Here are some interesting notes:
For no good reason, direct public access to products of the Congressional Research Service is not authorized by Congress. So unauthorized sources must be sought. Following are some recent CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News.
"Military Retirement: Major Legislative Issues," updated May 25,2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IB85159.pdf"
U.S. Space Programs: Civilian, Military, and Commercial,"updated May 24, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/space/IB92011.pdf"
U.S.-China Counter-Terrorism Cooperation: Issues for U.S.Policy," updated May 12, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS21995.pdf"Border Security: The Role of the U.S. Border Patrol," updatedMay 10, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL32562.pdf"
Border Security: Key Agencies and Their Missions," updated May9, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RS21899.pdf"
Military Medical Care Services: Questions and Answers," updatedMay 5, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IB93103.pdf"
Sudan: Humanitarian Crisis, Peace Talks, Terrorism, and U.S.Policy," updated April 28, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IB98043.pdf"
Nigeria in Political Transition," updated April 28, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IB98046.pdf"
Tactical Aircraft Modernization: Issues for Congress," updatedApril 21, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/IB92115.pdf"
United Nations System Funding: Congressional Issues," updatedApril 20, 2005: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IB86116.pdf
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by theFederation of American Scientists.
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send email to secrecy_news-request@lists.fas.org
with "subscribe" in the body of the message.
***************
It's good to know where to get your own copies.
Wrap...
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Bomb!!! What bomb? Where?
Seems that senior military officers are just as blockheaded as their bosses. This from
www.independentclearinghouse.info/article9070.htm :
Critics: Pentagon in blinders
Long before 9/11, the military was warned about low-tech warfare, but it didn't listen
By Stephen J. Hedges
Washington Bureau
06/06/05 "Chicago Tribune" - -
WASHINGTON --
Nearly 16 years ago, a group of four military officers and a civilian predicted the rise of terrorism and anti-American insurgencies with chilling accuracy.The group said U.S. military technology was so advanced that foreign forces would be unlikely to challenge it directly, and it forecast that future foes would be non-state insurgents and terrorists whose weapons would be suicide car bombs, not precision-guided weapons.
"Today, the United States is spending $500 million apiece for stealth bombers," the group wrote in a 1989 article that appeared in a professional military journal.
"A terrorist stealth bomber is a car with a bomb in the trunk--a car that looks like every other car."
The five men dubbed their theory "Fourth Generation Warfare" and warned that the U.S. military had to adapt. In the years since, the original group of officers, joined by a growing number of officers and scholars within the military, has pressed Pentagon leaders to acknowledge this emerging threat.But rather than adopting a new strategy, the generals and civilian leaders in the Defense Department have continued to support conventional, high-intensity conflict and the expensive weapons that go with it. That is happening, critics say, despite lethal insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.....
Click link above to read the rest of this very interesting article.
Wrap.
www.independentclearinghouse.info/article9070.htm :
Critics: Pentagon in blinders
Long before 9/11, the military was warned about low-tech warfare, but it didn't listen
By Stephen J. Hedges
Washington Bureau
06/06/05 "Chicago Tribune" - -
WASHINGTON --
Nearly 16 years ago, a group of four military officers and a civilian predicted the rise of terrorism and anti-American insurgencies with chilling accuracy.The group said U.S. military technology was so advanced that foreign forces would be unlikely to challenge it directly, and it forecast that future foes would be non-state insurgents and terrorists whose weapons would be suicide car bombs, not precision-guided weapons.
"Today, the United States is spending $500 million apiece for stealth bombers," the group wrote in a 1989 article that appeared in a professional military journal.
"A terrorist stealth bomber is a car with a bomb in the trunk--a car that looks like every other car."
The five men dubbed their theory "Fourth Generation Warfare" and warned that the U.S. military had to adapt. In the years since, the original group of officers, joined by a growing number of officers and scholars within the military, has pressed Pentagon leaders to acknowledge this emerging threat.But rather than adopting a new strategy, the generals and civilian leaders in the Defense Department have continued to support conventional, high-intensity conflict and the expensive weapons that go with it. That is happening, critics say, despite lethal insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.....
Click link above to read the rest of this very interesting article.
Wrap.
Rock 'n Roll Marathon in San Diego...
This, from www.voiceofsandiego.org :
Marathon Memories, Some Just a Couple of Days Old
By KEITH TAYLORContributing Voice
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
I was disappointed that I wasn't able to watch last Sunday's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, maybe take some grandkids. I submit that a road race is the best place for kids to see adults at their best.
Even casual runners are true athletes, but athletes without the cutthroat tactics usually associated with other sports.
In Sunday's race, Kurt Woelfel, 26, was en route to running one mile for each year of his life. But at 25 miles he felt 75. He became dizzy and disoriented.
Kurt wiggled and wobbled and fell over in a heap. He was pretty much out of it for 10 minutes. Let me share this with you from experience, at mile 25 nobody wants to stop. You can smell the finish line and every second counts, even for the slow pokes who take thousands upon thousands of seconds to finish a race. Still, a good dozen other runners gathered around, ministered to the young man, gave him water and salt pills, and helped him to his feet.
Every Samaritan was passed by about a hundred or so runners. Several surely ruined their chances for a personal best time, but a fellow runner was in distress and they did what runners do. They stuck with him until he regained his composure and they all, including Kurt, made it through the last mile.
Bertha and I got involved in this curious pastime about the time we were nearing fifty. We had just quit smoking and needed some motivation to stay off tobacco. Cindy, our daughter, then training for the Heart of San Diego Marathon, convinced us that running would do the trick.
And did it ever! We replaced one compulsion with another. We got to know our neighbors and their dogs. We ended up running in races in every neighborhood of the city and in most cities in the county. Among my proudest possessions are mementos from the five marathons I've completed. I didn't win any, but I started and finished the same day in every one. She, with half a lung missing from a TB operation years earlier, ran dozens of 5-Ks and 10-Ks.
We even let running take the place of spectator sports, even the biggest. One Super Bowl Sunday we decided to go for a run during the game because we'd have the streets all to ourselves. All alone we galloped around the neighborhood, she in one direction, and I in another. Once I was on the way out when she was coming back. I decided to interrupt her reverie (I'm sure she thinks evil thoughts while running).
When we got close I shouted, "Hey little girl, look at this." Then I flashed her.Things like that are funny when you're old and still in love.
And despite that anguished look on runners' faces, running can be funny even when it isn't fun, like when you're dying. Once I started the America's Finest City Half-Marathon just as I was coming down with a horrible case of the flu. Like Kurt, I gutted it out when the wisest course would have been to wait another day.
I ran a lot and walked some. Then I ran some and walked a lot. Then I walked, and walked, and walked, and ran a few steps. The end of that race is a killer -- one mile up Sixth Avenue into Balboa Park. I struggled to the top and across the finish line looking like a ghost, dehydrated.
The medics asked how I felt. I replied, "Horny!"
I thought that was funny. The medics laughed but I suspect they figured I was delirious. They laid me on a gurney and covered me with ice from my nipples to my kneecaps. It was to take care of the dehydration, or my delirium.
Still trying to be funny, I shivered and said, "That takes care of horny." Meanwhile, the mayor who had been there greeting finishers had gone home. I missed what surely was my only chance to shake his hand. I didn't blame him for leaving though. I had come in far behind the pack and Roger Hedgecock had other things to do. That was, of course, before he got mad at me.
As for last Sunday's race. I congratulate Christopher Cheboibich the winner. I also congratulate Christina Riley the last official finisher. Christopher had it easy. He was only out there for a little under two hours and ten minutes. Christina was out there for nearly eight and a half hours. There's a real athlete for you.
Keith Taylor is a retired Navy officer living in Chula Vista, Calif. He can be reached at KRTaylorxyz@aol.com.
Get the latest news and opinions delivered to your Inbox every day. Sign up for our free e-mail newsletter.
***********************
Keith also writes for the Navy Times and other media. And he does have a time with former San Diego Mayor, Roger Hedgecock. Roger has filled in for Rush Limbaugh, and Keith is a solid Dem (plus irreverant), so they have much to yell about any time their paths cross.
Wrap...
Marathon Memories, Some Just a Couple of Days Old
By KEITH TAYLORContributing Voice
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
I was disappointed that I wasn't able to watch last Sunday's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, maybe take some grandkids. I submit that a road race is the best place for kids to see adults at their best.
Even casual runners are true athletes, but athletes without the cutthroat tactics usually associated with other sports.
In Sunday's race, Kurt Woelfel, 26, was en route to running one mile for each year of his life. But at 25 miles he felt 75. He became dizzy and disoriented.
Kurt wiggled and wobbled and fell over in a heap. He was pretty much out of it for 10 minutes. Let me share this with you from experience, at mile 25 nobody wants to stop. You can smell the finish line and every second counts, even for the slow pokes who take thousands upon thousands of seconds to finish a race. Still, a good dozen other runners gathered around, ministered to the young man, gave him water and salt pills, and helped him to his feet.
Every Samaritan was passed by about a hundred or so runners. Several surely ruined their chances for a personal best time, but a fellow runner was in distress and they did what runners do. They stuck with him until he regained his composure and they all, including Kurt, made it through the last mile.
Bertha and I got involved in this curious pastime about the time we were nearing fifty. We had just quit smoking and needed some motivation to stay off tobacco. Cindy, our daughter, then training for the Heart of San Diego Marathon, convinced us that running would do the trick.
And did it ever! We replaced one compulsion with another. We got to know our neighbors and their dogs. We ended up running in races in every neighborhood of the city and in most cities in the county. Among my proudest possessions are mementos from the five marathons I've completed. I didn't win any, but I started and finished the same day in every one. She, with half a lung missing from a TB operation years earlier, ran dozens of 5-Ks and 10-Ks.
We even let running take the place of spectator sports, even the biggest. One Super Bowl Sunday we decided to go for a run during the game because we'd have the streets all to ourselves. All alone we galloped around the neighborhood, she in one direction, and I in another. Once I was on the way out when she was coming back. I decided to interrupt her reverie (I'm sure she thinks evil thoughts while running).
When we got close I shouted, "Hey little girl, look at this." Then I flashed her.Things like that are funny when you're old and still in love.
And despite that anguished look on runners' faces, running can be funny even when it isn't fun, like when you're dying. Once I started the America's Finest City Half-Marathon just as I was coming down with a horrible case of the flu. Like Kurt, I gutted it out when the wisest course would have been to wait another day.
I ran a lot and walked some. Then I ran some and walked a lot. Then I walked, and walked, and walked, and ran a few steps. The end of that race is a killer -- one mile up Sixth Avenue into Balboa Park. I struggled to the top and across the finish line looking like a ghost, dehydrated.
The medics asked how I felt. I replied, "Horny!"
I thought that was funny. The medics laughed but I suspect they figured I was delirious. They laid me on a gurney and covered me with ice from my nipples to my kneecaps. It was to take care of the dehydration, or my delirium.
Still trying to be funny, I shivered and said, "That takes care of horny." Meanwhile, the mayor who had been there greeting finishers had gone home. I missed what surely was my only chance to shake his hand. I didn't blame him for leaving though. I had come in far behind the pack and Roger Hedgecock had other things to do. That was, of course, before he got mad at me.
As for last Sunday's race. I congratulate Christopher Cheboibich the winner. I also congratulate Christina Riley the last official finisher. Christopher had it easy. He was only out there for a little under two hours and ten minutes. Christina was out there for nearly eight and a half hours. There's a real athlete for you.
Keith Taylor is a retired Navy officer living in Chula Vista, Calif. He can be reached at KRTaylorxyz@aol.com.
Get the latest news and opinions delivered to your Inbox every day. Sign up for our free e-mail newsletter.
***********************
Keith also writes for the Navy Times and other media. And he does have a time with former San Diego Mayor, Roger Hedgecock. Roger has filled in for Rush Limbaugh, and Keith is a solid Dem (plus irreverant), so they have much to yell about any time their paths cross.
Wrap...
He's gotta be got rid of...
Think most folks know this, but just in case...
From the London Times:
With Bush's approval, "US aircraft doubled the rate at which they weredropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war," the paper reports, citing informationfrom the British Defense Ministry.
This was while Bush was publicly telling Americans, "We are doing everythingwe can to avoid war in Iraq."
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050613&s=scahill
**************************
Which flatout lie Bush repeated in the interview with himself and Blair. I think he's demented. All he knows is what he tells himself...and he repeats it endlessly.
Wrap.
From the London Times:
With Bush's approval, "US aircraft doubled the rate at which they weredropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war," the paper reports, citing informationfrom the British Defense Ministry.
This was while Bush was publicly telling Americans, "We are doing everythingwe can to avoid war in Iraq."
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050613&s=scahill
**************************
Which flatout lie Bush repeated in the interview with himself and Blair. I think he's demented. All he knows is what he tells himself...and he repeats it endlessly.
Wrap.
Impeach! Bush a danger to nation & world..
USA Today has a piece that lists the coverage of the Downing Street Minutes (Memo) in the US's major newspapers and TV stations...and admits that today is the first time USA Today has mentioned it. Fine state of affairs. They'd best get their behinds in gear.
And now there's this from http://guardian.co.uk :
Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush
White House sought advice from Exxon on Kyoto stance
John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday June 08 2005
The Guardian
President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian.
The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the administration and its role in helping to formulate US policy. In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable. Other papers suggest that Ms Dobriansky should sound out Exxon executives and other anti-Kyoto business groups on potential alternatives to Kyoto.
Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in the US government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by Greenpeace under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is not the case.
"Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you & #91; the Global Climate Coalition & #93;," says one briefing note before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US industry group, which was dominated by Exxon. The papers further state that the White House considered Exxon "among the companies most actively and prominently opposed to binding approaches & #91; like Kyoto & #93; to cut greenhouse gas emissions".
But in evidence to the UK House of Lords science and technology committee in 2003, Exxon's head of public affairs, Nick Thomas, said: "I think we can say categorically we have not campaigned with the United States government or any other government to take any sort of position over Kyoto."
Exxon, officially the US's most valuable company valued at $379bn (& #163; 206bn) earlier this year, is seen in the papers to share the White House's unwavering scepticism of international efforts to address climate change. The documents, which reflect unanimity between the company and the US administration on the need for more global warming science and the unacceptable costs of Kyoto, state that Exxon believes that joining Kyoto "would be unjustifiably drastic and premature".
This line has been taken consistently by President Bush, and was expected to be continued in yesterday's talks with Tony Blair who has said that climate change is "the most pressing issue facing mankind".
"President Bush tells Mr Blair he's concerned about climate change, but these documents reveal the alarming truth, that policy in this White House is being written by the world's most powerful oil company.
This administration's climate policy is a menace to humanity," said Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace's executive director in London last night. "The prime minister needs to tell Mr Bush he's calling in some favours. Only by securing mandatory cuts in US emissions can Blair live up to his rhetoric," said Mr Tindale.
In other meetings documented in the papers, Ms Dobriansky meets Don Pearlman, an international anti-Kyoto lobbyist who has been a paid adviser to the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments, both of which have followed the US line against Kyoto. The purpose of the meeting with Mr Pearlman, who also represents the secretive anti-Kyoto Climate Council, which the administration says "works against most US government efforts to address climate change", is said to be to "solicit & #91; his & #93; views as part of our dialogue with friends and allies".
ExxonMobil, which was yesterday contacted by the Guardian in the US but did not return calls, is spending millions of pounds on an advertising campaign aimed at influencing politicians, opinion formers and business leaders in the UK and other pro-Kyoto countries in the weeks before the G8 meeting at Gleneagles.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
Wrap...
And now there's this from http://guardian.co.uk :
Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush
White House sought advice from Exxon on Kyoto stance
John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday June 08 2005
The Guardian
President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian.
The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the administration and its role in helping to formulate US policy. In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable. Other papers suggest that Ms Dobriansky should sound out Exxon executives and other anti-Kyoto business groups on potential alternatives to Kyoto.
Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in the US government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by Greenpeace under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is not the case.
"Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you & #91; the Global Climate Coalition & #93;," says one briefing note before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US industry group, which was dominated by Exxon. The papers further state that the White House considered Exxon "among the companies most actively and prominently opposed to binding approaches & #91; like Kyoto & #93; to cut greenhouse gas emissions".
But in evidence to the UK House of Lords science and technology committee in 2003, Exxon's head of public affairs, Nick Thomas, said: "I think we can say categorically we have not campaigned with the United States government or any other government to take any sort of position over Kyoto."
Exxon, officially the US's most valuable company valued at $379bn (& #163; 206bn) earlier this year, is seen in the papers to share the White House's unwavering scepticism of international efforts to address climate change. The documents, which reflect unanimity between the company and the US administration on the need for more global warming science and the unacceptable costs of Kyoto, state that Exxon believes that joining Kyoto "would be unjustifiably drastic and premature".
This line has been taken consistently by President Bush, and was expected to be continued in yesterday's talks with Tony Blair who has said that climate change is "the most pressing issue facing mankind".
"President Bush tells Mr Blair he's concerned about climate change, but these documents reveal the alarming truth, that policy in this White House is being written by the world's most powerful oil company.
This administration's climate policy is a menace to humanity," said Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace's executive director in London last night. "The prime minister needs to tell Mr Bush he's calling in some favours. Only by securing mandatory cuts in US emissions can Blair live up to his rhetoric," said Mr Tindale.
In other meetings documented in the papers, Ms Dobriansky meets Don Pearlman, an international anti-Kyoto lobbyist who has been a paid adviser to the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments, both of which have followed the US line against Kyoto. The purpose of the meeting with Mr Pearlman, who also represents the secretive anti-Kyoto Climate Council, which the administration says "works against most US government efforts to address climate change", is said to be to "solicit & #91; his & #93; views as part of our dialogue with friends and allies".
ExxonMobil, which was yesterday contacted by the Guardian in the US but did not return calls, is spending millions of pounds on an advertising campaign aimed at influencing politicians, opinion formers and business leaders in the UK and other pro-Kyoto countries in the weeks before the G8 meeting at Gleneagles.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
Wrap...
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
The America Coalition!!!
06/08/05: As Bush Fails, The America! Coalition Demands A Realignment of Priorities
June 7, 2005 (Washington, DC) --
The America! Coalition (TAC) has called on the Bush Administration to radically rethink its failing second-term agenda amidst growing public sentiment, reflected in recent polls, showing that the President's priorities are out of touch with the concerns of most Americans.
"This latest poll from ABC and The Washington Post confirms a continuing trend. Second terms are fleeting, and America cannot afford these four years to go wasted due to this Administration's severe miscalculations," said Oliver Willis, TAC co-director.
"This Administration's second-term agenda has gone down in flames before it even got off the ground," said TAC co-director Shant Mesrobian. "It's an agenda aimed at phasing out and dismantling American traditions that have made our country what it is today. Rather than trying to sell the public a radical, backward-looking bill of goods, its time the President gets serious about strengthening those American traditions."
According to a June 8 Washington Post report, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a "clear majority of Americans say President Bush is ignoring the public's concerns and instead has become distracted by issues that most people say they care little about."
Link America's Promise
Wrap.
June 7, 2005 (Washington, DC) --
The America! Coalition (TAC) has called on the Bush Administration to radically rethink its failing second-term agenda amidst growing public sentiment, reflected in recent polls, showing that the President's priorities are out of touch with the concerns of most Americans.
"This latest poll from ABC and The Washington Post confirms a continuing trend. Second terms are fleeting, and America cannot afford these four years to go wasted due to this Administration's severe miscalculations," said Oliver Willis, TAC co-director.
"This Administration's second-term agenda has gone down in flames before it even got off the ground," said TAC co-director Shant Mesrobian. "It's an agenda aimed at phasing out and dismantling American traditions that have made our country what it is today. Rather than trying to sell the public a radical, backward-looking bill of goods, its time the President gets serious about strengthening those American traditions."
According to a June 8 Washington Post report, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a "clear majority of Americans say President Bush is ignoring the public's concerns and instead has become distracted by issues that most people say they care little about."
Link America's Promise
Wrap.
DSM..Washington Post online, front page!!!
The Downing Street Memo Story Won't Die
By Jefferson Morleywashingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 7, 2005; 9:18 AM
More than a month after its publication, the so-called Downing Street Memo remains among the top 10 most viewed articles on The Times of London site.It's not hard to see why this remarkable document, published in The Times on May 1 (and reported in this column on May 3), continues to attract reader interest around the world, especially with British Prime Minister Tony Blair visiting Washington Tuesday.
Tuesday, June 7, 1 p.m. ET
World Opinion Roundup: Blair and The Downing Street Memo
Washingtonpost.com staff writer Jefferson Morley discusses how international pundits view foreign news.
The July 2002 memo, labeled "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY," reports the views of "C," code name for Richard Dearlove, the chief of British intelligence. Dearlove had just retuned from a visit with Bush administration officials eight months before the war in Iraq began."Military action was now seen as inevitable," Dearlove told Blair and his senior defense policy advisers. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
A separate secret briefing paper for the meeting said Britain and the United States had to "create" conditions to justify a war.The story attracted some news coverage in the United States, but not much.
Last month, the Chicago Tribune concluded that "the Downing Street memo story has proven to be something of a dud in the United States."The White House has denied the premise of the memo, the American media have reacted slowly to it and the public generally seems indifferent to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter prewar debate over the reasons for the war," wrote reporters Stephen J. Hedges and Mark Silva.
Still the story won't go away, thanks to the attention it gets on the Internet."
I think it's a . . . profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home," Sen. John Kerry told a Massachusetts audience last week. "And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."Kerry promised to raise the issue when he returned to Washington this week.
On Sunday, "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert asked Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman about the memo. Mehlman said "that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then."When Russert noted that the authenticity of the report has not been discredited, Mehlman said "I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it."Mehlman referred specifically to the Senate Intelligence Committee's July 2004 report on pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which concluded that the Bush administration's findings were "overstated" and "not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting." The report attributed the mistakes to "group think" in the intelligence community, not to pressure from the administration officials.
The Post's Walter Pincus reported on the memo in a May 13 story, noting that Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) had written a letter to President Bush, signed by 88 congressional Democrats, demanding an explanation.
A week later, The Times of London reported on the Conyers letter and quoted the Michigan congressman as saying, "I deplore the fact that our media have been so reticent on the question of whether there was a secret planning of a war for which neither the Congress nor the American people had given permission."
"We have The Sunday Times to thank for this very important activity. It reminds me of Watergate, which started off as a tiny little incident reported in The Washington Post. I think that the interest of many citizens is picking up," Conyers said.
So is journalistic interest. Over the weekend, Charles Hanley, a special correspondent for the Associated Press, linked The Times's Downing Street memo to U.N. Ambassador nominee John Bolton's effort to get a U.N. weapons inspector fired.
"Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved, " Hanley said in a story published this weekend by The Guardian in London and carried by Canadian TV.
The dismissal, Hanley says, was part of the Bush administration effort to control intelligence findings on Iraq.Jose Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), "had to go" according to one of Bolton's aides, because he was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. The course of action favored by Bustani might "have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war," Hanley wrote.
Bustani was relieved of his position in April 2002 at an OPCW meeting attended by only one third of the group's member nations, according to the AP report."The Iraq connection to the OPCW affair comes as fresh evidence surfaces that the Bush administration was intent from early on to pursue military and not diplomatic action against Saddam Hussein's regime," Hanley wrote. He cited the Times's original Downing Street memo story, which reported that Blair told Bush that Britain would support a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq at a meeting in Crawford, Tex., in mid-April 2002."Two weeks later, Bustani was ousted, with British help," Hanley wrote.
Far from being a dud, the Downing Street Memo may generate more stories to come.
Sehrish Shaban and Mary Specht provided research for this column.
*****************
Thank heavens for the internet!!!
Wrap...
By Jefferson Morleywashingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 7, 2005; 9:18 AM
More than a month after its publication, the so-called Downing Street Memo remains among the top 10 most viewed articles on The Times of London site.It's not hard to see why this remarkable document, published in The Times on May 1 (and reported in this column on May 3), continues to attract reader interest around the world, especially with British Prime Minister Tony Blair visiting Washington Tuesday.
Tuesday, June 7, 1 p.m. ET
World Opinion Roundup: Blair and The Downing Street Memo
Washingtonpost.com staff writer Jefferson Morley discusses how international pundits view foreign news.
The July 2002 memo, labeled "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY," reports the views of "C," code name for Richard Dearlove, the chief of British intelligence. Dearlove had just retuned from a visit with Bush administration officials eight months before the war in Iraq began."Military action was now seen as inevitable," Dearlove told Blair and his senior defense policy advisers. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
A separate secret briefing paper for the meeting said Britain and the United States had to "create" conditions to justify a war.The story attracted some news coverage in the United States, but not much.
Last month, the Chicago Tribune concluded that "the Downing Street memo story has proven to be something of a dud in the United States."The White House has denied the premise of the memo, the American media have reacted slowly to it and the public generally seems indifferent to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter prewar debate over the reasons for the war," wrote reporters Stephen J. Hedges and Mark Silva.
Still the story won't go away, thanks to the attention it gets on the Internet."
I think it's a . . . profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home," Sen. John Kerry told a Massachusetts audience last week. "And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."Kerry promised to raise the issue when he returned to Washington this week.
On Sunday, "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert asked Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman about the memo. Mehlman said "that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then."When Russert noted that the authenticity of the report has not been discredited, Mehlman said "I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it."Mehlman referred specifically to the Senate Intelligence Committee's July 2004 report on pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which concluded that the Bush administration's findings were "overstated" and "not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting." The report attributed the mistakes to "group think" in the intelligence community, not to pressure from the administration officials.
The Post's Walter Pincus reported on the memo in a May 13 story, noting that Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) had written a letter to President Bush, signed by 88 congressional Democrats, demanding an explanation.
A week later, The Times of London reported on the Conyers letter and quoted the Michigan congressman as saying, "I deplore the fact that our media have been so reticent on the question of whether there was a secret planning of a war for which neither the Congress nor the American people had given permission."
"We have The Sunday Times to thank for this very important activity. It reminds me of Watergate, which started off as a tiny little incident reported in The Washington Post. I think that the interest of many citizens is picking up," Conyers said.
So is journalistic interest. Over the weekend, Charles Hanley, a special correspondent for the Associated Press, linked The Times's Downing Street memo to U.N. Ambassador nominee John Bolton's effort to get a U.N. weapons inspector fired.
"Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved, " Hanley said in a story published this weekend by The Guardian in London and carried by Canadian TV.
The dismissal, Hanley says, was part of the Bush administration effort to control intelligence findings on Iraq.Jose Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), "had to go" according to one of Bolton's aides, because he was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. The course of action favored by Bustani might "have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war," Hanley wrote.
Bustani was relieved of his position in April 2002 at an OPCW meeting attended by only one third of the group's member nations, according to the AP report."The Iraq connection to the OPCW affair comes as fresh evidence surfaces that the Bush administration was intent from early on to pursue military and not diplomatic action against Saddam Hussein's regime," Hanley wrote. He cited the Times's original Downing Street memo story, which reported that Blair told Bush that Britain would support a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq at a meeting in Crawford, Tex., in mid-April 2002."Two weeks later, Bustani was ousted, with British help," Hanley wrote.
Far from being a dud, the Downing Street Memo may generate more stories to come.
Sehrish Shaban and Mary Specht provided research for this column.
*****************
Thank heavens for the internet!!!
Wrap...
From Raw Story:
The following was released by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) on the Downing Street Minutes this morning. Kennedy becomes the first senator to raise the issue in the Senate, after earlier reports that Massachusetts' junior senator, John Kerry, would speak about the minutes in Washington.
#
“The contents of the Downing Street Minutes confirm that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war in Iraq, regardless of whether there was any credible justification for doing so. The Administration distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.
"In addition, the Downing Street Minutes also confirm what has long been obvious – that the timing of the war was linked to the 2002 Congressional elections, and that the Administration’s planning for post-war Iraq was incompetent in all its aspects. The current continuing crisis is a direct result of that incompetence.
"Many of you have worked hard for the American people, the media and those in government to speak out about the Downing Street Minutes and the Iraq war. You can join me in speaking out as well.
"The policy of “shoot first, ask questions later” took us into an unjustified war, and without a clear concept of what “winning the war” actually means.
"President Bush constantly talks about the “progress” that is being made in Iraq against the insurgency, but he’s looking for good news with a microscope. All anyone can see is “Mission Mis-accomplished” and the continuing losses of American lives, the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis, the torture scandal, and the ominous decline in our nation’s moral authority in the world community.
We know the Administration had been planning to invade Iraq for many months before the invasion actually began. We know the Administration twisted the intelligence to make the facts fit their plan. We know that the Administration never really intended to give the U.N. weapons inspectors a reasonable chance to succeed. The Downing Street Minutes demonstrate that the Administration knew their case for war was paper thin, and that in order to go into war with the support of our allies, we had to demonstrate some willingness to go along with the UN inspection process. But the Administration continued to misuse its intelligence, distort the facts and pay only lip-service to the UN’s role in disarming Iraq.
"We never should have gone to war for ideological reasons driven by politics and based on manipulated intelligence. The Downing Street Minutes provide even more proof that this is exactly what happened on Iraq. The Administration’s dishonesty, lack of candor, and lack of planning have brought us to where we are today, with American soldiers dying, Iraqi civilians living in constant fear, and with no clearer picture of our strategy for victory in Iraq than when we started.”
**********
Good for Sen Kennedy!
Wrap...
The following was released by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) on the Downing Street Minutes this morning. Kennedy becomes the first senator to raise the issue in the Senate, after earlier reports that Massachusetts' junior senator, John Kerry, would speak about the minutes in Washington.
#
“The contents of the Downing Street Minutes confirm that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war in Iraq, regardless of whether there was any credible justification for doing so. The Administration distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.
"In addition, the Downing Street Minutes also confirm what has long been obvious – that the timing of the war was linked to the 2002 Congressional elections, and that the Administration’s planning for post-war Iraq was incompetent in all its aspects. The current continuing crisis is a direct result of that incompetence.
"Many of you have worked hard for the American people, the media and those in government to speak out about the Downing Street Minutes and the Iraq war. You can join me in speaking out as well.
"The policy of “shoot first, ask questions later” took us into an unjustified war, and without a clear concept of what “winning the war” actually means.
"President Bush constantly talks about the “progress” that is being made in Iraq against the insurgency, but he’s looking for good news with a microscope. All anyone can see is “Mission Mis-accomplished” and the continuing losses of American lives, the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis, the torture scandal, and the ominous decline in our nation’s moral authority in the world community.
We know the Administration had been planning to invade Iraq for many months before the invasion actually began. We know the Administration twisted the intelligence to make the facts fit their plan. We know that the Administration never really intended to give the U.N. weapons inspectors a reasonable chance to succeed. The Downing Street Minutes demonstrate that the Administration knew their case for war was paper thin, and that in order to go into war with the support of our allies, we had to demonstrate some willingness to go along with the UN inspection process. But the Administration continued to misuse its intelligence, distort the facts and pay only lip-service to the UN’s role in disarming Iraq.
"We never should have gone to war for ideological reasons driven by politics and based on manipulated intelligence. The Downing Street Minutes provide even more proof that this is exactly what happened on Iraq. The Administration’s dishonesty, lack of candor, and lack of planning have brought us to where we are today, with American soldiers dying, Iraqi civilians living in constant fear, and with no clearer picture of our strategy for victory in Iraq than when we started.”
**********
Good for Sen Kennedy!
Wrap...
Okay, here it is...
Just phoned Sen Kerry's office. The guy who answered the phone said that the info that he'd bring up the Downing Street Memo yesterday was inaccurate. Sen Kerry was "out of town". However, the guy in his office said that Kerry is definitely going to bring it up this month.
I asked if he were going to simply read it into the Congressional Record after the business of the day was done and the Senators were gone or what. He replied that he didn't know, but that Kerry was "definitely going to bring it up".
So we wait.
Wrap...
I asked if he were going to simply read it into the Congressional Record after the business of the day was done and the Senators were gone or what. He replied that he didn't know, but that Kerry was "definitely going to bring it up".
So we wait.
Wrap...
Did he or didn't he?
I want to know what happened to Kerry yesterday. I want to know whether he did or didn't speak about the Downing Street Memo (Minutes). I want some damned answers. I may have to phone him up. Really torqued about this.
Wrap...
Wrap...
Monday, June 06, 2005
Better be a sign from media..
From: www.politicalstrategy.com:
Mehlman Lies About Downing Street Memo
By S.M. Dixon
06/06/05
Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican Party, lied through his teeth yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press," falsely claiming the Downing Street Memo had been "discredited." The truth is that neither the American nor British government has challenged the memo's authenticity.
The fact that Tim Russert (of all people) actually brought up the memo, ignored Mehlman's evasions and lies, and pressed the issues connected to it is a good sign that the Establishment Media is feeling pressure to cover the DSM. As for Mehlman, his utter disregard for the truth is exactly what you'd expect from the GOP's chair; honesty and the Republican Party go together like fishes and bicycles.
Wrap...
Mehlman Lies About Downing Street Memo
By S.M. Dixon
06/06/05
Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican Party, lied through his teeth yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press," falsely claiming the Downing Street Memo had been "discredited." The truth is that neither the American nor British government has challenged the memo's authenticity.
The fact that Tim Russert (of all people) actually brought up the memo, ignored Mehlman's evasions and lies, and pressed the issues connected to it is a good sign that the Establishment Media is feeling pressure to cover the DSM. As for Mehlman, his utter disregard for the truth is exactly what you'd expect from the GOP's chair; honesty and the Republican Party go together like fishes and bicycles.
Wrap...
Meanwhile, over at Los Alamos...
Read below first, then go to: http://lanos-the-real-story.blogspot.com to hear it from the guys who work at the lab.
June 06, 2005
WIHISTLEBLOWER ON LOS ALAMOS LABS ASSAULTED
There are mushrooming problems at the Los Alamos Nuclear Labs. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) was having a press conference today to denounce the assault this past weekend on Tommy Hook, a whistleblower on financial irregularities in the procurements division of the Labs, which are run by the University of California under a contract it's had with the federal government since 1943; the facility operates under the Department of Energy (DOE). Hook was scheduled to testify to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the Los Alamos frauds later this month, A team of three staffers from the committee has been sent to Los Alamos, where whistleblower Hook is still in the hospital, and is set to arrive there tomorrow, along with a POGO investigator.
Hook and his fellow whistleblower Chuck Montano have already appeared on CBS Evening News to discuss their revelations (you can see a video of their CBS appearance by clicking here.) Here's POGO's account of the beating of whistleblower Hook:
"Mr. Hook had planned at the end of last week to meet an individual who claimed to have corroborating information about fraud at Los Alamos. That individual never attended the meeting. Late Saturday evening, someone who might have been posing as that individual called Mr. Hook and asked to meet with him at a bar in Santa Fe. He went to the bar and waited but that person never showed up. When Mr. Hook got into his car to leave, attackers pulled him out of the car and brutally assaulted him. The assailants threatened Mr. Hook to keep silent. A bouncer at the bar intervened and broke up the attack. Mr. Hook was hospitalized in an Emergency Room with severe trauma to his face and head, including a fractured jaw, and a herniated disk. He is heavily medicated today and unable to speak to the media."
Audit reports conducted by Hook and Montano in 2002-2004 found a disturbing pattern of financial irregularities in the Los Alamos Lab’s procurement division. In compliance with DOE requirements, Hook and Montano produced a report assessing the Lab’s contracting operations. Lab supervisors refused to allow the report to be submitted to DOE, instead submitting a report that glossed over the problems identified by the whistleblowers The duo filed a whistleblower retaliation suit against the University of California and supervisors at the Lab in March, 2005. (You can read the whistleblower's complaint by clicking here.)
This isn't the first time whistleblowers have revealed serious problems at Los Alamos Labs. As CBS reported two years ago, 18 top officials at Los Alamos were fired, demoted or transferred, including its director and deputy director, after two other whistleblowers revealed security problems at the nation's leading nuclear facility. And S.F. Weekly has a very good piece published June 1 this year, summarizing the latest problems at the nuke labs, in which include: "lab employees have been found guilty of embezzlement; more than 200 computers have been stolen or gone missing, in addition to numerous lost or misplaced disks and drives; the keys to a nuclear research center vanished for 16 hours; and, last summer, as staffers were searching for two more missing Zip disks, they were also investigating the transmission of classified information over unsecured e-mail."
With the Bush administration doing everything it can to make whistleblowing more difficult by failing to enforce protections for whistleblowers, it takes guts for guys like Hook and Monsanto to go public with fraud charges against Los Alamos labs and the University of California -- which now faces stiff competition from another University competing for the contract to run Los Alamos. And which University is that, you may well ask? Why, it's the University of ...Texas! Draw your own conclusions...
************************************
With BushCo, it would HAVE to be Texas. Right? Sheesh!
Wrap.
June 06, 2005
WIHISTLEBLOWER ON LOS ALAMOS LABS ASSAULTED
There are mushrooming problems at the Los Alamos Nuclear Labs. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) was having a press conference today to denounce the assault this past weekend on Tommy Hook, a whistleblower on financial irregularities in the procurements division of the Labs, which are run by the University of California under a contract it's had with the federal government since 1943; the facility operates under the Department of Energy (DOE). Hook was scheduled to testify to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the Los Alamos frauds later this month, A team of three staffers from the committee has been sent to Los Alamos, where whistleblower Hook is still in the hospital, and is set to arrive there tomorrow, along with a POGO investigator.
Hook and his fellow whistleblower Chuck Montano have already appeared on CBS Evening News to discuss their revelations (you can see a video of their CBS appearance by clicking here.) Here's POGO's account of the beating of whistleblower Hook:
"Mr. Hook had planned at the end of last week to meet an individual who claimed to have corroborating information about fraud at Los Alamos. That individual never attended the meeting. Late Saturday evening, someone who might have been posing as that individual called Mr. Hook and asked to meet with him at a bar in Santa Fe. He went to the bar and waited but that person never showed up. When Mr. Hook got into his car to leave, attackers pulled him out of the car and brutally assaulted him. The assailants threatened Mr. Hook to keep silent. A bouncer at the bar intervened and broke up the attack. Mr. Hook was hospitalized in an Emergency Room with severe trauma to his face and head, including a fractured jaw, and a herniated disk. He is heavily medicated today and unable to speak to the media."
Audit reports conducted by Hook and Montano in 2002-2004 found a disturbing pattern of financial irregularities in the Los Alamos Lab’s procurement division. In compliance with DOE requirements, Hook and Montano produced a report assessing the Lab’s contracting operations. Lab supervisors refused to allow the report to be submitted to DOE, instead submitting a report that glossed over the problems identified by the whistleblowers The duo filed a whistleblower retaliation suit against the University of California and supervisors at the Lab in March, 2005. (You can read the whistleblower's complaint by clicking here.)
This isn't the first time whistleblowers have revealed serious problems at Los Alamos Labs. As CBS reported two years ago, 18 top officials at Los Alamos were fired, demoted or transferred, including its director and deputy director, after two other whistleblowers revealed security problems at the nation's leading nuclear facility. And S.F. Weekly has a very good piece published June 1 this year, summarizing the latest problems at the nuke labs, in which include: "lab employees have been found guilty of embezzlement; more than 200 computers have been stolen or gone missing, in addition to numerous lost or misplaced disks and drives; the keys to a nuclear research center vanished for 16 hours; and, last summer, as staffers were searching for two more missing Zip disks, they were also investigating the transmission of classified information over unsecured e-mail."
With the Bush administration doing everything it can to make whistleblowing more difficult by failing to enforce protections for whistleblowers, it takes guts for guys like Hook and Monsanto to go public with fraud charges against Los Alamos labs and the University of California -- which now faces stiff competition from another University competing for the contract to run Los Alamos. And which University is that, you may well ask? Why, it's the University of ...Texas! Draw your own conclusions...
************************************
With BushCo, it would HAVE to be Texas. Right? Sheesh!
Wrap.
Where the hell is the media?!!!
On Thursday, Senator John Kerry announced he would be raising the Downing Street Memo in Congress upon his return from recess.
************************
That's exactly what he said. So the Senate convened at 2 this afternoon. It is Monday. If Kerry said anything at all, I'd sure like to know what. I've spent the last three hours searching the news sites on the internet and come up with not a damned thing. Not even a hint.
So either we have a total news blackout, he wasn't allowed to bring the Memo up, or he kept his mouth shut. Tell you what....I sure as hell can't find out. Scoured C-Span. Found zip.
Right now, it's 8PM on the east coast. Don't think the Senate is still in session.
Even looked at www.johnkerry.com and found not a damned word. Doesn't look as though it's been updated all that recently.
Did see that Kerry had talked about frauds against small businesses. That's all well and good, but we have a prez who badly needs to be impeached and thrown the hell out of DC for good. That is much more important.
All along Bush has said about the Memo (which is really the Official Minutes of the meeting and not hearsay as the Repubs are trying to spin it, along with saying it's "old news".) that it wasn't worth discussing. Well yeah, it is. There is a difference between a Memo and the Official Minutes. The OM will stand up in court because the OM is PROOF that what was said, was indeed said, that Bush is guilty of a Constitutional Offense and that individual needs to pay the price!
To say that I'm unhappy at the moment is one hell of an understatement, lemme tell you.
Wrap...
************************
That's exactly what he said. So the Senate convened at 2 this afternoon. It is Monday. If Kerry said anything at all, I'd sure like to know what. I've spent the last three hours searching the news sites on the internet and come up with not a damned thing. Not even a hint.
So either we have a total news blackout, he wasn't allowed to bring the Memo up, or he kept his mouth shut. Tell you what....I sure as hell can't find out. Scoured C-Span. Found zip.
Right now, it's 8PM on the east coast. Don't think the Senate is still in session.
Even looked at www.johnkerry.com and found not a damned word. Doesn't look as though it's been updated all that recently.
Did see that Kerry had talked about frauds against small businesses. That's all well and good, but we have a prez who badly needs to be impeached and thrown the hell out of DC for good. That is much more important.
All along Bush has said about the Memo (which is really the Official Minutes of the meeting and not hearsay as the Repubs are trying to spin it, along with saying it's "old news".) that it wasn't worth discussing. Well yeah, it is. There is a difference between a Memo and the Official Minutes. The OM will stand up in court because the OM is PROOF that what was said, was indeed said, that Bush is guilty of a Constitutional Offense and that individual needs to pay the price!
To say that I'm unhappy at the moment is one hell of an understatement, lemme tell you.
Wrap...
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Kerry will indeed speak up!
Little by little the Downing Street Memo rises to attention....
Planned Kerry Downing Street memo speech stirs controversy
Mass. Democrat mum.
Raw Story
Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and his press office remain silent as controversy mushrooms around a planned floor speech on minutes of a secret 2002 meeting between the officials of the U.S. and UK at which the director of British intelligence warned the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy, Raw Story has learned.
The minutes have fueled concern among Democrats in Congress that the concern over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was staged, a ploy to get Congress to go along with war.
Kerry’s remarks have taken on epic proportion, likely because a NewsMax article conflated Kerry’s quotes with Ralph Nader’s impeachment cry. AlJazeera.com (which is not affiliated with the news channel) led with a headline today ripening the confusion: “John Kerry to call for impeachment of George Bush.”
"When I go back [to Washington] on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," Kerry told Massachusetts' Standard Times newspaper last week. "I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home.”
Raw Story has confirmed that Kerry intends to deliver a statement on the Downing Street minutes.
Any detail beyond that, however, is up in the air. Spokespersons for the senator have declined to comment further, fueling fresh speculation about the Massachusetts Democrat’s move.
The Downing street minutes, first reported in the London Sunday Times, were drafted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s foreign policy advisor. They contain an account of remarks by British MI6 director Sir Richard Dearlove, who said, “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
Eighty-nine House members have called on President Bush to answer new questions surrounding the minutes. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said the president had no need to respond.Leading the charge is Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a Detroit liberal who is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee."Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers wrote in a letter calling on congressmembers to sign. "
The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."
"This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride," he added.
**********************
Don't think the Memo fell so much as was pushed.
Wrap...
Planned Kerry Downing Street memo speech stirs controversy
Mass. Democrat mum.
Raw Story
Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and his press office remain silent as controversy mushrooms around a planned floor speech on minutes of a secret 2002 meeting between the officials of the U.S. and UK at which the director of British intelligence warned the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy, Raw Story has learned.
The minutes have fueled concern among Democrats in Congress that the concern over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was staged, a ploy to get Congress to go along with war.
Kerry’s remarks have taken on epic proportion, likely because a NewsMax article conflated Kerry’s quotes with Ralph Nader’s impeachment cry. AlJazeera.com (which is not affiliated with the news channel) led with a headline today ripening the confusion: “John Kerry to call for impeachment of George Bush.”
"When I go back [to Washington] on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," Kerry told Massachusetts' Standard Times newspaper last week. "I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home.”
Raw Story has confirmed that Kerry intends to deliver a statement on the Downing Street minutes.
Any detail beyond that, however, is up in the air. Spokespersons for the senator have declined to comment further, fueling fresh speculation about the Massachusetts Democrat’s move.
The Downing street minutes, first reported in the London Sunday Times, were drafted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s foreign policy advisor. They contain an account of remarks by British MI6 director Sir Richard Dearlove, who said, “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
Eighty-nine House members have called on President Bush to answer new questions surrounding the minutes. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said the president had no need to respond.Leading the charge is Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a Detroit liberal who is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee."Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers wrote in a letter calling on congressmembers to sign. "
The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."
"This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride," he added.
**********************
Don't think the Memo fell so much as was pushed.
Wrap...
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Richard Clarke to John Negroponte:
Building a Better Spy
NY Times
By RICHARD A. CLARKE
Dear John:
You have been in office as the first director of national intelligence for about a month now. Wishing you were back in Baghdad? I understand. The law that created your job was filled with compromises designed to satisfy Don Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's backers in Congress. As a result, the law is, to be charitable, ambiguous about your authority over Defense Department intelligence agencies and the F.B.I. You have always been a team player, not a rock-the-boat kind of guy. But this is your last job in government, John, so why not go for it?
In fact, unless you clarify those ambiguities to make clear the director of national intelligence has real authority, you will have been a failure. Right now, America cannot afford for you to fail. So although it is against your personal style, pick some fights. And win them. Here are a few ideas on things worth fighting for.
Shake up the C.I.A.: The C.I.A. has bad morale and a split personality: half spies, half analysts. Take the analysts out of it and have them report directly to you as the Office of National Assessments. Then rename what's left the National Clandestine Service. Thank Porter Goss for his transitional service and get someone who has actually done some spying in the last 30 years to run the new clandestine outfit. Forget the idea of doubling the number of spies; that was just a P.R. idea anyway. Go for quality, not quantity.
Implement the Silberman-Robb commission's idea about the F.B.I.:
The president's commission on intelligence and weapons of mass destruction proposed creating the National Security Service within the F.B.I. by merging the counterterrorism, counterintelligence and intelligence analysis units and then having them report to you, the director of national intelligence.
Bob Mueller's reforms at the F.B.I. have been halfway measures that have not yet created an elite, expert and coherent domestic-security unit with modern capabilities. The latest report is that the new analysts spend much of their time escorting visitors and emptying garbage.
Get Rumsfeld's toys: Outside experts estimate the American intelligence budget at more than $40 billion a year. They say that about 75 percent of that is for Defense Department agencies like N.S.A. (electronic spying), N.R.O. (satellites) and N.G.A. (pictures and maps). These independent fiefs are a result of cold-war bureaucratic fights. There is needless duplication and competition. Merge them into one Technical Collection Intelligence Agency. You will save billions, and you can organize the agency around our new priorities: counterterrorism, counterproliferation and war-fighting support. If Rumsfeld threatens to fall on his sword, let him.
The president has to decide who is running these agencies, and if it's not you, walk.
Analytic excellence: That new Office of National Assessments should really be different from the old C.I.A. analytical unit. Stop recruiting kids straight out of college, giving them a portfolio they know nothing about and then moving them to a new topic seven or eight times over 20 years. Get some mature, real experts in their fields and sign them up for a fixed-time, renewable contract. You're getting too many similar people. Forget the polygraph as an entry-level screening device. Many good people will not even think of joining the C.I.A. now because they know the stories about being strapped up around the ribs, having electrodes tied to the fingertips and then being bullied by somebody who wants to know too many irrelevant and private details. Save the star chamber for investigations.
Stop just saying you will pay attention to ''open source'' (i.e., unclassified) information and create a real program. Encourage debate and dissent and make room for risk takers who sometimes get it wrong. But keep track of who gets it right and who doesn't and why they got it wrong. Incorporate the lessons learned in future analyses.
If you don't like these ideas, find some you do like. But don't just be a go-along, get-along guy as director, John. Remember the intelligence failures around 9/11 and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Things have not improved that much at the C.I.A., F.B.I. and the other three-letter firms. And the bad guys are still out there.
***************
Well said, Mr Clarke!
Wrap.
NY Times
By RICHARD A. CLARKE
Dear John:
You have been in office as the first director of national intelligence for about a month now. Wishing you were back in Baghdad? I understand. The law that created your job was filled with compromises designed to satisfy Don Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's backers in Congress. As a result, the law is, to be charitable, ambiguous about your authority over Defense Department intelligence agencies and the F.B.I. You have always been a team player, not a rock-the-boat kind of guy. But this is your last job in government, John, so why not go for it?
In fact, unless you clarify those ambiguities to make clear the director of national intelligence has real authority, you will have been a failure. Right now, America cannot afford for you to fail. So although it is against your personal style, pick some fights. And win them. Here are a few ideas on things worth fighting for.
Shake up the C.I.A.: The C.I.A. has bad morale and a split personality: half spies, half analysts. Take the analysts out of it and have them report directly to you as the Office of National Assessments. Then rename what's left the National Clandestine Service. Thank Porter Goss for his transitional service and get someone who has actually done some spying in the last 30 years to run the new clandestine outfit. Forget the idea of doubling the number of spies; that was just a P.R. idea anyway. Go for quality, not quantity.
Implement the Silberman-Robb commission's idea about the F.B.I.:
The president's commission on intelligence and weapons of mass destruction proposed creating the National Security Service within the F.B.I. by merging the counterterrorism, counterintelligence and intelligence analysis units and then having them report to you, the director of national intelligence.
Bob Mueller's reforms at the F.B.I. have been halfway measures that have not yet created an elite, expert and coherent domestic-security unit with modern capabilities. The latest report is that the new analysts spend much of their time escorting visitors and emptying garbage.
Get Rumsfeld's toys: Outside experts estimate the American intelligence budget at more than $40 billion a year. They say that about 75 percent of that is for Defense Department agencies like N.S.A. (electronic spying), N.R.O. (satellites) and N.G.A. (pictures and maps). These independent fiefs are a result of cold-war bureaucratic fights. There is needless duplication and competition. Merge them into one Technical Collection Intelligence Agency. You will save billions, and you can organize the agency around our new priorities: counterterrorism, counterproliferation and war-fighting support. If Rumsfeld threatens to fall on his sword, let him.
The president has to decide who is running these agencies, and if it's not you, walk.
Analytic excellence: That new Office of National Assessments should really be different from the old C.I.A. analytical unit. Stop recruiting kids straight out of college, giving them a portfolio they know nothing about and then moving them to a new topic seven or eight times over 20 years. Get some mature, real experts in their fields and sign them up for a fixed-time, renewable contract. You're getting too many similar people. Forget the polygraph as an entry-level screening device. Many good people will not even think of joining the C.I.A. now because they know the stories about being strapped up around the ribs, having electrodes tied to the fingertips and then being bullied by somebody who wants to know too many irrelevant and private details. Save the star chamber for investigations.
Stop just saying you will pay attention to ''open source'' (i.e., unclassified) information and create a real program. Encourage debate and dissent and make room for risk takers who sometimes get it wrong. But keep track of who gets it right and who doesn't and why they got it wrong. Incorporate the lessons learned in future analyses.
If you don't like these ideas, find some you do like. But don't just be a go-along, get-along guy as director, John. Remember the intelligence failures around 9/11 and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Things have not improved that much at the C.I.A., F.B.I. and the other three-letter firms. And the bad guys are still out there.
***************
Well said, Mr Clarke!
Wrap.
Flat out discrimination!
Look at him then, look at her now
Dave told his boss he'd reportto work as Diane. The boss said no way.
By MARK BROWNSPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Dave Schroer as a military commander in a May 1985 photo, and (below) in a recent photo after assuming a new role as a woman, Diane.
-->
-->Diane Schroer grew up in Chicago, graduated from Northern Illinois University, made a career in the U.S. Army as an officer in Special Forces and now is suing the federal government for sex discrimination.
Diane was my college roommate.
Back then, we knew her as Dave.
Sorry if that brings you up short to read it that way, but that was intentional, because that's a taste of how it felt on this end when Dave let me know six weeks ago that he had become Diane.
As awkward as I feel, however, I try to keep in mind what it's like for Diane, emerging anew into the world at age 48 - and now having been put into the position where she must do so quite publicly in order to fight for what she thinks is right.
I'm taking her side in that fight, not just because I know she'd do the same for me, but also because I'm sure we owe it to her after 25 years in the service of our country.
Diane tells me she is a transsexual, currently in the process of "transitioning" from male to female. This is mostly new stuff to me, but as I understand it, transsexuals are individuals who feel strongly that they are, or ought to be, the opposite sex.
It is a feeling Diane kept well-hidden during a lifetime as a guy's guy - from high school gearhead to airborne Ranger by the time he left college to nail-spitting military commander with a key post in the war on terror.
"Hey, if I'm stuck with this boy thing, I ought to do it right," Diane told me about the philosophy that guided her through those many years when every day was confused with thoughts about being a woman.
Diane was still going by Dave when she applied for a job last August with the Congressional Research Service in Washington, as an analyst for terrorism and international crime. The research service, an agency within the Library of Congress, is the public policy research arm of Congress and well-respected for its nonpartisan reports.
Dave was highly qualified for the position, having served in a variety of command and staff posts during his military career before retiring effective Jan. 1, 2004, with the rank of colonel.
In his last assignment after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Dave was assigned to create and direct a 120-person classified organization within the Special Operations Command. His unit had what his lawyers describe as "responsibility for tracking and targeting of several high threat international terrorist organizations."
When I asked Diane to explain more precisely what that means, she told me, "I'd like to, but then we'd have to cut off your head and put it in a safe."
That's what I would have expected Dave to say, too.
Dave's combat experience included the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 to extract Gen. Manuel Noriega and the 1994 occupation of Haiti that restored Jean-Bertrand Aristide to that nation's presidency after he had been ousted in a coup. Dave speaks only obliquely about other unspecified operational missions over the years in Africa, the Middle East and Central America.
"I always say I did the desert before the desert was cool," Diane says, the words again sounding a lot like Dave, although voice training has helped her develop a passable woman's voice.
Supervisors at the Congressional Research Service must have recognized Dave's qualifications because they offered him the job, which he accepted.
The problem came when Dave went back for one more meeting with the woman who was hiring him to work out final details, including a start date. It was then that Dave told her about his gender change and that when he reported for work his first day he'd come as Diane.
Diane says the woman called the next day to say that after a "long, restless night" she had decided "for the good of the service" that Diane would not be a "good fit" for the job after all.
Diane told me her first instinct was to just let it go. But the more she thought about it, she felt the sting of injustice, the violation of principle.
The ACLU filed suit on her behalf yesterday.
That's the Dave I knew in 1976, when we decided to abandon the college dorm floor where I'd lived for three years - and him going on two - so we could rent an apartment off-campus.
I was a long-haired editor of the college paper, where I spent every waking hour when I wasn't in a bar. He was the oh-so-serious ROTC guy with a passion for constitutional law, trying to finish college in three years.
Dave was exceptionally self-disciplined, but he had a weakness for bad television. His compromise was to watch his shows, but do situps and pushups during commercial breaks.
The summer after I graduated he went to Army Ranger school, training in swamps. The next summer they had him jumping out of airplanes. He'd made 450 jumps before he retired.
We drifted apart after college, catching up with each other every decade or so. I never had a clue about his inner conflict, and looking back, still can't find any.
If there was one thing I would have told you about Dave Schroer in the days I knew him it's that he knew his own mind, and that's why I've got to believe he knows what he's doing now when he says he's really Diane.
Dave Schroer served our country well. Diane is prepared to do the same.
Mark Brown is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times
*************************
I'm with Mark. If Dave was qualified for that job, then Diane is qualified for that job, no two ways about it.
Wrap.
Dave told his boss he'd reportto work as Diane. The boss said no way.
By MARK BROWNSPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Dave Schroer as a military commander in a May 1985 photo, and (below) in a recent photo after assuming a new role as a woman, Diane.
-->
-->Diane Schroer grew up in Chicago, graduated from Northern Illinois University, made a career in the U.S. Army as an officer in Special Forces and now is suing the federal government for sex discrimination.
Diane was my college roommate.
Back then, we knew her as Dave.
Sorry if that brings you up short to read it that way, but that was intentional, because that's a taste of how it felt on this end when Dave let me know six weeks ago that he had become Diane.
As awkward as I feel, however, I try to keep in mind what it's like for Diane, emerging anew into the world at age 48 - and now having been put into the position where she must do so quite publicly in order to fight for what she thinks is right.
I'm taking her side in that fight, not just because I know she'd do the same for me, but also because I'm sure we owe it to her after 25 years in the service of our country.
Diane tells me she is a transsexual, currently in the process of "transitioning" from male to female. This is mostly new stuff to me, but as I understand it, transsexuals are individuals who feel strongly that they are, or ought to be, the opposite sex.
It is a feeling Diane kept well-hidden during a lifetime as a guy's guy - from high school gearhead to airborne Ranger by the time he left college to nail-spitting military commander with a key post in the war on terror.
"Hey, if I'm stuck with this boy thing, I ought to do it right," Diane told me about the philosophy that guided her through those many years when every day was confused with thoughts about being a woman.
Diane was still going by Dave when she applied for a job last August with the Congressional Research Service in Washington, as an analyst for terrorism and international crime. The research service, an agency within the Library of Congress, is the public policy research arm of Congress and well-respected for its nonpartisan reports.
Dave was highly qualified for the position, having served in a variety of command and staff posts during his military career before retiring effective Jan. 1, 2004, with the rank of colonel.
In his last assignment after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Dave was assigned to create and direct a 120-person classified organization within the Special Operations Command. His unit had what his lawyers describe as "responsibility for tracking and targeting of several high threat international terrorist organizations."
When I asked Diane to explain more precisely what that means, she told me, "I'd like to, but then we'd have to cut off your head and put it in a safe."
That's what I would have expected Dave to say, too.
Dave's combat experience included the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 to extract Gen. Manuel Noriega and the 1994 occupation of Haiti that restored Jean-Bertrand Aristide to that nation's presidency after he had been ousted in a coup. Dave speaks only obliquely about other unspecified operational missions over the years in Africa, the Middle East and Central America.
"I always say I did the desert before the desert was cool," Diane says, the words again sounding a lot like Dave, although voice training has helped her develop a passable woman's voice.
Supervisors at the Congressional Research Service must have recognized Dave's qualifications because they offered him the job, which he accepted.
The problem came when Dave went back for one more meeting with the woman who was hiring him to work out final details, including a start date. It was then that Dave told her about his gender change and that when he reported for work his first day he'd come as Diane.
Diane says the woman called the next day to say that after a "long, restless night" she had decided "for the good of the service" that Diane would not be a "good fit" for the job after all.
Diane told me her first instinct was to just let it go. But the more she thought about it, she felt the sting of injustice, the violation of principle.
The ACLU filed suit on her behalf yesterday.
That's the Dave I knew in 1976, when we decided to abandon the college dorm floor where I'd lived for three years - and him going on two - so we could rent an apartment off-campus.
I was a long-haired editor of the college paper, where I spent every waking hour when I wasn't in a bar. He was the oh-so-serious ROTC guy with a passion for constitutional law, trying to finish college in three years.
Dave was exceptionally self-disciplined, but he had a weakness for bad television. His compromise was to watch his shows, but do situps and pushups during commercial breaks.
The summer after I graduated he went to Army Ranger school, training in swamps. The next summer they had him jumping out of airplanes. He'd made 450 jumps before he retired.
We drifted apart after college, catching up with each other every decade or so. I never had a clue about his inner conflict, and looking back, still can't find any.
If there was one thing I would have told you about Dave Schroer in the days I knew him it's that he knew his own mind, and that's why I've got to believe he knows what he's doing now when he says he's really Diane.
Dave Schroer served our country well. Diane is prepared to do the same.
Mark Brown is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times
*************************
I'm with Mark. If Dave was qualified for that job, then Diane is qualified for that job, no two ways about it.
Wrap.
Conyer's Tip Line Open!
The office of Representative John Conyers (D-MI) believes it has surpassed its stated goal of 100,000 signatures requesting an investigation into the Downing Street Memo, minutes of a British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002.
"Right now, we are going through signatures to verify the number," said Danielle Brown, Conyers' spokesperson. Brown currently puts the number of signers at an, "estimated 110,000 and growing." With Conyers' web site receiving about 5,000 unique visitors every 4 to 5 hours, the Congressman has made his revised goal 250,000 signatures.
Conyers also hopes to attract prospective whistleblowers through a new tips line on the Democrats' House Judiciary web page. "There remain many unanswered questions regarding President Bush's lead up to the Iraq war that suggest a serious abuse of power," Conyers stated in a press release. "I am hopeful there are people who have leads and information that will bring us closer to the truth.
Wrap...
"Right now, we are going through signatures to verify the number," said Danielle Brown, Conyers' spokesperson. Brown currently puts the number of signers at an, "estimated 110,000 and growing." With Conyers' web site receiving about 5,000 unique visitors every 4 to 5 hours, the Congressman has made his revised goal 250,000 signatures.
Conyers also hopes to attract prospective whistleblowers through a new tips line on the Democrats' House Judiciary web page. "There remain many unanswered questions regarding President Bush's lead up to the Iraq war that suggest a serious abuse of power," Conyers stated in a press release. "I am hopeful there are people who have leads and information that will bring us closer to the truth.
Wrap...
Needed: New Deep Throat!
From Raw Story:
Conyers reaches, extends signature goal; creates tip line
The office of Representative John Conyers (D-MI) believes it has surpassed its stated goal of 100,000 signatures requesting an investigation into the Downing Street Memo, minutes of a British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002.
"Right now, we are going through signatures to verify the number," said Danielle Brown, Conyers' spokesperson. Brown currently puts the number of signers at an, "estimated 110,000 and growing." With Conyers' web site receiving about 5,000 unique visitors every 4 to 5 hours, the Congressman has made his revised goal 250,000 signatures.
Conyers also hopes to attract prospective whistleblowers through a new tips line on the Democrats' House Judiciary web page. "There remain many unanswered questions regarding President Bush's lead up to the Iraq war that suggest a serious abuse of power," Conyers stated in a press release. "I am hopeful there are people who have leads and information that will bring us closer to the truth.
Wrap...
Conyers reaches, extends signature goal; creates tip line
The office of Representative John Conyers (D-MI) believes it has surpassed its stated goal of 100,000 signatures requesting an investigation into the Downing Street Memo, minutes of a British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002.
"Right now, we are going through signatures to verify the number," said Danielle Brown, Conyers' spokesperson. Brown currently puts the number of signers at an, "estimated 110,000 and growing." With Conyers' web site receiving about 5,000 unique visitors every 4 to 5 hours, the Congressman has made his revised goal 250,000 signatures.
Conyers also hopes to attract prospective whistleblowers through a new tips line on the Democrats' House Judiciary web page. "There remain many unanswered questions regarding President Bush's lead up to the Iraq war that suggest a serious abuse of power," Conyers stated in a press release. "I am hopeful there are people who have leads and information that will bring us closer to the truth.
Wrap...
Be sure to see this..
Programming Note: Coming Monday --
Part I of a multi-part series by filmmaker Chris Hume.
Enron II:
Taking Root in Baja California is a powerful documentary that takes you for a hike into the unspoiled wilderness of Baja's coast. Unspoiled by the local fishermen that is, but as you will see, in the process of being spoiled by California's Sempra Energy. You'll find out how Sempra is using Enron's old tricks for their profit and Baja's environmental detriment.Go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org
Chris Hume is a really really good filmmaker. This will definitely be worth watching.
Wrap...
Part I of a multi-part series by filmmaker Chris Hume.
Enron II:
Taking Root in Baja California is a powerful documentary that takes you for a hike into the unspoiled wilderness of Baja's coast. Unspoiled by the local fishermen that is, but as you will see, in the process of being spoiled by California's Sempra Energy. You'll find out how Sempra is using Enron's old tricks for their profit and Baja's environmental detriment.Go directly to our home page: http://www.truthout.org
Chris Hume is a really really good filmmaker. This will definitely be worth watching.
Wrap...
Friday, June 03, 2005
From a Conservative website!!!
Breaking News : Kerry To Push For Bush Impeachment
Posted by News Reporter on 2005/6/3 10:29:52
By Sher Zieve
John Kerry announced Thursday that he intends to present Congress with The Downing Street Memo, reported by the London Times 1 May 2005.
As reported by NewsMax, the memo purports to include minutes from a July 2002 meeting with Tony Blair, in which Blair ostensibly said that President Bush’s Administration “fixed” intelligence on Iraq in order to justify the Iraqi war.
In an interview with the Standard Times, Kerry said: "It's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."
The Boston Globe published an article by Ralph Nader, Tuesday, in which Nader also called for President Bush’s impeachment. The story is being carried on Michael Moore’s website and the Democratic Underground.
Failed presidential candidate Kerry advised that he will begin the presentation of his case for President Bush’s impeachment to Congress, on Monday.
**************************
HOT DAMN!!! As I said, it only takes one Senator!!! Go, Kerry, Go!!!
Posted by News Reporter on 2005/6/3 10:29:52
By Sher Zieve
John Kerry announced Thursday that he intends to present Congress with The Downing Street Memo, reported by the London Times 1 May 2005.
As reported by NewsMax, the memo purports to include minutes from a July 2002 meeting with Tony Blair, in which Blair ostensibly said that President Bush’s Administration “fixed” intelligence on Iraq in order to justify the Iraqi war.
In an interview with the Standard Times, Kerry said: "It's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."
The Boston Globe published an article by Ralph Nader, Tuesday, in which Nader also called for President Bush’s impeachment. The story is being carried on Michael Moore’s website and the Democratic Underground.
Failed presidential candidate Kerry advised that he will begin the presentation of his case for President Bush’s impeachment to Congress, on Monday.
**************************
HOT DAMN!!! As I said, it only takes one Senator!!! Go, Kerry, Go!!!
St Petersburg Times checks in on D ST Memo...
Protest draws attention to memo
The "Downing Street Memo" indicates an agreement on invading Iraq in July 2002.
By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published June 3, 2005
TAMPA - Just a stone's throw away from a life-size gorilla dressed in military fatigues was another oddity along Kennedy Boulevard Thursday - people protesting about a memo.
"Did you get the memo?" read the fliers.
"Air the truth!" said a poster held by retired Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph F. Bohren, outside the WTVT-Ch. 13 studios with about 10 others.
They were there because of what has become known as the "Downing Street Memo," minutes from a meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers on July 23, 2002, at No. 10 Downing St., published May 1 by the Sunday Times of London .
The minutes indicate that the United States and Britain had agreed to invade Iraq by the summer of 2002 - months before President George W. Bush asked Congress for permission to engage in military action.
The minutes, written by Matthew Rycroft, aide to British Foreign Policy Adviser David Manning, also suggest that U.S. officials deliberately manipulated intelligence to justify the war.
"If what's in these minutes is accurate, and we have been given no reason to doubt that, then it would appear that the president has committed high crimes, specifically lying to the American public and Congress and engaging in a conspiracy with his administration," said David Dawson, a Washington organizer for the Web site AfterDowningStreet.org, which has reproduced the memo.
The site was created by a coalition of political activists who are calling on Congress to investigate the meeting minutes.
According to the minutes, Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the British Foreign Intelligence Service, "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and (weapons of mass destruction). But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The White House press office on Thursday referred the Times to a May 23 press briefing by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, at which time he addressed the Downing Street minutes. But McClellan did not address the specifics of the memo.
"In terms of the intelligence ... if anyone wants to know how the intelligence was used by the administration, all they have to do is go back and look at all the public comments over the course of the leadup to the war in Iraq, and that's all very public information. Everybody who was there could see how we used that intelligence," McClellan said.
He acknowledged there was some breakdown in information gathered before the president decided to go to war.
"And in terms of the intelligence, it was wrong, and we are taking steps to correct that and make sure that in the future we have the best possible intelligence, because it's critical in this post-Sept. 11th age, that the executive branch has the best intelligence possible," he said.
Rep John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., has started a petition drive for an open letter to the president asking him to address the accuracy of the document. In a statement released Thursday, Conyers said, "These minutes of a classified British government meeting raise very serious constitutional questions about whether the Congress and the American people were deliberately misled in the drive to war."
--Kevin Graham can be reached at 813 226-3433 or kgraham@sptimes.com
*****************
Little by little we're getting there. All it takes is one Senator to get the impeachment started.
Wrap...
The "Downing Street Memo" indicates an agreement on invading Iraq in July 2002.
By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published June 3, 2005
TAMPA - Just a stone's throw away from a life-size gorilla dressed in military fatigues was another oddity along Kennedy Boulevard Thursday - people protesting about a memo.
"Did you get the memo?" read the fliers.
"Air the truth!" said a poster held by retired Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph F. Bohren, outside the WTVT-Ch. 13 studios with about 10 others.
They were there because of what has become known as the "Downing Street Memo," minutes from a meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers on July 23, 2002, at No. 10 Downing St., published May 1 by the Sunday Times of London .
The minutes indicate that the United States and Britain had agreed to invade Iraq by the summer of 2002 - months before President George W. Bush asked Congress for permission to engage in military action.
The minutes, written by Matthew Rycroft, aide to British Foreign Policy Adviser David Manning, also suggest that U.S. officials deliberately manipulated intelligence to justify the war.
"If what's in these minutes is accurate, and we have been given no reason to doubt that, then it would appear that the president has committed high crimes, specifically lying to the American public and Congress and engaging in a conspiracy with his administration," said David Dawson, a Washington organizer for the Web site AfterDowningStreet.org, which has reproduced the memo.
The site was created by a coalition of political activists who are calling on Congress to investigate the meeting minutes.
According to the minutes, Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the British Foreign Intelligence Service, "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and (weapons of mass destruction). But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The White House press office on Thursday referred the Times to a May 23 press briefing by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, at which time he addressed the Downing Street minutes. But McClellan did not address the specifics of the memo.
"In terms of the intelligence ... if anyone wants to know how the intelligence was used by the administration, all they have to do is go back and look at all the public comments over the course of the leadup to the war in Iraq, and that's all very public information. Everybody who was there could see how we used that intelligence," McClellan said.
He acknowledged there was some breakdown in information gathered before the president decided to go to war.
"And in terms of the intelligence, it was wrong, and we are taking steps to correct that and make sure that in the future we have the best possible intelligence, because it's critical in this post-Sept. 11th age, that the executive branch has the best intelligence possible," he said.
Rep John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., has started a petition drive for an open letter to the president asking him to address the accuracy of the document. In a statement released Thursday, Conyers said, "These minutes of a classified British government meeting raise very serious constitutional questions about whether the Congress and the American people were deliberately misled in the drive to war."
--Kevin Graham can be reached at 813 226-3433 or kgraham@sptimes.com
*****************
Little by little we're getting there. All it takes is one Senator to get the impeachment started.
Wrap...
Yes. It's an impeachable offense. Get on with it.
Administration's offenses impeachable
Let's consider an item from the news of about two weeks ago:
By Robert Shetterly 06/02/05
"Bangor Daily News" - -
A British citizen leaked a memo to London's Sunday Times. The memo was of the written account of a meeting that a man named Richard Dearlove had with the Bush administration in July 2002. Dearlove was the head of the England's MI-6, the equivalent of the CIA.
On July 23, 2002, Dearlove briefed Tony Blair about the meeting. He said that Bush was determined to attack Iraq. He said that Bush knew that U.S. intelligence had no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and no links to foreign terrorists, that there was no imminent danger to the U.S. from Iraq. But, since Bush was determined to go to war, "Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."
"Fixed" means faked, manufactured, conjured, hyped - the product of whole cloth fabrication.So we got aluminum tubes, mushroom clouds imported from Niger, biological weapons labs in weather trucks, fear and trembling, the phony ultimatums to Saddam Hussein to turn over the weapons he didn't have and thus couldn't. We got the call to arms, the stifling of dissent, the parade of retired generals strategizing on the "news" shows, with us or against us, flags in the lapel, a craven media afraid to look for a truth that might disturb their corporate owners who would profit from the war. Shock and Awe. Fallujah. Abu Ghraib.
It was all a lie. Many of us have said for a long time it was a lie. But here it is in black and white: Lies from a president who has taken a sacred trust to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
So, what does it mean? It means that our president and all of his administration are war criminals. It's as simple as that.
They lied to the American people, have killed and injured and traumatized thousands of American men and women doing their patriotic duty, killed at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians, destroyed Iraq's infrastructure and poisoned its environment, squandered billions and billions of our tax dollars, made a mockery of American integrity in the world, changed the course of history, tortured Iraqi prisoners, and bound us intractably to an insane situation that they have no idea how to fix because they had no plan, but greed and empire, in the first place.
What does it mean? It means that everyone in this administration should be impeached. It means that our Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and our Congressmen Tom Allen and Mike Michaud should call for immediate impeachment. They were lied to by their president, voted for war, and are thus complicit in the multiply betrayals of the American people unless they stand up now for the truth.
Richard Nixon was impeached for a cover-up of a two-bit break-in. William Cohen, a young Maine Republican, played an important role for the prosecution in those proceedings. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex with an intern. Now we have the irrefutable evidence that George W. Bush lied about the reasons for taking the United States to war. The intelligence wasn't flawed. The weapons weren't hidden. Our elected leaders were lying.
Democracy, like any sound relationship between people, is built on trust. We trust our leaders to tell the truth so that the consent that we give them is honestly informed. If the consent is won through manipulation, propaganda, fear, or lies, the basis of our democracy has been subverted. It is no longer democracy at all, but we continue to call it that because we have not the courage or stamina to demand its overhaul.
We live a lie when we fail to hold leaders accountable for their lies. By not calling now for impeachment, we are saying that we condone hypocrisy, pseudo-democracy, and murdering thousands of Americans and Iraqis for strategic control of energy resources that we have no right to. Patriotism demands that we insist on the ideals of democracy, not that we support the "leaders" who cynically destroy them.
What's curious is why anyone like me should have to even point this out. Don't our senators and congressmen feel betrayed? Are they content to continue the murdering rather than do what truth demands? Do they think they can lie to history, too? Do they think that this little Iraq problem will somehow just go away, that the courageous resistance to the United States occupation will give up and hand Bush the keys to the oil wells? Do they think that any of the grave crises facing the world now - energy consumption, global warming, species extinction - can be solved by lying about them?
We are living in an age of no accountability. It's also an age upon which may hang the survival of human life on this earth. One should not bet one's future on people who abjure responsibility. The first courageous step is to come to terms with what we know is true: America's president lied to America's people to create an unnecessary war.
I ask Sens. Snowe and Collins, Reps. Allen and Michaud to take that step. Begin impeachment proceedings. It's really no more or less than their duty. It's also the first step toward restoring America's integrity.
Robert Shetterly is a writer and artist who lives in Brooksville.
©2005 Bangor Daily News. All rights reserved.
*******************
Said it all very well, didn't he? Maine's people are said to be independent as hogs on ice. Will their Senators and Representatives prove them right and do the right thing?
Wrap...
Let's consider an item from the news of about two weeks ago:
By Robert Shetterly 06/02/05
"Bangor Daily News" - -
A British citizen leaked a memo to London's Sunday Times. The memo was of the written account of a meeting that a man named Richard Dearlove had with the Bush administration in July 2002. Dearlove was the head of the England's MI-6, the equivalent of the CIA.
On July 23, 2002, Dearlove briefed Tony Blair about the meeting. He said that Bush was determined to attack Iraq. He said that Bush knew that U.S. intelligence had no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and no links to foreign terrorists, that there was no imminent danger to the U.S. from Iraq. But, since Bush was determined to go to war, "Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."
"Fixed" means faked, manufactured, conjured, hyped - the product of whole cloth fabrication.So we got aluminum tubes, mushroom clouds imported from Niger, biological weapons labs in weather trucks, fear and trembling, the phony ultimatums to Saddam Hussein to turn over the weapons he didn't have and thus couldn't. We got the call to arms, the stifling of dissent, the parade of retired generals strategizing on the "news" shows, with us or against us, flags in the lapel, a craven media afraid to look for a truth that might disturb their corporate owners who would profit from the war. Shock and Awe. Fallujah. Abu Ghraib.
It was all a lie. Many of us have said for a long time it was a lie. But here it is in black and white: Lies from a president who has taken a sacred trust to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
So, what does it mean? It means that our president and all of his administration are war criminals. It's as simple as that.
They lied to the American people, have killed and injured and traumatized thousands of American men and women doing their patriotic duty, killed at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians, destroyed Iraq's infrastructure and poisoned its environment, squandered billions and billions of our tax dollars, made a mockery of American integrity in the world, changed the course of history, tortured Iraqi prisoners, and bound us intractably to an insane situation that they have no idea how to fix because they had no plan, but greed and empire, in the first place.
What does it mean? It means that everyone in this administration should be impeached. It means that our Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and our Congressmen Tom Allen and Mike Michaud should call for immediate impeachment. They were lied to by their president, voted for war, and are thus complicit in the multiply betrayals of the American people unless they stand up now for the truth.
Richard Nixon was impeached for a cover-up of a two-bit break-in. William Cohen, a young Maine Republican, played an important role for the prosecution in those proceedings. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex with an intern. Now we have the irrefutable evidence that George W. Bush lied about the reasons for taking the United States to war. The intelligence wasn't flawed. The weapons weren't hidden. Our elected leaders were lying.
Democracy, like any sound relationship between people, is built on trust. We trust our leaders to tell the truth so that the consent that we give them is honestly informed. If the consent is won through manipulation, propaganda, fear, or lies, the basis of our democracy has been subverted. It is no longer democracy at all, but we continue to call it that because we have not the courage or stamina to demand its overhaul.
We live a lie when we fail to hold leaders accountable for their lies. By not calling now for impeachment, we are saying that we condone hypocrisy, pseudo-democracy, and murdering thousands of Americans and Iraqis for strategic control of energy resources that we have no right to. Patriotism demands that we insist on the ideals of democracy, not that we support the "leaders" who cynically destroy them.
What's curious is why anyone like me should have to even point this out. Don't our senators and congressmen feel betrayed? Are they content to continue the murdering rather than do what truth demands? Do they think they can lie to history, too? Do they think that this little Iraq problem will somehow just go away, that the courageous resistance to the United States occupation will give up and hand Bush the keys to the oil wells? Do they think that any of the grave crises facing the world now - energy consumption, global warming, species extinction - can be solved by lying about them?
We are living in an age of no accountability. It's also an age upon which may hang the survival of human life on this earth. One should not bet one's future on people who abjure responsibility. The first courageous step is to come to terms with what we know is true: America's president lied to America's people to create an unnecessary war.
I ask Sens. Snowe and Collins, Reps. Allen and Michaud to take that step. Begin impeachment proceedings. It's really no more or less than their duty. It's also the first step toward restoring America's integrity.
Robert Shetterly is a writer and artist who lives in Brooksville.
©2005 Bangor Daily News. All rights reserved.
*******************
Said it all very well, didn't he? Maine's people are said to be independent as hogs on ice. Will their Senators and Representatives prove them right and do the right thing?
Wrap...
Letter from the Heartland...
Don't think people across the nation aren't paying attention to the Downing St Memo. Don't think they don't know that Bush has committed an impeachable offense. Take a look at this letter to the DeKalb Daily Chronicle, DeKalb, Illinois:
Actions of Bush & Co. merit close attention
LYNN A. FAZEKAS
Editor:
A month ago the minutes of a July 2002 meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his advisers were published in articles in the Sunday Times and the London Times. Known now as the "Downing Street Minutes," they are the official minutes of a top-level government meeting, and they contain damning evidence of the Bush administration's intent to invent justification for waging war in Iraq.
Misleading Congress and the American people about the basis for going to war is a high crime under our Constitution. Congress should immediately order a formal investigation into the matter.
I wasn't born yesterday. I know that, even if sufficient grounds exist for proceeding with the "I" word (impeachment), that particular course is unlikely at this point. Republicans rule Congress, and even if they didn't, the Democrats haven't yet developed the testicular fortitude required to "git 'r done."
But what's right is right, and the least we can do is to create a clamor that leaves no doubt of our thirst for the truth. It also can't hurt to put Bush & Co. on notice that many of us are paying very close and questioning attention to everything they say and do.
To learn more about the "Downing Street Minutes" and their implications, or to join other citizen noisemakers, visit the Web site afterdowningstreet.org or the Web site of U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr.
LYNN A. FAZEKAS
DeKalb
Wrap...
Actions of Bush & Co. merit close attention
LYNN A. FAZEKAS
Editor:
A month ago the minutes of a July 2002 meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his advisers were published in articles in the Sunday Times and the London Times. Known now as the "Downing Street Minutes," they are the official minutes of a top-level government meeting, and they contain damning evidence of the Bush administration's intent to invent justification for waging war in Iraq.
Misleading Congress and the American people about the basis for going to war is a high crime under our Constitution. Congress should immediately order a formal investigation into the matter.
I wasn't born yesterday. I know that, even if sufficient grounds exist for proceeding with the "I" word (impeachment), that particular course is unlikely at this point. Republicans rule Congress, and even if they didn't, the Democrats haven't yet developed the testicular fortitude required to "git 'r done."
But what's right is right, and the least we can do is to create a clamor that leaves no doubt of our thirst for the truth. It also can't hurt to put Bush & Co. on notice that many of us are paying very close and questioning attention to everything they say and do.
To learn more about the "Downing Street Minutes" and their implications, or to join other citizen noisemakers, visit the Web site afterdowningstreet.org or the Web site of U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr.
LYNN A. FAZEKAS
DeKalb
Wrap...
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Kerry going to raise Downing St Memo in Congress!
YAAAYYYYY!!! Kerry hears us!!!
Kerry assails Bush on Iraq Policies on Social Security, health care also draw fire
By STEVE URBON,
Standard-Times senior correspondent
NEW BEDFORD --
Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday called on Americans to be more aware of the "bait and switch" Iraq war and the "hollowing out" of the Army in the pursuit of a mistaken policy. In a swing through SouthCoast, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee attacked the priorities of the Republican Party and President Bush, elaborating on what they are sacrificing -- health care for children, infrastructure, Social Security -- in the pursuit of tax cuts. "The Holy Grail of the Republican Party is a tax cut, whether or not we need it," he said in a meeting with The Standard-Times editorial board.
Sen. Kerry puzzled over the apparent lack of interest by Americans in the Iraq war and the near silence in the U.S. mass media about the so-called Downing Street Memo. That leaked secret document, the minutes of a 2002 cabinet meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, says bluntly that Mr. Bush had decided to attack Iraq long before going to Congress with the matter, and that "intelligence was being fixed around the policy." It caused an uproar in Great Britain and badly hurt Mr. Blair in national elections but went almost unnoticed in the United States.
"When I go back (to Washington) on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," he said of the memo, which has not been disputed by either the British or American governments. "I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home. And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion.
It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."
He questioned Americans' understanding of the war and the sense that criticism equals disloyalty, saying, "Do you think that Americans if they really understood it would feel that way knowing that on Election Day, 77 percent of Americans who voted for Bush believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found and 77 percent believe Saddam did 9/11? Is there a way for this to break through, ever?"
**************
Yes! By people like Kerry yelling about it in Congress and then talking loud to the major media!
Wrap.
Kerry assails Bush on Iraq Policies on Social Security, health care also draw fire
By STEVE URBON,
Standard-Times senior correspondent
NEW BEDFORD --
Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday called on Americans to be more aware of the "bait and switch" Iraq war and the "hollowing out" of the Army in the pursuit of a mistaken policy. In a swing through SouthCoast, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee attacked the priorities of the Republican Party and President Bush, elaborating on what they are sacrificing -- health care for children, infrastructure, Social Security -- in the pursuit of tax cuts. "The Holy Grail of the Republican Party is a tax cut, whether or not we need it," he said in a meeting with The Standard-Times editorial board.
Sen. Kerry puzzled over the apparent lack of interest by Americans in the Iraq war and the near silence in the U.S. mass media about the so-called Downing Street Memo. That leaked secret document, the minutes of a 2002 cabinet meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, says bluntly that Mr. Bush had decided to attack Iraq long before going to Congress with the matter, and that "intelligence was being fixed around the policy." It caused an uproar in Great Britain and badly hurt Mr. Blair in national elections but went almost unnoticed in the United States.
"When I go back (to Washington) on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," he said of the memo, which has not been disputed by either the British or American governments. "I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home. And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion.
It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."
He questioned Americans' understanding of the war and the sense that criticism equals disloyalty, saying, "Do you think that Americans if they really understood it would feel that way knowing that on Election Day, 77 percent of Americans who voted for Bush believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found and 77 percent believe Saddam did 9/11? Is there a way for this to break through, ever?"
**************
Yes! By people like Kerry yelling about it in Congress and then talking loud to the major media!
Wrap.
An original Green Beret...
Believe I've mentioned this hilarious and oh, so informative book before, but no matter. Just found out that Ed did this over the phone, which is a good way to do it, so you'll know where those tiny clicks are coming from. All phone lines are not equal. It's not every day one gets to listen to what a guy who was in the very first unit of Green Berets has to say, and if there's somebody more worth listening to on that subject, I don't know who it would be.
Here he is:
"If you have three minutes to listen to me rant about my novel, Bank's Bandits, go to www.authorstalk.com , scroll down just a bit to see my book, and at the bottom of the paragraph there is a place to click to take you to my interview. When you get there, at the left, there is also a place to click ("listen") where you can hear the three minute "author's talk" I just recorded by phone for them today."
And if you're interested in having the book, it's on there.
Wrap...
Here he is:
"If you have three minutes to listen to me rant about my novel, Bank's Bandits, go to www.authorstalk.com , scroll down just a bit to see my book, and at the bottom of the paragraph there is a place to click to take you to my interview. When you get there, at the left, there is also a place to click ("listen") where you can hear the three minute "author's talk" I just recorded by phone for them today."
And if you're interested in having the book, it's on there.
Wrap...
Asked and Answered!!!
"What would be an atheist equivalent to an invocation?" (she asks)
(he replies) It would be:
"Dear Friends and colleagues, as we gather here today, and before undertaking the momentous tasks that we hve set ourselves to accomplish in the proceedings that are to follow, we should--it is right and just that we should--seek the guidance, direction and assistance ofthat superior and all-seeing being who is so much wiser than any of us will ever be, or could ever hope to be.
Unfortunately, Bill Clinton could not be with us today..."
(he replies) It would be:
"Dear Friends and colleagues, as we gather here today, and before undertaking the momentous tasks that we hve set ourselves to accomplish in the proceedings that are to follow, we should--it is right and just that we should--seek the guidance, direction and assistance ofthat superior and all-seeing being who is so much wiser than any of us will ever be, or could ever hope to be.
Unfortunately, Bill Clinton could not be with us today..."
That's Secret!!!!
From the FAS Project on government secrecy:
NRO EXPANDS USE OF OPERATIONAL FILES EXEMPTION
The National Reconnaissance Office is sharply curtailing itsresponse to Freedom of Information Act requests by expanding its interpretation of "operational files" that are exempt from theFOIA. According to statute, operational files are records "that document the means by which foreign intelligence or counterintelligence is collected through scientific and technical systems."
Congress exempted NRO operational files from the FOIA in 2002 based on a presumption that such records would be highly classified and unreleasable in any case. But the NRO now contends that routine administrative records such as budget justification documents prepared for Congress are"operational files" and that they are therefore exempt from review and disclosure under FOIA even when they are unclassified. It was not always so. As recently as last year, the NRO released unclassified portions of its Congressional Budget Justification Book for FY 1998 in response to a FOIA request. That material is posted here: http://www.fas.org/irp/nro/fy98/index.html
But in response to a similar request for unclassified budget records for FY 2006, the NRO said that all such records are now considered operational files that are exempt from review or release. In response to an administrative appeal, they reaffirmed their position in a May 18 denial letter: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2005/05/nro051805.pdf
The NRO budget justification files are produced each year for the express purpose of dissemination outside of the Agency. They are certainly not what Congress had in mind in granting NRO a FOIA exemption for "operational files." But in the absence of effective oversight, it may take litigation to prove the point. Exemptions for "operational files" have also been granted to theCIA, NGA and NSA. Another such exemption has been requested by the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was included in the Senate version of the 2006 Defense Authorization Act (section 922 of S.1042) but not in the House version (HR 1815).
***Well, if they can hide it, they're gonna do it, in this dishonest BushCo administration.
Wrap...
NRO EXPANDS USE OF OPERATIONAL FILES EXEMPTION
The National Reconnaissance Office is sharply curtailing itsresponse to Freedom of Information Act requests by expanding its interpretation of "operational files" that are exempt from theFOIA. According to statute, operational files are records "that document the means by which foreign intelligence or counterintelligence is collected through scientific and technical systems."
Congress exempted NRO operational files from the FOIA in 2002 based on a presumption that such records would be highly classified and unreleasable in any case. But the NRO now contends that routine administrative records such as budget justification documents prepared for Congress are"operational files" and that they are therefore exempt from review and disclosure under FOIA even when they are unclassified. It was not always so. As recently as last year, the NRO released unclassified portions of its Congressional Budget Justification Book for FY 1998 in response to a FOIA request. That material is posted here: http://www.fas.org/irp/nro/fy98/index.html
But in response to a similar request for unclassified budget records for FY 2006, the NRO said that all such records are now considered operational files that are exempt from review or release. In response to an administrative appeal, they reaffirmed their position in a May 18 denial letter: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2005/05/nro051805.pdf
The NRO budget justification files are produced each year for the express purpose of dissemination outside of the Agency. They are certainly not what Congress had in mind in granting NRO a FOIA exemption for "operational files." But in the absence of effective oversight, it may take litigation to prove the point. Exemptions for "operational files" have also been granted to theCIA, NGA and NSA. Another such exemption has been requested by the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was included in the Senate version of the 2006 Defense Authorization Act (section 922 of S.1042) but not in the House version (HR 1815).
***Well, if they can hide it, they're gonna do it, in this dishonest BushCo administration.
Wrap...
Sex and the Job!!!
From American Progress:
EMPLOYEE RIGHTS – POSSIBLE GENDER DISCRIMINATION AT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: The resume of David Schroer, applicant for the position of terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress, was quite impressive: "a 25-year Army veteran and former Special Forces commander who spent a career hunting terrorists and often personally briefed the vice president, defense secretary or Joint Chiefs of Staff on sensitive operations." He readily accepted the job offer. But a day after Schroer informed them that he was in the process of undergoing a sex change, the offer was yanked. Today, Schroer will be filing a lawsuit against the government for sex discrimination and "asking that the job offer be reinstated."
"Possible" my ass. His sex has zip to do with his abilities to do the job, as witness his background. What the hell is wrong with those people? Fundies got to them?
Wrap...
EMPLOYEE RIGHTS – POSSIBLE GENDER DISCRIMINATION AT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: The resume of David Schroer, applicant for the position of terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress, was quite impressive: "a 25-year Army veteran and former Special Forces commander who spent a career hunting terrorists and often personally briefed the vice president, defense secretary or Joint Chiefs of Staff on sensitive operations." He readily accepted the job offer. But a day after Schroer informed them that he was in the process of undergoing a sex change, the offer was yanked. Today, Schroer will be filing a lawsuit against the government for sex discrimination and "asking that the job offer be reinstated."
"Possible" my ass. His sex has zip to do with his abilities to do the job, as witness his background. What the hell is wrong with those people? Fundies got to them?
Wrap...
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
New York Times on the Downing Street MEMO!!!
The good columnist, Bob Herbert, of the NY Times kicks off June by writing what needed so badly to be written and discussed by major media. I consider this to be the greatest thing since peanut butter!
June 2, 2005
Truth and Deceit
By BOB HERBERT
When he accepted the Republican nomination for president in 1968, Richard Nixon said, "Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth - to see it as it is, and tell it like it is - to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth."
We've now learned, thanks to Vanity Fair, that a former top F.B.I. official, W. Mark Felt, was the legendary confidential source Deep Throat. I can't think of a better time to resurrect the Watergate saga.
The trauma of Watergate, which brought down a president who seemed pathologically compelled to deceive, came toward the end of that extended exercise in governmental folly and deceit, Vietnam. Taken together, these two disasters, both of which shook the nation, provided a case study in how citizens should view their government: with extreme skepticism.
Trust, said Ronald Reagan, but verify.
Now, with George W. Bush in charge, the nation is mired in yet another tragic period marked by incompetence, duplicity, bad faith and outright lies coming once again from the very top of the government. Just last month we had the disclosure of a previously secret British government memorandum that offered further confirmation that the American public and the world were spoon-fed bogus information by the Bush administration in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
President Bush, as we know, wanted to remove Saddam Hussein through military action. With that in mind, the memo damningly explained, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
That's the kind of deceit that was in play as American men and women were suiting up and marching off to combat at the president's command. Mr. Bush wanted war, and he got it. Many thousands have died as a result.
Even in Afghanistan, where the U.S. had legitimate reasons for going to war, the lies have been legion. Pat Tillman, for example, was a popular N.F.L. player who, in a burst of patriotism after Sept. 11, gave up a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers. He was sent first to Iraq, and then to Afghanistan, where he was shot to death by members of his own unit who mistook him for the enemy.
Instead of disclosing that Corporal Tillman had died tragically in a friendly fire incident, the Army spun a phony tale of heroism for his family and the nation. According to the Army, Corporal Tillman had been killed by enemy fire as he stormed a hill. Soldiers who knew the truth were ordered to keep quiet about the matter. Corporal Tillman's family was not told how he really died until after a nationally televised memorial service that recruiters viewed as a public relations bonanza.
Mary Tillman, Corporal Tillman's mother, told The Washington Post:
"The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."
At a press conference on Tuesday, President Bush, speaking about detainees who had complained of being abused, said they were "people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble - that means not tell the truth." Mr. Bush meant, of course, to say dissemble, which really means to deliberately mislead or conceal. Nevertheless, he knew what he was talking about. The president may have stumbled over the pronunciation, but he's proved time and again that he's a skillful practitioner of the art.
The lessons of Watergate and Vietnam are that the checks and balances embedded in the national government by the founding fathers (and which the Bush administration is trying mightily to destroy) are absolutely crucial if American-style democracy is to survive, and that a truly free and unfettered press (which the Bush administration is trying mightily to intimidate) is as important now as it's ever been.
There you have it in a nutshell. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, drunk with power and insufficiently restrained, took the nation on hair-raising journeys that were as unnecessary as they were destructive. Now, in the first years of the 21st century, George W. Bush is doing the same.
Congress and an aggressive press ultimately played crucial roles in bringing the truth about Vietnam and Watergate to light.
A similar challenge exists today. We'll see how it plays out.
- 0 -
Finally...somebody with the courage to tell the truth...but then, Herbert is very good at getting at the truth. He deserves our thanks, right along with John Conyers. Big time!
Wrap..
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
June 2, 2005
Truth and Deceit
By BOB HERBERT
When he accepted the Republican nomination for president in 1968, Richard Nixon said, "Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth - to see it as it is, and tell it like it is - to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth."
We've now learned, thanks to Vanity Fair, that a former top F.B.I. official, W. Mark Felt, was the legendary confidential source Deep Throat. I can't think of a better time to resurrect the Watergate saga.
The trauma of Watergate, which brought down a president who seemed pathologically compelled to deceive, came toward the end of that extended exercise in governmental folly and deceit, Vietnam. Taken together, these two disasters, both of which shook the nation, provided a case study in how citizens should view their government: with extreme skepticism.
Trust, said Ronald Reagan, but verify.
Now, with George W. Bush in charge, the nation is mired in yet another tragic period marked by incompetence, duplicity, bad faith and outright lies coming once again from the very top of the government. Just last month we had the disclosure of a previously secret British government memorandum that offered further confirmation that the American public and the world were spoon-fed bogus information by the Bush administration in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
President Bush, as we know, wanted to remove Saddam Hussein through military action. With that in mind, the memo damningly explained, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
That's the kind of deceit that was in play as American men and women were suiting up and marching off to combat at the president's command. Mr. Bush wanted war, and he got it. Many thousands have died as a result.
Even in Afghanistan, where the U.S. had legitimate reasons for going to war, the lies have been legion. Pat Tillman, for example, was a popular N.F.L. player who, in a burst of patriotism after Sept. 11, gave up a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers. He was sent first to Iraq, and then to Afghanistan, where he was shot to death by members of his own unit who mistook him for the enemy.
Instead of disclosing that Corporal Tillman had died tragically in a friendly fire incident, the Army spun a phony tale of heroism for his family and the nation. According to the Army, Corporal Tillman had been killed by enemy fire as he stormed a hill. Soldiers who knew the truth were ordered to keep quiet about the matter. Corporal Tillman's family was not told how he really died until after a nationally televised memorial service that recruiters viewed as a public relations bonanza.
Mary Tillman, Corporal Tillman's mother, told The Washington Post:
"The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."
At a press conference on Tuesday, President Bush, speaking about detainees who had complained of being abused, said they were "people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble - that means not tell the truth." Mr. Bush meant, of course, to say dissemble, which really means to deliberately mislead or conceal. Nevertheless, he knew what he was talking about. The president may have stumbled over the pronunciation, but he's proved time and again that he's a skillful practitioner of the art.
The lessons of Watergate and Vietnam are that the checks and balances embedded in the national government by the founding fathers (and which the Bush administration is trying mightily to destroy) are absolutely crucial if American-style democracy is to survive, and that a truly free and unfettered press (which the Bush administration is trying mightily to intimidate) is as important now as it's ever been.
There you have it in a nutshell. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, drunk with power and insufficiently restrained, took the nation on hair-raising journeys that were as unnecessary as they were destructive. Now, in the first years of the 21st century, George W. Bush is doing the same.
Congress and an aggressive press ultimately played crucial roles in bringing the truth about Vietnam and Watergate to light.
A similar challenge exists today. We'll see how it plays out.
- 0 -
Finally...somebody with the courage to tell the truth...but then, Herbert is very good at getting at the truth. He deserves our thanks, right along with John Conyers. Big time!
Wrap..
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
Black Box has the goods on 'em...
From: http://cyberpols.blogspot.com
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Black Box Voting has Hacked Diebold Machines in Three Different Ways
Scary stuff. We need to support Rush Holt and likeminded folks to get these paper-trail-less machines OUT of the electoral system.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Black Box Voting has Hacked Diebold Machines in Three Different Ways
Scary stuff. We need to support Rush Holt and likeminded folks to get these paper-trail-less machines OUT of the electoral system.
Catapult the propaganda works...
You think not? Think again after you read this, courtesy of the Independent Clearing House:
Papiere Bitte
By Doris Colmes
06/01/05 "ICH" - - Those were the magic words of the time: “Papiere Bitte. (Translation: “Papers, Please.”) Hearing those words, even now, causes dull echoes of sounds akin to bodies hitting dirt, or bullets penetrating flesh to thud into my mind. Because, if those papers weren’t correctly in order, or, if you were a Jew sneakily present in any place (including the grocery store) which displayed the usual “NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED” sign, you were dead meat--literally. And, yes, of course I’m talking about my childhood as a little Jewish kid in Nazi Germany.
No one ever forgets stench. Whether it is a long-forgotten encounter with a ripe skunk, or a ripe egg, or a ripe decomposing body, once one of those odors has been brain-documented, then even the slightest tinge of such an aroma pops back up immediately, along with the circumstances under which it first offended the nostrils.
And, that’s what’s happening now. I smell the long-forgotten skunk, the long-forgotten rot of fascism. What is happening all around can no longer be denied. . What I ran away from so desperately in 1938 is coming back full circle. Only the jack-boots have not yet arrived.
America quite literally saved my life. The love and gratitude deep in my heart for this country will never go away. But I’m scared now. Haunted by deep fear for the generations to come, who may wind up as I did – looking over their shoulders, scurrying for cover, mute with terror. And it hurts.
Think I’m some kinda elderly nut-job neurotically manufacturing dictatorship? Well, let’s look at the 82 billion dollar defense bill passed just a few weeks ago, which (with a vote tally of 100 to 0) had the Real ID Act hidden inside it. This law allows a national identification process in which each and every person in the U.S.A. will be on computer.
This ID will be based on driver’s license applications, although it isn’t just for driving. Just like the infamous “Internal Passport” of Nazi Germany, no one will need it unless needing to fly, cash checks, apply for jobs, walk the streets, enter federal buildings -- or drive. As stated in TIME magazine on May 15, 2005 , “If you are a wealthy recluse with liquid assets, it doesn’t concern you.” Everyone else better watch out! Well, maybe that wealthy recluse had better watch out also. After all, he/she might be of a forbidden religion, or of suspicious racial origin.
Legal “ID Theft” and legal “illegal surveillance?” [1][1]”The Real ID Act links driver’s licenses of all states, creating a data base including the private details of
every single U.S. citizen. It mandates that your driver’s license share a common machine-readable digital photo of you, all the better to track your every movement. It hands the federal government unfunded mandate power to dictate what data all states must collect for license holders, including everything from fingerprints to retinal scans”. And, if you don’t drive, you’ll still need to submit to the national ID card. How else, after all, will the cop who doesn’t like the shape of your face, or the fact that you are (God Forbid) wearing a turban get to arrest you? Yes, “Papiere Bitte” has come home to roost.
And, folks, that’s only the beginning. More technically sophisticated techniques will be implemented as they occur. If the Nazis had had electronic surveillance, phone bugging and all else that the Patriot Act not only condones but advises, there would have been an even tighter grip on the populace.
After all, the Patriot Act is modeled directly after Gestapo methods: Those 3:00 AM home intrusions – without warrant or reason for arrest – will get our undesirable “domestic terrorists” straight to the nearest version of Guantanamo with no need for trial. The USA is currently building thirty seven “detention centers” nationwide, and they’ll soon be filled with persons who protest too much, or are simply of the wrong nationality. After all, it worked very well in Germany , successfully eliminating Jews, Gypsies, and anyone willing to stand up, and refuse to “Hail Hitler.”
What’s next? Well, it’s already happening: The Geneva Conventions were initiated after WW II to prevent the insane war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Nazi Germany from ever happening again. Now, with blithe disregard of all of the above, the U.S.A. not only institutes torture (not just physical, but deliberately mental and emotional) on its prisoners, but actually exports these folks to countries in which such torture is governmentally approved. What the U.S. domestic prison system has kept hidden for years, is now right out there for everyone to applaud. How long it will take before the prison guards tie together the legs of a woman in labor and then make bets on how long it will take her to die? After all, that’s what guards did for fun in Nazi Germany. Abu Ghraib, anyone?
So, you ask, “If that’s all true, why doesn’t the media expose it all?” Now, that’s such a classic example of Nazi strategy, it’s almost funny. The Nazis took over the media, folks. No newspaper published a single sentence without governmental approval, and propaganda was fed to the populace instead of news. Sound familiar? A TIME magazine article, (April, 2005), gave illustrated examples of how the current administration administers this process.
And, last but certainly not least, the Nazis took over the German government in its entirety with one simple maneuver: They simply took over the courts. You know, like it’s happening right now, today, even as we speak: Our filibuster was busted, and those neo-con activist judges are a-sittin’ on the bench, ready to take over the Supreme Court. Because, once that Supreme Court is co-opted, hey, driver’s license ID cards are gonna be the least of our worries. Ask me. I know!
Doris is an independent writer and may be contacted at: dhcolmes@msn.com
Wrap...
Papiere Bitte
By Doris Colmes
06/01/05 "ICH" - - Those were the magic words of the time: “Papiere Bitte. (Translation: “Papers, Please.”) Hearing those words, even now, causes dull echoes of sounds akin to bodies hitting dirt, or bullets penetrating flesh to thud into my mind. Because, if those papers weren’t correctly in order, or, if you were a Jew sneakily present in any place (including the grocery store) which displayed the usual “NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED” sign, you were dead meat--literally. And, yes, of course I’m talking about my childhood as a little Jewish kid in Nazi Germany.
No one ever forgets stench. Whether it is a long-forgotten encounter with a ripe skunk, or a ripe egg, or a ripe decomposing body, once one of those odors has been brain-documented, then even the slightest tinge of such an aroma pops back up immediately, along with the circumstances under which it first offended the nostrils.
And, that’s what’s happening now. I smell the long-forgotten skunk, the long-forgotten rot of fascism. What is happening all around can no longer be denied. . What I ran away from so desperately in 1938 is coming back full circle. Only the jack-boots have not yet arrived.
America quite literally saved my life. The love and gratitude deep in my heart for this country will never go away. But I’m scared now. Haunted by deep fear for the generations to come, who may wind up as I did – looking over their shoulders, scurrying for cover, mute with terror. And it hurts.
Think I’m some kinda elderly nut-job neurotically manufacturing dictatorship? Well, let’s look at the 82 billion dollar defense bill passed just a few weeks ago, which (with a vote tally of 100 to 0) had the Real ID Act hidden inside it. This law allows a national identification process in which each and every person in the U.S.A. will be on computer.
This ID will be based on driver’s license applications, although it isn’t just for driving. Just like the infamous “Internal Passport” of Nazi Germany, no one will need it unless needing to fly, cash checks, apply for jobs, walk the streets, enter federal buildings -- or drive. As stated in TIME magazine on May 15, 2005 , “If you are a wealthy recluse with liquid assets, it doesn’t concern you.” Everyone else better watch out! Well, maybe that wealthy recluse had better watch out also. After all, he/she might be of a forbidden religion, or of suspicious racial origin.
Legal “ID Theft” and legal “illegal surveillance?” [1][1]”The Real ID Act links driver’s licenses of all states, creating a data base including the private details of
every single U.S. citizen. It mandates that your driver’s license share a common machine-readable digital photo of you, all the better to track your every movement. It hands the federal government unfunded mandate power to dictate what data all states must collect for license holders, including everything from fingerprints to retinal scans”. And, if you don’t drive, you’ll still need to submit to the national ID card. How else, after all, will the cop who doesn’t like the shape of your face, or the fact that you are (God Forbid) wearing a turban get to arrest you? Yes, “Papiere Bitte” has come home to roost.
And, folks, that’s only the beginning. More technically sophisticated techniques will be implemented as they occur. If the Nazis had had electronic surveillance, phone bugging and all else that the Patriot Act not only condones but advises, there would have been an even tighter grip on the populace.
After all, the Patriot Act is modeled directly after Gestapo methods: Those 3:00 AM home intrusions – without warrant or reason for arrest – will get our undesirable “domestic terrorists” straight to the nearest version of Guantanamo with no need for trial. The USA is currently building thirty seven “detention centers” nationwide, and they’ll soon be filled with persons who protest too much, or are simply of the wrong nationality. After all, it worked very well in Germany , successfully eliminating Jews, Gypsies, and anyone willing to stand up, and refuse to “Hail Hitler.”
What’s next? Well, it’s already happening: The Geneva Conventions were initiated after WW II to prevent the insane war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Nazi Germany from ever happening again. Now, with blithe disregard of all of the above, the U.S.A. not only institutes torture (not just physical, but deliberately mental and emotional) on its prisoners, but actually exports these folks to countries in which such torture is governmentally approved. What the U.S. domestic prison system has kept hidden for years, is now right out there for everyone to applaud. How long it will take before the prison guards tie together the legs of a woman in labor and then make bets on how long it will take her to die? After all, that’s what guards did for fun in Nazi Germany. Abu Ghraib, anyone?
So, you ask, “If that’s all true, why doesn’t the media expose it all?” Now, that’s such a classic example of Nazi strategy, it’s almost funny. The Nazis took over the media, folks. No newspaper published a single sentence without governmental approval, and propaganda was fed to the populace instead of news. Sound familiar? A TIME magazine article, (April, 2005), gave illustrated examples of how the current administration administers this process.
And, last but certainly not least, the Nazis took over the German government in its entirety with one simple maneuver: They simply took over the courts. You know, like it’s happening right now, today, even as we speak: Our filibuster was busted, and those neo-con activist judges are a-sittin’ on the bench, ready to take over the Supreme Court. Because, once that Supreme Court is co-opted, hey, driver’s license ID cards are gonna be the least of our worries. Ask me. I know!
Doris is an independent writer and may be contacted at: dhcolmes@msn.com
Wrap...
Want Sex? Go to Yahoo...
This is downright pitiful. Is Yahoo so damned desperate for money that it has to resort to selling kid sex? Secretly, from it's advertisers? Figures that the Yahoo execs aren't answering questions, doesn't it? The lust for money and more money makes them some sick puppies...at the least. I refuse to knowlingly have anything to do with people who act like that. Don't want them anywhere around me. Yuk!
Investigation Shows Big Business Funding Sex Chat Rooms
Companies Pull Ads After Station Exposes Problem
UPDATED: 7:30 am PDT June 1, 2005
HOUSTON --
Several well-known companies have pulled ads from a popular online chat room service after an investigation by Houston television station KPRC revealed to them what their money was funding.
Yahoo! is facing a $10 million lawsuit that accuses it of cashing in on some disturbing chat rooms. The stations' investigation showed what's really going on in those rooms.
The companies are paying huge fees for their ads to appear on Yahoo!. But many are now canceling those ads because of the report. The discovery has prompted fast action in corporate America and a strong reaction at the nation's capital.
"Yes, more legislation is required. The law has not kept up with this type of criminal activity," U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, told the station.
Among the thousands of chat room titles, where people can look for common interests like music or movies, there are other rooms with some disturbing titles, such as:
9-17-Year-Olds Wantin' Sex
Younger Girls 4 Older Guys
Girls 13 And Under For Older Guys
Girls 13 And Up For Much Older Man
Girls 8 to 13 Watch Boys (In A Particular Sex Act)
The station found all of those rooms listed as education chat rooms, sponsored day in and day out by some major companies consumers have heard of -- all paying money for their ads to be seen before a person enters the child-sex chat rooms.
"Children are the largest victimized group in this country, and we need corporations to do the right thing," Child Rescue Network, Inc. spokesman Charles Clickman told the station.
Before entering the chat room titled "5 To 13-Year-Old Kiddies Who Love Sex" or "Girls 5 To 13 For Older Men," guests were required to click on a Star Wars-themed ad from Diet Pepsi.
Inside the chat rooms, not only were men trying to meet children or even take them away from home to run away, the station found countless adult men using Web cameras to send children in the room lewd pictures or display live nude images of themselves.
However, the nation's top law enforcement officers said it is all legal.
"Short of changes in the law in Congress, we may be limited about what we can do in this area," U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said.
Gonzales told the station he can't use the laws now on the books to shut down Yahoo!'s child sex site. But back in 2002, the station broke the story when federal officials shut down a Web site called "Candyman" with those existing laws.
Pepsi, State Farm Insurance, Countrywide Mortgage and several other large corporations pull their ads from Yahoo after a Local 2 Troubleshooters investigation shows their ads appearing on sexually-explicit chat rooms promoting sex with children.
The "Candyman" site was geared only toward trading child sex pictures and stories, just like the Yahoo! rooms.
"By doing what they're doing here with the advertising, this is endangering children and that's serious. I'm offended as a parent and I'm offended as a child advocate," Clickman said.
Sponsors around the country are reacting to what the investigation found.
The station called Pepsi for comment and the company quickly pulled its ads. A statement from Pepsi said, "We were completely unaware that our advertisements were associated with these chat rooms in any way."
Countrywide Mortgage pulled its ad for refinancing because of the investigation. The company said, "We took measures to ensure that a situation like this could not occur again."
State Farm Insurance also pulled its ads, not only from the chat room but also from all Yahoo! sites. The company said, "We will be suspending our online advertising with Yahoo! until it provides us a detailed explanation of how this situation was allowed to happen in violation of our contract, and until we receive sufficient assurance that our advertising will never again appear on inappropriate sites."
The same goes for Georgia-Pacific, maker of Brawny paper towels. Its ads were pulled, and a spokeswoman said Yahoo! admitted it did not adhere to the advertising contract with Brawny. The Troubleshooters found Brawny ads in a Yahoo! chat room called "6 To 11 Year Old Girls Into Older Men."
Another big sponsor, T-Mobile, did not respond to the station's request for comment.
"Yahoo! is aware of the situation now. They are put on public notice by (KPRC) and other people about what is taking place, and they need to come up with a solution to the problem unless they want the government to get involved and hold them liable, either civilly or even criminally, for these types of activities," Poe said.
Online ads just pushed Yahoo!'s income to more than double what it was a year ago -- up to $205 million.
Yahoo! executives declined to answer the stations' questions but issued a statement saying, "Yahoo! strongly supports law enforcements' efforts to combat illegal activity on the Internet and works cooperatively with law enforcement to aid in their investigations."
The statement also said Yahoo!'s terms of service do not allow illegal activities, but those same child sex chat rooms are being hosted by Yahoo!.
The lawsuit against Yahoo! accuses the company of capitalizing on child pornography when it hosted the Candyman site, and with the other sites like the ones the station found still in action.
The lawsuit by the family of one child porn victim said Yahoo! could have removed the sites, but instead chose to make money on them.
Wrap..
Investigation Shows Big Business Funding Sex Chat Rooms
Companies Pull Ads After Station Exposes Problem
UPDATED: 7:30 am PDT June 1, 2005
HOUSTON --
Several well-known companies have pulled ads from a popular online chat room service after an investigation by Houston television station KPRC revealed to them what their money was funding.
Yahoo! is facing a $10 million lawsuit that accuses it of cashing in on some disturbing chat rooms. The stations' investigation showed what's really going on in those rooms.
The companies are paying huge fees for their ads to appear on Yahoo!. But many are now canceling those ads because of the report. The discovery has prompted fast action in corporate America and a strong reaction at the nation's capital.
"Yes, more legislation is required. The law has not kept up with this type of criminal activity," U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, told the station.
Among the thousands of chat room titles, where people can look for common interests like music or movies, there are other rooms with some disturbing titles, such as:
9-17-Year-Olds Wantin' Sex
Younger Girls 4 Older Guys
Girls 13 And Under For Older Guys
Girls 13 And Up For Much Older Man
Girls 8 to 13 Watch Boys (In A Particular Sex Act)
The station found all of those rooms listed as education chat rooms, sponsored day in and day out by some major companies consumers have heard of -- all paying money for their ads to be seen before a person enters the child-sex chat rooms.
"Children are the largest victimized group in this country, and we need corporations to do the right thing," Child Rescue Network, Inc. spokesman Charles Clickman told the station.
Before entering the chat room titled "5 To 13-Year-Old Kiddies Who Love Sex" or "Girls 5 To 13 For Older Men," guests were required to click on a Star Wars-themed ad from Diet Pepsi.
Inside the chat rooms, not only were men trying to meet children or even take them away from home to run away, the station found countless adult men using Web cameras to send children in the room lewd pictures or display live nude images of themselves.
However, the nation's top law enforcement officers said it is all legal.
"Short of changes in the law in Congress, we may be limited about what we can do in this area," U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said.
Gonzales told the station he can't use the laws now on the books to shut down Yahoo!'s child sex site. But back in 2002, the station broke the story when federal officials shut down a Web site called "Candyman" with those existing laws.
Pepsi, State Farm Insurance, Countrywide Mortgage and several other large corporations pull their ads from Yahoo after a Local 2 Troubleshooters investigation shows their ads appearing on sexually-explicit chat rooms promoting sex with children.
The "Candyman" site was geared only toward trading child sex pictures and stories, just like the Yahoo! rooms.
"By doing what they're doing here with the advertising, this is endangering children and that's serious. I'm offended as a parent and I'm offended as a child advocate," Clickman said.
Sponsors around the country are reacting to what the investigation found.
The station called Pepsi for comment and the company quickly pulled its ads. A statement from Pepsi said, "We were completely unaware that our advertisements were associated with these chat rooms in any way."
Countrywide Mortgage pulled its ad for refinancing because of the investigation. The company said, "We took measures to ensure that a situation like this could not occur again."
State Farm Insurance also pulled its ads, not only from the chat room but also from all Yahoo! sites. The company said, "We will be suspending our online advertising with Yahoo! until it provides us a detailed explanation of how this situation was allowed to happen in violation of our contract, and until we receive sufficient assurance that our advertising will never again appear on inappropriate sites."
The same goes for Georgia-Pacific, maker of Brawny paper towels. Its ads were pulled, and a spokeswoman said Yahoo! admitted it did not adhere to the advertising contract with Brawny. The Troubleshooters found Brawny ads in a Yahoo! chat room called "6 To 11 Year Old Girls Into Older Men."
Another big sponsor, T-Mobile, did not respond to the station's request for comment.
"Yahoo! is aware of the situation now. They are put on public notice by (KPRC) and other people about what is taking place, and they need to come up with a solution to the problem unless they want the government to get involved and hold them liable, either civilly or even criminally, for these types of activities," Poe said.
Online ads just pushed Yahoo!'s income to more than double what it was a year ago -- up to $205 million.
Yahoo! executives declined to answer the stations' questions but issued a statement saying, "Yahoo! strongly supports law enforcements' efforts to combat illegal activity on the Internet and works cooperatively with law enforcement to aid in their investigations."
The statement also said Yahoo!'s terms of service do not allow illegal activities, but those same child sex chat rooms are being hosted by Yahoo!.
The lawsuit against Yahoo! accuses the company of capitalizing on child pornography when it hosted the Candyman site, and with the other sites like the ones the station found still in action.
The lawsuit by the family of one child porn victim said Yahoo! could have removed the sites, but instead chose to make money on them.
Wrap..
Hey MSM! Heads-up!
More from www.tomdispatch.com on the proliferation of bases around the world:
The Bush administration's fierce focus on and interest in reconfigured, stripped down, ever more forward systems of bases and an ever more powerfully poised military "footprint" stands in inverse proportion to press coverage of it. To the present occupants of the Pentagon, bases are the equivalent of imperial America's lifeblood and yet basing policy abroad has, in recent years, been of next to no interest to the mainstream media.
Strategic Ally
Just in recent weeks, however, starting with the uproar over the economic pain BRAC will impose (along with the economic gain for those "hubs"), bases have returned to public consciousness in at least a modest way. This month, for instance, the Overseas Basing Commission released a report to the President and Congress on the "reconfiguration of the American military overseas basing structure in the post-Cold War and post-September 11 era." The report created a minor flap by criticizing the Pentagon for its overly ambitious global redeployment plans at a time when "[s]ervice budgets are not robust enough to execute the repositioning of forces, build the facilities necessary to accommodate the forces, [and] build the expanding facilities at new locations…"
In other words, the global ambitions of the Pentagon -- and the soaring budgets that go with those ambitions -- are beyond our means (not that that means much to the Bush administration). The report's criticism evidently irritated Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and so the report, already posted at a government website, was promptly taken down after the Defense Department claimed it contained classified information, especially "a reference to ongoing negotiations over U.S. bases in Bulgaria and Romania." (As it happened, the Federation of American Scientists had posted the report at its own site, where it remains available to all, according to Secrecy News.)
Okay...you have Secrecy News in the previous post, but this article is well worth reading too, for a more complete look at BushCo's "run silent, run deep" plans....
Wrap.
The Bush administration's fierce focus on and interest in reconfigured, stripped down, ever more forward systems of bases and an ever more powerfully poised military "footprint" stands in inverse proportion to press coverage of it. To the present occupants of the Pentagon, bases are the equivalent of imperial America's lifeblood and yet basing policy abroad has, in recent years, been of next to no interest to the mainstream media.
Strategic Ally
Just in recent weeks, however, starting with the uproar over the economic pain BRAC will impose (along with the economic gain for those "hubs"), bases have returned to public consciousness in at least a modest way. This month, for instance, the Overseas Basing Commission released a report to the President and Congress on the "reconfiguration of the American military overseas basing structure in the post-Cold War and post-September 11 era." The report created a minor flap by criticizing the Pentagon for its overly ambitious global redeployment plans at a time when "[s]ervice budgets are not robust enough to execute the repositioning of forces, build the facilities necessary to accommodate the forces, [and] build the expanding facilities at new locations…"
In other words, the global ambitions of the Pentagon -- and the soaring budgets that go with those ambitions -- are beyond our means (not that that means much to the Bush administration). The report's criticism evidently irritated Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and so the report, already posted at a government website, was promptly taken down after the Defense Department claimed it contained classified information, especially "a reference to ongoing negotiations over U.S. bases in Bulgaria and Romania." (As it happened, the Federation of American Scientists had posted the report at its own site, where it remains available to all, according to Secrecy News.)
Okay...you have Secrecy News in the previous post, but this article is well worth reading too, for a more complete look at BushCo's "run silent, run deep" plans....
Wrap.
The Pentagon Worldwide...
So. While the Pentagon gets busy consolidating USA bases into mega-bases through using BRAC here at home, it looks like the money they project to be saved is gonna play a part in building ever more bases around the world...and probably in space...if they can get away with it. Take a look at this, courtesy of the Tom Paine Dispatch:
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government SecrecyVolume 2005, Issue No. 48May 20, 2005
FULL REPORT ON OVERSEAS BASES RESTORED TO WEB
NUCLEAR RESEARCH IN ALGERIA
US-RUSSIA MEMORANDA OF UNDERSTANDING
COMBAT AIRCRAFT SALES TO SOUTH ASIA (CRS)
FULL REPORT ON OVERSEAS BASES RESTORED TO WEB
The full text of the report of the Overseas Basing Commission, which was removed from a government web site after the Department of Defense said it contained classified information, is now available on the FAS web site.
The partial version of the report described in Secrecy News yesterday included only 92 of the report's 262 pages, and lacked several of the detailed appendices.
The full 262 page report was obtained from InsideDefense.com. It is available (at the same URL given yesterday) here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/obc.pdf
According to press accounts, one of the disputed passages that led the Pentagon to demand withdrawal of the report from the web was a reference to ongoing negotiations over U.S. bases in Bulgaria and Romania.
"While formal negotiations with either Bulgaria or Romania have not yet been finalized, DOD has funded a small portion of the costs to build facilities at these locations," the Commission report stated on page M5. A footnote indicates that "exact funding data is classified" and did not reveal such data, but the Pentagon reportedly opposed any mention of the matter.
Official data on deployment of U.S. military personnel around the world, including Bulgaria and Romania, may be found on a Defense Department web site here:
http://www.dior.whs.mil/mmid/military/miltop.htm
"The just-released report of the Overseas Basing Commission is a much bolder document than the highly praised 9/11 commission report," according to one op-ed writer's assessment.
See "How Not to Move Troops" by Ralph Peters, New York Post, May 6, 2005:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/43474.htm
NUCLEAR RESEARCH IN ALGERIA
A bibliography of research published by Algerian scientists on nuclear physics, plasma physics, reactor safety and other aspects of nuclear science and technology has recently been prepared by researcher Mark Gorwitz, as part of his ongoing bibliographical investigation into the spread of nuclear knowledge.
See "Algerian Nuclear Science Bibliography," May 2005:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/algeria/biblio.pdf
Algeria, once suspected by the U.S. of pursuing nuclear weapons with Chinese aid, signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1995.
US-RUSSIA MEMORANDA OF UNDERSTANDING
Several memoranda of understanding on arms control and bilateral relations signed by the United States and the Russian Federation during the past decade were released by the State Department last month in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from researcher Mike Ravnitzky.
"Memorandum of Understanding on Notifications of Missile Launches," December 16, 2000 (partially excised):
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/mou-launch.pdf
"Memorandum of Understanding on Warhead Attribution and Heavy Bomber Data," January 3, 1993:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/mou-warhead.pdf
"Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Open Lands," June 17, 1992:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/mou-open.pdf
COMBAT AIRCRAFT SALES TO SOUTH ASIA (CRS)
A new report from the Congressional Research Service considers the political, military and economic consequences of resuming sales of combat aircraft to Pakistan and India, as the Bush Administration has proposed.
"If completed, such sales would have implications for political-military relations among the United States, Pakistan, and India; for combat aircraft proliferation; and for the U.S. defense industrial base."
See "Combat Aircraft Sales to South Asia: Potential Implications," May 19, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS22148.pdf
******************************
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send an email message to secrecy_news-request@lists.fas.org with "subscribe" (without quotes) in the body of the message.
To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a blank email message to secrecy_news-remove@lists.fas.org.
OR email your request to saftergood@fas.org
Secrecy News is archived at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
Secrecy News has an RSS feed at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.rss
I think it would be a good idea to keep an eye on Rummy's grandiose plans for the world.
Wrap..
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government SecrecyVolume 2005, Issue No. 48May 20, 2005
FULL REPORT ON OVERSEAS BASES RESTORED TO WEB
NUCLEAR RESEARCH IN ALGERIA
US-RUSSIA MEMORANDA OF UNDERSTANDING
COMBAT AIRCRAFT SALES TO SOUTH ASIA (CRS)
FULL REPORT ON OVERSEAS BASES RESTORED TO WEB
The full text of the report of the Overseas Basing Commission, which was removed from a government web site after the Department of Defense said it contained classified information, is now available on the FAS web site.
The partial version of the report described in Secrecy News yesterday included only 92 of the report's 262 pages, and lacked several of the detailed appendices.
The full 262 page report was obtained from InsideDefense.com. It is available (at the same URL given yesterday) here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/obc.pdf
According to press accounts, one of the disputed passages that led the Pentagon to demand withdrawal of the report from the web was a reference to ongoing negotiations over U.S. bases in Bulgaria and Romania.
"While formal negotiations with either Bulgaria or Romania have not yet been finalized, DOD has funded a small portion of the costs to build facilities at these locations," the Commission report stated on page M5. A footnote indicates that "exact funding data is classified" and did not reveal such data, but the Pentagon reportedly opposed any mention of the matter.
Official data on deployment of U.S. military personnel around the world, including Bulgaria and Romania, may be found on a Defense Department web site here:
http://www.dior.whs.mil/mmid/military/miltop.htm
"The just-released report of the Overseas Basing Commission is a much bolder document than the highly praised 9/11 commission report," according to one op-ed writer's assessment.
See "How Not to Move Troops" by Ralph Peters, New York Post, May 6, 2005:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/43474.htm
NUCLEAR RESEARCH IN ALGERIA
A bibliography of research published by Algerian scientists on nuclear physics, plasma physics, reactor safety and other aspects of nuclear science and technology has recently been prepared by researcher Mark Gorwitz, as part of his ongoing bibliographical investigation into the spread of nuclear knowledge.
See "Algerian Nuclear Science Bibliography," May 2005:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/algeria/biblio.pdf
Algeria, once suspected by the U.S. of pursuing nuclear weapons with Chinese aid, signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1995.
US-RUSSIA MEMORANDA OF UNDERSTANDING
Several memoranda of understanding on arms control and bilateral relations signed by the United States and the Russian Federation during the past decade were released by the State Department last month in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from researcher Mike Ravnitzky.
"Memorandum of Understanding on Notifications of Missile Launches," December 16, 2000 (partially excised):
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/mou-launch.pdf
"Memorandum of Understanding on Warhead Attribution and Heavy Bomber Data," January 3, 1993:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/mou-warhead.pdf
"Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Open Lands," June 17, 1992:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/mou-open.pdf
COMBAT AIRCRAFT SALES TO SOUTH ASIA (CRS)
A new report from the Congressional Research Service considers the political, military and economic consequences of resuming sales of combat aircraft to Pakistan and India, as the Bush Administration has proposed.
"If completed, such sales would have implications for political-military relations among the United States, Pakistan, and India; for combat aircraft proliferation; and for the U.S. defense industrial base."
See "Combat Aircraft Sales to South Asia: Potential Implications," May 19, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS22148.pdf
******************************
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send an email message to secrecy_news-request@lists.fas.org with "subscribe" (without quotes) in the body of the message.
To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a blank email message to secrecy_news-remove@lists.fas.org.
OR email your request to saftergood@fas.org
Secrecy News is archived at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
Secrecy News has an RSS feed at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.rss
I think it would be a good idea to keep an eye on Rummy's grandiose plans for the world.
Wrap..
If this collection goes up for sale, Whoa!
From the DeKalb Chronicle (in northern Illinois) online via AP:
Armstrong Threatens to Sue Ohio Barber
By TERRY KINNEY
CINCINNATI -
Apollo moon mission astronaut Neil Armstrong has threatened to sue a barbershop owner who collected Armstrong's hair after a trim and sold it for $3,000.Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, used to go to Marx's Barber Shop in Lebanon about once a month for a cut. That stopped when he learned that owner Marx Sizemore had collected his hair clippings from the floor and sold them in May 2004 to a collector."I didn't deny it or anything," Sizemore said. "I told him I did it."Sizemore said Armstrong asked him to try to retrieve the hair, but the buyer did not want to give it back."I called Neil back and told him that," Sizemore said. "Then I got this letter from his lawyer."
The letter contends that the sale violated an Ohio law designed to protect the rights of famous people. It threatens legal action if Sizemore does not return the hair or contribute his profit to charity and asks Sizemore to pay Armstrong's legal expenses.Sizemore, who said he already spent most of the $3,000 on bills, told the lawyer who sent the letter, Ross Wales of Cincinnati, that he will not pay. Wales did not return a call seeking comment.
Sizemore said he sold the hair to an agent for John Reznikoff, a Westport, Conn., collector listed by Guinness World Records as having the largest collection of hair from historical celebrities. The collection, insured for $1 million, includes hair from Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein and Napoleon.Armstrong commanded NASA's Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. He left the space program in 1971 to teach aeronautical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He seldom appears at public functions or grants interviews.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
Wrap...
Armstrong Threatens to Sue Ohio Barber
By TERRY KINNEY
CINCINNATI -
Apollo moon mission astronaut Neil Armstrong has threatened to sue a barbershop owner who collected Armstrong's hair after a trim and sold it for $3,000.Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, used to go to Marx's Barber Shop in Lebanon about once a month for a cut. That stopped when he learned that owner Marx Sizemore had collected his hair clippings from the floor and sold them in May 2004 to a collector."I didn't deny it or anything," Sizemore said. "I told him I did it."Sizemore said Armstrong asked him to try to retrieve the hair, but the buyer did not want to give it back."I called Neil back and told him that," Sizemore said. "Then I got this letter from his lawyer."
The letter contends that the sale violated an Ohio law designed to protect the rights of famous people. It threatens legal action if Sizemore does not return the hair or contribute his profit to charity and asks Sizemore to pay Armstrong's legal expenses.Sizemore, who said he already spent most of the $3,000 on bills, told the lawyer who sent the letter, Ross Wales of Cincinnati, that he will not pay. Wales did not return a call seeking comment.
Sizemore said he sold the hair to an agent for John Reznikoff, a Westport, Conn., collector listed by Guinness World Records as having the largest collection of hair from historical celebrities. The collection, insured for $1 million, includes hair from Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein and Napoleon.Armstrong commanded NASA's Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. He left the space program in 1971 to teach aeronautical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He seldom appears at public functions or grants interviews.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
Wrap...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)