 reelection campaign for the
Senate. 

The problem: The maximum for such a transfer is
$10,000. 

The outcome: The Federal Election Commission fined
Ashcroft's campaign treasurer, Garrett Lott, $37,000
for the transgression. 


Intel Inside ... The White House 

The scandal: In early 2001, chief White House
political strategist Karl Rove held meetings with
numerous companies while maintaining six-figure
holdings of their stock - including Intel, whose
executives were seeking government approval of a
merger. "Washington hadn't seen a clearer example of a
conflict of interest in years," wrote Paul Glastris in
the Washington Monthly. 

The problem: The Code of Federal Regulations says
government employees should not participate in matters
in which they have a personal financial interest. 

The outcome: Then White House counsel Alberto
Gonzales, spurning precedent, did not refer the case
to the Justice Department. 


Duck! Antonin Scalia's Legal Conflicts 

The scandal: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
refused to recuse himself from the Cheney energy task
force case, despite taking a duck-hunting trip with
the vice president after the court agreed to weigh the
matter. 

The problem: Federal law requires a justice to
"disqualify himself from any proceeding in which his
impartiality might reasonably be questioned." 

The outcome: Scalia stayed on, arguing no conflict
existed because Cheney was party to the case in a
professional, not personal, capacity. Nothing new for
Scalia, who in 2002 was part of a Mississippi
redistricting ruling favorable to GOP Rep. Chip
Pickering - son of Judge Charles Pickering, a Scalia
turkey-hunting pal. In 2001, Scalia went pheasant
hunting with Kansas Gov. Bill Graves when that state
had cases pending before the Supreme Court. 


AWOL 

The scandal: George W. Bush, self-described "war
president," did not fulfill his National Guard duty,
and Bush and his aides have made misleading statements
about it. Salon's Eric Boehlert wrote the best recent
summary of the issue. 

The problem: Military absenteeism is a punishable
offense, although Bush received an honorable
discharge. 

The outcome: No longer a campaign issue. But what was
Bush doing in 1972? 


Iraq: The Case for War 

The scandal: Bush and many officials in his
administration made false statements about Iraq's
military capabilities, in the months before the United
States' March 2003 invasion of the country. 

The problem: For one thing, it is a crime to lie to
Congress, although Bush backers claim the president
did not knowingly make false assertions. 

The outcome: A war spun out of control with unknowable
long-term consequences. The Iraq Survey Group has
stopped looking for weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq. 


Niger Forgeries: Whodunit? 

The scandal: In his January 2003 State of the Union
address, Bush said, "The British government has
learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa." 

The problem: The statement was untrue. By March 2003,
the International Atomic Energy Agency showed the
claim, that Iraq sought materials from Niger, was
based on easily discernible forgeries. 

The outcome: The identity of the forger(s) remains
under wraps. Journalist Josh Marshall has implied the
FBI is oddly uninterested in interviewing Rocco
Martino, the former Italian intelligence agent who
apparently first shopped the documents in intelligence
and journalistic circles and would presumably be able
to shed light on their origin. 


In Plame Sight 

The scandal: In July 2003, administration officials
disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA
operative working on counterterrorism efforts, to
multiple journalists, and columnist Robert Novak made
Plame's identity public. Plame's husband, former
Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just written a New York
Times opinion piece stating he had investigated the
Niger uranium-production allegations, at the CIA's
behest, and reported them to be untrue, before Bush's
2003 State of the Union address. 

The problem: Under the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act it is illegal to disclose, knowingly,
the name of an undercover agent. 

The outcome: Unresolved. The Justice Department
appointed special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to the
case in December 2003. While this might seem a simple
matter, Fitzgerald could be unable to prove the
leakers knew Plame was a covert agent. 


Abu Ghraib 

The scandal: American soldiers physically tortured
prisoners in Iraq and kept undocumented "ghost
detainees" in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. 

The problem: The United States is party to the Geneva
Conventions, which state that "No physical or mental
torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be
inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them
information of any kind whatever." 

The outcome: Unresolved. A Pentagon internal inquiry
found a lack of oversight at Abu Ghraib, while
independent inquiries have linked the events to the
administration's desire to use aggressive
interrogation methods globally. Notoriously, Gonzales
has advocated an approach which "renders obsolete
Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy
prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
More recently, Gonzales issued qualified support for
the Geneva Conventions in January 2005 Senate
testimony after being nominated for attorney general.
Army reservist Charles Graner was convicted in January
2005 for abusing prisoners, while a few other soldiers
await trial. 


Guantánamo Bay Torture? 

The scandal: The U.S. military is also alleged to have
abused prisoners at the U.S. Navy's base in Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba. FBI agents witnessing interrogations there
have reported use of growling dogs to frighten
prisoners and the chaining of prisoners in the fetal
position while depriving them of food or water for
extended periods. 

The problem: More potential violations of the Geneva
Conventions. 

The outcome: An internal military investigation was
launched in January 2005.
  -------

http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011905D.shtml

 	 

Plame Investigation Is Not a 'Game' 


Tuesday, January 18, 2005; Page A16 
In their Jan. 12 op-ed column ["The Plame Game: Was
This a Crime?"] Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford
misrepresented the scope of the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act, which certainly does cover
former covert agents who remain at risk (along with
their contacts) even after their covert operations
end.
They also said that Valerie Plame's status was
allegedly known on the "Washington cocktail circuit,"
implying that it was widely known that she worked as a
covert agent for the CIA. But columnist Robert D.
Novak has said that he learned of Ms. Plame's status
through a leak by senior administration officials.
Even I, Ms. Plame's lawyer and neighbor, was unaware
of her status until Mr. Novak blew her cover.
The column said that Mr. Novak had suggested that Ms.
Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, was "credentially
challenged" to determine whether Iraq was trying to
obtain uranium in Niger. However, Mr. Wilson had
served in three African nations that produced uranium,
including Niger, and had been ambassador to one of
them, Gabon. In all, he served in seven African
countries and as senior director for African affairs
in the National Security Council under President Bill
Clinton. His bona fides for the trip are spelled out
in the report by the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, which divulged that Mr. Wilson had
traveled to Niger in 1999 at the request of the CIA to
look into other uranium-related allegations.
The Plame investigation is not a "game." Reporters may
need to be protected, but calling for a halt to the
investigation into the leaking of Ms. Plame's identity
to Robert Novak is not the way to do that.
CHRISTOPHER WOLF
Washington
The writer is the attorney for Ambassador Joseph
Wilson and Valerie Plame. 
•
Victoria Toensing and Bruce Sanford wrote of the
Valerie Plame case, "It's time for a timeout on a
misguided and mechanical investigation in which there
is serious doubt that a crime was even committed."
This from a woman who joined with her husband, Joseph
diGenova, in alternately heading and urging costly and
continuous investigations of all things Clinton --
while never proving a single "crime" or even securing
an indictment. How could The Post publish her piece
with a straight face?
BARRY KEMELHOR
Rockville
© 2005 The Washington Post Company 
  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16733-2005Jan17?language=printer


Chalabi to be arrested 

The political season in Iraq is turning extremely
nasty. Not only were over 20 persons killed and dozens
injured in bombings of a Shiite mosque and a Shiite
wedding by guerrillas, but charges and counter-charges
among politicians have now resulted in the prospective
arrest of long-time Iraqi expatriate politican Ahmad
Chalabi.

Interim Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan announced on
al-Jazeerah Friday that Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi
would be arrested after the three-day Eid al-Adha
celebrations that end Saturday. 

[Update 12:35 pm: Interim Interior Minister Falah
al-Naqib has denied that there is any warrant
outstanding for Chalabi. Al-Naqib had in the past been
a fairly close ally of Shaalan, but the two appear to
have broken over this initiative of Shaalan's, which
may be personal rather than representing an Allawi
government stance. Allawi has never seemed able to
control Shaalan's outbursts and I have long wondered
why he kept him on as Defense Minister.]

Shaalan said that Chalabi would be turned over to
Interpol to face justice in the embezzlement of $300
million from his own Petra Bank in the late 1980s, for
which he was convicted in absentia in Jordan in 1992.
Although Chalabi maintains that the conviction was
politically motivated (he claims Jordan had a tacit
alliance with his enemy, Saddam), the bank's
Switzerland branch was audited and what auditors found
was not pretty. Some 14 percent of the bank's loans
went to family members and close friends, some $100
million, and most of those were not paid back. When
the Jordanian government insisted in 1989 that banks
keep 30 percent of funds on hand, Petra was
over-extended and unable to comply.

I saw Shaalan on al-Jazeerah. He laid a number of
other charges against Chalabi, saying he had
engineered the dissolution of the Iraqi military in
May of 2003, which threw the country into chaos and
harmed its interests. He also tried to blame Chalabi
for the Kurdish mini-civil war of the mid-1990s, which
briefly brought Saddam's troops back up north.

Shaalan also accused Chalabi of defaming him. CNN
expressed puzzlement about the latter, but the
reference is in part to charges Chalabi made of
financial corruption against Shaalan, involving a
shipment last week of $300 million in cash to Beirut
for an arms deal that, Chalabi implied, may have
involved kickbacks. He was also referring to Chalabi's
charges that Shaalan spied for Saddam in 1998 through
2003 and even spied on Chalabi (reported here a couple
days ago from Chalabi's web site.) Chalabi was
attempting to smear Shaalan as an unreconstructed
Baathist and Saddam collaborator, and he was at the
same time attempting to smear interim Prime Minister
Iyad Allawi and Allawi's al-Iraqiyah slate in the
elections, by association.

Chalabi's latter move was typically sleazy and
implausible (the Americans are better at vetting
people than to allow a recent Saddam spy to become
Minister of Defense), and was extremely troubling. It
wasn't just down and dirty campaigning. It was closer
to a kind of McCarthyism. I don't like Shaalan or his
hardline views, and do think he still has some Baath
attitudes (especially his anti-Iranian racism). But I
very much doubt he was spying for Saddam in 2002!
Whether the arms deal and the cash shipped to Beirut
was irregular, I don't know. Chalabi's partisans will
argue that Shaalan is just trying to prevent Chalabi
from auditing the government books if the UIA comes to
power.

On the other hand, for the Allawi government to make
this particular response is also troubling. Chalabi is
a candidate for parliament on the United Iraqi
Alliance list, which groups the major Shiite parties.
Shaalan has hinted around that the UIA is a stalking
horse for Iran, and choosing the week before the
election to announce the arrest of one of the list's
top-ranking figures (# 10)--on thirteen-year-old
charges-- could be seen as a way of attempting to
damage its popularity. That is, getting Chalabi could
actually be a way of getting Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the
UIA leader who also heads the Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (which had been based in
Iran for over two decades). We know what Shaalan
thinks of Iran and can imagine what he thinks of
al-Hakim.

Moreover, it wasn't criminal for Chalabi to advocate
dissolving the Iraqi army (though it was highly unwise
and possibly sleazy), and it is disturbing that
Shaalan is throwing that charge into the mix. Shaalan
did not say so, but given his anti-Iran impetus, and
given the charges against Chalabi that he has passed
sensitive information on to Tehran, it could be that
Shaalan thinks Chalabi pressed for the dissolution of
the Iraq military because Tehran urged it. A former
ambassador told me he that Chalabi was getting money
from Iran, so he may have owed the ayatollahs. Of
course, most of Iraq's neighbors would have welcomed
and perhaps secretly lobbied for the dissolution of
the Iraqi military, including Kuwait and Israel.

Chalabi was charged in May of 2004 with having passed
sensitive US intelligence (the fact that the US had
broken Iranian codes) to Iran, but the charges were
ultimately quietly dropped and the prosecuting judge
shunted off to desk work. It seems clear that in
summer, 2004, Chalabi still had powerful supporters in
the Pentagon who shielded him. Either that support has
by now collapsed, or Shaalan is attempting to present
them with a fait accompli. The State Department and
the CIA, which have gained more power in Iraq in the
past 8 months, dislike Chalabi and saw him as a
corrupt "Gucci revolutionary" who never delivered and
could not account for the money they gave him.

Given that the Iraqi government closed down the
al-Jazeerah offices in Baghdad, saying that the
channel was biased against it, it is odd that Shaalan
chose that network to give this interview on. The chic
anchor could barely suppress a smirk as she announced
the interview.

[In the light of al-Naqib's later denial, it seems
possible that Shaalan went to al-Jazeerah for the same
reason everyone else does. It isn't controlled and
will put on virtually anything except a criticism of
the Qatar government. If Shaalan had gone to
al-Iraqiyyah or Radio Sawa Iraq, he might have been
stopped by Allawi or the Americans. It now seems
possible that this affair will profoundly hurt the
chances of the Allawi list in the elections (even
though Shaalan is running on the Yawir list). The
spectacle of the Defense Minister trying to have a
political opponent arrested just as a matter of
personal fiat, and being contradicted by the chief law
enforcement officer, al-Naqib, is wholly unedifying.
The news, which Chalabi publicized, that Shaalan
recently sent $300 million in cash to Beirut to buy
tanks and other weaponry on a covert basis also raises
many questions about the probity and intentions of the
interim government.]
posted by Juan @ 1/22/2005 01:30:07 PM 
http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/chalabi-to-be-arrested-political.html
  

John O’Neill Wall of Heroes

9/11 Victims, National Security Whistleblowers, Go to
Court to Support Sibel Edmonds; Demand Government Stop
Silencing Employees Who Expose Security Risks
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0121-06.htm
CONTACT: Paul Silva, ACLU, 212-549-2689 or 2666;
media at aclu.org
Tracy Zimmerman, The Hauser Group, 202-518-8047;
tracy at publicinterestpr.com
9/11 Victims, National Security Whistleblowers, Go to
Court to Support Sibel Edmonds; Demand Government Stop
Silencing Employees Who Expose Security Risks
WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 21, 2005) – An unprecedented
group of national security whistleblowers and family
members of 9/11 victims’ families will gather
Wednesday, January 26th to demand that the government
halt its detrimental practice of silencing employees
who expose national security blunders.
The event comes as several 9/11 family member advocacy
groups and public interest organizations file a
friend-of-the-court brief in support of Sibel Edmonds’
case against the government.
Edmonds, a former Middle Eastern language specialist
hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002
after repeatedly reporting serious security breaches
and misconduct in the agency’s translation program.
She challenged her retaliatory dismissal by filing
suit in federal court. Last July, the district court
dismissed her case when Attorney General John Ashcroft
invoked the so-called state secrets privilege. The
ACLU is representing Edmonds in the appeal.
The event will be held at 12 p.m. at the National
Press Club. Speakers will include Edmonds, ACLU
Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson, FBI whistleblower
Mike German, 9/11 family member Bill Doyle and others.
Many high level national security whistleblowers and
9/11 family members will be at the event and available
for interviews.
The event comes on the heels of last week’s release of
an unclassified summary of the Justice Department’s
Inspector General report investigating Edmonds’
termination. The report concluded that Edmonds was
fired for reporting serious security breaches and
misconduct in the agency’s translation program.
WHO: FBI whistleblowers Sibel Edmonds and Mike German,
additional high level national security
whistleblowers, families of 9/11 victims, ACLU and the
Project On Government Oversight
WHAT: News conference to launch ACLU campaign in
support of national security whistleblowers, including
Sibel Edmonds, and highlight the government’s abuse of
the states secrets privilege
WHEN: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 at 12 p.m.
WHERE: The National Press Club, Holeman Lounge, 529
14th Street NW, Washington, DC
RSVP: Tracy Zimmerman or Crystal Streuber at
202-518-8047; tracy at publicinterestpr.com
Published on Saturday, January 22, 2005 by
CommonDreams.Org 
Kennedy: Fascist America 
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
 
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wants to run for Attorney
General of New York State. 
He might announce his candidacy within the next two
weeks. 
He's the son of Robert F. Kennedy, the former Attorney
General under his brother, John F. Kennedy. 
In 2001, President Bush named the Justice Department
building after RFK. 
The young Kennedy attended the ceremony. 
We asked him what he thought of President Bush naming
the building after his dad. 
He said he wouldn't comment on the record. 
But he did call President Bush "the most corrupt and
immoral President that we have had in American
history." 
Not that he was enamored with Senator John Kerry. 
Early in the campaign, Kennedy endorsed Senator John
Kerry for President, but last month he expressed
disappointment in Kerry's campaign and in the
Democratic Party. 
"The Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the
Democrats are 75 percent corrupt," Kennedy. "They are
accepting money from the same corporations. And of
course, that is going to corrupt you." 
He has spent the last 18 years as a sort of private
attorney general -- suing polluters to clean up the
Hudson River. 
Kennedy says that in the late 1960s, the Hudson River
was "a national joke." 
"It was dead water for 20-mile stretches north of New
York City and south of Albany. It caught fire. It
changed colors," he said. "Today, it is the richest
water body in the North Atlantic. It produces more
pounds of fish per acre and more biomass per gallon
than any other waterway in the Atlantic north of the
equator. It is the last major river system left in the
North Atlantic, on both sides, that still has strong
spawning stocks of all of its historical species of
migratory fish." 
He is seeking to close down the Indian Point nuclear
power plant 22 miles north of New York City. 
"After Chernobyl, 1,000 miles around the plant were
uninhabitable. One hundred miles around the plant are
permanently uninhabitable," he said. "One hundred
miles around Indian Point would be all of New York
City. So, imagine a world without New York City. Well,
the terrorists already have. According to the 9/11
Commission, Mohammed Atta cased Indian Point before
deciding to bomb the World Trade Center. But he
believed, erroneously as it turned out, that the plant
must be so heavily guarded, that it would be
impossible to crash an airliner into it." 
Kennedy charges that his appearance on MSNBC's Charles
Grodin show in November 1996 got Grodin fired. 
Kennedy was invited on the show to talk about his book
and group by the same name -- Riverkeepers. 
On the show, Kennedy ripped into GE, an owner of the
network, for polluting the Hudson with PCBs. 
On the show, Kennedy claimed that "every woman between
Oswego and Albany has elevated levels of PCBs in her
milk because of GE." 
Grodin was soon thereafter fired. 
Kennedy wrote a book last year that he hoped would
change the direction of the country. 
It didn't. 
But it's a great book, nonetheless. 
It's called Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush
and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and
Hijacking Our Democracy (HarperCollins, 2004). 
For the past couple of years, he's been giving 40 or
so speeches a year, mostly in the red zone, mostly to
conservative groups. 
He speaks about the corporate attack on the country. 
"There is no difference between the reaction I get
from Republicans and Democrats, because Americans
share the same values," Kennedy told us. "If you talk
about these issues in terms of our national values,
everybody understands it." 
In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist
country and that the Bush White House has learned key
lessons from the Nazis. 
"While communism is the control of business by
government, fascism is the control of government by
business," he writes. "My American Heritage Dictionary
defines fascism as 'a system of government that
exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right,
typically through the merging of state and business
leadership together with belligerent nationalism.'
Sound familiar?" 
He quotes Hitler's propaganda chief Herman Goerring:
"It is always simply a matter to drag the people
along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce
the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same in any
country." 
Kennedy then adds: "The White House has clearly
grasped the lesson." 
Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini's insight that
"fascism should more appropriately be called
corporatism because it is the merger of state and
corporate power." 
"The biggest threat to American democracy is corporate
power," Kennedy told us. "There is vogue in the White
House to talk about the threat of big government. But
since the beginning of our national history, our most
visionary political leaders have warned the American
public against the domination of government by
corporate power. That warning is missing in the
national debate right now. Because so much corporate
money is going into politics, the Democratic Party
itself has dropped the ball. They just quash
discussion about the corrosive impact of excessive
corporate power on American democracy." 
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington,
D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter,
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com. Robert Weissman
is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are
co-authors of the forthcoming On the Rampage:
Corporate Predators and the Destruction of Democracy
(Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press;
http://www.corporatepredators.org). 
© 2004 Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0122-10.htm

The Invasion of Iraq
– not in our name
We, citizens of Iceland, protest in the strongest
possible terms against the
Icelandic authorities’ support for the invasion of
Iraq by the United States
of America and the “coalition of the willing” in March
2003. With their
declaration of support, the Icelandic authorities
violated Icelandic law,
international law – and Icelandic democratic
tradition.
The decision to support the invasion was made
unilaterally by the Prime
Minister and Foreign Minister of Iceland, without
prior discussion by
Iceland’s Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.
This is mandatory
under Icelandic law, which says that all major foreign
policy issues shall be
discussed by the committee. This decision has not been
debated, much less
approved, either by the parliament or by the
Government of Iceland.
Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United
Nations, has described
the invasion by the United States and its allies as
not being in accordance
with the un Charter, making it illegal under
international law.
Iceland has never had an army of its own. The
Icelandic parliament
refused to declare war on Germany and Japan in 1945,
which was the
condition for becoming a founding member of the United
Nations. As a
founding member of nato in 1949 Iceland specifically
stated that it
would not declare war on another nation.
The Icelandic ministers’ decision to support the
invasion of Iraq is a
blemish on Iceland’s political history and a setback
for democracy in
Iceland. It is in breach of the traditions of the
Althing (Iceland’s
parliament) – the world’s oldest national legislative
assembly. All opinion
polls have shown that the vast majority of Icelanders
oppose the Icelandic
ministers’ support for the invasion of Iraq (84% in
the latest national poll).
We apologise to the Iraqi people for the Icelandic
ministers’ support
for the invasion of Iraq.
We demand that Iceland be immediately removed from the
list of invaders
in the “coalition of the willing”.
Iceland has enjoyed friendly relations with the United
States for a long
time. That relationship has been based on mutual trust
and frankness.
We therefore consider it our duty to make these views
known – to the
United States of America as well as other nations.
The Movement for Active Democracy in Iceland |
Sjafnargata 6 | 101 Reykjavík
www.thjodarhreyfingin.is
D E C L A R A T I O N
Over 4,000 Icelanders made donations to publish this
declaration. As a proportion of the
national population, this would be equivalent to 4
million Americans taking part.
All opinion polls have shown
that the vast majority of
Icelanders oppose the Icelandic
ministers’ support for the
invasion of Iraq (84% in the
latest national poll).

http://www.thjodarhreyfingin.is/docs/NYTimes_Iceland_05.pdf