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The Dangerous Cult of the Guardian » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
"For the first time, Western publics – or at least those who can afford a computer – have a way to bypass the gatekeepers of our democracies. Data our leaders once kept tightly under wraps can now be easily searched for, as can the analyses of those not paid to turn a blind eye to the constant and compelling evidence of Western hypocrisy." - Jonathan Cook
26 September 2011
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22 September 2011
Class War Indeed! » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
"The Republicans’ hypocrisy is staggering, as is almost everything that emanates from their quarters these days." - Andrew Levine
19 September 2011
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26 June 2009
09 February 2009
British Schools Secretary says recession is "worst in 100 years"
British Schools Secretary Ed Balls has warned that the world is facing its worst recession in more than a century, surpassing even the Great Depression of the 1930s.
In the gloomiest prediction yet made by a government minister, Balls said the pain of the economic downturn could be still be felt 15 years from now.
"These are seismic events that are going to change the political landscape," Balls told members of the Labour Party at a weekend conference.
"This is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s," he said. "The economy is going to define our politics in this region and in Britain in the next five years, the next 10 years and even the next 15 years."
Extracts of the speech by Balls, who is widely regarded as Brown's closest cabinet ally, were released by his office on Monday night.
Government officials said the remarks were in line with previous statements made "time and time again" by Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling.
"The unprecedented global nature of this crisis and its impact on the global financial sector is affecting every single economy in the world," a spokesman for Ed Balls said.
Britain fell into recession at the end of last year, with the economy shrinking by 1.5 percent in the last three months of 2008, the biggest decline since 1980.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland. Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Blogged with the Flock Browser
03 February 2009
On Commerce, Gregg's Hot and Cold and Yes and No
 clipped from politicalwire.com
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30 January 2009
Don't worry Gov, imitation is the best form of flattery
 clipped from politicalwire.com
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Bush Wants to Retain the Right of Executive Privilege
 clipped from politicalwire.com
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14 December 2008
Senate torture report confirms Bush, top officials guilty of war crimes
 clipped from www.wsws.orgA report issued Thursday by the Senate Armed Services Committee has provided official and bipartisan confirmation that the infamous acts of torture carried out by US personnel at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were planned, ordered and orchestrated by the highest-ranking officials in the US government. Based on the Senate's own conclusions, those named in the document, including President George W. Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, are guilty of war crimes.
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29 November 2008
The Meltdown Continues
 clipped from www.nytimes.com
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No Escape: Thaw Gains Momentum
 clipped from www.nytimes.comScientists have concluded that the momentum behind human-caused warming, combined with the region's tendency to amplify change, has put the familiar Arctic past the point of no return.
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Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death
 clipped from www.nytimes.comJdimytai Damour, 34 was crushed to death when a mob of shoppers would apparently rather kill a man than miss out on a holiday bargain. |
Bush Last Minute Rule Changes Put Workers at Risk of Illness and Death
 clipped from www.nytimes.com
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25 November 2008
Home Prices in Record Decline
 clipped from realestate.yahoo.comThe S&P Case-Shiller Home Price national index recorded a 16.6% decline in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago. That eclipsed the previous record of 15.1% set during the second quarter.
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Cuomo Investigates Bonuses at Banking Companies
 clipped from dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com
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Reverse Socialism
Over $60,000,000,000 in bonuses from taxpayers to rich bankers. True, but they only get that once a year.
 clipped from www.foxbusiness.com
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24 November 2008
Why Bailouts Don't Work
 clipped from www.commondreams.org
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30 September 2006
14 September 2006
Kerry: I'm prepared to kick Swift Boat's ass
This is the kind of talk I was saying needed to be heard from Kerry during the 2004 campaign.
12 September 2006
27 March 2004
Global Warming Is A Tragedy, Not A Myth
The following is an article written by Nathan Mantua and found in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer entitled, "We need to get out of the clouds on issue of warming." This article is presented in its entirety. You can also click here to go directly to the article.
Life in the Northwest is shaped by the rhythms of climate. The evidence is all around us. The wet and mossy evergreen forests that tower west of the Cascade Range and the sage-steppe, orchards and rolling wheat fields of the dry and sunny area east of the mountains illustrate our region's amazing contrast in landscapes, flora and fauna.
Each year we see a hefty winter snowpack build in our mountains and witness the spring melt sending water surging into our largest rivers. The ongoing cycle brings the spring blooms of Skagit Valley tulips, the summer cherries of the Yakima Valley, the fall apple crops of Wenatchee and the fall and winter return of tens of thousands of coho and chum salmon to the streams of Puget Sound.
Just like the natural systems that make the region unique, human-built systems have evolved in ways that work with the climate of this place. We have built an extensive infrastructure to tap into our renewable resources. In particular, hydropower dams and storage reservoirs were designed to take advantage of the mountain snowpack and the resulting abundance of spring and summer runoff. These provide inexpensive and abundant electricity for people and industry and water for irrigators, industry and urban centers.
Those who built the dams, reservoirs and irrigation canals may not have realized it at the time, but they were basing some of their decisions on long-range climate forecasts. Did they consult The Old Farmer's Almanac?
Perhaps, but a more typical story is that those politicians, planners and engineers assumed the climate of the future for which they were building would look like the climate of the past. To their credit, most planners sifted the historical climate record to identify the most challenging conditions their systems might face, whether an extreme winter flood or a prolonged drought.
Plans were (and still are) written so that water and hydropower systems will work if the historic worst-case climate scenario happens again.
Recent climate extremes produced tangible reminders that many facets of Northwest life remain sensitive to the push and pull of climate change. In the winter of 1998-99, the region experienced one of the wettest periods in memory. Mount Baker, near Bellingham, set a record for the greatest annual snowfall ever recorded anywhere, with a remarkable total just shy of 100 feet. The spring and summer of 1999 saw a wide abundance of runoff and hydropower production in the region.
The winds and ocean currents of 1998-99 also brought significant cooling to the coastal ocean environment, with upper ocean temperatures dropping up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit from the exceptionally warm winter of 1997-98. That cooling marked the beginning of a four-year run of much more productive ocean conditions for many stocks of Northwest coho and chinook salmon that had been severely depleted in the mid-'90s.
But just two years later, our climate swung to the other extreme. The winter of 2000-01 brought the region one of the driest "wet" seasons in a century.
Late-season snowpack in the Cascades and the snowmelt runoff in the Columbia Basin were only about 60 percent of the long-term average. Irrigation flows for some farmers were severely restricted, and stream-flow targets aimed at protecting migrating salmon were frequently missed.
To make matters worse, the California energy markets were spinning wildly out of control, ultimately spiking the price of electricity all along the West Coast -- a convergence of climatic and socioeconomic events that will affect electrical ratepayers for years to come.
El Niño and La Niña get a lot of media attention around here, even though those labels apply to changes in winds, ocean temperatures and rainfall patterns in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Yet those two phenomena deserve our attention because they shift tropical rainfall patterns in ways that disturb wind and weather patterns over the northern Pacific and North America.
El Niño typically favors a relatively warm and dry Northwest winter and a yearlong warming of our coastal ocean. Those who ski or fish for salmon ought to be fans of La Niña, because that typically favors a cool and wet Northwest winter and a salmon-friendly, yearlong cooling of our coastal ocean. Natural tropical swings between El Niño and La Niña typically get started in our summer, then develop through the fall and winter months before fading away the next spring. An extensive network of buoys, ships and satellites provides us with an accurate picture of the status of El Niño or La Niña several months before our winter begins.
When we look back at our region's climate in the 20th century, we also find 20- to 30-year eras of climate conditions that strayed from the long-term average.
Mostly cool-and-wet years were the rule from 1946 through 1976, while warm-and-dry periods prevailed from 1925 through 1945 and again from 1977 through 1998. Part of this longer-term climate variability has been associated with a long-lived El Niñolike climate pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
After 1976, that phenomenon brought an increase of a degree or two in the cold half of the year and about a 10 percent decline in average annual precipitation. Because of the warmer and drier conditions, spring snowpack at Paradise ranger station on Mount Rainer was typically 20 percent (about 44 inches) lower than it was during the cool periods of the '50s through early '70s.
Moisture in our forests, which varies with temperature, precipitation and snowpack, is thought to be a key climate link to past changes in forest regeneration and the frequency and intensity of large Northwest forest fires.
Low snowpack in the '80s and '90s allowed subalpine fir trees to invade wildflower meadows on the east side on Mount Rainier. The history of large forest fires in the Northwest also parallels the changes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, with large fire years concentrated in the warm-and-dry periods of the '30s, '80s and '90s, and relatively quiet fire eras in the late '40s through mid-'70s.
Climate effects on ecosystems can be seen in the ocean as well as on land. When the Pacific Decadal Oscillation shifted from cool to warm conditions in the late '70s, ocean temperatures warmed by 1 to 2 degrees, and there were major shifts in coastal ocean food webs. The abundance of cold-water forage fish and plankton dropped, but numbers of warm-water fish such as mackerel, hake and sardines increased. Ocean survival rates for many Northwest chinook and coho salmon populations reached historic lows in the warm-ocean years of the early to late '90s, and the persistently low return rates contributed to large population declines for already depleted stocks.
Century-long trends account for another important part of the long-term changes in 20th-century climate. The warming observed globally during the past century, which averaged about 1 degree, was mirrored by Northwest warming of about 1.5 degrees. Precipitation increased by 10 percent to 30 percent across much of the region. Since the 1950s, the warming climate has eroded our annual snowpack, especially at elevations below 6,000 feet.
Because of human-caused increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels and converting forests to agricultural lands, an overwhelming majority of scientists expect 21st-century climate to be substantially warmer than that of the recent past. Climate models are providing some clues about what will happen because of the accumulation of greenhouse gases. State-of-the-art climate models suggest additional year-round increases in regional temperatures of 2.5 to 4 degrees for the 2020s, and 3 to 6 degrees for the 2040s. Most climate models also project modest increases in winter precipitation (typically around 10 percent).
Some of the consequences of a warmer and wetter Northwest climate are clear.
Rising snow lines, a declining snowpack, stream-flow increases in winter and declines in summer are always observed during an unusually warm Northwest winter and spring. Our present climatic course promises to transform the "unusual" of our experience to the "normal" of our future.
Warming-induced changes in the region's snowpack and stream flow will bring new challenges to our water and power systems, and even more problems to wild salmon that inhabit already degraded streams. Reduced snowpack likely will allow west-side forests to expand to higher altitudes, yet warmer temperatures may increase drought stress in low-elevation forests in ways that increase fire, disease and pest outbreaks.
Whether you farm or garden, work or play in the mountains, forests, streams, lakes, estuaries or ocean, your experience always will be shaped by climate. A climatic warming of a few degrees will change life as we know it in the Northwest; residents and regional planners can take that forecast to the bank.
US Senator Admits Iraq War Vote Was Wrong
The following is an AP article found on Yahoo News and entitled, "W. Va. Sen. on Iraq: 'My Vote Was Wrong' ." This article is presented in its entirety. You can also click here to go directly to the article (the link usually expires after a few days).
U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller regrets his vote to authorize a war against Iraq.
"If I had known then what I know now, I would have voted against it," Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said Friday. "I have admitted that my vote was wrong."
The Democratic-led Senate approved the war resolution 77-23 on Oct. 11, 2002, one day after the U.S. House approved a similar resolution.
"The decision got made before there was a whole bunch of intelligence," said Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I think the intelligence was shaped. And I think the interpretation of the intelligence was shaped.
"We had this feeling we could be welcomed as liberators. Americans don't know history, geography, ethnicity. The administration had no idea of what they were getting into in Iraq. We are not internationalists. We border on being isolationists. We don't know anything about the Middle East."
Rockefeller also said he is disturbed at the failure to involve the United Nations in creating a new government and finding peace in Iraq.
Many of the senator's feelings were strengthened last week during a weeklong trip with four other Democratic senators to Iraq and four other Middle Eastern nations.
In Iraq, the senators visited a team of researchers investigating the presence of weapons of mass destruction.
"They have three million pieces of paper," Rockefeller said. "But it is a sham. There is nothing to point to any weapons of any kind."
Rockefeller said the influence of terrorist groups, such as al-Qaida, is growing in Iraq. He estimated that only about 5 percent of insurgents in Iraq are recent arrivals, with the rest "homegrown."
U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller regrets his vote to authorize a war against Iraq.
"If I had known then what I know now, I would have voted against it," Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said Friday. "I have admitted that my vote was wrong."
The Democratic-led Senate approved the war resolution 77-23 on Oct. 11, 2002, one day after the U.S. House approved a similar resolution.
"The decision got made before there was a whole bunch of intelligence," said Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I think the intelligence was shaped. And I think the interpretation of the intelligence was shaped.
"We had this feeling we could be welcomed as liberators. Americans don't know history, geography, ethnicity. The administration had no idea of what they were getting into in Iraq. We are not internationalists. We border on being isolationists. We don't know anything about the Middle East."
Rockefeller also said he is disturbed at the failure to involve the United Nations in creating a new government and finding peace in Iraq.
Many of the senator's feelings were strengthened last week during a weeklong trip with four other Democratic senators to Iraq and four other Middle Eastern nations.
In Iraq, the senators visited a team of researchers investigating the presence of weapons of mass destruction.
"They have three million pieces of paper," Rockefeller said. "But it is a sham. There is nothing to point to any weapons of any kind."
Rockefeller said the influence of terrorist groups, such as al-Qaida, is growing in Iraq. He estimated that only about 5 percent of insurgents in Iraq are recent arrivals, with the rest "homegrown."
21 March 2004
Bushmen: Karl Rove and the people who are seeking to give us four more years of the shrub (aka President Bush)
The following is an AP article found on Yahoo News and entitled, "Rove, Small Circle Lead Bush Campaign." This article is presented in its entirety. You can also click here to go directly to the article (the link usually expires after a few days).
President Bush entrusts adviser Karl Rove to oversee his bare-knuckle bid for a second term. Yet Rove is but one of a small group of counselors helping to guide the most expensive, and possibly the most corporate-like, presidential campaign in history.
Aides emphasize Bush's hands-on role in the $170 million campaign. For instance, it was his decision to mount an early attack on his presumptive Democratic rival, John Kerry, and to air television commercials naming Kerry. The president also keeps close tabs on fund raising.
Bush and Rove talk daily about the campaign and stay in close touch with those running the Bush-Cheney effort from a nondescript office building across the Potomac River in Arlington, Va. There, Bush seeks political advice from campaign chairman Marc Racicot, a former Montana governor who served as Republican National Committee chairman, and campaign manager Ken Mehlman, Bush's former White House political director.
Mehlman is a Rove protege, and the two came to the White House with Bush from Texas. It was Rove who masterminded Bush's 1996 gubernatorial race in Texas and his 2000 presidential campaign, and Rove's stamp is clearly on the daily operations of both the White House and the campaign.
Among other members of Bush's brain trust are Vice President Dick Cheney; a brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; longtime adviser Karen Hughes; and Ohio Rep. Rob Portman, a longtime Bush family friend.
Hughes left her job as White House counselor in 2002 to spend more time with her family in Austin, Texas, but remains one of Bush's most trusted advisers. She has become more active on the campaign trail in recent weeks, giving speeches and making campaign appearances.
Portman, the only alumnus of the first Bush administration serving in Congress, is actively involved in Bush's strategy in industrial battleground states like his own.
"We've never had such a comprehensive grass-roots operation," Portman said in an interview. "It's all about getting the vote out."
Bush's inner circle includes some of his biggest fund-raisers.
Topping the list is Mercer Reynolds, an Ohio financier who was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team. Reynolds gave up a prized job as ambassador to Switzerland last year to become national finance chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign. He has been involved in every Republican presidential campaign since Ronald Reagan (news - web sites)'s in 1980.
Bush also is close to Bradford Freeman, a Los Angeles banker who is his California finance chairman and a longtime friend.
Still, it is Rove who will likely be toasted if Republicans win in November — and blamed if they don't. Little escapes his attention on either the president's domestic or international agenda.
Rove won plaudits after Bush led his party to victory in the midterm congressional elections in 2002. But his political skills came under question among some restive Republicans as Democratic candidates pounded Bush for three months while the president tried to remain above the fray.
Now, with Bush aggressively striking back at Kerry, Republicans are resting easier — and back on the same page of the Rove playbook.
Rove has boasted to conservative activists of the campaign's rapid response once it learned that Kerry was to give a speech in West Virginia, a battleground state. The Bush team rolled out a broadcast ad within 24 hours, dispatched volunteers to hand out pro-Bush material in the state, and made GOP officials available to local media outlets.
Other key players in Bush's re-election effort are:
Mark Wallace, deputy campaign manager. A former legal adviser in the Department of Homeland Security, he worked on Bush's 2000 campaign and on Jeb Bush's three gubernatorial campaigns.
Terry Nelson, political director. He's a former RNC official, former political director of the National Republican Congressional Committee and former campaign manager for Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa.
Matthew Dowd, chief political strategist. He was Bush's pollster in the 2000 campaign. He worked for two Democrats — Lloyd Bentsen and the late Texas Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock — before joining Bush's team.
Jack Oliver, deputy national finance chairman. He's was deputy chairman of the RNC and was finance director of Bush's 2000 campaign.
Mark McKinnon, Bush's ad maker. The one-time, singer-songwriter and former Democrat is based in Austin, Texas, and did the ads for Bush's 2000 campaign.
Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, and Nicolle Devenish, his counterpart at the campaign.
Other advisers deeply involved in certain aspects of the campaign include Mary Matalin, a former top aide to Cheney, and Cheney family members, Devenish said.
More info on Dubya's inner circle can be found at:
Bush's Inner Circle
American Demand for Wood Destroys Already Decimated Virgin Rainforests
Next time you hear all the glee that erupts in the economic world because of "new housing starts" you will probably cringe when you learn that much of the wood used to provide Americans this piece of the "American dream" comes from "Indonesia’s virgin rainforests and is turning Borneo into a barren wasteland," according to a press release from the Rainforest Action Network.
American companies, like Weyerhaeuser, are directly involved in this destruction. Rainforest Action Network states that 80% of old-growth forests worldwide are already gone forever and less than 5% remain in the United States. The press release notes an October 27, 2003 BusinessWeek editorial titled “Indonesia’s Chainsaw Massacre,” which states that: "the country’s rainforests are disappearing at a rate equivalent to the area of 300 soccer fields every hour to offer Western consumers cheap lumber.”
Rainforest Action Network’s 2003 report, “Importing Destruction,” documents the connections of U.S. companies to the international market for Indonesia tropical plywood.
This is the full press release:
Rainforest Action Network
PRESS RELEASE
US Wood Importers Pillage Virgin Indonesian Rainforests
For Immediate Release: March 19, 2004
RAN Calls For US Moratorium To Help End Indonesian Massacre
Yale Research Confirms Environmental Impact of Crime and Corruption
San Francisco – Rainforest Action Network sent letters to 163 U.S. tropical wood importers and members of the International Wood Products Association calling for an immediate corporate embargo on forest-based products from Indonesia’s ravaged rainforests. The letter follows Science magazine’s publication of new research from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies confirming ‘expansive and accelerating deforestation’ of the country’s ‘protected areas’ and calling for ‘immediate transnational management’ to end the massacre.
In the March 18, 2004 letter, Rainforest Action Network executive director Michael Brune reiterated Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri’s plea for an international moratorium to help stop illegal logging. It affirmed widespread acknowledgement that reduced-impact logging and stump-to-store bar coding schemes have failed, quoting the Indonesian Minister of Forests’ admission that “it has become clear that Indonesia will not overcome illegal logging without stemming the foreign demand for Indonesian logs and forestry products.” Mr. Brune challenges U.S. companies to join Centex Homes, International Paper and Lanoga Corporation and suspend purchasing from the region until legal supplies are verifiable. A copy of the letter is available at www.ran.org/indonesiamoratorium.
The February 13, 2004 issue of Science magazine exposes the environmental destruction caused by decades of corruption and crime. Satellite and field-based analyses conclusively show that since 1985 over 50 percent of protected lowland forests have been destroyed. Despite a declining resource base caused by decimated forests, Indonesian loggers and mills have maintained excessive production capacities. Over the past two decades, the volume of timber exports from Borneo has exceeded all wood exports from tropical Africa and South America combined. Most legal Indonesian concessions have been depleted of their harvestable timber and abandoned by loggers who have illegally expanded their uncontrolled clearcuts into protected areas. Except for the remote Betung Kerihun National Park–also currently being logged–large, intact protected lowlands no longer exist in Kalimantan. The team of international scientists concluded that “stemming the flow of illegal wood from Borneo requires international efforts” and that a failure to institute solutions will lead to “irreversible ecological degradation.”
“Indonesia is ground zero for illegal logging,” said Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforest Action Network. “Corrupt logging companies are pillaging Indonesia’s virgin rainforests and turning Borneo into a barren wasteland. American corporations that are trading in illegal Indonesian timber are as guilty as the criminals who supply them.”
According to an October 27, 2003 BusinessWeek editorial titled “Indonesia’s Chainsaw Massacre,” the country’s rainforests are “disappearing at a rate equivalent to the area of 300 soccer fields every hour” to offer “Western consumers cheap lumber.” Rainforest Action Network’s 2003 report, “Importing Destruction,” documents the connections of U.S. companies to the international market for Indonesia tropical plywood.
Rainforest Action Network works to protect the Earth’s rainforests and support the rights of their inhabitants through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action. Additional information may be found at: www.ran.org.
US Wood Importers Pillage Virgin Indonesian Rainforests
05 March 2004
Blix: Iraq war was illegal
Although I am glad you are speaking out against Bush and Blair's decision to go to war now Mr. Blix, this is information that would have been very useful to the public before the unjustified babrabaric invasion of Iraq.
16 December 2003
On DemocracyNow.org today
Headlines from Democracy Now
- UN Threatens to Pull Out of Afghanistan
- Supreme Court To Rule On Cheney Documents
- Sen. Thurmond Had Baby w/ Black Maid 80 Years Ago
- NYC Unions Blast Halliburton For Working In Iran
- Panel Urges Bush To Set Up Civil Liberties Board
- Comcast Hires Ex-Pentagon PR Head Victoria Clarke
UN Threatens to Pull Out of Afghanistan
The Observer of London is reporting that the United Nations is threatening to pull out of Afghanistan if the U.S. and foreign troops can not provide more security for aid workers. According to the Observer, 15 aid workers have now been killed in Afghanistan.
Baker Heads To France As Presidential Envoy
Presidential envoy James Baker is in Paris today to meet with president Jacques Chirac in an attempt to persuade France to forgive billions of dollars in debt to Iraq. Ahead of the meeting, France announced it would forgive about $3 billion in debt. The former Secretary of State will continue on his five-day trip with stops in Germany and Russia. This marks Baker's first official trip since he joined the Bush administration two weeks ago. Baker remains a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts, which is deeply involved in the fight for the oil and gas of the Caspian Sea. Among the clients of Baker Botts is the Saudi government in the suit filed by family members who lost relatives on 9/11. Baker is also a senior counselor to the powerful investment firm the Carlyle Group.
Supreme Court To Rule On Cheney Energy Task Force
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether the Bush administration must publicly release the names of the members who comprised Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy policy task force. Cheney has refused to disclose what members of the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries helped to rewrite the nation’s energy policy. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club have sued for the list of advisors.
Strom Thurmond Fathered Girl With Black Maid 80 Years Ago
The family of the late South Carolina Republican Senator Strom Thurmond acknowledged on Monday that Thurmond, who died in June at the age of 100, secretly had a child with his 16-year-old black maid almost 80 years ago. The family admitted this after a 78-year-old school teacher in Los Angeles came forward to say that Thurmond, who was a longtime supporter of segregation, was her father. The woman, Mae Washington Williams, said the Senator remained close to her and provided her financial support but they agreed to never disclose their relationship. The Rev. Jessie Jackson compared Thurmond to Thomas Jefferson who is said to have children with one of his slaves named Sally Hemings. Jackson said "By day they are bullies. By night they manipulate race to their advantage." During the 1950s Thurmond ran for president on a pro-segregationist ticket.
NYC Unions Blast Halliburton For Working In Iran
Halliburton is coming under criticism from the office of the New York City Comptroller for doing business in Iran. This according to a report in Crains New York. Acting on behalf of the Police and Fire Department pension funds, city comptroller William Thompson said Halliburton has reneged on an agreement to release a full report detailing the company’s oil-related businesses in Iran. Iran is on the State Department’s list of states that sponsor terrorism. Halliburton originally agreed to file the report after the pension fund threatened to pull its money out of Halliburton. The city made similar requests to General Electric and ConocoPhillips.
Pentagon Awards Halliburton $222 Million More In Iraq
In other Halliburton news, Reuters is reporting that the Pentagon allocated $222 million in new Iraq contracts last week to the company at the same time that a Pentagon audit had found Halliburton may have overbilled the U.S. government by $60 million. To date Halliburton has received $2.25 billion in no-bid contracts in Iraq.
Ex Inmate Tries to Go From Death Row to the State House
In Illinois former death row inmate Aaron Patterson has announced he is running for office in the Illinois State House. Patterson served 17 years on death row before being pardoned in January. He received over $160,000 settlement from the state for his faulty murder conviction.
Powell Has Surgery, Armitage Temporarily in Charge of State
On Monday Secretary of State Colin Powell had surgery for prostate cancer and is expected to be recovering for the next month during which time Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage will be in charge of the State Department.
Gov't Panel Urges Bush To Set Up Civil Liberties Board
A federal commission examining Washington’s so-called war on terror yesterday called on the Bush administration to form an independent board to ensure that new anti-terror efforts do not infringe on the civil liberties of Americas. Former Virginia governor and Republic Party chairman James Gilmore headed the commission. Gilmore said, "We are expressing concern and a simple warning that this must be constantly thought about. We should not fall into the pattern of suggesting that the freedoms of the American people should be traded off for their security."
Italian President Vetoes New Media Ownership Bill
Italy's president refuses to sign pro-Berlusconi media bill In Italy, the country’s president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi has vetoed a new media bill that would have further consolidated the nation’s media into the hands of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister and main media mogul. While the bill goes back to Parliament for further debate, Berlusconi will be forced to sell off one of his three free network channels.
Comcast Hires Ex-Pentagon PR Specialist Victoria Clarke
Cable giant Comcast has hired former Pentagon public relations specialist Victoria Clarke to be a top lobbyist in Washington. Since leaving the Pentagon after the invasion, Clarke has also worked as an on-air analyst for CNN. According to the Washington Post, Clarke’s new job at Comcast will allow her to keep working for CNN and what the paper described as volunteering for the Pentagon.
Sen. Breaux (D-LA) to Resign in 2004
Democratic Senator John Breaux of Louisiana has announced he will not seek re-election next year becoming the fifth Southern Democrat Senator who will be retiring next year.
Click here to watch, listen or read.
In depth reporting from Democracy Now
Who Will Judge Saddam? Former British MP Tony Benn Discusses the Prosecution of Iraq's Former Leader
Click here to watch, listen or read.
British Intelligence Leaker Facing Prison Time For Exposing U.S.-UN Surveillance Scandal
Former British intelligence employee Katharine Gun is facing up to two years in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act when she disclosed a top-secret NSA memo in March outlining a U.S. surveillance operation directed at UN Security Council members ahead of the vote on Iraq.
In the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, the British newspaper The Observer exposed a highly secret and aggressive surveillance operation directed at United Nations Security Council members by the U.S. ahead of the vote on Iraq.
The Observer obtained a top-secret NSA memorandum that outlined a surveillance operation involves intercepting home and office telephone calls and emails of UN delegates focusing “the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises."
The target of the surveillance were the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations, including Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan, who could swing a Security Council vote on Iraq.
In a story that has received almost no media coverage in the U.S., the former British intelligence employee who leaked the memo, Katharine Gun, is now facing up to two years in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act.
We speak with Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy about the case of Katharine Gun. His article “For Telling the Truth” published in the Baltimore Sun is one of the few U.S. accounts of the story.
Click here to watch, listen or read.
Former Jordanian Ambassador Discusses Saddam's Capture, WMDs and the U.S. Occupation of Iraq
We go to Amman to speak with former Jordanian Ambassador to the United Nations Hassan Abunimah. He recently returned from Cairo, Egypt where he met with Arab officials from across the Middle East.
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Wesley Clark Testifies Against Milosevic in War Crimes Trial That Could Serve As Model For Saddam’s Prosecution
Democratic presidential candidate and former NATO commander Wesley Clark testified in the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Clark said authorities should consider a similar court to prosecute former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. We go to The Hague to speak with Serbian columnist Ljiljana Smajlovic.
Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark ended his first day of testimony in the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic yesterday. Clarke is the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and the man who led the 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.
Milosevic is officially charged with genocide and crimes against humanity in a number of indictments spanning from the wars in Croatia and Bosnia to the fighting in Kosovo. He is a candidate for the Socialist Party in Serbia's parliamentary elections on 28 December.
In an unprecedented agreement between the court and the United States, Washington will be allowed to review Clark's testimony before it is made public. The U.S. will have two days to apply for parts of the testimony to be removed from the public record if it considers them harmful to US national interests. An edited recording is due to be made public on Friday.
Clark said before testifying that he expected to give information on more than 100 hours of meetings over four years with Milosevic during the 1990s.
Speaking outside the court afterwards, Clark told reporters that authorities should consider a similar court to prosecute former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein: "It's the rule of law, it's closure. It's a very important precedent for what may be happening later with another dictator from another part of the world,"
Regarding an eventual punishment for Hussein, Clark later told an audience in a speech: "I don't believe that any form of punishment should be off the table . . . including the death penalty."
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15 December 2003
On DemocracyNow.org today
Headlines from Democracy Now
Musharraf Escapes Assassination Attempt
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escaped an assassination attempt Sunday. He was returning home near the capital Islamabad when a bomb went off seconds after his convoy drove over a bridge. No one was hurt in the blast. President Musharraf said he was certain he was the target. No group has said they carried out the attack and a high-level investigation has been launched. It is the second serious attempt on the Pakistani president's life since he ordered a crackdown on Islamic militants nearly two years ago.
Bush Signs Syria Sanctions Bill
President Bush signed a bill late Friday approving economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria over its alleged terrorist links and purported efforts to obtain nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
The Syria Accountability Act was passed in October by large majorities in both chambers of Congress and calls for the administration to choose sanctions from a list of six proposed penalties, including flight restrictions on Syrian planes and the limitation of diplomatic contact between the two countries. The bill gives Bush the option of waiving penalties.
It also calls for Syria and Lebanon to “enter into serious unconditional bilateral negotiations” with Israel in order to secure “a full and permanent peace.” A Syrian minister told Al-Arabiya TV channel the law was passed because Damascus opposed Israeli occupation of Arab land and supported the Palestinian Intifada.
Bush on Halliburton: “We Expect That Money Be Repaid"
President Bush attempted to calm a political firestorm Friday over reports that a Halliburton subsidiary overcharged the U.S. government by 61 million dollars for fuel deliveries to Iraq. Bush told reporters the Pentagon was investigating the overcharge and that "If there's an overcharge, like we think there is, we expect that money be repaid."
Hours earlier, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld downplayed the allegations saying, "there was no overpayment to any company." Rumsfeld said it may simply be a disagreement between Halliburton and the Defense Department -- or between Halliburtion and the subsidiary, over what should be charged.
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In depth reporting from Democracy Now
Iraqi Americans Rejoice Capture of Hussein But Speak Out Against Occupation
U.S. forces say they have captured the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein after members of his extended family tipped off interrogators as to his whereabouts.
Hussein was found hiding in a tomb-like snakehole near a rural farmhouse near Tikrit. He was alone. He looked disheveled. He had grown a long gray beard. He had with $750,000 in cash and at least two AK-47s but U.S. forces say he did not put up a fight.
Hussein was captured at about 8:30 Saturday night Iraq time. But news didn’t break in the United States until Sunday morning. The head of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, Paul Bremer, held an early morning press conference. His first words were “Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him. The tyrant is a prisoner.”
Soon, pictures of the captured Saddam Hussein appeared around the world. A video released by the Pentagon showed an American medical officer checking Saddam’s head for lice and giving him a brief medical exam. The Pentagon later released a photo of Hussein after his beard was shaven off leaving just his trademark moustache.
Time Magazine reports that Saddam agreed to talk to U.S. interrogators.
When officials asked Saddam if Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He replied “No, of course not. The U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us.”
Hussein was also brought to meet with several members of the Iraqi Governing Council, including Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress. The council members questioned him about his past war crimes. They said he remained defiant.
Council member Adel Abdul Mahdi said “When we asked him about the mass graves, he said the people in them were Iranian agents and thieves.”
Chalabi said Hussein “would not apologize to the Iraqi people. He did not deny any of the crimes he was confronted with having done. He tried to justify them.”
During a four-minute address to the nation Bush vowed that Saddam Hussein “will face the justice he denied to millions.”
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Robert Fisk Reports From Near Tikrit After Visiting the Hole Where Hussein Was Found
In his latest article, London Independent’s chief Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk writes:
"So they got Saddam at last. Unkempt, his tired eyes betraying defeat; even the $750,000 in cash found in his hole in the ground demeaned him.
“Saddam in chains; maybe not literally, but he looked in that extraordinary videotape yesterday like a prisoner of ancient Rome, the barbarian at last cornered, the hand caressing the scraggy beard. All those ghosts - of gassed Iranians and Kurds, of Shias gunned into the mass graves of Karbala, of the prisoners dying under excruciating torture in the villas of Saddam's secret police - must surely have witnessed something of this. "Ladies and gentlemen - we got him," crowed Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq. "This is a great day in Iraq's history. For decades, hundreds of thousands of you suffered at the hands of this cruel man. For decades, this cruel man divided you against each other. For decades, he threatened to attack your neighbours. These days are gone for ever ... the tyrant is a prisoner," he said.
“Tony Blair said: "Saddam has gone from power, he won't be coming back. That the Iraqi people now know, and it is they who will decide his fate." It took just 600 American soldiers to capture the man who was for 12 years one of the West's best friends in the Middle East and for 12 more years the West's greatest enemy in the Middle East. In a miserable 8ft hole in the mud of a Tigris farm near the village of Ad-Dawr, the president of the Iraqi Arab Republic, leader of the Arab Socialist Baath party, ex-guerrilla fighter, invader of two nations, friend of Jacques Chirac and a man once courted by President Ronald Reagan, was found hiding, almost certainly betrayed by his own comrades and now destined - if the Americans mean what they say - to a trial for war crimes on a Nuremberg scale.”
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Dilip Hiro Predicts Resistance Against U.S. Occupation Will Now Increase
The capture of Saddam comes nearly 20 years to the date after now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met for the first time with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
Rumsfeld traveled to Iraq as Ronald Reagan's special presidential envoy. The date was December 20, 1983.
The impact of Saddam’s capture of the resistance movement in Iraq remains to be seen.
At a noon-time address to the nation, President Bush admitted “The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq.”
On the website Counterpunch, British journalist Patrick Cockburn recounts what the Foreign Minister of the interim Iraqi government recently told him. "Saddam is very isolated. That is the only way he can avoid being captured. He is not able to organize the resistance. He dare not communicate with other people because he is frightened they will betray him."
Toby Dodge, an analyst at The International Institute for Strategic Studies at Warwick University, estimates there are between 15 and 30 resistance groups in Iraq that have no direct contact with Saddam Hussein.
On Sunday morning – 12 hours after Hussein was captured – a car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi police station in the town of Khaldiya. At least 17 people died. 33 more were wounded. Today eight Iraqi policemen were killed in an attack north of Baghdad.
On the campaign front, Senator Joseph Lieberman used the capture to go after the Democratic frontrunner, Howard Dean. Lieberman said on Meet the Press “If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would be in power today, not in prison.”
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Should the Former Iraqi Dictator Be Tried Before An Iraqi or an International Court?
The New York Times is reporting that U.S. and Iraqi officials want Hussein to be tried before a new Iraqi tribunal that was formed last week to try crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Unlike most international tribunes, the Iraqi model allows for the judges to hand down a death sentence.
The Times reports the Bush administration does not want any direct United Nations roles in the trial process.
One Iraqi Governing Council member said Hussein could be tried "in the next few weeks.”
But several human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, warned against rushing ahead with an Iraqi tribunal and called for an international trial.
The government of Iran today called for Hussein to be tried in an international court for crimes committed during the Iran-Iraq war that lasted from 1980 to 1988. An estimated 300,000 Iranians died during the war.
The head of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth said “Iraq has no experience with trials lasting more than a few days. International expertise in prosecuting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity case must be utilized to ensure a fair and effective trial.”
Former British Labor Minister Tony Benn predicted that the U.S. would attempt to tightly control any judicial proceeding in order to prevent Saddam from discussing his close ties to Washington.
Benn told Reuters "Saddam might call on Donald Rumsfeld and say I met him in 1983 and he sold me chemical weapons to use against the Kurds.” Benn continued “of course the Americans don't want that. I think they may be very embarrassed."
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14 December 2003
We are the ones who "got him," but lets not forget that we are also the ones who helped make him
The people in past and present U.S. administrations who were responsible for aiding and abetting Saddam Hussein's reign of terror over the Iraqi people need to also be brought to justice.
13 December 2003
Guerilla war Spreading outside Sunni Triangle in Iraq
Despite Bush administration claims that things are improving in Iraq; the reality proves otherwise.
Guerrilla war in Iraq spreading
12 December 2003
On Free Speech Radio News today
Headlines from Democracy Now:
Free Speech Radio News Headlines by Randi Zimmerman
Hirosima Survivors Petition Smithsonian
Today the Japan Confederation of A and H Bomb Sufferers Organization handed in petitions to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum over a new display they say covers the real consequences of the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima. Keiko Ogura is the Director of Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace. She was eight years old and living in Hiroshima when Enola Gay dropped the bomb.
The director of the air and space museum has refused to meet with the group. The U.S. government just approved funding for the next generation nuclear weapons.
KBR Overcharges US Taxpayer in Iraq
A Pentagon audit finds the Halliburton subsidiary working for the U.S. military in Iraq is over-billing taxpayers for their work. From KPFT in Houston, Renee Feltz reports.
CA Strike Over Licenses
Latinos and Latinas in California are being urged to strike, boycott shops, and keep their children out of school today protesting a repeal of the short-lived law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Kellia Ramares has more.
Bio-tracking at the Border
A top U.S. official confirms that the government is working on developing a new technology that will keep track of foreign nationals while in the United States. Shannon Young reports from Miami Beach.
Protests in Haiti
Today the United States embassy in Haiti’s capital was reportedly closed a portion of the day until officials there could confirm calm in the city. Police fired tear gas and warning shots yesterday out side the Presidential Palace in Port au Prince at thousands of students calling for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step down.
Other Haitian nationals charge the protestors are funded by the U.S. government and represent the elite class who protest Aristides’ more populist policies. President Aristide has formally condemned the violence on both sides.
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In depth reporting from Free Speech Radio News:
Military Contracts to Universities?
Human Rights Watch said today that scores of Iraqi civilians were killed or injured needlessly, because Britain failed in its duty as an occupying power in its use of cluster bombs and by not securing Iraqi munitions dumps. This as the Bush administration has delayed the bidding process for the 18.6 billion dollars in reconstruction money for Iraq. It is unclear however, whether the delay is due to the international outrage that only corporations from countries that supported the invasion were eligible for primary
contracts. Yet even with the US there is outrage over the contracts, with residents of New Mexico wondering why the University of New Mexico, a self-described research university, is receiving money from military contracts. KUNM's Leslie Clark reports.
Peace Accords Update
A week after his meeting with the authors of the Geneva accord, US Secretary of State Colin Powell met yesterday with Palestinian intellectual Sarri Nusseibah, the co-author of the popular Campaign for Peace and Democracy, a peace petition that calls for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and asks the Palestinians to give up the refugees right to return. Yesterday also marked the 55th anniversary of the passing of UN resolution 194 which affirmed the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes inside Israel. Mohammed Ghalayini has more from Gaza.
Peace at Last in South Asia?
It appears that grand overtures towards peace are being made in South Asia as this week the Pakistani Prime Minister assured Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee of a grand welcome when he lands in Islamabad on January 4 to attend a meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The friendly overtures between the nation’s leaders has also trickled down to the business elite, according to a Pakistani media report, entrepreneurs are buying land around an entry point between India and Pakistan which is expected to become part of a trading zone. This is seen as a clear sign that the normalization process between the two traditional enemies is leading towards durable peace in the region. Masror Hussain reports from Islamabad.
World Bank Development Lottery in DC
Hundreds of people from 27 countries arrived last week at World Bank headquarters, located in Washington, DC, to compete for funding of their development projects at the World Bank's Development Marketplace. Only 47 projects were picked to share more than 6 million dollars in grant money. EllieWalton reports from Washington DC.
Mumia on Nathanial Jones
22 years ago this week Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested for the fatal shooting of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Mumia remains on death row in Pennsylvania despite the fact that another man, Arnold Beverly, has confessed to the killing of officer Faulkner and has passed two lie detector tests regarding his testimony. The courts refuse to hear his testimony and will not arrest him. This weekend there will be mobilizations around the country calling for justice for Mumia Abu Jamal, and from his death row cell, Mumia calls for justice for Nathanial Jones who was beaten to death by police in Cincinnati.
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