Main Entry: DUBYA Pronunciation: 'duhb-"yah Function: noun Etymology: Old Texan variation of the English letter "W" Date: circa 1836 1. Presidential nickname 2. Usurper, pretender 3. Media Event, figurehead
DUBYA NEWS As one blogger noted, "During the 1990's, Victoria Toensing and her husband, Joe diGenova, made over 300 appearances on cable television in the service of the Republican agenda - often pimping for their friend Ken Starr and his $35 million investigation into President Clinton's sex life...." But now that real crimes have been committed against the American people, the Munsters of the GOP are suddenly laughing off investigating Bush and Cheney, literally. Listen up, eavesdroppers, for a few answers  Ever since the news this holiday season that the Bush administration authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans for evidence of terrorist activity without a court-approved warrant, the lyrics of "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" have taken on a Big Brotherly cloud I don't recall from my childhood. Of course, I've been reassured by Scott McClellan, David Brooks and a host of conservative bloggers that this particular circumvention of the law is the good kind, like a parent who reads a kid's diary, just to make sure they're not into anything bad. The thinking is that if you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have any reason to be worried. Neither are we supposed to fear that the president may have fibbed when he told an audience in 2004 that the government wouldn't engage in eavesdropping without a warrant: "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. ... When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." Apparently, "talking about getting a court order" is as good as actually doing it. ... If you're looking at my library records — not that I'd know, since the Patriot Act doesn't allow librarians to tell you if your records have been requested — you may notice some troubling themes. I check out a lot of books having to do with loving your brother, working out disagreements peacefully, learning about people who are different from you and respecting their stuff. I realize this may mark me as one of those peace-loving Quakers under surveillance by the Pentagon for "suspicious" activities but, in fact, all the titles were children's books. My plan is to teach my kids the aforementioned values, so that they will have something to rebel against later on, when they start writing their own blogs about how the quaint notion of personal liberty is what's making America weak. Is a Terrorist More Likely to Kill You with a Book or a .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle? The Answer to that Question Tells You a Lot About Why the [Un]Patriot Act is a Soviet-Style Power Grab and Has More to Do with Ensuring Long-term Republican Rule than Protecting Us  But does the [Un]Patriot Act prevent potential terrorists from buying guns? No, of course not. Because the [Un]Patriot Act isn't about making us more secure. It is about creating Soviet style secret police powers to ensure that the Republicans can stay in power indefinitely. No, that's not an exaggeration. ... But the Bush Administration doesn't care whether or not terrorists can legally buy guns in the United States. Forget about terrorists with high-powered firearms; Attorney General Gonzales is sending the message that it is terrorists with books who are a real threat to us. No, the real immediate threat is the Bush administration, which would take away our most basic liberties -- while ignoring the real terrorist risks -- in order to expand their secret powers. There is no logic to most of the Patriot Act except when viewed through the prism of extending this regime's imperial powers. We repeat the question: Is a terrorist more likely to kill us with a book or a military style weapon of war that they can freely purchase in the United States? The U.S. military used white phosphorous as a weapon in Fallujah, and the U.S. military says such use is illegal  This fact has appeared in an article in the Guardian (UK) and been circulated on the internet, but has just not interested the corporate media in the United States. It interests Congressman John Conyers, however. Last week, Conyers released a 273-page report titled "The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War." This 273-page report covers many war-related crimes, including the use of white phosphorous. ... "Recent reports coming out of Iraq verify the use of a weapon called white phosphorus (WP) in combat. An Italian state broadcaster, RAI, recently reported that American forces used WP in Fallujah last year against insurgents. According to a former American soldier who fought in Fallujah, 'I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete. ... Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for.'" What everyone should know about Jose Padilla  The constitution is the last flimsy obstacle between Bush and absolute power. That is why the administration has persisted for nearly 4 years in its case against Jose Padilla. The Padilla case has nothing to do with Al Qaida, “dirty bombers” or terrorism. These are simply the empty diversions that conceal the administration’s real intention; to remove the final impediment to the supreme authority of the executive. ... The president is answerable to no one. He stands above the law and may do as he pleases. Padilla has no rights and, by extension, neither does any other American citizen. It is now up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the Constitution has any meaning or if it just a “goddamned piece of paper” as Bush claims. Budget behemoth is special-interest nightmare  The recent budget bill, which squeaked through the House and the Senate just before Christmas, is a road map of insider dealing. It shows that when choices have to be made, the interests of the poor and the middle class fall before the wishes of interest groups with powerful lobbies and awesome piles of campaign money to distribute. ... The good news is that this budget is not law yet. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., used a clever procedural maneuver to force it back to the House for one more vote next year. When this 774-page behemoth hit the House floor shortly after 1 a.m. on Dec. 19, many members were not fully aware of what was in it. Now that they know, maybe some of the moderate Republicans who caved to their leadership and voted for it will save their party's honor by killing this special interest mess. US embassy close to admitting Syria rendition flight  The US embassy in London was forced to issue a correction yesterday to an interview given by the ambassador, Robert Tuttle, in which he claimed America would not fly suspected terrorists to Syria, which has one of the worst torture records in the Middle East. A statement acknowledged media reports of a suspect taken from the US to Syria. Torture is banned in the US but the CIA has been engaged in a policy of rendition, flying terrorist suspects to countries in the Middle East and other parts of the world where torture is commonplace. Comedy of terror  Finally we come to the Apocalypse Now! Award for Redefining the World, which this year goes to the president of the United States, George Bush. The judges were unanimous. The president claimed that in the second world war, the forces of freedom defeated the ideology of fascism. In the cold war, those same forces defeated communism. "Today, in the Middle East, freedom is contending with ... terrorists affiliated with or inspired by al-Qaida," whose ultimate aim is to "establish a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain". With a simple piece of unnoticed elision, George Bush has recreated the crusades. Rumsfeld and Cheney can rest assured that the arms industry will flourish for years to come. The west has a new enemy: Islam. Poor Islam. Poor Christianity. Poor us. A Vietnam Vet's Appraisal of Dubya  I have read that not one member of this criminal administration ever wore a uniform. W playing at service in the National Guard does not count. The Guard is an honorable outfit and they are very useful and needed. His service may have counted if he actually served out his contract. Not much of a pilot when you get grounded for failing to appear to take your physical. ... General Smedley Butler said the only reasons to fight a war are to defend our homes and to defend the Bill of Rights. All other war is a racket. He was right then and is right today. I see our young people being killed and maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq and I damn near cry. Can't cry actual tears, so I get highly pissed off. They should not be in harms way, not today, never should have been there in the first place. I support our troops by wanting them back home where they belong. They are not defending America by being in Iraq or Afghanistan any more than we were defending America by being in Viet Nam all those years ago. They are cannon fodder for big business and the fat cat defense contractors. Bring them home now! Christmas in New Orleans  Compounding the fact that hundreds of thousands of people remain scattered across the country and separated from each other without the ability to return home for Christmas, Greg Meffert, the city's chief technology officer, announced on Friday that 2,500 homes have been scheduled to be demolished immediately. The majority of the homes to be bulldozed during this holiday season are located in the Lower 9th Ward, the part of the city most affected by Katrina when the levees of the Industrial Canal suddenly exploded, flooding the economically poor, black neighborhood. Claiming that he has not heard of any complaints about these plans, which are to be put into effect immediately, Meffert fails to consider that displaced residents have not been informed of the crucial change in the status of their "red-tagged" homes. The Shaw Group of Baton Rouge, which won a no-bid contract from the government to oversee inspections of homes affected by the hurricanes, uses a color-coded system to tag homes for insurance and rebuilding purposes. Before the city had clearly stated to residents that red tags signified severe damage to a home"in lieu of yellow tags that indicate less serious damage. But now"without informing residents of the change"those red-tagged homes may be demolished before the ball drops in Times Square. While FEMA possesses a database of contact information for most, if not all, New Orleans evacuees, no effort has been taken to inform affected residents that their homes are about to be demolished. Suspicions fire racial tensions in New Orleans  "I think they blew up those levees and let the water come in," said Blandin, who lost her apartment in the Mid-City neighborhood to the floodwaters and is now living temporarily in Houston. "They were happy that this storm hit, to get all of us black people out of the city." ... The plot, according to those who believe it, was to use the deadly hurricane to transform this majority-black city into a whiter, richer place. And everything that has happened since - the delays in reopening the poorest districts, the shuttering of the city's public housing projects, the sluggish delivery of federal storm aid, the mass layoff of the city's mostly black municipal workforce - has only reinforced the fear of many exiled black residents that New Orleans will be reconstructed without them. ... In April 1927, as torrents of water from the Great Mississippi Flood bore down upon New Orleans from hundreds of miles upstream, the city's bankers and backroom power brokers maneuvered the governor to approve dynamiting a down-river levee to relieve pressure on the city's flood walls. The decision spared wealthy white districts of New Orleans but doomed neighboring St. Bernard Parish and low-lying black neighborhoods to a devastating flood. The notion that some political leaders regard Katrina as a lever to permanently alter the city's demographics also might sound a lot like hysteria - except that several politicians have come close to saying as much. "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans," Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying. "We couldn't do it, but God did." Experts: Suicides rising sharply in New Orleans  At least seven people have killed themselves in the four months since the storm, in a city whose population is now no more than 75,000 to 100,000, officials said. That compares with a national rate of 11 suicides per 100,000 for all of 2002, and a rate in New Orleans of about 9 per 100,000 for all of 2004. The signs of despair are pervasive in New Orleans: A woman, having returned to see her flooded-out house for the first time, runs screaming down Mirabeau Avenue in the Gentilly neighborhood, where the police find her babbling uncontrollably; in a Bourbon Street nightclub, a man draws a gun and shoots himself in the head, even as dancers sway to the music; from half-ruined houses, the police retrieve homeowners, weeping and distraught. Psychiatrists report that previously stable patients are now preoccupied with death and suicide. Dubya ignores lessons from Camille  I can see now in the media coverage of Katrina that the reforms made by Congress following our findings, which documented the pandemic racial, social-class and gender discrimination and neglect by federal, state and non-governmental relief agencies, have all been snuffed out in the hands of President Bush. ... But this understanding is of absolutely no value to the people from the Gulf Coast, because under Bush and this Congress there will be no money to even minimally meet these pressing human needs. It is all committed to a war in a distant gulf and more corporate welfare at home, very much a replica of the Nixon administration response to Camille and a costly lesson not learned. Evangelicals direct clout at global warming  The climate change statement, being crafted by several evangelical leaders nationwide, could call for curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases. It also could put evangelicals — who make up 1 in 4 voters and are a key support base for President Bush, with 78 percent of white evangelicals voting for him last year — at odds with the White House and business interests that form another key Republican constituency. The emerging debate among evangelicals on "creation care" — as they dub environmental stewardship — may also sharpen differences within a group sometimes perceived as monolithic. ... The National Association of Evangelicals, which says it represents 30 million people in 45,000 churches, has recently accused the president of doing too little to stop mass killings in Sudan's Darfur region. It backs the International Criminal Court, which Bush opposes. ... "We go to members of Congress and say, 'You want to be on the right side of history? Then join us. You want to do something to save people's lives, such as in Darfur? Then join with us,' " he said. "We're not buying support with favors. We're saying 'Do what's right.'" ... Two prominent evangelicals — former President Jimmy Carter and Jim Wallis, founder of a Christian magazine — landed on bestseller lists this year with critiques of the Iraq war and other Bush initiatives. Permafrost-thawing concern deepens  Warming temperatures could melt the top 11 feet of permafrost in Alaska by the end of the century -- damaging roads and buildings with sinkholes, transforming forest and tundra into swamps, and releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the air. This meltdown forecast comes amid other signals that Arctic climate has been changing fast: shrinking sea ice cover, warmer temperatures and shifting vegetation. Dubya employs “Big Lie” technique to defend illegal spying on Americans  FISA established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as a secret body to oversee and approve government requests for wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance. The law explicitly bars warrantless wiretaps. So brazen is the administration’s defiance of the law and the constitutional principle of congressional and judicial oversight of the executive branch that one of the eleven judges on the secret FISA court resigned Monday in protest. This is a court which routinely grants government requests for wiretaps, usually within a few hours and, when requested, retroactively — a fact the White House ignores in claiming that it must bypass the court to quickly track the movement of terrorist suspects within the US. One of Bush’s claims, that the NSA program does not target purely domestic communications, was exploded by a report in Wednesday’s New York Times. The article cited unnamed officials who affirmed that the NSA had intercepted communications to and from people within the borders of the US. Letter From a Military Mom: Domestic Spying & Incident of Intimidation of Military Families  During the first few months of our site, the Army decided to call every single family on the site, informing them, that the site was not to be used by any of the families. The Department of Defense called families in the middle of the night to notify them to not use the web site. Most of the families were near tears, thinking they were getting "THE" call telling them their child or loved one had been killed or injured. The information received via the phone call was to inform the families that the base did not condone the site, nor [did] the Army, and that it was not to be used; the gist was, families were not allowed to use the site, or they could get into "trouble". Some members reported their soldier calling from Iraq, telling them to be careful about using the site as the Army was monitoring it. As Web Mistress of the site, I needed to respond and qualify this information, as well as to educate this commanding officer as to the rights and liberties of a private web site; which I did. I was told I would have to let a commanding officer on the site to monitor the messages; I did allow this, but I also informed the officer that this was a courtesy, as there is no such law, or right of the military to monitor, shut down or exclude our web site. Policy Adrift on Darfur  Yet, despite American engagement, Darfur's humanitarian, security and political conditions are deteriorating. If the United States does not change its approach to Darfur, an already grim situation is likely to spiral out of control. Although the killing abated somewhat this year, Darfurians continue to be displaced -- more than 20,000 in the past few weeks alone. In addition, several million civilians are trapped in camps that are becoming more, not less, vulnerable. Women living in camps for internally displaced persons have to walk ever farther to obtain the firewood they need to cook the food donated by the United States. This has increased the incidence of rape, a tool in the onslaught of the militias known as the janjaweed. Mounting banditry has caused the closure of vital road corridors and the evacuation of some international aid workers. As a result, humanitarian access is more limited than it has been at any point since April 2004, causing a spike in the number of Darfurians who are not receiving lifesaving aid. EU provides EUR 165M for humanitarian crises in Africa  The European Union Monday earmarked EUR165 million ($195 million) for 10 crisis centers in Africa, saying droughts, floods and armed conflict ravage the continent like "silent tsunamis." Sudan is the biggest beneficiary and will receive EUR48 million, while Congo has been allocated EUR38 million. Burundi, Chad, Liberia, Tanzania and Uganda will each receive over EUR10 million in aid. "We remember the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. But millions of vulnerable people in Africa are exposed to natural disasters like droughts, floods and insect infestations, as well as armed conflicts," said E.U. Development Commissioner Louis Michel. "These are silent tsunamis." In Sudan’s western Darfur region, at least 180,000 people have died and 2 million have been displaced during two years of fighting, which began when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. US Senate passes budget bill slashing social programs The US Senate finished up the final days of its session for the year by pushing through a top priority measure—a budget reconciliation bill that will cut spending in entitlement programs for students, the poor and the elderly. Once the bill is signed into law, it will mark the first cutback in entitlement spending in nearly a decade. ... In relation to the overall federal budget, the $40 billion over five years is minimal. It is less than one tenth of what the US government spends on the military alone every year. However, the cuts will have a major impact on some of the most vulnerable sections of the population. They are seen as an important step in the drive to undermine entitlement programs and all government spending not aimed at enriching the wealthy or expanding the military-police apparatus. The blatant class character of government policy is highlighted by the fact that the budget bill is to be followed early next year with a tax-cutting measure worth $60 billion to $70 billion that will overwhelmingly favor big business and the wealthy. Wages & Incomes Down, Poverty & Debt Up  2. More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt. * The indebtedness of U.S. households, after adjusting for inflation, has risen 35.7% over the last four years. * The level of debt as a percent of after-tax income is the highest ever measured in our history. Mortgage and consumer debt is now 115% of after-tax income, twice the level of 30 years ago. * The debt-service ratio (the percent of after-tax income that goes to pay off debts) is at an all-time high of 13.6%. * The personal savings rate is negative for the first time since WWII. ... 5. Rising health care costs are eroding families' already declining income. * Households are spending more on health care. Family health costs rose 43-45% for married couples with children, single mothers, and young singles from 2000 to 2003. * Employers are cutting back on health insurance. Last year, the percent of people with employer-provided health insurance fell for the fourth year in a row. Nearly 3.7 million fewer people had employer-provided insurance in 2004 than in 2000. Taking population growth into account, 11 million more people would have had employer-provided health insurance in 2004 if the coverage rate had remained at the 2000 level. Iraq: Depleted Uranium aka Baghdad Boils?!  There’s a possibility that the US Department of Defense (DoD) is hiding the US casualties under a disguise of ‘Baghdad Boils’, a disease plaguing the US troops in Iraq, claimed to be caused by the sand fly bites, but possibly by depleted uranium (DU) radiation. To explore this issue I’ve forwarded the following article to DU experts in the world to have it checked and I’m now publishing it as a preliminary announcement here in iraq-war.ru. ... The biological particulate effect targets the Master Code in the DNA and causes numerous diseases difficult to define, but in effect devastating the human body for example with multiple malignancies and developing cancers. Out of 580,400 soldiers in first Gulf War, 11 thousand have died and already by 2000 there were 325,000 permanently disabled, the number increasing by 43,000 every year. Besides, DU has internally contaminated their sexual partners, who have developed endometriosis and have been forced to have hysteroctomies due to health problems. 67 percent of a test group of 251 soldiers have had babies with severe birth defects (missing members, organs, immune system diseases). Stars turn backs on America's troops in Iraq  But many of the USO's regular performers are fierce critics of the war, among them the comic and star of Good Morning Vietnam, Robin Williams, who told USA Today he would like to return to the Middle East in the spring for what would be his fourth tour since 2002. "I'm there for the [troops], not for W," he said in a reference to the president. "Go, man. You won't forget it. You'll meet amazing people," is his message to stars that ask him about the tours. But the comedian said he mostly tries to keep politics out of the show after he did a few jokes about Bush's brainpower at a base in 2003 and got a chilly reception. Other critics of the war who regularly perform include the leftwing comedian Al Franken (who is headlining the current tour along with Christian hip-hop group Souljahz) and the punk legend and actor Henry Rollins, one of the Bush administration's most vocal critics. Congress never debated use of wiretaps, says ex-Senate chief Congress had reservations about granting George Bush expanded wartime powers after the September 11 attacks and never discussed the use of wiretaps without warrants on US citizens, a former Senate majority leader said yesterday. The assertion by Tom Daschle, a Democrat, undermined a week-long effort by Mr Bush to damp down a controversy over the secret domestic surveillance operation by arguing that it was authorised by Congress. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, Mr Daschle described his central role in negotiations following September 11 to draft a resolution authorising Mr Bush to go to war against Osama bin Laden. ... "Congress denied the president the more expansive authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida," Mr Daschle wrote. The White House went on to seek a last-minute amendment - minutes before the Senate vote, according to Mr Daschle - that would have given the president expanded powers not only against an overseas enemy but within the US. He added: "The Bush administration now argues those powers were inherently contained in the resolution adopted by Congress - but at the time, the administration clearly felt they weren't or it wouldn't have tried to insert the additional language." Dubya: the Year in Review  December polls show a tiny bump in his approval ratings as men, whites and Catholics bought some of his message. The majority, however, continue to give him failing grades for his performance at home and abroad. His close friends and family, not known for their heightened sensitivity, care little about approval indices. For them, W delivered more than they ever expected. From the disgustingly rich, the Elmer Gantry contingent, the neo con ideologues and followers of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plus homophobes and anti-abortion fanatics, Bush got an A+. Language of the Heart  There are so many people in this world who will be celebrating sorrow-filled holidays this year. Christmas is so hard for us, not only because our children are dead, but because we remember the Christmases past that were filled with joy and happiness. It is so painful to remember the Christmas mornings when the kids would get up before the sun came up and beg Mom and Dad to get up so they could open what Santa had brought them. It is too painful to get out the decorations and hang the one sock that will remain empty for eternity. So most of us skip the traditional Christmas and do whatever we can to support each other through the devastation that our lives have become. Devastation that is so needless and avoidable. Our hearts go out to all families who are experiencing the pain of loss instead of the joy of togetherness this year. George Bush and the other purveyors of pain can take a day off from spying on Americans without due process to celebrate the holidays with their families. Dick "the Grinch" Cheney made a "surprise" visit to Iraq the other day. His black heart feels no pain for the tragic loss of life that his greed has caused. How dare he show his face in a country that has been destroyed by his insatiable quest for black gold and his obscene lust for profits for his company Halliburton and the other war profiteers? The pain that these people have caused the world is inestimable. The people of the world want an accounting for the pain and they want the people who seem to be getting off scot-free to be brought to some kind of justice for the damage they have wrought on humanity. Why Doesn't the VA tell Veterans About Their Benefits? Millions of veterans lose out on billions in benefits because the VA doesn’t tell them they qualify – Why? – Money! – And, because the VA is not required to tell anyone about any benefits – Republicans oppose legislation to require VA to inform veterans of benefits. ... But, the real answer to the problem lies in the legislation to require the VA to inform all veterans of all their benefits. With a Republican-held House and Senate, the chances of it passing are exactly zero. Double rebuke for Dubya as judges attack terror moves President George Bush faced a rare challenge from the judiciary yesterday when two courts questioned the legality of his expansion of presidential powers in the war on terror. In a startling rebuke, a federal appeals court refused to allow the transfer of a terror suspect, Jose Padilla, from military to civilian custody and strongly suggested that the Bush administration was trying to manipulate the judicial system. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that judges of the secret court established under the foreign intelligence surveillance act (Fisa) had demanded a briefing from Bush administration officials on why they believed it was legal to bypass their authority and eavesdrop on the telephone conversations and email of American citizens without a warrant. Nearly four months after Katrina, hundreds of children still missing  The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a database with close to 500 names, all of them children whose whereabouts are still unknown. Walter Fahr, manager of the Louisiana Clearing House for Missing Children, said FEMA has names, addresses, phone numbers, and social security numbers of evacuees that could help connect parents with children. ... In Louisiana, Fahr said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has had more expertise than FEMA in finding missing children. American global warming gas emissions accelerate to a record high In a separate development, the governors of seven US north-east states, frustrated by the federal government's refusal to set targets, yesterday signed up their states to work together to reduce global warming emissions. From 2009, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont will begin trading carbon under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The states intend to cap emissions from power stations at present levels until 2015, and then reduce them by 10% on 2005 levels by 2019. Household bills are predicted to rise about $3 to $24 (£1.70 to £13.80) a year once the initiative starts. ... "In the face of the Bush administration's refusal to cut heat-trapping pollution, this is a bold act of leadership," said Peter Frumhoff, of the Global Environment Programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "These governors are sending a strong signal that Americans are ready to implement innovative solutions to meet the challenge of global warming." Senate blocks attempt to allow oil drilling in Alaskan wildlife reserve  "It is a real victory for the environmental movement all throughout this country," said Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California. "Destroying this wilderness will do very little to reduce energy costs, nor does it do very much for oil independence." Many Senators complained yesterday that drilling and defence had no place in the same bill. "Our military is being held hostage by this issue,"said Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader. He added that the Senate could move quickly to pass the defence bill once the Arctic refuge issue had been resolved. Senator John Kerry, who has been a fierce critic of disturbing the Alaskan wilderness, said: "We all agree we want money for our troops ... This is not about the troops." Strip tease  There are two things people really want to know about the cartoonist Aaron McGruder. The first is precisely what he said to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, at an awards ceremony three years ago. Rice and McGruder, 32, were both being given an award by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the oldest civil rights organisation in the country. Beforehand, McGruder had told anyone who would listen that Rice was a mass murderer (it was not long after the invasion of Afghanistan) and that he would have no qualms about telling her so to her face. With McGruder's help, rumours about their subsequent exchange became legend. "I was never as cavalier with her as I sounded," he says now. "I had a brief encounter with her and I knew I had to say something. I said something like: 'I don't want you guys to kill me so I'm just going to mind my own business.' I was eminently aware when I met Condi that she could make my whole family disappear. I have never been fearless. I've always had a healthy fear of this government." After the music faded It is an almost invisible tragedy. Only months after the world tuned in to the Live8 campaign to make poverty history, millions of people in Malawi are dying of starvation. ... The story of Malawi unfolds on a long, hot drive south over three days, in three chapters, in three villages. Sad, sadder, saddest. Sick, sicker, sickest. Hopeful, hoping — hopeless? Chapter one is in the village of Chiphadzi, 80 kilometres south of the capital Lilongwe. It's a rural community of single-room mud huts, where food is prepared on charcoal fires under thatched roofs, water is carted from a distant well, tired hand-me-down clothes come in bags from wealthy nations and the toilet is a patch of earth somewhere people are unlikely to tread. This is how 85 per cent of Malawi's 12 million people live, according to the whim of the seasons and crops that sustain them. After the Iraq election: Washington steps in to shape the next government  The Sunni Arab elite called for a high Sunni turnout hoping to introduce significant changes to the constitution to strengthen the central government. Instead, Sunnis face economic marginalisation as well as ongoing repression by the US military and a Shiite-dominated regime in Baghdad. After a brief lull during the election, the scale of insurgent attacks against American and government targets has begun to climb. Whatever the final election outcome, what is certain is that US ambassador Khalilzad, who has played a key role in assembling the US puppet state in Afghanistan, has been tasked by Cheney with fashioning the next government to meet Washington’s requirements. The gulf between the new regime and the sentiments of masses ordinary Iraqis will only fuel the existing opposition and armed resistance to the occupation and broaden its dimensions. Hundreds gather to mourn 'Tookie' Williams  A message recorded by Williams in prison was played for the mourners. "The war within me is over," he said. "I battled my demons and I was triumphant." He asked listeners to spread a message to their loved ones, saying: "Teach them to promote peace and teach them to focus on rebuilding the neighbourhoods that you, others and I helped to destroy." The American nightmare  Is America becoming what it most fears: a big brother state ruled by diktat, where no one is protected from eavesdropping by the secret police, and everything is permitted in defence of the homeland, including torture? Perhaps I'm naive, but I grew up believing that America was somehow different, that alongside the corporate greed, brash materialism and barely functioning social safety net, a unique society prospered. This America was a land of limitless opportunity, a magnet to those escaping oppression, offering prince and pauper alike the possibility to dream big. This America still exists, but it is being eroded by an administration that believes it can rule outside the rule of law. They are fast replacing the American dream with an American nightmare, an Orwellian world where memos defending torture are penned in the department of justice and judges are made redundant in the public interest. God bless us, every one  We also learned that Dubya himself long ago ordered the National Security Agency, a darker cousin of the CIA, to do widespread secret electronic eavesdropping in the United States. That’s less than legal, because Bush refuses even to go to a secret court that exists to issue warrants for this purpose, a court established just for intelligence matters. Dubya doesn’t like having to go to courts, even though one of them installed him in office. What he did, three years ago, was sign a secret executive order allowing government to spy on American citizens. Long ago, Republicans and Democrats agreed this was repellent. But Dubya doesn’t care much about civil liberties or human rights or laws. After all, he has ignored the law and the Geneva Conventions when it comes to his war on terror. And he vows to do it some more. Dubya uses lies, fear-mongering to defend war in Iraq, police state measures at home  This time around, however, Bush found himself compelled to argue against those who “conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day” — a description that applies to many millions of Americans. He was forced to acknowledge that the attempt to quell resistance to the US occupation has been “more difficult than we expected,” and, while touting the turnout in Sunday’s Iraqi parliamentary elections, he admitted that the vote “will not mean the end of violence.” Despite fleeting acknowledgements of massive popular opposition to the war, the essential message was that the administration has no intention of bowing to public opinion and withdrawing US troops. Rather, it plans to continue the slaughter in Iraq indefinitely in pursuit of the geo-strategic aims that motivated the war in the first place. ... Desperate regimes take desperate measures. Facing mass opposition and besieged on all sides by revelations of criminal activities ranging from torture to secret prisons to illegal spying, the Bush administration is responding with a drumbeat of warnings that September 11 could happen again. The question is whether this administration is preparing to either engineer or allow such an attack as a means of suppressing domestic dissent and furthering its policies of militarism abroad and reaction at home. Morgan Spurlock's new film to attack 'biased' science  Morgan Spurlock, the film-maker who spent a month eating nothing but McDonald's meals for the documentary Super Size Me, will tackle scientific spending in his next project. Spurlock has bought the film rights to Chris Mooney's bestseller The Republican War on Science, which examines the US administration's spending on a range of scientific topics from stem cell research to missile defence. The book argues that such funding is dominated by an extreme rightwing agenda that is unwilling to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudo-science. Triumph for Bolivia's candidate of poor  The scale of the victory means that for the first time in modern electoral history a president has been elected in Bolivia with a majority of the popular vote. ... Mr Morales' victory is a blow to the US agenda for the country and the region. Mr Morales is part of a trend across Latin America that has seen left-leaning governments emerge. Although each leader has pursued distinct policies, they all reject US hegemony in the region. What Jordan and GWB have in common: Power and ulterior motives? I'm tired of writing about Dubya, Condi, Rummie and Dick. How many different ways can one say that our country has been turned into one massive yard sale so that GWB's cronies can cart off everything that's not nailed down -- and everything that IS nailed down too -- for cheap while "We The People" are not even allowed to attend the sale of our own stuff. I personally have written over 350 essays on how America is being reemed by the Bush bureaucrats. The internet CRAWLS with facts and statistics backing up my claims -- yet somehow those gangsters in the White House still manage to convince an all-too-large number of gullible Americans that the Bush Mafia family is wonderful, that America is having no trouble and that anything you hear to the contrary is just spiteful lies made up by us worthless bleeding-heart liberals who are merely jealous of their great success. Yeah, right. Making Sense of the Abramoff Scandal The ever-widening scandal surrounding Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff threatens to take down at least a half-dozen Congressmen in 2006, more of their aides, Executive Branch employees, and untold numbers of other members of the Republican Beltway hierarchy. At least four dozen lawmakers from both parties are documented as having taken actions favorable to Abramoff clients around the time they received large donations from Abramoff and/or his clients. ... Houston-area Republican Representative, longtime friend of Abramoff, and former House Majority Whip before a campaign financing indictment forced him to at least temporarily resign his post in 2005. Abramoff helped win DeLay's election as majority whip in 1994, a campaign that cemented the bond between the two. DeLay was admonished by the House of Representatives for three separate ethics violations in 2004; his solution was to appoint a new, pliant stooge to head the House Ethics Committee, Washington state Rep. Doc Hastings, a recipient of donations from DeLay's PACs and from Abramoff. DeLay's PACs are under investigation by U.S. and Texas prosecutors; more than 30 PAC-related indictments have already been issued in Texas. A former DeLay aide, Michael Scanlon, went on to become Abramoff's business partner and has now pled guilty to helping defraud Abramoff's tribal clients and is cooperating in the investigation. Scanlon and former DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham were involved in a 1999 effort by Abramoff to allegedly dangle U.S. tax dollars to influence a election for the speaker of the legislature in the Northern Mariana Islands. A few months later, DeLay was on a House committee that approved $150,000 in Northern Marianas funding. The Foulest Media Performances of the Year  More than a dozen years ago, I joined with Jeff Cohen (founder of the media watch group FAIR) to establish the P.U.-litzer Prizes. Ever since then, the annual awards have given recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year. It is regrettable that only a few journalists can win a P.U.-litzer. In 2005, a large volume of strong competitors made the selection process very difficult. And now, the fourteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, for the foulest media performances of 2005: No President is Above the Law  We have been stunned to hear reports about the Pentagon gathering information and creating databases to spy on ordinary Americans whose only sin is choose to exercise their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble. Those Americans who choose to question the Administration's flawed policy in Iraq are labeled by this Administration as "domestic terrorists." We now know that the F.B.I.'s use of National Security Letters on American citizens has increased one hundred fold, requiring tens of thousands of individuals to turn over personal information and records. These letters are issued without prior judicial review, and provide no real means for an individual to challenge a permanent gag order. ... The President claims a boundless authority through the resolution that authorized the war on those who perpetrated the September 11th attacks. But that resolution does not give the President unchecked power to spy on our own people. That resolution does not give the Administration the power to create covert prisons for secret prisoners. That resolution does not authorize the torture of prisoners to extract information from them. That resolution does not authorize running black-hole secret prisons in foreign countries to get around U.S. law. That resolution does not give the President the powers reserved only for kings and potentates. 9/11: Missing Black Boxes in World Trade Center Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by NTSB, Concealed by FBI But the FBI states, and also reported to the 9-11 Commission, that none of the recording devices from the two planes that hit the World Trade Center were ever recovered. There has always been some skepticism about this assertion, particularly as two N.Y. City firefighters, Mike Bellone and Nicholas De Masi, claimed in 2004 that they had found three of the four boxes, and that Federal agents took them and told the two men not to mention having found them. (The FBI denies the whole story.) Moreover, these devices are almost always located after crashes, even if not in useable condition (and the cleanup of the World Trade Center was meticulous, with even tiny bone fragments and bits of human tissue being discovered so that almost all the victims were ultimately identified). EAVESDROPPING REVELATIONS STUNNING  But then we learn the Counterintelligence Field Activity Office, a semi-secret cloak-and-dagger unit of Dubya's Pentagon, has been spying on domestic anti-war protesters under the gloss of protecting military bases and other installations. The Pentagon's target groups included those hideously cunning Quakers, whose fiendish pacifist tendencies are well-known. Bring any recent presidents to mind? Can you spell R-i-c-h-a-r-d M-i-l-h-o-u-s N-i-x-o-n? ... When the FBI or other federal agencies wanted to secure approval to eavesdrop domestically on suspected spies -- or more recently, suspected terrorists -- they had to go to a FISA court and covertly obtain a formal judicial warrant to do so. The big news last week was that Dubya has essentially replaced those judges without telling the public. According to The New York Times, since 9/11, Bush the Younger has personally and secretly authorized NSA eavesdropping projects within United States borders more than three dozen times. ... I'm not at all sure Bush is in as much trouble as newspaper editorials and TV commentators indicate. One reason is that, despite partisan politics and media scoops, history shows the American public, given a choice between liberty and security, will always choose security. It happened in World War I and World War II and it is happening now. Bush will claim before public and politicians alike that he can demonstrate conclusively our security really is at stake in this brouhaha. DUBYA NEWS archive |
 Supporting the Troops does NOT mean |
Dubya's World Weekly Trivia Quiz  |
| The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) contains provisions that limit warrantless surveillance to communications "exclusively between foreign powers," specifically stating that the president may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order only if there is "no substantial likelihood" that the communications of "a United States person" -- a U.S. citizen or anyone else legally in the United States -- will be intercepted. Such provisions __________ for the Bush administration's authorization of domestic surveillance of communications between persons inside the United States and parties outside the country.
do allow do not allow Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal |
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The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act
Why Tuesday?
ImpeachPAC
