This just in from CNN:
Clark urges expanding reservist health care2004 presidential candidate offers Democratic response to Bush05/28/05 11:08 AM, EDTRetired Army Gen. Wesley Clark used the Democrats' radio broadcast Saturday to insist that Reserve and National Guard members and their families should receive the same health insurance as the active force does.
FULL STORY
There should be no argument about this. Those guys are losing their homes, their jobs, and to treat them like 2nd class soldiers and not make sure they have equal health insurance is flat wrong. Which BushCo does. Which is why I supported Gen Clark for Prez and will again if he decides to run in 2008. It's my opinion that we need a Prez who doesn't go off with half-baked ideas like BushCo does. And who'd get rid of Rumsfeld so fast it would make heads spin. Our people are dying because of their stupid, limited, bullheaded thinking, and it infuriates me.
Wrap.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Friday, May 27, 2005
Don't use these generic drugs! (scrolldownfor post)
This just in from an RN friend and writer:
Hey, guys, this is another of those news stories that isn't making the news
nearly enough.
Able Labs makes generic equivalents of some of our most-used medications.
Their license has just been pulled and they've been ordered to cease
production because of tainted batches of drugs, improperly mixed compounds,
etcetera.
Below is a link so that you can see what they make. And if you're taking
any sort of generic meds that may have come from them, it'd be best to check
with your pharmacist. You'll be amazed how many types of drugs could be at
risk. Pass the info along to friends.
http://ablelabs.com/products/products.html
Wrap.
Hey, guys, this is another of those news stories that isn't making the news
nearly enough.
Able Labs makes generic equivalents of some of our most-used medications.
Their license has just been pulled and they've been ordered to cease
production because of tainted batches of drugs, improperly mixed compounds,
etcetera.
Below is a link so that you can see what they make. And if you're taking
any sort of generic meds that may have come from them, it'd be best to check
with your pharmacist. You'll be amazed how many types of drugs could be at
risk. Pass the info along to friends.
http://ablelabs.com/products/products.html
Wrap.
No diddling around!!! (scroll down to post)
An excerpt from the Huffington Post. When Erica Jong has something to say, she goes right to the gist of it:
Erica Jong
President Bush and the Blastocyst
Bush is the reality show President. Not only is he kissing babies, he's symbolically kissing blastocysts. He put on an amazing show on Tuesday surrounded by adorable infants and children who were adopted as embryos thanks to The Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption Program of The Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency. Who can doubt that encouraging infertile couples adopt embryos is a good thing? This is a no brainer (even if you're not Christian). But until Bush and Laura themselves adopt all the embryos that might otherwise be doomed to waste their sweetness on the desert air, his blastocyst reality show will be show and tell and nothing more.
If every three-day-old embryo has the legal protection of a human life, how far are we from the time that sperm and egg cells are also protected as incipient human lives? Philip Roth had a spoof on this three decades ago when he imagined the Christian Right outlawing male masturbation on the grounds that it was anti-life. At the time it seemed like slapstick comedy, now we are catching up with Roth's wildest fantasies...
Go read the rest of it.
Wrap.
Erica Jong
President Bush and the Blastocyst
Bush is the reality show President. Not only is he kissing babies, he's symbolically kissing blastocysts. He put on an amazing show on Tuesday surrounded by adorable infants and children who were adopted as embryos thanks to The Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption Program of The Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency. Who can doubt that encouraging infertile couples adopt embryos is a good thing? This is a no brainer (even if you're not Christian). But until Bush and Laura themselves adopt all the embryos that might otherwise be doomed to waste their sweetness on the desert air, his blastocyst reality show will be show and tell and nothing more.
If every three-day-old embryo has the legal protection of a human life, how far are we from the time that sperm and egg cells are also protected as incipient human lives? Philip Roth had a spoof on this three decades ago when he imagined the Christian Right outlawing male masturbation on the grounds that it was anti-life. At the time it seemed like slapstick comedy, now we are catching up with Roth's wildest fantasies...
Go read the rest of it.
Wrap.
On 3..Fire the Ashes! (scroll down for posts)
Johnny Depp to the rescue:
Depp Arranges Shooting of Thompson's Ashes
By The Associated Press
ASPEN, Colo. - Organizers of a memorial for Hunter S. Thompson plan to erect a 150-foot structure _ courtesy of actor Johnny Depp _ to shoot the gonzo journalist's ashes onto his ranch near here.Friends and acquaintances gathered Thursday to discuss the Aug. 20 invitation-only service, which will be six months after Thompson shot himself in his Woody Creek home.Jon Equis, the event producer working with Thompson's family, said the tower will be 12 feet wide at the base and 8 feet wide at the top, where a cannon will be placed.Depp, who portrayed the author in the movie version of Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" will pay for the tower, designed to resemble Thompson's "gonzo fist" emblem.
As Thompson requested, his ashes will be shot out of the cannon onto his property.Equis said the tower will be constructed far from Woody Creek Road and covered with a black drape before the service to discourage tourists. A public event is expected to be planned later to commemorate the writer's life.
The August event will consist of "spoken word and live entertainment," Equis said. The cannon will be fired around sunset.The event organizers must get the plans reviewed by the Pitkin County Community Development Department, but Thompson's widow, Anita Thompson, was supportive. She said the event will be a celebration.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
A loud celebration!!!
Wrap...
Depp Arranges Shooting of Thompson's Ashes
By The Associated Press
ASPEN, Colo. - Organizers of a memorial for Hunter S. Thompson plan to erect a 150-foot structure _ courtesy of actor Johnny Depp _ to shoot the gonzo journalist's ashes onto his ranch near here.Friends and acquaintances gathered Thursday to discuss the Aug. 20 invitation-only service, which will be six months after Thompson shot himself in his Woody Creek home.Jon Equis, the event producer working with Thompson's family, said the tower will be 12 feet wide at the base and 8 feet wide at the top, where a cannon will be placed.Depp, who portrayed the author in the movie version of Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" will pay for the tower, designed to resemble Thompson's "gonzo fist" emblem.
As Thompson requested, his ashes will be shot out of the cannon onto his property.Equis said the tower will be constructed far from Woody Creek Road and covered with a black drape before the service to discourage tourists. A public event is expected to be planned later to commemorate the writer's life.
The August event will consist of "spoken word and live entertainment," Equis said. The cannon will be fired around sunset.The event organizers must get the plans reviewed by the Pitkin County Community Development Department, but Thompson's widow, Anita Thompson, was supportive. She said the event will be a celebration.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
A loud celebration!!!
Wrap...
Run like hell! (scroll down to post)
Was just over on http://sfalphageek.blogspot.com blog. That guy is something else. I'm still laughing about their having to undergo periodic tazer/pepper spray attacks. Course those guys are not gonna just stand there, which means they have to be run down and attacked. Lemme tell you, it ain't easy from what I've just read. It is, however, hilarious. Been reading this guy's blog for many a month and it's always been worth it.
S gave me a CD: "The Golden Band Era", knowing I purely admire the horn work those WWII bands did...to say nothing of the impecable timing, awesome arrangements, and phrasing they have. The current big bands, if they're really really good, also rank right up there with me. I just fall right asleep listening to the symphony though. Very selective when it comes to classical music. I flat don't like most of it, even though I spent seven years training to be a virtuoso pianist. Not my thing. Would rather dance than play any time.
Ah...that CD is playing Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo". Now that's a classic. Nobody I've ever heard has managed to put that ache in that piece of music.
All this because of sfalpha's blog. I'm thinking of appropriate background music for those wildass guys with tazer's and pepper spray. Can see it all on film, and hear Glenn Miller's "American Patrol". Makes me laugh.
Wrap...
S gave me a CD: "The Golden Band Era", knowing I purely admire the horn work those WWII bands did...to say nothing of the impecable timing, awesome arrangements, and phrasing they have. The current big bands, if they're really really good, also rank right up there with me. I just fall right asleep listening to the symphony though. Very selective when it comes to classical music. I flat don't like most of it, even though I spent seven years training to be a virtuoso pianist. Not my thing. Would rather dance than play any time.
Ah...that CD is playing Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo". Now that's a classic. Nobody I've ever heard has managed to put that ache in that piece of music.
All this because of sfalpha's blog. I'm thinking of appropriate background music for those wildass guys with tazer's and pepper spray. Can see it all on film, and hear Glenn Miller's "American Patrol". Makes me laugh.
Wrap...
Impeach him? Go here. (scroll down to post)
Find this on www.johnconyers.com and sign on if you agree:
John Conyers, Jr. 40 Years Of Jobs, Justice And Peace
Letter to Pres Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"
The Honorable George W. BushPresident of the United States of America1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write to you because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a “Downing Street Memo” in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed to by the summer of 2002 to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, “Bush had made up his mind to take military action.” Yet, a month later, the you stated you were still willing to “look at all options” and that there was “no timetable” for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that “[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq.”
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remains a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a “massive intelligence failure,” in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions: 1) Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document? 2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain’’s commitment to invade prior to this time?3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?4)
At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to “fix” the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Again...go to www.johnconyers.com to sign this letter.
Wrap....
John Conyers, Jr. 40 Years Of Jobs, Justice And Peace
Letter to Pres Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"
The Honorable George W. BushPresident of the United States of America1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write to you because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a “Downing Street Memo” in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed to by the summer of 2002 to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, “Bush had made up his mind to take military action.” Yet, a month later, the you stated you were still willing to “look at all options” and that there was “no timetable” for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that “[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq.”
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remains a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a “massive intelligence failure,” in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions: 1) Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document? 2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain’’s commitment to invade prior to this time?3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?4)
At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to “fix” the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Again...go to www.johnconyers.com to sign this letter.
Wrap....
Will BushCo do it? No. (scroll down for posts)
Friedman has it right, but nobody tells BushCo what to do. He's always right, never second-guesses himself, and gets his orders from God. In short, he's nuts and should be locked up at the least...which is not about to happen either. God had better help him if he ever has to escape from this country. With the whole world hating him, where's he gonna go? Anyway:
May 27, 2005
Just Shut It Down
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
London
Shut it down. Just shut it down.
I am talking about the war-on-terrorism P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay. Just shut it down and then plow it under. It has become worse than an embarrassment. I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the Gitmo prison open than if we shut it down. So, please, Mr. President, just shut it down.
If you want to appreciate how corrosive Guantánamo has become for America's standing abroad, don't read the Arab press. Don't read the Pakistani press. Don't read the Afghan press. Hop over here to London or go online and just read the British press! See what our closest allies are saying about Gitmo. And when you get done with that, read the Australian press and the Canadian press and the German press.
It is all a variation on the theme of a May 8 article in The Observer of London that begins, "An American soldier has revealed shocking new details of abuse and sexual torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in the first high-profile whistle-blowing account to emerge from inside the top-secret base." Google the words "Guantánamo Bay and Australia" and what comes up is an Australian ABC radio report that begins: "New claims have emerged that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are being tortured by their American captors, and the claims say that Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib are among the victims."
Just another day of the world talking about Guantánamo Bay.
Why care? It's not because I am queasy about the war on terrorism. It is because I want to win the war on terrorism. And it is now obvious from reports in my own paper and others that the abuse at Guantánamo and within the whole U.S. military prison system dealing with terrorism is out of control. Tell me, how is it that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody so far? Heart attacks? This is not just deeply immoral, it is strategically dangerous.
I can explain it best by analogy. For several years now I have argued that Israel needed to get out of the West Bank and Gaza, and behind a wall, as fast as possible. Not because the Palestinians are right and Israel wrong. It's because Israel today is surrounded by three large trends. The first is a huge population explosion happening all across the Arab world. The second is an explosion of the worst interpersonal violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the history of the conflict, which has only recently been defused by a cease-fire. And the third is an explosion of Arabic language multimedia outlets - from the Internet to Al Jazeera.
What was happening around Israel at the height of the intifada was that the Arab multimedia explosion was taking the images of that intifada explosion and feeding them to the Arab population explosion, melding in the minds of a new generation of Arabs and Muslims that their enemies were J.I.A. - "Jews, Israel and America." That is an enormously toxic trend, and I hope Israel's withdrawal from Gaza will help deprive it of oxygen.
I believe the stories emerging from Guantánamo are having a similar toxic effect on us - inflaming sentiments against the U.S. all over the world and providing recruitment energy on the Internet for those who would do us ill.
Husain Haqqani, a thoughtful Pakistani scholar now teaching at Boston University, remarked to me: "When people like myself say American values must be emulated and America is a bastion of freedom, we get Guantánamo Bay thrown in our faces. When we talk about the America of Jefferson and Hamilton, people back home say to us: 'That is not the America we are dealing with. We are dealing with the America of imprisonment without trial.' "
Guantánamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty. If we have a case to be made against any of the 500 or so inmates still in Guantánamo, then it is high time we put them on trial, convict as many possible (which will not be easy because of bungled interrogations) and then simply let the rest go home or to a third country. Sure, a few may come back to haunt us. But at least they won't be able to take advantage of Guantánamo as an engine of recruitment to enlist thousands more. I would rather have a few more bad guys roaming the world than a whole new generation.
"This is not about being for or against the war," said Michael Posner, the executive director of Human Rights First, which is closely following this issue. "It is about doing it right. If we are going to transform the Middle East, we have to be law-abiding and uphold the values we want them to embrace - otherwise it is not going to work."
Wrap...
May 27, 2005
Just Shut It Down
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
London
Shut it down. Just shut it down.
I am talking about the war-on-terrorism P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay. Just shut it down and then plow it under. It has become worse than an embarrassment. I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the Gitmo prison open than if we shut it down. So, please, Mr. President, just shut it down.
If you want to appreciate how corrosive Guantánamo has become for America's standing abroad, don't read the Arab press. Don't read the Pakistani press. Don't read the Afghan press. Hop over here to London or go online and just read the British press! See what our closest allies are saying about Gitmo. And when you get done with that, read the Australian press and the Canadian press and the German press.
It is all a variation on the theme of a May 8 article in The Observer of London that begins, "An American soldier has revealed shocking new details of abuse and sexual torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in the first high-profile whistle-blowing account to emerge from inside the top-secret base." Google the words "Guantánamo Bay and Australia" and what comes up is an Australian ABC radio report that begins: "New claims have emerged that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are being tortured by their American captors, and the claims say that Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib are among the victims."
Just another day of the world talking about Guantánamo Bay.
Why care? It's not because I am queasy about the war on terrorism. It is because I want to win the war on terrorism. And it is now obvious from reports in my own paper and others that the abuse at Guantánamo and within the whole U.S. military prison system dealing with terrorism is out of control. Tell me, how is it that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody so far? Heart attacks? This is not just deeply immoral, it is strategically dangerous.
I can explain it best by analogy. For several years now I have argued that Israel needed to get out of the West Bank and Gaza, and behind a wall, as fast as possible. Not because the Palestinians are right and Israel wrong. It's because Israel today is surrounded by three large trends. The first is a huge population explosion happening all across the Arab world. The second is an explosion of the worst interpersonal violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the history of the conflict, which has only recently been defused by a cease-fire. And the third is an explosion of Arabic language multimedia outlets - from the Internet to Al Jazeera.
What was happening around Israel at the height of the intifada was that the Arab multimedia explosion was taking the images of that intifada explosion and feeding them to the Arab population explosion, melding in the minds of a new generation of Arabs and Muslims that their enemies were J.I.A. - "Jews, Israel and America." That is an enormously toxic trend, and I hope Israel's withdrawal from Gaza will help deprive it of oxygen.
I believe the stories emerging from Guantánamo are having a similar toxic effect on us - inflaming sentiments against the U.S. all over the world and providing recruitment energy on the Internet for those who would do us ill.
Husain Haqqani, a thoughtful Pakistani scholar now teaching at Boston University, remarked to me: "When people like myself say American values must be emulated and America is a bastion of freedom, we get Guantánamo Bay thrown in our faces. When we talk about the America of Jefferson and Hamilton, people back home say to us: 'That is not the America we are dealing with. We are dealing with the America of imprisonment without trial.' "
Guantánamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty. If we have a case to be made against any of the 500 or so inmates still in Guantánamo, then it is high time we put them on trial, convict as many possible (which will not be easy because of bungled interrogations) and then simply let the rest go home or to a third country. Sure, a few may come back to haunt us. But at least they won't be able to take advantage of Guantánamo as an engine of recruitment to enlist thousands more. I would rather have a few more bad guys roaming the world than a whole new generation.
"This is not about being for or against the war," said Michael Posner, the executive director of Human Rights First, which is closely following this issue. "It is about doing it right. If we are going to transform the Middle East, we have to be law-abiding and uphold the values we want them to embrace - otherwise it is not going to work."
Wrap...
CYA time...(scroll down to posts)
From Independent Clearing House:
Bush extends US legal immunity in Iraq : In an almost unnoticed move, President Bush on Thursday May 19 extended for one year the blanket immunity from legal action conferred on US corporations doing business in Iraqhttp://deepblade.net/journal/2005/05/bush-extends-us-legal-immunity-in-iraq.html
Well, at least Halliburton is covered. Right? Sheesh!
Wrap...
Bush extends US legal immunity in Iraq : In an almost unnoticed move, President Bush on Thursday May 19 extended for one year the blanket immunity from legal action conferred on US corporations doing business in Iraqhttp://deepblade.net/journal/2005/05/bush-extends-us-legal-immunity-in-iraq.html
Well, at least Halliburton is covered. Right? Sheesh!
Wrap...
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Impeachment, part 2 (scroll down for posts)
More from www.rawstory.com , this time from the Boston lawyer:
THE MEMORANDUM
The memo: Boston constitutional lawyer seeks Resolution of Inquiry on Iraq
RAW STORY
MEMORANDUMTo: Rep. John Conyers, Jr.From: John C. Bonifaz Date: May 22, 2005RE: The President’s Impeachable Offenses
The recent release of the Downing Street Memo provides new and compelling evidence that the President of the United States has been actively engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for going to war against Iraq. If true, such conduct constitutes a High Crime under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution: “The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
In light of the emergence of the Downing Street Memo, Members of Congress should introduce a Resolution of Inquiry directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach George W. Bush, President of the United States.
The Downing Street Memo
On May 1, 2005, The Sunday Times of London published the Downing Street Memo. The document, marked “Secret and strictly personal – UK eyes only,” consists of the official minutes of a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then-director of Britain’s CIA equivalent, MI-6, to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials. Dearlove, having just returned from meetings with high U.S. Government officials in Washington, reported to Blair and members of his Cabinet on the Bush administration’s plans to start a preemptive war against Iraq.
The briefing occurred on July 23, 2002, months before President Bush submitted his resolution on Iraq to the United States Congress and months before Bush and Blair asked the United Nations to resume its inspections for alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The document reveals that, by the summer of 2002, President Bush had decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by launching a war which, Dearlove reports, would be “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction].” Dearlove continues: “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” Dearlove also states that “[t]here was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.”
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw states that “[i]t seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided.” “But,” he continues, “the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, and Iran.”
British officials do not dispute the document’s authenticity, and, on May 6, 2005, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported that “[a] former senior U.S. official called [the document] ‘an absolutely accurate description of what transpired’ during the senior British intelligence officer’s visit to Washington.” “Memo: Bush made intel fit Iraq policy,” The State, Knight Ridder Newspapers, May 6, 2005.
Why a Resolution of Inquiry is Justified
On May 5, 2005, you and 88 other Members of Congress submitted a letter to President Bush, asking the President to answer several questions arising from the Downing Street Memo. On May 17, 2005, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that the White House saw “no need” to respond to the letter. “British Memo on U.S. Plans for Iraq War Fuels Critics,” The New York Times, May 20, 2005, A8.
The Framers of the United States Constitution drafted Article II, Section 4 to ensure that the people of the United States, through their representatives in the United States Congress, could hold a President accountable for an abuse of power and an abuse of the public trust. James Madison, speaking at Virginia’s ratification convention stated: “A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.” James Iredell, who later became a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, stated at North Carolina’s ratification convention:
The President must certainly be punishable for giving false information to the Senate. He is to regulate all intercourse with foreign powers, and it is his duty to impart to the Senate every material intelligence he receives. If it should appear that he has not given them full information, but has concealed important intelligence which he ought to have communicated, and by that means induced them to enter into measures injurious to their country, and which they would not have consented to had the true state of things been disclosed to them, - in this case, I ask whether, upon an impeachment for a misdemeanor upon such an account, the Senate would probably favor him.
On July 25, 1974, then-Representative Barbara Jordan spoke to her colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee of the constitutional basis for impeachment. “The powers relating to impeachment,” Jordan said, “are an essential check in the hands of this body, the legislature, against and upon the encroachment of the Executive.”
Impeachment, she added, is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to ‘bridle’ the Executive if he engages in excesses. It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men. The framers confined in the Congress the power, if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical and preservation of the independence of the Executive.
The question must now be asked, with the release of the Downing Street Memo, whether the President has committed impeachable offenses. Is it a High Crime to engage in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for taking the nation into war? Is it a High Crime to manipulate intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States as a means of trying to justify a war against another nation based on “preemptive” purposes? Is it a High Crime to commit a felony via the submission of an official report to the United States Congress falsifying the reasons for launching military action?
In his book Worse Than Watergate (Little, Brown and Company-NY, 2004), John W. Dean writes that “the evidence is overwhelming, certainly sufficient for a prima facie case, that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have engaged in deceit and deception over going to war in Iraq. This is an impeachable offense.” Id. at 155. Dean focuses, in particular, on a formal letter and report which the President submitted to the United States Congress within forty-eight hours after having launched the invasion of Iraq. In the letter, dated March 18, 2003, the President makes a formal determination, as required by the Joint Resolution on Iraq passed by the U.S. Congress in October 2002, that military action against Iraq was necessary to “protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq...” Dean states that the report accompanying the letter “is closer to a blatant fraud than to a fulfillment of the president’s constitutional responsibility to faithfully execute the law.” Worse Than Watergate at 148.
If the evidence revealed by the Downing Street Memo is true, then the President’s submission of his March 18, 2003 letter and report to the United States Congress would violate federal criminal law, including: the federal anti-conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, which makes it a felony “to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose...”; and The False Statements Accountability Act of 1996, 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which makes it a felony to issue knowingly and willfully false statements to the United States Congress.
The United States House of Representatives has a constitutional duty to investigate fully and comprehensively the evidence revealed by the Downing Street Memo and other related evidence and to determine whether there are sufficient grounds to impeach George W. Bush, the President of the United States. A Resolution of Inquiry is the appropriate first step in launching this investigation.
The following is suggested language for this resolution:
Directing the Committee on the Judiciary to undertake an inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach George W. Bush, the President of the United States.
Whereas considerable evidence has emerged that George W. Bush, President of the United States, has engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people as to the basis for taking the nation into war against Iraq, that George W. Bush, President of the United States, has manipulated intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States by Iraq, and that George W. Bush, President of the United States, has committed a felony by submitting a false report to the United States Congress on the reasons for launching a first-strike invasion of Iraq: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary is directed to investigate and report to the House of Representatives whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach George W. Bush, President of the United States. Upon completion of such investigation, that Committee shall report thereto, including, if the Committee so determines, articles of impeachment.
Conclusion
The Iraq war has led to the deaths of more than 1,600 United States soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Thousands more have been permanently and severely injured on both sides. More than two years after the invasion, Iraq remains unstable and its future unclear. The war has already cost the American people tens of billions of taxpayer dollars at the expense of basic human needs here at home. More than 135,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Iraq without any stated exit plan.
If the President has committed High Crimes in connection with this war, he must be held accountable. The United States Constitution demands no less.
###
The writer is an attorney in Boston specializing in constitutional litigation. In February and March 2003, John C. Bonifaz served as lead counsel for a coalition of United States soldiers, parents of U.S. soldiers, and Members of Congress (led by Representatives John Conyers, Jr. and Dennis Kucinich) in a federal lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush’s authority to wage war against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent action. Bonifaz is the author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush (NationBooks-NY, 2004, foreword by Rep. John Conyers, Jr.), which chronicles that case and its meaning for the United States Constitution.
The full text of the Downing Street Memo can be found at www.downingstreetmemo.com.
J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions on Adoption of the Constitution, As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 (Washington: 1836), vol. 3 at 500.Id., vol. 4 at 127.
The full text of Representative Jordan’s opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee on July 25, 1974, can be found here:
The full text of the President’s March 18, 2003 letter can be found here: As Dean writes:
With one pathetic (yet false) exception, this report explains that the president made his determination by inexplicably relying on alleged congressional findings of fact, which did not exist. Congress made no such findings, and if it had done so, it surely would not have required the president make his determinations. Bush, like a dog chasing his tail who gets ahold of it, relied on information the White House provided Congress for its draft resolution; then he turned around and claimed that this information (his information) came from Congress. From this bit of sophistry, he next stated that these congressional findings were the basis of his “determination.” Worse Than Watergate at 148-149.
THE MEMORANDUM
The memo: Boston constitutional lawyer seeks Resolution of Inquiry on Iraq
RAW STORY
MEMORANDUMTo: Rep. John Conyers, Jr.From: John C. Bonifaz Date: May 22, 2005RE: The President’s Impeachable Offenses
The recent release of the Downing Street Memo provides new and compelling evidence that the President of the United States has been actively engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for going to war against Iraq. If true, such conduct constitutes a High Crime under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution: “The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
In light of the emergence of the Downing Street Memo, Members of Congress should introduce a Resolution of Inquiry directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach George W. Bush, President of the United States.
The Downing Street Memo
On May 1, 2005, The Sunday Times of London published the Downing Street Memo. The document, marked “Secret and strictly personal – UK eyes only,” consists of the official minutes of a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then-director of Britain’s CIA equivalent, MI-6, to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials. Dearlove, having just returned from meetings with high U.S. Government officials in Washington, reported to Blair and members of his Cabinet on the Bush administration’s plans to start a preemptive war against Iraq.
The briefing occurred on July 23, 2002, months before President Bush submitted his resolution on Iraq to the United States Congress and months before Bush and Blair asked the United Nations to resume its inspections for alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The document reveals that, by the summer of 2002, President Bush had decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by launching a war which, Dearlove reports, would be “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction].” Dearlove continues: “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” Dearlove also states that “[t]here was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.”
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw states that “[i]t seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided.” “But,” he continues, “the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, and Iran.”
British officials do not dispute the document’s authenticity, and, on May 6, 2005, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported that “[a] former senior U.S. official called [the document] ‘an absolutely accurate description of what transpired’ during the senior British intelligence officer’s visit to Washington.” “Memo: Bush made intel fit Iraq policy,” The State, Knight Ridder Newspapers, May 6, 2005.
Why a Resolution of Inquiry is Justified
On May 5, 2005, you and 88 other Members of Congress submitted a letter to President Bush, asking the President to answer several questions arising from the Downing Street Memo. On May 17, 2005, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that the White House saw “no need” to respond to the letter. “British Memo on U.S. Plans for Iraq War Fuels Critics,” The New York Times, May 20, 2005, A8.
The Framers of the United States Constitution drafted Article II, Section 4 to ensure that the people of the United States, through their representatives in the United States Congress, could hold a President accountable for an abuse of power and an abuse of the public trust. James Madison, speaking at Virginia’s ratification convention stated: “A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.” James Iredell, who later became a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, stated at North Carolina’s ratification convention:
The President must certainly be punishable for giving false information to the Senate. He is to regulate all intercourse with foreign powers, and it is his duty to impart to the Senate every material intelligence he receives. If it should appear that he has not given them full information, but has concealed important intelligence which he ought to have communicated, and by that means induced them to enter into measures injurious to their country, and which they would not have consented to had the true state of things been disclosed to them, - in this case, I ask whether, upon an impeachment for a misdemeanor upon such an account, the Senate would probably favor him.
On July 25, 1974, then-Representative Barbara Jordan spoke to her colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee of the constitutional basis for impeachment. “The powers relating to impeachment,” Jordan said, “are an essential check in the hands of this body, the legislature, against and upon the encroachment of the Executive.”
Impeachment, she added, is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to ‘bridle’ the Executive if he engages in excesses. It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men. The framers confined in the Congress the power, if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical and preservation of the independence of the Executive.
The question must now be asked, with the release of the Downing Street Memo, whether the President has committed impeachable offenses. Is it a High Crime to engage in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for taking the nation into war? Is it a High Crime to manipulate intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States as a means of trying to justify a war against another nation based on “preemptive” purposes? Is it a High Crime to commit a felony via the submission of an official report to the United States Congress falsifying the reasons for launching military action?
In his book Worse Than Watergate (Little, Brown and Company-NY, 2004), John W. Dean writes that “the evidence is overwhelming, certainly sufficient for a prima facie case, that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have engaged in deceit and deception over going to war in Iraq. This is an impeachable offense.” Id. at 155. Dean focuses, in particular, on a formal letter and report which the President submitted to the United States Congress within forty-eight hours after having launched the invasion of Iraq. In the letter, dated March 18, 2003, the President makes a formal determination, as required by the Joint Resolution on Iraq passed by the U.S. Congress in October 2002, that military action against Iraq was necessary to “protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq...” Dean states that the report accompanying the letter “is closer to a blatant fraud than to a fulfillment of the president’s constitutional responsibility to faithfully execute the law.” Worse Than Watergate at 148.
If the evidence revealed by the Downing Street Memo is true, then the President’s submission of his March 18, 2003 letter and report to the United States Congress would violate federal criminal law, including: the federal anti-conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, which makes it a felony “to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose...”; and The False Statements Accountability Act of 1996, 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which makes it a felony to issue knowingly and willfully false statements to the United States Congress.
The United States House of Representatives has a constitutional duty to investigate fully and comprehensively the evidence revealed by the Downing Street Memo and other related evidence and to determine whether there are sufficient grounds to impeach George W. Bush, the President of the United States. A Resolution of Inquiry is the appropriate first step in launching this investigation.
The following is suggested language for this resolution:
Directing the Committee on the Judiciary to undertake an inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach George W. Bush, the President of the United States.
Whereas considerable evidence has emerged that George W. Bush, President of the United States, has engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people as to the basis for taking the nation into war against Iraq, that George W. Bush, President of the United States, has manipulated intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States by Iraq, and that George W. Bush, President of the United States, has committed a felony by submitting a false report to the United States Congress on the reasons for launching a first-strike invasion of Iraq: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary is directed to investigate and report to the House of Representatives whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach George W. Bush, President of the United States. Upon completion of such investigation, that Committee shall report thereto, including, if the Committee so determines, articles of impeachment.
Conclusion
The Iraq war has led to the deaths of more than 1,600 United States soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Thousands more have been permanently and severely injured on both sides. More than two years after the invasion, Iraq remains unstable and its future unclear. The war has already cost the American people tens of billions of taxpayer dollars at the expense of basic human needs here at home. More than 135,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Iraq without any stated exit plan.
If the President has committed High Crimes in connection with this war, he must be held accountable. The United States Constitution demands no less.
###
The writer is an attorney in Boston specializing in constitutional litigation. In February and March 2003, John C. Bonifaz served as lead counsel for a coalition of United States soldiers, parents of U.S. soldiers, and Members of Congress (led by Representatives John Conyers, Jr. and Dennis Kucinich) in a federal lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush’s authority to wage war against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent action. Bonifaz is the author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush (NationBooks-NY, 2004, foreword by Rep. John Conyers, Jr.), which chronicles that case and its meaning for the United States Constitution.
The full text of the Downing Street Memo can be found at www.downingstreetmemo.com.
J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions on Adoption of the Constitution, As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 (Washington: 1836), vol. 3 at 500.Id., vol. 4 at 127.
The full text of Representative Jordan’s opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee on July 25, 1974, can be found here:
The full text of the President’s March 18, 2003 letter can be found here: As Dean writes:
With one pathetic (yet false) exception, this report explains that the president made his determination by inexplicably relying on alleged congressional findings of fact, which did not exist. Congress made no such findings, and if it had done so, it surely would not have required the president make his determinations. Bush, like a dog chasing his tail who gets ahold of it, relied on information the White House provided Congress for its draft resolution; then he turned around and claimed that this information (his information) came from Congress. From this bit of sophistry, he next stated that these congressional findings were the basis of his “determination.” Worse Than Watergate at 148-149.
Kicking off impeachment process...
From Raw Story:
RESOLUTION OF INQUIRY
Coalition of citizen groups seek formal inquiry into whether Bush acted illegally in push for Iraq war
By Larisa Alexandrovna RAW STORY
A coalition of activist groups running the gamut of social and political issues will ask Congress to file a Resolution of Inquiry, the first necessary legal step to determine whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in misleading the country about his decision to go to war in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
The formal Resolution of Inquiry request, written by Boston constitutional attorney John C. Bonifaz, cites the Downing Street Memo and issues surrounding the planning and execution of the Iraq war. A resolution of inquiry would force relevant House committees to vote on the record as to whether to support an investigation.
The Downing Street Memo, official minutes of a 2002 meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair, members of British intelligence MI-6 and various members of the Bush administration, notes that MI-6 director Richard Dearlove 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.”
Bonifaz says the minutes were the impetus for his request.
“The recent release of the Downing Street Memo provides new and compelling evidence that the President of the United States has been actively engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people,” Bonifaz wrote in a memo to the ranking House Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers (D-MI), outlining the case (read his memo here).
Blair and other British officials have not questioned the minutes’ veracity.
In response to the revelations in the Downing Street memo, Conyers and eighty-eight other members of Congress issued a letter to the White House on May 5 requesting an explanation and answers to questions about whether the President misled Congress into voting for the Iraq war.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan waived off the letter, saying he had “no need to respond,” according to the New York Times.
Frustrated by the media’s silence, save a few articles buried in major American newspapers and pieces in the alternative media such as Air America Radio, the Ed Schultz Show, Salon and RAW STORY, a grassroots progressive movement has pushed the story forward, culminating in a formal request for a Resolution of Inquiry.
Bonifaz wrote the request and outlined the case on behalf of a joint effort by several groups, including: Veterans for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), 911Citizens Watch, Democracy Rising, Code Pink, Global Exchange, Democrats.com, Velvet Revolution, and Gold Star Families for Peace.
“The president, among other alleged crimes, may have also violated federal criminal law if the evidence from the Downing Street memo is proven to be true, including the False Statements Accountability Act of 1996,” Bonifaz wrote.
Some have criticized the media’s coverage of the memo.
"To me it's kind of the smoking gun, or maybe the latest in a number of smoking guns,” Editor and Publisher senior editor Dave Astor told RAW RADIO Saturday. “And the fact that the media either didn't cover it or buried the coverage or poo-pooed it is appalling.”
“It goes back to the fact of who owns the media and the media being intimidated by this administration,” he added. “I think that memo indicates an impeachable offense, personally. If we had a Congress that had some spine, and was maybe Democratic-controlled, it could be an impeachable offense.”
Coalition member Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange, said she supports legal proceedings.
“When a president so callously distorts the facts, manipulates the public and is responsible for so much needless death and destruction, he must be held accountable,” Benjamin told RAW STORY.
Other members of the coalition, loosely titled “After Downing Street,” concur.
“We will be organizing the grassroots to demand Congress move forward with a Resolution of Inquiry,” PDA director Tim Carpenter stated.
As part of Congressional approval for H.R.Res. 114; Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, the administration was required to report to Congress that diplomatic options had been exhausted before or within 48 hours after military action had started.
In a conversation with RAW STORY, Bonifaz expressed the disappointment of many who put their faith in the President.
“Within 48 hours after the attack on Iraq, the president wrote a letter to Congress indicating that Iraq posed a serious and imminent threat to national security and if he knew that was not true at the time he submitted that letter it is a clear violation of the False Statements Accountability Act of 1996,” Bonifaz said.
Under this Act, amending 18 U.S.C. § 1001, it is a crime knowingly and willfully (1) to falsify, conceal or cover up a material fact by trick, scheme or device; (2) to make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) to make or use any false writing or document knowing it to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; with respect to matters within the jurisdiction of the legislative, executive, or judicial branch.
He goes on to discuss the other statutes and laws that may have been violated, including but not limited to the Federal Anti-Conspiracy Statute (more per above link).
When asked if the Inquiry of Resolution would apply to others involved in the alleged effort to mislead the public into war, Bonifaz explained that the procedure requires that a full inquiry begin from the top of the chain of command.
“Provisions in U.S. Constitution guarantee that when a President abuses power, engages in excesses, and subverts the constitution, the people have a recourse through their elected officials in congress,” he said.
Other member groups behind this coalition want that recourse.
We are "behind this resolution of inquiry because our loved ones were killed for deception and betrayal from George Bush and the rest of the administration," said Gold Star Families for Peace founder Cindy Sheehan. "We would like to see George Bush, Dick Cheney, et al, be held accountable for their lies and arrogance for sending our children off to die in a war that is illegal and immoral."
“We support this resolution of inquiry because we stand for truth and accountability,” said co-founder of 911CitizensWatch Kyle Hence. “It's more important than ever as whistleblowers stand up and documents emerge that point to potential crimes in high places all too often of late veiled by government secrecy.”
Brad Friedman, co-founder of Velvet Revolution, agrees with the need for transparency.
"We believe that a proper inquiry into the facts underlying the Downing Street memo are vital to our constitutional democracy because only Congress can declare war, and a President and his appointed officials cannot be allowed to run the country if indeed they have misled and lied about the basis for the Iraq war,” said Friedman.
Bonifaz hopes the groups, which boast a total membership of several million, are just the beginning of the grassroots groundswell.
The others agree.
“It is time for Congress to do its duty and ask: “Did the administration mislead us into war by manipulating and misstating intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction, suppressing contrary intelligence …and exaggerated the danger Iraq posed to the United States and its neighbors?” said Kevin Zeese, founder of Democracy Rising.
Bonifaz and others ask that citizens of all party affiliations and backgrounds help support his request by writing to their Congressional leaders. They are also seeking other groups to sign on.
More information will be up shortly at: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org.
Wrap....
RESOLUTION OF INQUIRY
Coalition of citizen groups seek formal inquiry into whether Bush acted illegally in push for Iraq war
By Larisa Alexandrovna RAW STORY
A coalition of activist groups running the gamut of social and political issues will ask Congress to file a Resolution of Inquiry, the first necessary legal step to determine whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in misleading the country about his decision to go to war in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
The formal Resolution of Inquiry request, written by Boston constitutional attorney John C. Bonifaz, cites the Downing Street Memo and issues surrounding the planning and execution of the Iraq war. A resolution of inquiry would force relevant House committees to vote on the record as to whether to support an investigation.
The Downing Street Memo, official minutes of a 2002 meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair, members of British intelligence MI-6 and various members of the Bush administration, notes that MI-6 director Richard Dearlove 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.”
Bonifaz says the minutes were the impetus for his request.
“The recent release of the Downing Street Memo provides new and compelling evidence that the President of the United States has been actively engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people,” Bonifaz wrote in a memo to the ranking House Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers (D-MI), outlining the case (read his memo here).
Blair and other British officials have not questioned the minutes’ veracity.
In response to the revelations in the Downing Street memo, Conyers and eighty-eight other members of Congress issued a letter to the White House on May 5 requesting an explanation and answers to questions about whether the President misled Congress into voting for the Iraq war.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan waived off the letter, saying he had “no need to respond,” according to the New York Times.
Frustrated by the media’s silence, save a few articles buried in major American newspapers and pieces in the alternative media such as Air America Radio, the Ed Schultz Show, Salon and RAW STORY, a grassroots progressive movement has pushed the story forward, culminating in a formal request for a Resolution of Inquiry.
Bonifaz wrote the request and outlined the case on behalf of a joint effort by several groups, including: Veterans for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), 911Citizens Watch, Democracy Rising, Code Pink, Global Exchange, Democrats.com, Velvet Revolution, and Gold Star Families for Peace.
“The president, among other alleged crimes, may have also violated federal criminal law if the evidence from the Downing Street memo is proven to be true, including the False Statements Accountability Act of 1996,” Bonifaz wrote.
Some have criticized the media’s coverage of the memo.
"To me it's kind of the smoking gun, or maybe the latest in a number of smoking guns,” Editor and Publisher senior editor Dave Astor told RAW RADIO Saturday. “And the fact that the media either didn't cover it or buried the coverage or poo-pooed it is appalling.”
“It goes back to the fact of who owns the media and the media being intimidated by this administration,” he added. “I think that memo indicates an impeachable offense, personally. If we had a Congress that had some spine, and was maybe Democratic-controlled, it could be an impeachable offense.”
Coalition member Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange, said she supports legal proceedings.
“When a president so callously distorts the facts, manipulates the public and is responsible for so much needless death and destruction, he must be held accountable,” Benjamin told RAW STORY.
Other members of the coalition, loosely titled “After Downing Street,” concur.
“We will be organizing the grassroots to demand Congress move forward with a Resolution of Inquiry,” PDA director Tim Carpenter stated.
As part of Congressional approval for H.R.Res. 114; Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, the administration was required to report to Congress that diplomatic options had been exhausted before or within 48 hours after military action had started.
In a conversation with RAW STORY, Bonifaz expressed the disappointment of many who put their faith in the President.
“Within 48 hours after the attack on Iraq, the president wrote a letter to Congress indicating that Iraq posed a serious and imminent threat to national security and if he knew that was not true at the time he submitted that letter it is a clear violation of the False Statements Accountability Act of 1996,” Bonifaz said.
Under this Act, amending 18 U.S.C. § 1001, it is a crime knowingly and willfully (1) to falsify, conceal or cover up a material fact by trick, scheme or device; (2) to make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) to make or use any false writing or document knowing it to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; with respect to matters within the jurisdiction of the legislative, executive, or judicial branch.
He goes on to discuss the other statutes and laws that may have been violated, including but not limited to the Federal Anti-Conspiracy Statute (more per above link).
When asked if the Inquiry of Resolution would apply to others involved in the alleged effort to mislead the public into war, Bonifaz explained that the procedure requires that a full inquiry begin from the top of the chain of command.
“Provisions in U.S. Constitution guarantee that when a President abuses power, engages in excesses, and subverts the constitution, the people have a recourse through their elected officials in congress,” he said.
Other member groups behind this coalition want that recourse.
We are "behind this resolution of inquiry because our loved ones were killed for deception and betrayal from George Bush and the rest of the administration," said Gold Star Families for Peace founder Cindy Sheehan. "We would like to see George Bush, Dick Cheney, et al, be held accountable for their lies and arrogance for sending our children off to die in a war that is illegal and immoral."
“We support this resolution of inquiry because we stand for truth and accountability,” said co-founder of 911CitizensWatch Kyle Hence. “It's more important than ever as whistleblowers stand up and documents emerge that point to potential crimes in high places all too often of late veiled by government secrecy.”
Brad Friedman, co-founder of Velvet Revolution, agrees with the need for transparency.
"We believe that a proper inquiry into the facts underlying the Downing Street memo are vital to our constitutional democracy because only Congress can declare war, and a President and his appointed officials cannot be allowed to run the country if indeed they have misled and lied about the basis for the Iraq war,” said Friedman.
Bonifaz hopes the groups, which boast a total membership of several million, are just the beginning of the grassroots groundswell.
The others agree.
“It is time for Congress to do its duty and ask: “Did the administration mislead us into war by manipulating and misstating intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction, suppressing contrary intelligence …and exaggerated the danger Iraq posed to the United States and its neighbors?” said Kevin Zeese, founder of Democracy Rising.
Bonifaz and others ask that citizens of all party affiliations and backgrounds help support his request by writing to their Congressional leaders. They are also seeking other groups to sign on.
More information will be up shortly at: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org.
Wrap....
A Bush quote...
Emailed a writer friend:
Randi Rhodes played the clip. I think I got it verbatim."I've said that three times. I'll probably say it three more times. See, in this job, you've got to say things over and over again to get it to sink in, to catapult the propaganda."
Wrap.
Randi Rhodes played the clip. I think I got it verbatim."I've said that three times. I'll probably say it three more times. See, in this job, you've got to say things over and over again to get it to sink in, to catapult the propaganda."
Wrap.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Bush the hypocrite..
Bob Herbert, writing in his column at www.nytimes.com has a few questions that two-faced BushCo won't bother to answer...probably won't even bother to acknowledge except with the usual bullshit...if even that. This is a pitiful, pathetic administration if ever I've seen one. BushCo would do beautifully as a dictator down in Africa, for instance. There is an incredible lack of decency. I doubt if there's ever been a thing that individual wanted that he didn't get, nor punishment for anything he's ever done. A more self-centered individual never walked the earth. There are reasons I think that, and some are below in the excerpt from Bob Herbert's column:
May 26 2005
With the Gloves Off
By BOB HERBERT
A photo of President Bush gingerly holding a month-old baby was on the front page of yesterday's New York Times. Mr. Bush is in the habit of telling us how precious he thinks life is, all life.
The story was about legislation concerning embryonic stem cell research, and it included a comment from Tom DeLay urging Americans to reject "the treacherous notion that while all human lives are sacred, some are more sacred than others."
Ahh, pretty words. Now I wonder when Mr. Bush and Mr. DeLay will find the time to address - or rather, to denounce - the depraved ways in which the United States has dealt with so many of the thousands of people (many of them completely innocent) who have been swept up in the so-called war on terror. (Go to the column and read on...)
Wrap.
May 26 2005
With the Gloves Off
By BOB HERBERT
A photo of President Bush gingerly holding a month-old baby was on the front page of yesterday's New York Times. Mr. Bush is in the habit of telling us how precious he thinks life is, all life.
The story was about legislation concerning embryonic stem cell research, and it included a comment from Tom DeLay urging Americans to reject "the treacherous notion that while all human lives are sacred, some are more sacred than others."
Ahh, pretty words. Now I wonder when Mr. Bush and Mr. DeLay will find the time to address - or rather, to denounce - the depraved ways in which the United States has dealt with so many of the thousands of people (many of them completely innocent) who have been swept up in the so-called war on terror. (Go to the column and read on...)
Wrap.
And into space we go!
This just in from The Planetary Society!
COSMOS 1 SHIPS IN PREPARATION FOR JUNE LAUNCHCosmos 1, the world's first solar sail spacecraft,has shipped in preparation for a launch period thatopens on June 21, 2005, traveling from the test facilityof Lavochkin Association in Moscow to the Russiannaval base at Severomorsk.Read more at:http://planetary.org/solarsail/prelaunch_report1_20050523.html_
SAIL PROJECT DIRECTOR UPDATE:POISED FOR SUCCESSby Louis FriedmanThe most frequently asked question I am getting this month about our solar sail mission is, "How do you feel?"Pretty nervous, highly anxious, full of hope, and proud -proud that we have come this far and built the world's first solar sail spacecraft and readied it for launch.We are poised for success.Read the entire update at:http://planetary.org/solarsail/update_20050518.html
Wrap.
COSMOS 1 SHIPS IN PREPARATION FOR JUNE LAUNCHCosmos 1, the world's first solar sail spacecraft,has shipped in preparation for a launch period thatopens on June 21, 2005, traveling from the test facilityof Lavochkin Association in Moscow to the Russiannaval base at Severomorsk.Read more at:http://planetary.org/solarsail/prelaunch_report1_20050523.html_
SAIL PROJECT DIRECTOR UPDATE:POISED FOR SUCCESSby Louis FriedmanThe most frequently asked question I am getting this month about our solar sail mission is, "How do you feel?"Pretty nervous, highly anxious, full of hope, and proud -proud that we have come this far and built the world's first solar sail spacecraft and readied it for launch.We are poised for success.Read the entire update at:http://planetary.org/solarsail/update_20050518.html
Wrap.
Hot books..upcoming...
From Publishers Lunch...my selections...
FICTION:
Toni McGee-Causey's BOBBIE FAYE'S VERY (very very very very) BAD DAY, the misadventures of one extremely pissed off trailer trash Cajun beauty queen who has to outwit former boyfriends, her "hostage" and organized crime in order to rescue her no-good pain-in-the-ass brother from kidnappers run amok in the Louisiana swamps, to Nichole Argyres at St. Martin's, for three books, in a pre-empt, by Lucienne Diver at Spectrum Literary Agency. Film rights are with Vince Gerardis of Created By.lucienne@spectrumliteraryagency.com
NON-FICTION:
Mark Kurzem's THE MASCOT -- tied in to the award-winning documentary of the same name, about a Jewish orphan who was made into a mascot by the Nazis, as years later the mascot and his son set out on a quest that takes them through Minsk, Moscow, Riga, New York, and Stockholm to uncover his past and find a chamber of horrors, past and present, to Hilary Redmon at Viking, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic (NA).hilary.redmon@Us.penguingroup.com
BIOGRAPHY:
Classics professor Philip Mitchell Freeman's JULIUS CAESAR: A Biography, showing him as a multi-faceted man, at once a great military leader, a master politician, gifted poet and devoted family man, and using Caesar's life as an opportunity to explore Rome's extraordinary transition from a small village to a world power, to Robert Bender at Simon & Schuster, by Joelle Delbourgo at Joelle Delbourgo Associates (world English).joelle@delbourgo.com
BUSINESS:
J. Walter Thompson Greater China CEO Tom Doctoroff's BILLIONS: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer, based on eleven years working with closely with leading international and domestic companies to explain the Chinese consumer, and presenting on-the-ground stories of companies that we are winning and losing in China, to Toby Wahl at Palgrave, at auction, by James Levine of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).jlevine@levinegreenberg.com
HISTORY:
Douglas Egerton's DEATH OR LIBERTY: African Americans in the American Revolution, the story of the black founders of the American republic, both enslaved and free, and of how white Americans responded to the contradictions between Revolutionary ideals and the reality of mass bondage, to Peter Ginna at Oxford University Press, by POM (world).sara.leopold@oup.com
MEMOIR:
Washington Post correspondent Jackie Spinner with commentary by Jenny Spinner's TELL THEM I DIDN'T CRY, a young journalist's story of joy, loss and survival in Iraq, complemented by brief vignettes from her twin sister, who waited and worried on the home front, to Lisa Drew at Lisa Drew Books, by Jeff Kleinman at Graybill & English (world).samantha.martin@simonandschuster.com
NARRATIVE:
Marmot design consultant/spokesperson and contributing editor to Rock and Ice Magazine Pete Takeda's ONCE A SACRED MOUNTAIN: Unlocking the Mystery of Nanda Devi, a mix of adventure narrative and environmental mystery, exploring what happened to India's most sacred mountain (the glacier of which feeds the headwaters of the Ganges) after Americans deployed a plutonium-powered surveillance device aimed down at China during the Cold War, to John Oakes at Thunder's Mouth, in a nice deal, by Rob McQuilkin at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin (NA).rob@lmqlit.com
However...the ones I really am impatient to read are TJ Waters' "Class 11" and Colby Buzzell's "My War". Not gonna be satisfied until I have them either.
Wrap.
FICTION:
Toni McGee-Causey's BOBBIE FAYE'S VERY (very very very very) BAD DAY, the misadventures of one extremely pissed off trailer trash Cajun beauty queen who has to outwit former boyfriends, her "hostage" and organized crime in order to rescue her no-good pain-in-the-ass brother from kidnappers run amok in the Louisiana swamps, to Nichole Argyres at St. Martin's, for three books, in a pre-empt, by Lucienne Diver at Spectrum Literary Agency. Film rights are with Vince Gerardis of Created By.lucienne@spectrumliteraryagency.com
NON-FICTION:
Mark Kurzem's THE MASCOT -- tied in to the award-winning documentary of the same name, about a Jewish orphan who was made into a mascot by the Nazis, as years later the mascot and his son set out on a quest that takes them through Minsk, Moscow, Riga, New York, and Stockholm to uncover his past and find a chamber of horrors, past and present, to Hilary Redmon at Viking, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic (NA).hilary.redmon@Us.penguingroup.com
BIOGRAPHY:
Classics professor Philip Mitchell Freeman's JULIUS CAESAR: A Biography, showing him as a multi-faceted man, at once a great military leader, a master politician, gifted poet and devoted family man, and using Caesar's life as an opportunity to explore Rome's extraordinary transition from a small village to a world power, to Robert Bender at Simon & Schuster, by Joelle Delbourgo at Joelle Delbourgo Associates (world English).joelle@delbourgo.com
BUSINESS:
J. Walter Thompson Greater China CEO Tom Doctoroff's BILLIONS: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer, based on eleven years working with closely with leading international and domestic companies to explain the Chinese consumer, and presenting on-the-ground stories of companies that we are winning and losing in China, to Toby Wahl at Palgrave, at auction, by James Levine of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).jlevine@levinegreenberg.com
HISTORY:
Douglas Egerton's DEATH OR LIBERTY: African Americans in the American Revolution, the story of the black founders of the American republic, both enslaved and free, and of how white Americans responded to the contradictions between Revolutionary ideals and the reality of mass bondage, to Peter Ginna at Oxford University Press, by POM (world).sara.leopold@oup.com
MEMOIR:
Washington Post correspondent Jackie Spinner with commentary by Jenny Spinner's TELL THEM I DIDN'T CRY, a young journalist's story of joy, loss and survival in Iraq, complemented by brief vignettes from her twin sister, who waited and worried on the home front, to Lisa Drew at Lisa Drew Books, by Jeff Kleinman at Graybill & English (world).samantha.martin@simonandschuster.com
NARRATIVE:
Marmot design consultant/spokesperson and contributing editor to Rock and Ice Magazine Pete Takeda's ONCE A SACRED MOUNTAIN: Unlocking the Mystery of Nanda Devi, a mix of adventure narrative and environmental mystery, exploring what happened to India's most sacred mountain (the glacier of which feeds the headwaters of the Ganges) after Americans deployed a plutonium-powered surveillance device aimed down at China during the Cold War, to John Oakes at Thunder's Mouth, in a nice deal, by Rob McQuilkin at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin (NA).rob@lmqlit.com
However...the ones I really am impatient to read are TJ Waters' "Class 11" and Colby Buzzell's "My War". Not gonna be satisfied until I have them either.
Wrap.
Update: Google/libraries/publishers..
This just in from Publishers Lunch:
Google Returns Answers to AAUP Search
Following a flurry of press reports on the letter from AAUP executive director Peter Givler to Google about their Print Publisher and Print Library programs that was posted online by BusinessWeek, Lunch has obtained some clarifications from Google's Tom Turvey.
One issue we reported on Monday was Givler's contention in his letter that he thought he had heard a Google official say at a recent STM publisher meeting that agreeing to participate in Print Publisher was being taken as automatic consent to also allow the display of copyrighted books from the same publisher through the Print Library effort. But Turvey says this is "absolutely not" the case.
Turvey further indicates: "Publishers remain in complete control of which books are displayed on Google, just as web publishers are regarding inclusion of their websites in the index. For any books scanned at libraries, publishers may simply choose not to display these books within Google's index -- no questions asked." He adds that this can be applied title-by-title or to all books from a publisher's list: "Publishers may remove any or all of their books in copyright scanned at libraries from display."
We still don't have a clear read on the circulated, but not confirmed, notion that Google is relying on fair use rights to scan copyrighted books from the collections of academic libraries and display basic matches to search queries even without a publisher's explicit permission. On the service's posted FAQ, they state: "We respect copyright law and the tremendous creative effort authors put into their work. So if we've scanned a library book that's still in copyright, you'll only be able to see a few snippets of text from the book."
To us, this does imply that "snippeting" will occur as a matter of course. But Turvey answers definitively that, regardless of the process under which "snippets" may appear in the Google index, if a publisher requests complete removal, Google will do so.
As for accusations that the service has not honored previous opt-out requests, Turvey replies, "No publisher that has contacted us requesting an opt-out has been denied."
Turvey also comments on another "significant issue in the letter--the idea that Google would assert some kind of tacit copyright ownership of books scanned at libraries or the files from those books. No one at Google has made any statement like this, nor would anyone. Google makes no assertions with regard to copyright for any books it scans, either from libraries or publishers."
And Turvey takes issue with "the notion that Google has not been communicating with publishers." He underscores that the company has met with numerous industry organizations, and worked with publishers' queries "frequently and repeatedly"--including presentations "to some of AAUP's most prominent members more than once, and we have taken and answered their questions during those meetings." He indicates, "We've met personally with Peter Givler more than once. Candidly, we were surprised by the assertion that we haven't been responsive or answered questions."
Wrap...
Google Returns Answers to AAUP Search
Following a flurry of press reports on the letter from AAUP executive director Peter Givler to Google about their Print Publisher and Print Library programs that was posted online by BusinessWeek, Lunch has obtained some clarifications from Google's Tom Turvey.
One issue we reported on Monday was Givler's contention in his letter that he thought he had heard a Google official say at a recent STM publisher meeting that agreeing to participate in Print Publisher was being taken as automatic consent to also allow the display of copyrighted books from the same publisher through the Print Library effort. But Turvey says this is "absolutely not" the case.
Turvey further indicates: "Publishers remain in complete control of which books are displayed on Google, just as web publishers are regarding inclusion of their websites in the index. For any books scanned at libraries, publishers may simply choose not to display these books within Google's index -- no questions asked." He adds that this can be applied title-by-title or to all books from a publisher's list: "Publishers may remove any or all of their books in copyright scanned at libraries from display."
We still don't have a clear read on the circulated, but not confirmed, notion that Google is relying on fair use rights to scan copyrighted books from the collections of academic libraries and display basic matches to search queries even without a publisher's explicit permission. On the service's posted FAQ, they state: "We respect copyright law and the tremendous creative effort authors put into their work. So if we've scanned a library book that's still in copyright, you'll only be able to see a few snippets of text from the book."
To us, this does imply that "snippeting" will occur as a matter of course. But Turvey answers definitively that, regardless of the process under which "snippets" may appear in the Google index, if a publisher requests complete removal, Google will do so.
As for accusations that the service has not honored previous opt-out requests, Turvey replies, "No publisher that has contacted us requesting an opt-out has been denied."
Turvey also comments on another "significant issue in the letter--the idea that Google would assert some kind of tacit copyright ownership of books scanned at libraries or the files from those books. No one at Google has made any statement like this, nor would anyone. Google makes no assertions with regard to copyright for any books it scans, either from libraries or publishers."
And Turvey takes issue with "the notion that Google has not been communicating with publishers." He underscores that the company has met with numerous industry organizations, and worked with publishers' queries "frequently and repeatedly"--including presentations "to some of AAUP's most prominent members more than once, and we have taken and answered their questions during those meetings." He indicates, "We've met personally with Peter Givler more than once. Candidly, we were surprised by the assertion that we haven't been responsive or answered questions."
Wrap...
Man!!!
Just had to go to war with my computer. Ended up phoning Roadrunner and a guy named Rob did a great job getting things settled. Was very strange, cause I had email access all the way...just no internet access. I hate it when that happens.
Yesterday's problem--all posts on this blog disappeared--had to do with someone else's router problem, but that's all well fixed now too. Good!
Okay. So the question is, will that wretched John Bolton be confirmed? Another question: This new House bill...just how the hell do those people think they're gonna increase the size of the Army by 10,000 and the Marines by 1,000? Just raising wages is not gonna do it.
Have to admit that I'm proud of the House for backing the stem cell bill even though Bush says he'll veto. And of course he will. For the first time ever. Too bad enough of them didn't vote for the bill in numbers that would override a veto...but of course the sicky religious right members are not about to do something so humane.
For a guy who should be in a Federal prison with his cohorts for war crimes and treason, he sure rides high, wide and handsome...roughshod over everybody in his way, doesn't he?
I'm of the opinion that the very first act a new Dem prez should do is order his people to break up the media monopolies, big time, so that the few corporate heads that run all our TV, newspapers and radios flat don't have any to run any longer. In short...free the press! If people don't know things are wrong, they can't fix 'em.
Next thing is to undo any connections between church and state...and take away tax exemptions from any religious entity that gets involved with politics or politicians.
Get the Air Force Academy out from under the heel of those same religious fanatics, and give a dishonorable discharge to every officer involved with bringing religious requirements down on the heads of those students. They are, after all, sworn to uphold the Constitution....as is BushCo...and they are not. They have broken their oaths and should be booted out of every position they hold.
Bet I could go on for a considerable time, starting with stopping any and all voting tampering with the machines and demanding a paper trail for each and every one of them.
But I won't.
Wrap...
Yesterday's problem--all posts on this blog disappeared--had to do with someone else's router problem, but that's all well fixed now too. Good!
Okay. So the question is, will that wretched John Bolton be confirmed? Another question: This new House bill...just how the hell do those people think they're gonna increase the size of the Army by 10,000 and the Marines by 1,000? Just raising wages is not gonna do it.
Have to admit that I'm proud of the House for backing the stem cell bill even though Bush says he'll veto. And of course he will. For the first time ever. Too bad enough of them didn't vote for the bill in numbers that would override a veto...but of course the sicky religious right members are not about to do something so humane.
For a guy who should be in a Federal prison with his cohorts for war crimes and treason, he sure rides high, wide and handsome...roughshod over everybody in his way, doesn't he?
I'm of the opinion that the very first act a new Dem prez should do is order his people to break up the media monopolies, big time, so that the few corporate heads that run all our TV, newspapers and radios flat don't have any to run any longer. In short...free the press! If people don't know things are wrong, they can't fix 'em.
Next thing is to undo any connections between church and state...and take away tax exemptions from any religious entity that gets involved with politics or politicians.
Get the Air Force Academy out from under the heel of those same religious fanatics, and give a dishonorable discharge to every officer involved with bringing religious requirements down on the heads of those students. They are, after all, sworn to uphold the Constitution....as is BushCo...and they are not. They have broken their oaths and should be booted out of every position they hold.
Bet I could go on for a considerable time, starting with stopping any and all voting tampering with the machines and demanding a paper trail for each and every one of them.
But I won't.
Wrap...
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
This is how it is...
Every now and then Morialefaka says something in his blog-- http://morialefaka.blogspot.com that is so right on that I feel everyone possible should read and think about it. This is one of those times. Today, he writes:
"Now we are apparently going to build four huge new bases in Iraq. Some say this is to get our troops off the streets and hunkered down safely prior to their return to the United States, after the Iraqis are able to control their country. What B.S. Iraqis will most probably never be able to control their own country without American troops because they don't want to fight their own people, unless perhaps they are of another ethnic or religious group, in which case you are talking civil war. And the U.S. does not want to give up a permanent presence in the oil-rich Middle East. So we are there to stay. Which is exactly the worst thing we can do.
But the die is cast for the neocons dreams of empire. They have no choice now but to continue occupation and all out war against anyone who opposes their U.S. dreams to taking over the world. If they now fail it means for them jail or worse. There is no way the United States can regain its rightful place in the world unless Bush/Cheney and the neocons are held accountable for their monumental war crimes. It will not be enough to simply vote them out of office and pretend this terrible nightmare didn't happen.I cannot see any way out for them at this point in time. Their army is falling apart, recruitment is understandably falling dramatically, desertions are a real problem, Bush's ratings are so low as to be virtually unprecedented, Laura is now being presented as the face of the administration, the Social Security scam is being exposed for the smokescreen it is, they are on the wrong side of stem cell research, and they are about to bankrupt the country, to say nothing of destroying the environment. They do not dare even suggest a draft as that would bring them down in a hurry.
So what is going to happen? If the elections of 2006 do not result in a Democratic takeover of the Senate, and perhaps even the House, you had better make plans to move elsewhere, the farther from the U.S. the better. You might even consider changing your identity. Anyone even remotely connected to this gang of international cuthroats is liable to become fair game for reprisals. You think I am exaggerating? I wish. So take your pick: either all out war endlessly against the rest of the world or an admisstion of guilt and then justice and cooperation with our fellow men."
posted by morialekafa at 8:48 PM
Nuff said.
Wrap.
"Now we are apparently going to build four huge new bases in Iraq. Some say this is to get our troops off the streets and hunkered down safely prior to their return to the United States, after the Iraqis are able to control their country. What B.S. Iraqis will most probably never be able to control their own country without American troops because they don't want to fight their own people, unless perhaps they are of another ethnic or religious group, in which case you are talking civil war. And the U.S. does not want to give up a permanent presence in the oil-rich Middle East. So we are there to stay. Which is exactly the worst thing we can do.
But the die is cast for the neocons dreams of empire. They have no choice now but to continue occupation and all out war against anyone who opposes their U.S. dreams to taking over the world. If they now fail it means for them jail or worse. There is no way the United States can regain its rightful place in the world unless Bush/Cheney and the neocons are held accountable for their monumental war crimes. It will not be enough to simply vote them out of office and pretend this terrible nightmare didn't happen.I cannot see any way out for them at this point in time. Their army is falling apart, recruitment is understandably falling dramatically, desertions are a real problem, Bush's ratings are so low as to be virtually unprecedented, Laura is now being presented as the face of the administration, the Social Security scam is being exposed for the smokescreen it is, they are on the wrong side of stem cell research, and they are about to bankrupt the country, to say nothing of destroying the environment. They do not dare even suggest a draft as that would bring them down in a hurry.
So what is going to happen? If the elections of 2006 do not result in a Democratic takeover of the Senate, and perhaps even the House, you had better make plans to move elsewhere, the farther from the U.S. the better. You might even consider changing your identity. Anyone even remotely connected to this gang of international cuthroats is liable to become fair game for reprisals. You think I am exaggerating? I wish. So take your pick: either all out war endlessly against the rest of the world or an admisstion of guilt and then justice and cooperation with our fellow men."
posted by morialekafa at 8:48 PM
Nuff said.
Wrap.
Religious titles drop..
Just read this in Publishers Lunch, and think maybe readers may be getting tired of the hard religious push that rolled in with BushCo. Veddy interesting!
More Books, More Adjectives
We're pretty much running out of appropriate descriptive words for the continuously scaling abundance of new books published every year. According to the latest preliminary estimates released by R.R. Bowker, title output increased 14 percent last year, to a new high of 195,000. (That's up from 135,000 titles only three years ago, though the latest increase is less than last year's 19 percent jump.)
The extra titles come from...pretty much everywhere. The 12 largest trade houses grew their lists by over 5 percent, comprising 24,159 titles. Of course a handful of the largest POD self-publishers accounted for approximately 20,000 titles on their own, almost matching the top traditional publishers.
University presses were up to 14,484 titles, up more than 12 percent. (In previous years Bowker has broken out just the top 55 U. presses; now the totals reflect 125 presses.)
Bowker says that one "catalyst for growth" in 2004 was adult fiction, which jumped by 43 percent to 25,184 new titles. All of that increase and more came from the genres, as literary fiction actually declined 5.6 percent over 2003. Poetry and drama titles also increased by over 40 percent. But these increases came from smaller publishers; among just the top 12 houses, poetry, literary fiction and religious titles all fell, as business, juvenile, law, sociology, and travel titles rose the most.
One closely-watched category--books translated into English from other languages--continued to fall, by more than 8 percent. The total for 2004 was 4,040 books (including 864 works of fiction).
Following previous trends, the average retail price of adult hardcovers fell 10 cents, to $27.52, as the average price for adult trade paperbacks rose 7 percent to $15.76.
Wrap...
More Books, More Adjectives
We're pretty much running out of appropriate descriptive words for the continuously scaling abundance of new books published every year. According to the latest preliminary estimates released by R.R. Bowker, title output increased 14 percent last year, to a new high of 195,000. (That's up from 135,000 titles only three years ago, though the latest increase is less than last year's 19 percent jump.)
The extra titles come from...pretty much everywhere. The 12 largest trade houses grew their lists by over 5 percent, comprising 24,159 titles. Of course a handful of the largest POD self-publishers accounted for approximately 20,000 titles on their own, almost matching the top traditional publishers.
University presses were up to 14,484 titles, up more than 12 percent. (In previous years Bowker has broken out just the top 55 U. presses; now the totals reflect 125 presses.)
Bowker says that one "catalyst for growth" in 2004 was adult fiction, which jumped by 43 percent to 25,184 new titles. All of that increase and more came from the genres, as literary fiction actually declined 5.6 percent over 2003. Poetry and drama titles also increased by over 40 percent. But these increases came from smaller publishers; among just the top 12 houses, poetry, literary fiction and religious titles all fell, as business, juvenile, law, sociology, and travel titles rose the most.
One closely-watched category--books translated into English from other languages--continued to fall, by more than 8 percent. The total for 2004 was 4,040 books (including 864 works of fiction).
Following previous trends, the average retail price of adult hardcovers fell 10 cents, to $27.52, as the average price for adult trade paperbacks rose 7 percent to $15.76.
Wrap...
Our nation under BushCo...
Here is the opening of this article from YubaNet.com. Go there to be horrified by the rest...
From YubaNet.com
WorldPakistan: U.S. Citizens Tortured, Held Illegally
Author: Human Rights Watch
Published on May 24, 2005, 07:40
U.S. FBI agents operating in Pakistan repeatedly interrogated and threatened two U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin who were unlawfully detained and subjected to torture by the Pakistani security services, Human Rights Watch said today. The brothers Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were abducted from their home in Karachi at about 2 a.m. on August 13, 2004. They were released on April 22, 2005 without having been charged.During eight months of illegal detention, Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were routinely tortured by Pakistani authorities to extract confessions of involvement in terrorist activities. During this period, FBI agents questioned the brothers on at least six occasions.
The FBI agents did not intervene to end the torture, insist that the Pakistani government comply with a court order to produce the men in court, or provide consular facilities normally offered to detained U.S. citizens. Instead, they threatened the men with being sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay if they did not confess to involvement in terrorism.
Human Rights Watch's information is based on extensive and separate interviews with the two brothers since their release and other sources."It is outrageous that Pakistan abducts people from their homes in the middle of the night and tortures them in secret prisons to extract confessions, all the while ignoring court orders to produce their victims in court," said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "The United States should be condemning this, but instead it either directed this activity or turned a blind eye in the hopes of gaining information in the war on terror."
*********************
And aren't we proud that all this is being done in our name? Pure and simple, we're ruled by a vicious criminal administration. But of course they've never had to experience being treated like these US citizen prisoners, and are certain they never ever will be, so why should they care? They don't care. Neither do other sociopaths.
Wrap..
From YubaNet.com
WorldPakistan: U.S. Citizens Tortured, Held Illegally
Author: Human Rights Watch
Published on May 24, 2005, 07:40
U.S. FBI agents operating in Pakistan repeatedly interrogated and threatened two U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin who were unlawfully detained and subjected to torture by the Pakistani security services, Human Rights Watch said today. The brothers Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were abducted from their home in Karachi at about 2 a.m. on August 13, 2004. They were released on April 22, 2005 without having been charged.During eight months of illegal detention, Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were routinely tortured by Pakistani authorities to extract confessions of involvement in terrorist activities. During this period, FBI agents questioned the brothers on at least six occasions.
The FBI agents did not intervene to end the torture, insist that the Pakistani government comply with a court order to produce the men in court, or provide consular facilities normally offered to detained U.S. citizens. Instead, they threatened the men with being sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay if they did not confess to involvement in terrorism.
Human Rights Watch's information is based on extensive and separate interviews with the two brothers since their release and other sources."It is outrageous that Pakistan abducts people from their homes in the middle of the night and tortures them in secret prisons to extract confessions, all the while ignoring court orders to produce their victims in court," said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "The United States should be condemning this, but instead it either directed this activity or turned a blind eye in the hopes of gaining information in the war on terror."
*********************
And aren't we proud that all this is being done in our name? Pure and simple, we're ruled by a vicious criminal administration. But of course they've never had to experience being treated like these US citizen prisoners, and are certain they never ever will be, so why should they care? They don't care. Neither do other sociopaths.
Wrap..
Monday, May 23, 2005
Class11, Google & the Libraries..
A bit more info on a great book I'm champing at the bit to read: CLASS 11, by TJ Waters finally has a publish date: March, 2006. TJ was part of the first CIA class formed after 9/11, and he tells all about it. Right now, I'm told, it's under editorial review. CIA has okayed it after their review. So make a note on your calendar on Dec 31st that there are only three more months to wait....and put your order in at the bookstore in advance if you want a 1st edition.
Now on to the matter of Google and the Libraries:
From Publishers Lunch today comes the word:
AAUP Pops Quiz on Google Print for Libraries
Questions about--and potential objections to--Google's ambitious program to scan and index online the contents of major academic libraries have moved to a new level with the publication online by Business Week of a letter dated last Friday from Association of American University Presses executive director Peter Givler to Google senior counsel Alexander Macgillivray. Givler says the public posting of the letter "was a complete surprise."
While noting his members were initially enthusiastic about Google Print, Givler cites "mounting alarm and concern" over the library scanning program, saying it "appears to involve systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale." He tells Lunch that the letter came after less formal questioning failed to produce satisfactory answers: "Google's responses have been completely non-substantive. They've finessed it and said 'It's a wonderful program. We're comfortable with our legal position and just trust us.'"
His goal, he says, is to persuade Google that publishers have some detailed concerns and it's time "to have a serious conversation."
The letter poses a series of 16 detailed questions (and requests answers within a month), and points to some of the currently gray areas in the library scanning program. Perhaps the largest objection is that Google kept the library venture secret even while negotiating with publishers for rights to the basic Google Print program, and an allegation that participation in Print is being used as fait accompli permission for the library program.
Givler says in the letter: "At the recent meeting of scientific, technical and medical publishers in Washington, your colleague J.R. Needham, if I heard him correctly, told us that it was unnecessary for Google to clear permissions for Google Print for Libraries with those publishers who had agreed to participate in Google Print for Publishers, because they had already given their consent. These facts are simply wrong. Publishers' contracts for Google Print are title-specific and can't be interpreted as a blanket license. Furthermore, no publisher knew about Google Print for Libraries until it was announced in mid-December."
Givler says that at least one publisher participating in Print has specifically asked to opt out of the library program on a blanket basis and "to date, Google has not complied," which he uses to question the general assurances that publishers can withdraw from these efforts whenever they want. Since the participating libraries are being given full digital copies of their own works to use as they wish, the letter notes that "'opting out' of Google Print would not remove those digital version from the libraries themselves."
Other gray areas of concern include Givler's understanding that "Google asserts that it can make these copies [the library scans] without seeking permission as a fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act." He thinks the fair use claim pertains to the scanning itself and not the actual posting and indexing of the scanned material, though even there Givler remarks, "They haven't been terribly forthcoming." And Givler is concerned that at a recent presentation in London, Google reportedly asserted that copyright in the digital book scan files themselves would be owned by the search company.
Only time will tell whether this letter (and similar efforts said to be underway by other professional organizations) will simply lead to clarity in Google's positions or more aggressive action in opposition to their program. Here the AAUP is speaking for academic presses, some of which are directly associated with the same institutions whose libraries are partnering with Google. That makes the possibility of "litigation extremely remote"--though it does present a natural means for lobbying through the participating universities that Givler is just starting to explore.
We did not hear back from calls to Google for comment prior to posting.
AAUP letter
Wrap...
Now on to the matter of Google and the Libraries:
From Publishers Lunch today comes the word:
AAUP Pops Quiz on Google Print for Libraries
Questions about--and potential objections to--Google's ambitious program to scan and index online the contents of major academic libraries have moved to a new level with the publication online by Business Week of a letter dated last Friday from Association of American University Presses executive director Peter Givler to Google senior counsel Alexander Macgillivray. Givler says the public posting of the letter "was a complete surprise."
While noting his members were initially enthusiastic about Google Print, Givler cites "mounting alarm and concern" over the library scanning program, saying it "appears to involve systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale." He tells Lunch that the letter came after less formal questioning failed to produce satisfactory answers: "Google's responses have been completely non-substantive. They've finessed it and said 'It's a wonderful program. We're comfortable with our legal position and just trust us.'"
His goal, he says, is to persuade Google that publishers have some detailed concerns and it's time "to have a serious conversation."
The letter poses a series of 16 detailed questions (and requests answers within a month), and points to some of the currently gray areas in the library scanning program. Perhaps the largest objection is that Google kept the library venture secret even while negotiating with publishers for rights to the basic Google Print program, and an allegation that participation in Print is being used as fait accompli permission for the library program.
Givler says in the letter: "At the recent meeting of scientific, technical and medical publishers in Washington, your colleague J.R. Needham, if I heard him correctly, told us that it was unnecessary for Google to clear permissions for Google Print for Libraries with those publishers who had agreed to participate in Google Print for Publishers, because they had already given their consent. These facts are simply wrong. Publishers' contracts for Google Print are title-specific and can't be interpreted as a blanket license. Furthermore, no publisher knew about Google Print for Libraries until it was announced in mid-December."
Givler says that at least one publisher participating in Print has specifically asked to opt out of the library program on a blanket basis and "to date, Google has not complied," which he uses to question the general assurances that publishers can withdraw from these efforts whenever they want. Since the participating libraries are being given full digital copies of their own works to use as they wish, the letter notes that "'opting out' of Google Print would not remove those digital version from the libraries themselves."
Other gray areas of concern include Givler's understanding that "Google asserts that it can make these copies [the library scans] without seeking permission as a fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act." He thinks the fair use claim pertains to the scanning itself and not the actual posting and indexing of the scanned material, though even there Givler remarks, "They haven't been terribly forthcoming." And Givler is concerned that at a recent presentation in London, Google reportedly asserted that copyright in the digital book scan files themselves would be owned by the search company.
Only time will tell whether this letter (and similar efforts said to be underway by other professional organizations) will simply lead to clarity in Google's positions or more aggressive action in opposition to their program. Here the AAUP is speaking for academic presses, some of which are directly associated with the same institutions whose libraries are partnering with Google. That makes the possibility of "litigation extremely remote"--though it does present a natural means for lobbying through the participating universities that Givler is just starting to explore.
We did not hear back from calls to Google for comment prior to posting.
AAUP letter
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