"Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.   The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." -  George Orwell's 1984  (online version)

The insurgency in Iraq is "in the last throes." - war mounger/war profiteer Cheney in a 5/31/05 CNN interview.  In less than a month since then, 73 troops have been killed.   Last throes indeed...    Then the following:

"Certainly saying anything about 'breaking the back' or 'about to reach the end of the line' or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point." - General William Webster, the US commander in Baghdad, only weeks after Cheney's boost above.

"It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq." - Senator Chuck Hagel

Lberals, "saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."  - The fat lying puppet-master Karl Rove.    We know what the evil bastard wanted to do- attack Iraq, a country which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.   Joe Conason's Salon.com piece "Karl Rove Is a Liar" is a good response.

"I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years." - Prime regime warmounger Paul Wolfowitz before congress just before the attack on Iraq.  So far, $208 billion has been spent- a rate of $1 BILLION PER WEEK  (more)

"Attacking Iraq was something the administration focused on from the very beginning.  Bush made the policy, then altered, twisted and distorted the facts to fit the policy."  - Rep. Maurice Hinchey

"We don't do body counts on other people." - Rumsfeld, 11/03.  Now there's a steady stream of body counts from the regime- all as reliable as those from Nam.

"Leveling towns, bombing every suspicious target in sight – this is not how hearts and minds are won or how persistent insurgencies are defeated." - Analyst Fred Kaplan

"The issue before us is not simply whether the United States should end the regime of Saddam Hussein, but whether we as a nation are prepared to physically occupy territory in the Middle East for the next 30 to 50 years."  - James Webb, assistant secretary of defense and secretary of the Navy in the Reagan regime, 9/2002  (more)

 "I always knew Nixon would be back, I just  didn't know that this time he would ask to be chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting." - Bill Moyers  (more)

"This GOP has the moral certitude of Errol Flynn at a convention of underage bargirls in Bangkok....  There is not a corpse in this country that these people will not stick Uncle Dick's cheney into, in order to screw themselves into a frenzy of godly power. And yet, these bilious bullies rule the political playground? Give me a break!"  - John Cory (more)

"Big money has unbelievable power in Washington. They control the debate. Especially right now, where you have an administration that works hand-in-glove with the wealthiest people in America and the largest corporations. There is timidity in Congress, even fear, that if you speak up they're going to throw huge amounts of  money against you."  -  Rep. (and now Senate candidate!) Bernie Sanders  (more)

"Those of us who are opposed to private accounts for Social Security have kind of chuckled at the notion of the majority leader not being able to make any headway with his investments...  If he's having trouble, how do they expect an 82-year-old woman like my mother to be able to do it?"  - Tom Daschle on the idiot Bill Frist's financial mismanagement of campaign funds.  (more)

"Call it a new, 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not advertise" if the religious primitives smell sin."  - Doug Ireland in The New Blacklist  on the bible thumpers' boycotts.

Officials of Haliburton's KBR were asked by a PBS Frontline reporter how much they charged per meal to feed troops in Iraq.  They didn't know.  A Marine officer did- an astounding $20 per meal!   Mind you, they are paid by the number of meals preparated, not consumned, so the actual cost is higher.

Only 78,000 workers were added to payrolls in May, the worse record in almost 2 years and far short of the 250,000 jobs needed for those entering the workforce in a typical month.  (more)

In spite of the poor job market, the Army has yet again failed to recuit enough cannon fodder.  It missed its goal in May- even after having lowered the goal.  It's so dire they are considering boosting the max. recruiting bonus to $40,000 and raising the age limit from 30 to 40. (more and yet more below)

Recruiting has gotten so bad that the reqime has hired an outside marketing corporation to do an extensive database about teenagers and college students the regime can use for targeting them as cannon fodder.  It will contain Social Security numbers,
e-mail addresses, grade-point averages and ethnicities- thing NOT authorized by the ill-named No Child Left Behind Act.   (more)

A good article by Juan Cole on the state of the regime's Iraq quagmire reports that many of Baghdad Bob's  predictions have come true and that his rhetorical of simply denying reality has now been taken over by George W. Bush.  Bob's prediction that Iraqis would hurl "bullets and shoes" at the invading regime troops was a bit off- they are hurling everything they can find.

An Italian judge ordered the arrests of 13 CIA agents for their 2/17/03 abduction of an imam.  He was taken first to an US and beaten then "rendered" to Egypt where he was tortured with electric shocks, hung upside down and subjected to extreme temperatures and loud noise. He also partially lost the use of his legs and his hearing was damaged.  (more)

Go Dean!  He's recently taken heat for stating the obvious:  Republicans are "pretty much a white, Christian party", "It is a party controlled by the conservative Christian agenda"  and  that Republicans leaders "never made an honest living in their lives."  He also said Tom DeLay ought to "go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence" for some of his many ethics breeches.   William Rivers Pitt notes that 99% of the ripublicans in state legislatures and in Congress are white.   Of 3,643 Republicans serving in state legislatures across the country, only 44 are minorities.  47% of Texans are minorities but every one of the ripublican legislators are white.

The ripublicans have 55% of the senators but they represent only 45% of the population.  Some democracy....  (more)

Ripublicans in congress are trying to amend the Constitution to repeal the 22nd amendment which establishes term limits for presidents.  Check out HJ 24

The chief of staff of the regime's Council on Environmental Quality made changes in official scientific research documents to create doubts about global warming per the 6/8/05 NY Times.  The idiot, Philip Cooney,  has no scientific training and was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum  Institute where he lobbied against the Kyoto Protocol.  After his editing was outed by whistleblower Rick Piltz (who has resigned in disgust), the idiot resigned but promptly got a job with Exxon Mobil. (more)

Greenspan told a congressional hearing that 80% of the workforce represented by nonsupervisory workers has recently seen little, if any, income growth at all but the top 20%  has.  "As I've often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."

On 6/10/05 House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner unilaterally and arbitrarily shut down committee hearings on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act.  He did this to prevent witnesses called by John Conyers from testifying about human and civil rights abuses at the regime's gulags, racial profiling, prolonged and illegal detentions of Americans and other regime abuses. (more)

Things are looking up for the ACLU's lawsuit against Rumsfeld for his role in prison torture.  It was ordered moved to federal court against the wishes of the regime.  (more)    Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA say there is "prima facie" evidence against Rumsfeld for war crimes and torture.  Amnesty International USA says there is also "prima facie" evidence against Bush for war crimes and torture. (more)

Morgan Stanley has ordered publications to automatically pull its ads from any edition containing "objectionable editorial coverage."  BP has adopted a strategy.  One high-ranking editor said, "There's a fairly lengthy list of companies that have instructions like this."  (more)

The regime nominated ex-rep. ripublican Christopher Cox as SEC chairman.   He's received millions in contributions from corporations, has fought against accounting rules that would give less favorable treatment to corporate mergers and executive stock options. He opposes taxes on dividends and capital gains, helped to steer through the House a bill making investor lawsuits more difficult and otherwise helped create scandals like Enron and Worldcom.  Look for him to be another Harvy Pitt, or worse....  (more)

The real reason idiot senator Lamar Alexander is (literly) tilting against windmills is that he owns expensive beach property in Mass. and is afraid he'd take a financial beating if windmills are built there.  Maybe he should receive another type a beating...  (details)

Tom DeLay argued that Bush's policies against stem cell research must be supported because Jesus of Nazareth began life as an embryo.    Ergo, Bush should be crucified!

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which exists to shield public TV and radio from political pressure, is now chaired by Kenneth
Tomlinson, a staunch riepublican close to the White House.  He's already forced one-sided conservative programs on the air, even though Tomlinson's own surveys show that most people consider NPR "fair and balanced" and they actually trust public broadcasting more than commercial network news [1].   He's also spent taxpayer dollars on a witch hunt to root out "liberal bias."  Even though the public paid for the investigation, he's refused to release the findings [2].  (from moveon.org)  More below.

The ripublican workers compensation director in Ohio resigned after $10 million in rare coins turned up "missing".  Maybe investigators should check huis Swiss bank accounts.  (more)

The USAF Academy superintendent has acknowledged that christian zealots were running amok at the academy.  It is so bad that he said it is, "something that keeps me awake at night."   Rep. David Obey inserted an amendment to the spending bill criticizing "coercive and abusive religious proselytizing" at the Academy and requiring the Air Force to submit a plan to Congress to correct the problems.   Of course the ripublicans in congress will not stand for this.  The idiot chairman of the Armed Services Committee chairman plans to strip the Obey amendment from the bill and replace it with a watered-down version.  Typical . . .

More info on prisioner abuse leaked out in the trial of a SEAL.  A SEAL testified he beat up a Iraqi prisioner on orders from a CIA interrogator.  He was instructed not to hit the prisioner in the face because it would be hard to turn him in.  Other SEALs testified that they repeatedly kicked, hit and poked another prisioner who died.  At another trial, details of the murder of an unarmed and cooperative Iraqi oozed out.

Regime General Sanchez testified under oath before the Senate Armed Services Committee last year that he never approved of the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise, and inducing fear as an interrogation methods at Abu Ghraib prison.   A memo the ACLU has obtained shows this was yet another outright lie.   In the memo, Sanchez approved several methods designed for "significantly increasing the fear level in a detainee." These included "sleep management"; "yelling, loud music, and light control: used to create fear, disorient detainee, and prolong capture shock"; and "presence of military working dogs: exploits Arab fear of dogs."  The ACLU has demanded AG Gonzales to open an investigation on the perjury.  Fat chance- Gonzales himself lied to Congress in 1/05 when he said the regime does not "render" prisioners to countries to be tortured....   (more)

A house subcommittee voted to slash funding for Amtrak by 54%.  If enacted, the cut will driven Amtrak into bankrupcy.   At the same time, funds for aviation and highways would be increased by 6.4% and 5.4%.

American Diabetes Association cut a deal with candy and soft drink maker Cadbury Schweppes.  The corporation kicks in a couple million dollars to the ADA and the corporation gets to use the ADA label on its diet drinks.   Gary Ruskin at the Portland, Oregon-based Commercial Alert. wrote, "Maybe the American Diabetes Association should rename itself the American Junk Food Association.  What will it do for an encore?  Start selling candy bars for M&M/Mars?"

A bill just introduced by ripublican rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) -- HR 2726, "Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act" (what a bogus name!) would let cable and telecom companies shut down local efforts to offer public broadband services.   Sessions was an executive for telephone giant SBC for 16 years and his wife is on the Cingular Wireless board.  SBC and its employees have given the idiot $75,000 and are his second-biggest patron.  The big telecom corporations have been pushing for and, in many cases, getting state laws that prohibit municipal broadband, undercut local control and prevent competition.      (more)

The Izaak Walton League of America  has broken with the most other environmental groups by openly addressing U.S. population growth   The group has two booklets explaining why.   Snippets from one of them:  "In recent years, America has received twice as many immigrants as all other countries combined. The United States has been receiving around 1.5 million people annually in the last few years.... This influx accounts for about half of he U.S. annual population growth.

The regime's EPA made a back-room deal to weaken controls on factory farm pollution.  A coalition of citizen and environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the agency because they did the deal without including input from residents harmed by the pollution.  The dela allows factory farms throughout the U.S. to emit pollution in excess of federal standards.

The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) is recording the crimes and violations that have been committed in connection with the regime's attack in Iraq.   Sessions held around the world have investigated the legality of the war, the role of the United Nations, war crimes and the role of the media.   The last  is taking place in Istanbul from 6/23-27/05.  (more)

In West Virginia alone, mining via mountian top removal has leveled over 500 square miles of mountains and buried over 1,200 miles of streams.

Only 39% approve of his handling of the economy.
Only 39% approve of his handling of foreign policy.
Only 37% approve of his handling of the war in Iraq.
Only 25% approve of his handling of Social Security- 62% disapprove- a 7% increase since his road trip for SS changes!

Some idiots will never catch on.  70% of ripublicans still support the regime's Iraq quagmire.  Each and every one of these idiots - and their sons and daughters - should promptly volunteer for the front lines (i.e. anywhere / everywhere) in Iraq.   Alas, that will not happen-  almost all of them are miserable chicken hawks.

The regime had decided to "justify" the war "by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD."
"Iintelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The regime did not want to seek approval from the United Nations
They wren't interested in and had no plan for the aftermath of their attack.

The demand for impeachment of the idiot-in-chief for his lies has increased with the establishment of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition formed by Global Exchange, Gold Star Families for Peace, Democrats.com, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, Progressive Democrats of America, and Democracy Rising. The coalition is demanding a Resolution of Inquiry into Bush's lies about his preceived need to Iraq.  John Conyers held a hearing (boycotted by the ripublicans) and is considering launching impeachment procedings.  Greg Palast submitted excellent testimony (below).

Democrats.com has offered $1,000 to anyone who can get Bush to answer "yes or no" to one simple question: Did he or his administration "fix the intelligence" about Iraq's WMDs and alleged ties to terrorism?   David Swanson, one of the organizers said, "We want what the Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton and Star Wars stories have gotten: endless repetition until people have heard about it."   (more)   They've also established www.downingstreetmemo.com.

-----------------
Yet more British evidence of regime lying has surfaced- an 8 page 7/21/02 memo in preparation for the meeting covered by the Downing St. memo.   Some tidbits:  "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the US military plans are virtually silent on this point. "   Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote,  "the big question" about military action against Hussein was, "how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better," as "Iraq has no history of democracy."

Michael Smith's 6/21/05 Sunday Times article provides a good overview.  Snippets:   "Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal."  "The briefing paper warned that regime-change was not a legal option and the U.S. and Britain would find it 'necessary to create the conditions' to make the invasion legal."

Newsweek reported on 6/15/05 that, "Two senior British government officials today acknowledged as authentic a series of 2002 pre-Iraq war memos stating that Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program was "effectively frozen" and that there was "no recent evidence" of Iraqi ties to international terrorism."

-----------------
The regime has continued to lie about it's Iraq attack.

• Conde Rice recently lied to regime troops in Iraq by saying: "This war came to us, not the other way around."
• Bush also  lied recently when, in response to a question at a 6/8/05 press conference with lap-dog Blair, he said, "Both of us didn't want to use our military.  It was our last option."

"Of course, I haven't made up my mind we're going to war with Iraq." Bush [10/1/02]

"Hopefully, we can do this peacefully -- don't get me wrong. And if the world were to collectively come together to do so, and to put pressure on Saddam Hussein and convince him to disarm, there's a chance he may decide to do that. And war is not my first choice, don't -- it's my last choice."  [11/7/02]

"This is our attempt to work with the world community to create peace. And the best way for peace is for Mr. Saddam Hussein to disarm. It's up to him to make his decision." [12/4/02]

"The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons...And according to the British government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes." [9/26/2002]

"I expected to find the weapons [because] I based my decision on the best intelligence possible...The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon. [2/8/2004]

A question by Tim Russert on 6/5/05 to the RNC chairman was the first time NBC News had even mentioned the Downing Street memo and the first time any of the network news divisions addressed the issue seriously.   At the 6/7/05 joint White House press briefing, Bush and Blair were finally asked about the memo in public.   The two idiots, not accepting follow-up questions, simply denied the accuracy of the memo's contents.

----------
From the Huffington Post :
Here are the number of news segments that mention these stories: (from a search of the main news networks’ transcripts from May 1-June 20).
 

Finally, "Downing Street Memo" is  now on the top-ten list of Google queries and it already has an entry in  wikipedia.

Since PUHCA was enacted, not a single PUHCA-regulated energy holding company has gone broke and we've had one of the most reliable electrical systems in the world.  A former insider said,  "Once PUHCA is gone, there will be a white-hot fury of buying and selling utilities and utility assets - it will be a revival of the 1920s, when three huge companies owned half of all utilities."

Adding insult to injury, DeLay has eliminated members from the House ethics committee who dare criticize him, which has prevented this vital committee from doing its job and the remaining members have accepted contributions from DeLay's political action committee.

John Dean is right- Delay should go back to Texas to serve his sentences for his gross ethics violation.

It is no secret that the gap between the rich and the poor has grown, but the extent to which the richest are leaving everyone else behind is not widely known.  The average income for the top 0.1 percent was $3 million in 2002, the latest year for which averages are available. That number is two and a half times the $1.2 million, adjusted for inflation, that group reported in 1980. No other income group rose nearly as fast.  The share of the nation's income earned by those in this uppermost category has more than doubled since 1980, to 7.4 percent in 2002. The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell.

 The Bush administration tax cuts stand to widen the gap between the hyper-rich and the rest of America.  President Bush said during the third election debate last October that most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. In fact, most - 53 percent - will go to people with incomes in the top 10 percent over the first 15 years of the cuts, which began in 2001 and would have to be reauthorized in 2010. And more than 15 percent will go just to the top 0.1 percent, those 145,000 taxpayers.  Under the Bush tax cuts, the 400 taxpayers with the highest incomes - a minimum of $87 million in 2000, the last year for which the government will release such data - now pay income, Medicare and Social Security taxes amounting to virtually the same percentage of their incomes as people making $50,000 to $75,000.  Those earning more than $10 million a year now pay a lesser share of their income in these taxes than those making $100,000 to $200,000.

The alternative minimum tax, created 36 years ago to make sure the very richest paid taxes, takes back a growing share of the tax cuts over time from the majority of families earning $75,000 to $1 million - thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars annually. Far fewer of the very wealthiest will be affected by this tax.

From 1950 to 1970, for example, for every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162, according to the Times analysis. From 1990 to 2002, for every extra dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, each taxpayer at the top brought in an extra $18,000.

....an Internal Revenue Service study found that the only taxpayers whose share of taxes declined in 2001 and 2002 were those in the top 0.1 percent.

----------------
Even Greenspan is worried about the situation.  He  told a congressional committee that peons (80% of the workforce represented by nonsupervisory workers) have recently seen little, if any, income growthl but the top 20% of workers have .  "As I've often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."

Pension Loopholes Helped United Hide Troubles reports that  "loopholes in the federal pension law allowed United Airlines to treat its pension fund as solid for years, when in fact it was dangerously weakening, according to a new analysis by the agency that guarantees pensions".  Also, "A second report, by the comptroller general, found that most companies that operate pension funds are using the same loopholes. Those loopholes give companies ways - all perfectly legal - to make their pension plans look healthier than they really are, reducing the amount of money the companies must contribute".   No doubt much of the savings from the screwing of the peons will go to paying the corporate execs millions....

And the rip-off will likely get worse- Last year the ripublicans passed a law which allowed corporations with underfunded plans to skip payments for 2 years- at a cost of $80 billion.  Even worse,  Bush now wants to allow corporations with severely under-funded plans up to 10 years to make payments.

Reps. Jan Schakowsky and George Miller have proposed a law prohibiting corporations from making payments payments to executives' pension plans (which NEVER fail)  if they have unfunded their peons' plans.  Of course it stands little chance of becoming law since the ever greedy corprations own the Congress and White House.

Methinks each an every one of the idiots who voted against this mild admendment should be sent immediately to the front lines in Iraq.

Here's the list of warmoungers who voted against this meek attempt to abandon a stupid war:

Ackerman, Aderholt, Akin, Alexander, Andrews, Bachus, Baker, Barrett (SC), Barrow, Bartlett (MD), Barton (TX), Bass, Bean, Beauprez, Berkley, Berman, Berry, Biggert, Bilirakis, Bishop (GA), Bishop (NY), Bishop (UT), Blackburn, Blunt, Boehlert, Boehner, Bonilla, Bonner, Bono, Boozman, Boren, Boucher, Boustany, Boyd, Bradley (NH), Brady (TX), Brown, Corrine, Brown-Waite, Ginny, Burgess, Burton (IN), Butterfield, Buyer, Calvert, Camp, Cannon, Cantor, Capito, Cardin, Cardoza, Carter, Case, Castle, Chabot, Chandler, Chocola, Cole (OK), Conaway, Cooper, Costa, Cox, Cramer, Crenshaw, Crowley, Cubin, Cuellar, Culberson, Cunningham, Davis (AL), Davis (CA), Davis (FL), Davis (KY), Davis (TN), Davis, Jo Ann, Davis, Tom, Deal (GA), DeLauro, DeLay, Dent, Diaz-Balart, L., Diaz-Balart, M., Dicks, Dingell, Doolittle, Drake, Dreier, Edwards, Ehlers, Engel, English (PA), Etheridge, Everett, Feeney, Ferguson, Fitzpatrick (PA), Flake, Foley, Forbes, Ford, Fortenberry, Fossella, Foxx, Franks (AZ), Frelinghuysen, Gallegly, Garrett (NJ), Gerlach, Gibbons, Gilchrest, Gillmor, Gingrey, Gohmert, Gonzalez, Goode, Goodlatte, Granger, Graves, Green (WI), Gutknecht, Hall, Harman, Harris, Hart, Hayes, Hayworth, Hefley, Hensarling, Herger, Herseth, Higgins, Hobson, Hoekstra, Holden, Hostettler, Hoyer, Hulshof, Hunter, Hyde, Inglis (SC), Israel, Issa, Istook, Jenkins, Jindal, Johnson (CT), Johnson (IL), Johnson, Sam, Kanjorski, Keller, Kelly, Kennedy (MN), Kennedy (RI), Kildee, Kind, King (IA), King (NY), Kingston, Kirk, Kline, Knollenberg, Kolbe, Kuhl (NY), LaHood, Langevin, Lantos, Larsen (WA), Latham, LaTourette, Levin, Lewis (CA), Lewis (KY), Linder, LoBiondo, Lowey, Lucas, Lungren, Daniel E., Mack, Manzullo, Marchant, Marshall, Matheson, McCarthy, McCaul (TX), McCotter, McCrery, McHenry, McHugh, McIntyre, McKeon, McMorris, Meek (FL), Mica, Miller (FL), Miller (MI), Miller, Gary, Mollohan, Moore (KS), Moran (KS), Murphy, Murtha, Musgrave, Myrick, Neugebauer, Ney, Northup, Norwood, Nunes, Nussle, Ortiz, Osborne, Otter, Oxley, Pearce, Pelosi, Pence, Peterson (MN), Peterson (PA), Petri, Pickering, Pitts, Platts, Poe, Pombo, Pomeroy, Price (GA), Pryce (OH), Putnam, Radanovich, Ramstad, Regula, Rehberg, Reichert, Renzi, Reyes, Reynolds, Rogers (AL), Rogers (KY), Rogers (MI), Rohrabacher, Ros-Lehtinen, Ross, Roybal-Allard, Royce, Ruppersberger, Ryan (WI), Ryun (KS), Salazar, Sanchez, Loretta, Saxton, Schiff, Schwarz (MI), Scott (GA), Sensenbrenner, Sessions, Shadegg, Shaw, Shays, Sherwood, Shimkus, Shuster, Simmons, Simpson, Skelton, Smith (NJ), Smith (TX), Snyder, Sodrel, Souder, Spratt, Stearns, Stupak, Sullivan, Sweeney, Tancredo, Tanner, Tauscher, Taylor (MS), Taylor (NC), Terry, Thomas, Thornberry, Tiahrt, Tiberi, Turner, Udall (CO), Upton, Visclosky, Walden (OR), Walsh, Wamp, Weldon (FL), Weldon (PA), Weller, Westmoreland, Whitfield, Wicker, Wilson (NM), Wilson (SC), Wolf, Young (AK), Young (FL)       (source).

On 6/19/05 the ever evil Conde Rice said America's involvement in Iraq is "a generational commitment" while the International Institute of Strategic Studies, concluded that the US will be in Iraq until merely 2010

Around 50 House Democrats have formed the The Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus which is dedicated withdrawal of U.S. troops from the regime's Iraq quagmire.  (more)

82 Iraqi lawmakers from across the political spectrum are demanding withdrawal of regime troops from their country. (more)

The CPB chief executive - a longtime agency employee widely considered a nonpartisan bureaucrat - was replaced by the regime with an ripublican idiot who was a top media adviser to notorious former FCC chairman Michael Powell.   The idiot,  Ken Ferree, got off to a rough start when he told a magazine interviewer that he didn't watch PBS or listen to NPR.  CPB also hired a White House spinmeister as a "special adviser" to the chief executive.

Meanwhile the regime has starting airing a rightwing weekly program on PBS called "The Journal Editorial Report," featuring regime supporters/idiots from the Wall Street Journal and given airtime to the raving rightwing lunatic Tucker Carlson.

Bill Moyers said in a speech,   "I always knew Nixon would be back, I just  didn't know that this time he would ask to be chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."    The Kansas City PBS station manager sent a letter to Tomlinson saying, "For you and members of the CPB board to go on this sad, ridiculous witch hunt at a time when we should be standing together to make sure that public broadcasting is funded adequately is a betrayal of your responsibilities as a board member. You and those board members who support you should be sacked."    (more)  (yet more)

Cuts to public broadcasting being pushed by the ripublicans would slash 25% of its funding this year (a $100 million cut)  and end all funding in two years.  (more).

To a very significant degree, big money interests control Washington. I can document for you exactly the people who pay for legislation that comes on the floor of the House, whether it's the so-called energy bill that is paid for by the coal companies, the oil companies and the nuclear power companies; whether it's this obscene repeal of the inheritance tax that is paid for by billionaires; whether it's the bankruptcy bill or whatever it may be.
. . .
Big money has unbelievable power in Washington. They control the debate. Especially right now, where you have an administration that works hand-in-glove with the wealthiest people in America and the largest corporations. There is timidity in Congress, even fear, that if you speak up they're going to throw huge amounts of  money against you.
. . .
We're losing millions of decent paying jobs, not just blue-collar jobs, but white-collar information technology jobs as well. We're seeing the conversion of our economy from a General Motors economy to a Wal-Mart economy. And we're also seeing the sellout of our country by the CEOs of large corporations. These CEOs, whose companies have become enormously wealthy and profitable on the backs of American workers and consumers, are now moving abroad and pushing us into a race to the bottom as fast as they can. It's simply not acceptable that these CEOs, who make 500 times what their employees earn, are reducing us to a third world economy. It's not acceptable that CEOs like Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric said, "When I'm talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China."

These are the people who need war. They need it to pile up the contracts from the Pentagon, to enrich the banking institutions that protect them, to pay the lawyers who defend them, to pay the lobbyists who sustain them, to purchase the politicians who champion them, and to buy up the media that hides them from sight.
. . .
They have convinced the majority of this population that war is a necessity. They create the premises for combat and invasion, they convince and cajole and, when necessary, frighten us into line. All too often, almost every time, we buy into the fictions they manufacture, thus sustaining the "permanent crisis" mentality and the need for war after war after war.
. . .
The economic need for war creates the required excuses for war. The "permanent crisis" of the Cold War motivated the United States to support the Shah in Iran, a decision that led to the Islamic Revolution and the establishment of Iran as a permanent enemy. The Cold War motivated us to support Saddam Hussein financially and militarily as a bulwark against Iran. The Cold War motivated us to establish the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia to ensure a steady supply of oil. The Cold War motivated us to support Osama bin Laden and the so-called "Jihadists" in Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviet invaders.
. . .
We need wars. That's why we are in Iraq. This invasion and occupation of that nation has given our economy the war it needs, and has also created the justification for future wars by creating legions of enemies in the Mideast and around the world. Our wartime economy will tolerate no less.  Talking about Bush's lies regarding weapons of mass destruction, or about bringing democracy to the region, or about the dollar-to-Euro transfer, or about the midterm elections, is window-dressing.  We invaded Iraq because we had to. This is the elephant in the room, the foreign policy reality nobody talks about.

In an ideal world, the United States would relinquish Iraq to a United Nations military command, and the world would pony up the troops needed to establish order in the country in return for Iraqi good will in post-war contract bids. But that is not going to happen for many reasons. George W. Bush is a stubborn man and Iraq is his project, and he is not going to give up on it. And, by now the rest of the world knows what would await its troops in Iraq, and political leaders are not so stupid as to send their troops into a meat grinder.

Therefore, I conclude that the United States is stuck in Iraq for the medium term, and perhaps for the long term. The guerrilla war is likely to go on a decade to 15 years. Given the basic facts, of capable, trained and numerous guerrillas, public support for them from Sunnis, access to funding and munitions, increasing civil turmoil, and a relatively small and culturally poorly equipped US military force opposing them, led by a poorly informed and strategically clueless commander-in-chief who has made himself internationally unpopular, there is no near-term solution.

In the long run, say 15 years, the Iraqi Sunnis will probably do as the Lebanese Maronites did, and finally admit that they just cannot remain in control of the country and will have to compromise. That is, if there is still an Iraq at that point.

Here in the United States, we are brought up to believe that our nation is different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral; that we expand into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy. But if you know some history you know that's not true. If you know some history, you know we massacred Indians on this continent, invaded Mexico, sent armies into Cuba, and the Philippines. We killed huge numbers of people, and we did not bring them democracy or liberty. We did not go into Vietnam to bring democracy; we did not invade Panama to stop the drug trade; we did not invade Afghanistan and Iraq to stop terrorism. Our aims were the aims of all the other empires of world history - more profit for corporations, more power for politicians.

A huge number of Americans call themselves born-again or Reconstructionist Christians but have turned their back on most of what their own Bible tells them that Christ taught. "Turn the other cheek" now inspires a worldwide gulag of CIA and Pentagon torture centers from Guantanamo to the Indian Ocean, while the Golden Rule has become "Do unto others before they do unto you."

One of the more admirable aspects of the Roman system was that only those citizens who possessed a specified amount of property (namely, a horse and some land) could serve, thereby making those who had profited most from the state also responsible for its defense. (By contrast, of the 535 members of Congress, only seven have children in the US's all-volunteer armed
forces.)
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Roman history suggests that it was imperialism and militarism - poorly understood by all conservative political leaders at the time - that brought it down.  Militarism and the professionalization of a large standing army create invincible new sources of power within a polity. The government must mobilize the masses in order to exploit them as cannon fodder and this leads to the rise of populist generals who understand the grievances of their troops and veterans.
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History teaches us that the capacity for things to get worse is limitless. Roman history suggests that the short, happy life of the American republic is in serious trouble - and that conversion to a military empire is, to say the least, not the best answer.

Corruption has always been present in Washington, but in recent years it has become more sophisticated, pervasive, and blatant than ever. A friend of mine who works closely with lobbyists says, "There are no restraints now; business groups and lobbyists are going crazy - they're in every room on Capitol Hill writing the legislation. You can't move on the Hill without giving money."
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For over ten years, but particularly since George W. Bush took office, powerful Republicans, among them Tom DeLay and Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, have been carrying out what they call the "K Street Project," an effort to place more Republicans and get rid of Democrats in the trade associations and major national lobbying organizations that have offices on K Street in downtown Washington
. . .
The conservative commentator David Brooks said on PBS's NewsHour earlier this year, "The biggest threat to the Republican majority is the relationship on K Street with corporate lobbyists and the corruption that is entailed in that."
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In one instance well known among lobbyists, the Ohio Republican Michael Oxley, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, put pressure on the Investment Company Institute, a consortium of mutual fund companies, to fire its top lobbyist, a Democrat, and hire a Republican to replace her.  According to a Washington Post story on February 15, 2003, six sources, both Democratic and Republican, said that members of Oxley's staff told the institute that a pending congressional investigation of mutual fund companies "might ease up if the mutual fund trade group complies with their wishes." It apparently didn't matter to them that House ethics rules prohibit congressmen or their staff "from bestowing benefits on the basis of the recipient's status as a supporter or contributor, or partisan affiliation." A Republican now holds the top job at the Investment Company Institute.
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Last year retribution was taken against the Motion Picture Association of America, which - after first approaching without success a Republican congressman about to retire - hired as its new head Dan Glickman, a former Democratic representative from Kansas and secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration. Republicans had warned the MPAA not to hire a Democrat for the job. After Glickman was hired, House Republicans removed from a pending bill some $1.5 billion in tax relief for the motion picture industry.

It was a huge air assault: Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace. At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war.

But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002 - a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before "shock and awe" officially began.

Michigan Democratic Representative John Conyers has called the latest revelations about these attacks "the smoking bullet in the smoking gun," irrefutable proof that President Bush misled Congress before the vote on Iraq. When Bush asked Congress to authorize the use of force in Iraq, he also said he would use it only as a last resort, after all other avenues had been exhausted. But the Downing Street memo reveals that the Administration had already decided to topple Saddam by force and was manipulating intelligence to justify the decision. That information puts the increase in unprovoked air attacks in the year prior to the war in an entirely new light: The Bush Administration was not only determined to wage war on Iraq, regardless of the evidence; it had already started that war months before it was put to a vote in Congress.

More than a year after their son was shot several times by his fellow Army Rangers on a craggy hillside near the Pakistani border, Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country.  . . .  Mary Tillman says the government used her son for weeks after his death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism -- just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was erupting publicly. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall.

It's official:  The Downing Street memos, a snooty New York Times "News Analysis" informs us, "are not the Dead Sea Scrolls."  You are warned, Congressman, to ignore the clear evidence of official mendacity and bald-faced fibbing by our two nations' leaders because the cry for investigation came from the dark and dangerous world of "blogs" and "opponents" of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush.

On May 5, "blog" site Buzzflash.com carried my story, IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED, bringing the London Times report of the Downing Street memo to US media which seemed to be suffering at the time from an attack of NADD -- "news attention deficit disorder."

The memo, which contains the ill-making admission that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" to match the Iraq-crazed fantasies of our President, is sufficient basis for a hearing toward impeachment of the Chief Executive.  But to that we must add the other evidence and secret memos and documents still hidden from the American public.

Other foreign-based journalists could doubtless add more, including the disclosure that the key inspector of Iraq's biological weapons, the late Dr. David Kelly, found the Bush-Blair analysis of his intelligence was indeed "fixed," as the Downing Street memo puts it, around the war-hawk policy.

Here is a small timeline of confidential skullduggery dug up and broadcast by my own team for BBC Television and Harper's on the secret plans to seize Iraq's assets and oil.

February 2001 - Only one month after the first Bush-Cheney inauguration, the State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam.   US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator.

On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained,  "It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime."

March 2001 - Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq.  Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose.  Harper's has since learned their plan and purpose -- see below.

October/November 2001 - An easy military victory in Afghanistan emboldens then-Dep. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to convince the Administration to junk the State Department "coup" plan in favor of an invasion and occupation that could remake the economy of Iraq.  And elaborate plan, ultimately summarized in a 101-page document, scopes out the "sale of all state enterprises" -- that is, most of the nation's assets,  "...  especially in the oil and supporting industries."

2002 - Grover Norquist and other corporate lobbyists meet secretly with Defense, State and Treasury officials to ensure the invasion plans for Iraq include plans for protecting "property rights." The result was a pre-invasion scheme to sell off Iraq's oil fields, banks, electric systems, and even change the country's copyright laws to the benefit of the lobbyists' clients.    Occupation chief Paul Bremer would later order these giveaways into Iraq law.

Fall 2002 - Philip Carroll, former CEO of Shell Oil USA, is brought in by the Pentagon to plan the management of Iraq's oil fields.  He works directly with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. "There were plans," says Carroll, "maybe even too many plans" -- but none disclosed to the public nor even the US Congress.

January 2003 - Robert Ebel, former CIA oil analyst, is sent, BBC learns, to London to meet with Fadhil Chalabi to plan terms for taking over Iraq's oil.

March 2003 - What White House spokesman Ari Fleisher calls "Operations Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) begins.  (Invasion is re-christened "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

March 2003 - Defense Department is told in confidence by US Energy Information Administrator Guy Caruso that Iraq's fields are incapable of a massive increase in output.  Despite this intelligence, Dep. Secretary Wolfowitz testifies to Congress that invasion will be a free ride.  He swears, "There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. ...We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon," a deliberate fabrication promoted by the Administration, an insider told BBC, as "part of the sales pitch" for war.

May 2003 - General Jay Garner, appointed by Bush as viceroy over Iraq, is fired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.  The general revealed in an interview for BBC that he resisted White House plans to sell off Iraq's oil and national assets.

"That's just one fight you don't want to take on," Garner told me.  But apparently, the White House wanted that fight.

The general also disclosed that these invade-and-grab plans were developed long before the US asserted that Saddam still held WDM:

"All I can tell you is the plans were pretty elaborate; they didn't start them in 2002, they were started in 2001."

November/December 2003 - Secrecy and misinformation continues even after the invasion.  The oil industry objects to the State Department plans for Iraq's oil fields and drafts for the Administration a 323-page plan, "Options for [the] Iraqi Oil Industry."  Per the industry plan, the US forces Iraq to create an OPEC-friendly state oil company that supports the OPEC cartel's extortionate price for petroleum.

The Stone Wall

Harper's and BBC obtained the plans despite official denial of their existence, then footdragging when confronted with the evidence of the reports' existence.

Still today, the State and Defense Departments and White House continue to stonewall our demands for the notes of the meetings between lobbyists, oil industry consultants and key Administration officials that would reveal the hidden economic motives for the war.

What are the secret interests behind this occupation?  Who benefits?  Who met with whom?  Why won't this Administration release these documents of the economic blueprint for the war?

To date, the State and Defense Department responses to our reports are risible, and their answers to our requests for documents run from evasive to downright misleading.  Maybe Congress,  with it's power of subpoena, can do better.