House Republicans call police on Democratic congressmen July 23, 2003 By Patrick Martin In an unprecedented attempt to suppress political opposition by force, a top Republican in the House of Representatives called on the Capitol police July 18 to oust Democrats from a room where they were caucusing. The Democrats were meeting to discuss how to deal with Republican legislation that would sharply reduce corporate payments to workers’ pension funds. wsws.org

Report on USA Patriot Act Alleges Civil Rights Violations July 22, 2003 By PHILIP SHENON A report by internal investigators at the Justice Department has identified dozens of recent cases in which department employees have been accused of serious civil rights and civil liberties violations involving enforcement of the sweeping federal antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act. The inspector general's office had received 34 complaints of civil rights and civil liberties violations by department employees that it considered credible, including accusations that Muslim and Arab immigrants in federal detention centers had been beaten. The accused workers are employed in several of the agencies that make up the Justice Department, with most of them assigned to the Bureau of Prisons, which oversees federal penitentiaries and detention centers. The report said that credible accusations were also made against employees of the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Immigration and Naturalization Service; most of the immigration agency was consolidated earlier this year into the Department of Homeland Security. story.news.yahoo.com

Lawyer: Bush criminalizes criticism July 22, 2003 By Jeffrey Collins Activist arrested for being in area restricted during president's visit. A lawyer for a local activist charged with refusing to leave a restricted area during a visit by President Bush last fall says the Bush administration is trying to make criticizing the president a crime. In a motion filed Friday, Brett Bursey's attorney included testimony from a Michigan case to boost his argument that the U.S. Secret Service unfairly pushes protesters hundreds of yards away from the president while allowing supporters to line Bush's route. myrtlebeachonline.com

Hydrogen cars not needed, U.S. experts say July 22, 2003 Two U.S. energy experts cast more doubt on a push to develop hydrogen-powered cars as a means to cut air pollution and reduce oil imports. Cheaper and faster ways already exist to achieve the same effect, including raising fuel efficiency and toughening environmental standards, David Keith and Alexander Farrell, wrote in the current issue of the journal Science. "Hydrogen cars are a poor short-term strategy, and it's not even clear that they are a good idea in the long term," Farrell, assistant professor of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, said Friday in a statement. cnn.com

The Times’ Thomas Friedman on Iraq: spreading “democracy” with missiles and lies July 22, 2003 By Bill Vann Amid mounting revelations of Bush administration lies concerning its reasons for going to war against Iraq, a chorus of media pundits has rallied to the president’s defense by responding, “So what?” These commentators argue that the “16 words” in the State of the Union address citing intelligence allegedly proving that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa were no big deal—despite the fact that this bogus claim played a major role in the administration’s attempt to terrorize the public with a nonexistent Iraqi nuclear threat. Or, they assert, the issue of government deception pales beside various ex post facto rationalizations for the war—Saddam Hussein’s repression, the “liberation” of the Iraqi people, etc. wsws.org

Green revolt against Bush July 22, 2003 By Glenn Scherer In an embarrassing rebuke to the White House, a group of Republican and Democratic governors is embracing the Kyoto accords on global warming. A bipartisan group of Northeastern governors is expected to announce an historic agreement this week to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, a plan that would break sharply with Bush administration policy on global warming. salon.com

Bush in new threat to Iran and Syria July 22, 2003 Duncan Campbell President George Bush issued a strident new warning to Iran and Syria yesterday, accusing them of harbouring terrorists and hinting at the consequences. "This behaviour is completely unacceptable," he said during a joint press conference at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. "And states that continue to harbour terrorists will be held completely accountable." guardian.co.uk

Bush ready to wreck ozone layer treaty US slips in demand to drop ban on harmful pesticide July 21, 2003 By Geoffrey Lean President George Bush is targeting the international treaty to save the ozone layer which protects all life on earth from deadly radiation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. New US demands - tabled at a little-noticed meeting in Montreal earlier this month - threaten to unravel one of the greatest environmental success stories of the past few decades, causing millions of deaths from cancer. The news comes at a particularly embarrassing time for the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who pressed the President in their talks in Washington last week to stop his attempts to sabotage the Kyoto Protocol which sets out to control global warming: one of the few international issues on which they differ. independent.co.uk

It's in the Air, The Sweet Smell of Dying Right Wing Majority; and who will Bush Replace Cheney With? McCain? DeLay? Whitman? July 21, 2003 by Rob Kall Blair's on the coals. Bush and Condi and Cheney are shuffling and fumbling, looking like the arrogant  fools we always knew they were. Finally, the real patriotic Republican Conservatives are speaking up. They must be, should be ashamed of the leader they have representing them. It's the smell of melting power, seasoned with too much hubris. The neocon eggheads are finally being seen for the narrow sighted egomaniacs with fantasies of Neonazi, neofascist Empire Building that they've always been. opednews.com

Johnny Ain't Never Marching Home (Throw Away the Yellow Ribbons) July 21, 2003 by Chuck Baldwin In spite of the fact that our brave fighting men have now assumed the unflattering role of Iraqi policemen, the word from The Pentagon is, "Our troops are not coming home anytime soon." That's the understatement of the year! The truth is, our troops are never coming home! The United States currently has military personnel in nearly 120 countries around the world, and President Bush is about to make it one more as he prepares to send troops to Liberia. sianews.com

US troops voice anger at Pentagon July 21, 2003 By James Conachy Last week witnessed an extraordinary event in Iraq. Uniformed soldiers from one of the US Army’s main combat units openly denounced Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on ABC national news and demanded that they be brought home. Other media outlets published interviews with soldiers declaring that their morale was “non-existent.” wsws.org

Bush deserves to be impeached July 21, 2003 By ERIC MARGOLIS "Worse than a crime, it was a blunder," was how the cynical Talleyrand famously described Napoleon's murder of the Duke d'Enghien. The same may be said of President George Bush's attempts to murder the leader of a sovereign nation, Saddam Hussein, and his foolhardy eagerness to invade Iraq. Thanks to Bush's blundering, nearly 50% of U.S. Army combat units are now stuck in a spreading guerrilla war in Iraq , costing $4 billion US monthly, that is becoming the biggest, most expensive, and bloodiest foreign mess since Vietnam. This when the U.S. is threatening military action against North Korea. informationclearinghouse.info

It's far from over, Mr. Bush July 21, 2003 Jules Witcover CIA Director George J. Tenet's willingness to take the fall for the latest Iraq intelligence flap means, according to President Bush, that the controversy is over. But the swarming of the field of Democratic presidential candidates to exploit it indicates otherwise. sunspot.net

Lockheed Sues Peaceful Anti-War Protesters July 21, 2003 Sitara Kapoor and Todd Kolze Something is very wrong within our democracy when a multi-billion dollar corporation, Lockheed-Martin, one of our Nation's largest defense contractors, sues anti-war protestors. Civil rights advocates call it "an assault on democracy," as the company seeks to block free speech by placing a price tag on public gatherings ..."Lockheed seeks restitution from anti-war protesters in unprecedented "backdoor" SLAPP suit" veteransforcommonsense.org

Fewer Americans willing to vote for Bush: July 20, 2003 Washington President George W Bush's approval ratings continue to slide with rising American casualties in Iraq, a ballooning budget deficit and worsening unemployment, says a poll released by Time magazine and CNN. Only 50 per cent of those surveyed said they were "very" or "somewhat likely" to vote for the President. This is down from May this year, when about 56 per cent said the same, and March, when more than 60 per cent said they would vote for him. However, two-thirds of the respondents think that Bush will win the November 2004 presidential election. hindustantimes.com

They Even Lie About the Weather July 20, 2003 by Alan Bisbort The following is yet another indication of the lengths to which the Bush White House will go to deceive and confuse the American people. To wit, they are apparently blocking all meteorological data that comes from Iraq, so that the American people will not know that our bravest men and women are roasting like rotisserie chickens in the 110F-plus heat in order to protect the Bush cartel's oil. This is a letter from the Weather Editor at the Los Angeles Times to a friend of mine who lives in LA, the great artist and satirist Charles Bragg. Charlie had inquired about why the temperatures from Baghdad were not noted on the world weather page. And this is what they sent him in response: Just days prior to the opening offensive strikes on the city of Baghdad, the two official overseers of international weather information -- The International Weather Source, and the World Meteorological Organization -- ceased listing actual temperature reports on their respective web-sites from the city of Baghdad. We are not certain as to who is directly responsible for holding back this information -- the U.S. Government, the U.S. Military, the CIA, NOAA -- or why. americanpolitics.com

U.S. Accused Of Torture In Iraq July 20, 2003 Amnesty International is looking into a number of cases of suspected torture in Iraq by American authorities. One of case involves Khraisan al-Aballi. Al-Aballi’s house was raided by American soldiers, who came in shooting and arrested Khraisan and his 80-year-old father. They shot and wounded his brother Dureid. Dureid was carrying a weapon. His brother says Dureid thought the Americans were looters. The three men were taken away. Khraisan and his father went to the U.S. detention center at Baghdad's airport. They still don’t know where his wounded brother is. Khraisan says his interrogators stripped him naked and kept him awake for more than a week, either standing or on his knees, bound hand and foot, with a bag over his head. Khraisan says he told his captors, “I don't know what you want. I don't know what you want, I have nothing." “I asked him to kill me,” says Khraisan. After eight days, they let him and his father go. Amnesty International is looking into the case, and others like it. informationclearinghouse.info

Fraud Traced to the White House July 20, 2003 By Katherine Yurica How California’s energy scam was inextricably linked to a war for oil scheme... When George Bush and Dick Cheney said “no” to Governor Gray Davis of California in 2001, as he pleaded for federal aid to halt the price escalation of energy that was threatening to bankrupt California, no one suspected that either the President or Vice President had any connection to the events in California. After all, the California energy crisis had begun under Bill Clinton's watch. How could there be a connection to the new President and Vice President? yuricareport.com

Weapons Expert at Centre of Row Found Dead July 20, 2003 The man at the centre of the row over claims that Downing Street had ‘sexed up’ a report on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) has been found dead near his home in Oxford. Dr David Kelly had been caught up in the row over claims that the Government had misused intelligence reports in the run up to the war with Iraq. His family say that he left home yesterday afternoon and, when he did not return, they reported him missing at 11:45pm, July 17. The following morning Dr Kelly’s body was found close to his home in Oxfordshire, a police spokeswoman said. He was subsequently pronounced dead and police investigations are now underway. Police are treating his death as "unexplained", until the results of a post-mortum are delivered, although Britain's Ministry of Defense has announced that it will conduct its own official inquiry. However, the mainstream news media are already at work. The results of the autopsy on Dr. Kelly's body have yet to be announced, but one of Britain's main TV news programs, ITV News, has already described his death as an "apparent suicide". Despite the fact that neighbours who saw him leave home on the afternoon he was last seen, described him as "smiling". thetruthseeker.co.uk

Internet husbands face crime checks July 20, 2003 Richard Luscombe US Congressman seeks tough new law after murder of mail-order bride from Kyrgyzstan Like so many other women from the former Soviet Union, Anastasia Solovieva came to America to find a better life. The mail-order bride agency she signed up with in her native Kyrgyzstan had matched her with a fat, balding man in Seattle more than twice her age, but the attractive 18-year-old was determined to make her US marriage work. In early letters home to her parents - both music teachers - in their tiny flat in the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek, she praised her husband for his intelligence and smart dress sense. Two years after their wedding, Anastasia was dead, strangled and buried in a junkyard by her husband. Anastasia had had no idea that Indle King Jr was a violent thug divorced from a first overseas bride who testified in court how he had beaten her regularly and pounded her head against a wall. 'For this family, the promised land became the devil's land,' said Seattle prosecutor Jim Krider before King, 40, was jailed for 29 years last year. guardian.co.uk

The State of The Union Lie Fest July 19, 2003 By Rob Kall First, let's start off with the title of the website where they keep scum sucking George Bush's 2003 State of The Union Address. These images  are copied from the White "whore" House web site today. We'll see if they leave the ironic title up there. Denial and Deception is  an excellent description of the content of Bush's speech. It's becoming pretty clear that Bush, the most lying, most despicable president in US history, knowingly lied about Saddam and Nigerian Uranium. But let's take another look at this joke of a state of the union address and go a bit deeper. thepeoplesvoice.org

Gen.: G.I.s who rip leaders will pay July 19, 2003 By HELEN KENNEDY The military will punish demoralized soldiers in Iraq who are bluntly venting their frustration to reporters, the Pentagon said yesterday. " This week's abrupt cancellation of homecoming plans for the Army's 3rd Infantry Division unleashed a remarkable and widespread flood of fury from troops who are hot, homesick and hunted by guerrillas. "If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I'd ask him for his resignation," Spec. Clinton Deitz of the 3rd Infantry's 2nd Brigade told ABC News. nydailynews.com

From heroes to targets July 19, 2003 By Michelle Goldberg The U.S. occupation of Iraq has turned into a daily debacle, say experts, because the Washington ideologues who planned the war were living in a fantasy. The Pentagon hawks who planned for postwar Iraq assumed American troops would be welcomed with flowers and gratitude. They assumed Saddam's regime could be decapitated but the body of the state left intact, to be administered by American advisors and handpicked Iraqis. They assumed that other countries, despite their opposition to the war, would come around once they saw how right America was, and would assist in Iraq's reconstruction. The war's architects placed such unyielding faith in their assumptions that when they all turned out to be wrong, there was no Plan B. salon.com

CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS July 19, 2003 Commerce & State Department Reports to Task Force Detail Oilfield & Gas Projects, Contracts & Exploration Saudi Arabian & UAE Oil Facilities Profiled As Well Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org. /  judicialwatch.org

WMD Scientist's Death Rocks British Government July 19, 2003 By Gideon Long LONGWORTH, England (Reuters) - A mild-mannered British scientist was found dead in the woods Friday after being unwittingly dragged into a fierce political dispute about intelligence used to justify war on Iraq. British police said they had found a body matching that of soft-spoken defense ministry biologist David Kelly, a former U.N. weapons inspector, who had been grilled in parliament over allegations the government hyped intelligence to justify war. washingtonpost.com

U.S. media still REFUSES to mention Bush sexual assault lawsuit July 19, 2003 By: Jackson Thoreau A Texas woman continues to pursue a lawsuit she filed last December against George W. Bush alleging that the White House inhabitant sexually assaulted her. Contacted by phone at her home in mid-July by this writer, plaintiff Margie Denise Schoedinger said I was one of the first media members to attempt to contact her about the case. In case you’re counting, that’s more than seven months after she filed the legal brief in a Fort Bend County court. fp.enter.net

House Democrats Storm Out of Ways and Means Committee July 19, 2003 By Juliette Eilperin and Albert B. Crenshaw Chairman Calls Capitol Police to Restore Order  Months of political tension in the House of Representatives erupted into open warfare today when Democrats stormed out of a Ways and Means Committee session and the panel's chairman called in the Capitol Police. The dispute highlights how rapidly relations between Democrats and Republicans have deteriorated in recent months. Virtually shut out from legislating and chafing over repeated procedural slights, House Democrats have adopted combative tactics to draw attention to what they see as Republican heavy-handedness. washingtonpost.com

First Casualty of War Returns to Haunt Bush Crusaders The man who said "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam.." may be a religious extremist bent on revisiting the Crusades, but George W. Bush and his neo-conservative handlers are far from invulnerable. Finally, the mainstream corporate media is waking up to what independent journalists have been saying all along:The Bush regime is out of control and their rightwing agenda is a threat to the nation. http://indymedia.org/

Democrat Eyes Potential Grounds for Bush Impeachment July 18, 2003 By John Milne U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham said on Thursday there were grounds to impeach President Bush if he was found to have led America to war under false pretenses. While Graham did not call for Bush's impeachment, he said if the president lied about the reasons for going to war with Iraq it would be "more serious" than former President Bill Clinton's lie under oath about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. "If in fact we went to war under false pretenses that is a very serious charge," Graham, the senior U.S. senator from Florida, told reporters in New Hampshire. "If the standard of impeachment is the one the House Republicans used against Bill Clinton, this clearly comes within that standard," he said. bridge.com

Bush, Lies, and Impeachment The Boy Who Cried Wolf  July 18, 2003 By MARJORIE COHN Revelations that the Bush administration sold us a bill of goods about Iraq's weapons program are growing faster than the imaginary mushroom cloud George W. Bush used to whip up support for his invasion of Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction provided the excuse to distract Americans from the real reasons Bush and his men were itching to get into Iraq. Two days before he invaded Iraq, Bush declared there was "no doubt" the Iraqi regime possessed and concealed "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." counterpunch.org

We Must Regain Our Voting Rights July 18, 2003 By Norman D. Livergood "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case. " Thomas Paine, Dissertation on the First Principles of Government In the presidential election of 2000, our right to elect our leaders was hijacked and we are now being ruled by a junta who rigged the election in Florida through criminal action and perpetrated a coup d'etat with the complicity of the Supreme Court. It is absolutely imperative that we fight to regain our voting rights and take back our country from this puppet of the "High Cabal." As Thomas Paine indicated, without our voting rights we are reduced to the status of slaves. Hitler rose to power through a rigged election in 1933 Germany in exactly the same way Bush II did in 2000 America. The cowed German people in 1933 refused to rise up against Hitler and the Nazi horror ensued. The growing list of Bush II's terrorist acts against the American people and the world, now stares us in the face. Decent Americans are ashamed to view Dubya's face on TV or in newspapers and realize that we have allowed this mindless gangster to remain in power. hermes-press.com

Social Security reform is still on Bush's agenda July 18, 2003 By BILL STRAUB President Bush remains committed to overhauling the Social Security system despite the massive estimated cost and potential reverberations, but he is waiting for a "window of opportunity" before moving ahead. "Social Security remains high on the list," said Budget Director Joshua Bolten, expected to play a key role in the reform effort. "If a window opens early to do it, I think the president would jump through that window. But he will seize the opportunity when it arises." tcpalm.com

Big brother under the bumper July 18, 2003 Boulder residents find mysterious tracking systems on their cars by Joel Warner and Pamela White Ever get the sneaking suspicion you are being watched? Maybe you should look under your bumper. On Sunday, July 6, three Boulder residents discovered sophisticated Global Positioning System (GPS) devices attached to the bottom of their cars, apparently used by someone to track the whereabouts of their vehicles. The devices contained no immediate clues as to who planted them or who used them to collect information, leaving the residents with troubling questions: Who would be willing to spend the time and energy to track them? And are we all being watched far more carefully than we might want to imagine? boulderweekly.com

Save The Date! August 29, 2004, The World Says No to Bush with MASS WORLDWIDE PROTEST DURING THE 2004 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION IN NEW YORK CITY July 18, 2003 In the last three years, George W. Bush has presided over a radical right-wing takeover of the U.S. government, the ramifications of which have been felt all over the world. Not only has he waged two wars, killing thousands of innocent people, during his short time in office, but he has also implemented a policy of pre-emptive war that violates international law and threatens global security. On the home front, unemployment soars, the federal budget deficit swells into the billions, and states prepare to slash funding for everything from healthcare to education. Yet, Bush responds with two huge tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthy rather than the people who are most in need. On every issue – from environmental regulations and international treaty participation to workers' rights, civil rights and civil liberties – George W. Bush has pushed for unprecedented and destructive changes in U.S. foreign and domestic policy that even more sharply favor corporations and the wealthy, especially Bush Administration supporters, at the expense of the people of the world and our environment. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration shamelessly uses the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, to justify its aggressive and militaristic policies. In its most recent attempt to exploit the grief and fear that were provoked by September 11, the Republican Party pushed back its 2004 convention to August 28 through September 2, 2004, and will hold it in New York City, not far from Ground Zero. SAVE THE DATE: ON AUGUST 29, 2004, THE WORLD SAYS NO TO BUSH unitedforpeace.org

Media Underplays U.S. Death Toll in Iraq July 18, 2003 Soldiers Dead Since May Is 3 Times Official Count By Greg Mitchell Any way you look at it, the news is bad enough. According to Thursday's press and television reports, 33 U.S. soldiers have now died in combat since President Bush declared an end to the major fighting in the war on May 2. This, of course, is a tragedy for the men killed and their families, and a problem for the White House. But actually the numbers are much worse -- and rarely reported by the media. According to official military records, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 2 is actually 85. This includes a staggering number of non-combat deaths. Even if killed in a non-hostile action, these soldiers are no less dead, their families no less aggrieved. And it's safe to say that nearly all of these people would still be alive if they were still back in the States. Nevertheless, the media continues to report the much lower figure of 33 as if those are the only deaths that count. A Web site called Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx) is tracking the deaths. mediainfo.com

California Republicans propose drastic cuts in social spending July 18, 2003 By Nick Davis On July 6, Republican lawmakers in California provided an indication of their “vision” for the state when, after much delay, they announced their proposed amendments to the revised budget presented last May by Democratic Governor Gray Davis. The Republicans presented 131 measures to close the state’s $38 billion shortfall, representing, in sum, an unprecedented assault on the working and poor people of the state and a massive windfall for big business and the rich. wsws.org

Spooked by the White House July 18, 2003 By Mark Follman A CIA veteran says a growing faction of the U.S. intelligence community is furious over  the way the administration corrupted the system -- and that the nation's security is at grave risk. July 18, 2003  |  Late last week the White House sought to close the books on the Iraq-Niger-uranium debacle, with President Bush officially pronouncing CIA director George Tenet responsible for the intelligence blunder. At the same time, the president reaffirmed his "absolute confidence" in Tenet and the rest of the agency. But according to a former CIA officer, the politicization of U.S. intelligence has devastated many in the field -- and dangerously weakened our country's security. "We're hearing from dozens of [intelligence] people. A lot of them are very demoralized," says Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran who worked as an agency analyst under seven presidents, from Kennedy to the first President Bush. "The cardinal sin in this business is to cook intelligence to the recipe of high policy," he says. salon.com

Union Using Courts and Consumers to Stop Political Killings July 18, 2003 On July 22, the Colombian union Sinal Trainal will officially launch a worldwide boycott campaign against Coca-Cola. In the last few years, paramilitaries have killed ten men and kidnapped and tortured dozens of union activists. 90 percent of all union leaders reported killed worldwide die in Colombia. Last year, the union, which organizes workers employed by Coke Colombia as well as by Nestl corporation, along with supporters in the US filed a case in US federal court accusing Coke of crimes against humanity for their involvement in the repression of workers by paramilitaries. On March 31, 2003, the judge determined that the court case against Coke can proceed. The union has called for a worldwide boycott campaign parallel to the legal action, with rallies in Rome, London and Melbourne to launch the campaign. http://indymedia.org/

Offshore Company Captures Online Military Vote July 17, 2003 by Lynn Landes Last year, while President Bush marshaled U.S. forces for the invasion of Iraq, the patriots at the Department of Defense awarded the contract for a new online voting system for the military... to an offshore company. It gets worse. Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) is the system and Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting of Enron bankruptcy fame) is the company. And although Accenture has not been officially implicated in the Enron scandal, they have created a reputation of their own that is already raising eyebrows. thepeoplesvoice.org

Whole Units Of US Soldiers In Iraq On Suicide Watch July 17, 2003 Yes, on July 9, Donald Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the 3ID would at last be home by September. But four days later, the Pentagon suddenly, quietly changed its mind, informing the stunned troops and their shocked families that the return home of its 1st and 2nd Brigades has been postponed "indefinitely." The wives of the men in these units are up in arms, sending letters to congressmen, the media and anyone who will listen. This is the second postponement of the division's departure. These 9,000 men and women, most of whom have been in the Persian Gulf since September, were due to come home by the end of May. E-mails and phone calls received by The Post from troops in the 2nd Brigade as well as their wives tell of whole units being put on suicide watch. A "to whom it may concern" letter presumably written by a 3ID officer or noncommissioned officer, and signed "the soldiers of 2nd Brigade, 3rd ID" is being circulated by wives of the men in the Iraq. The soldier writes: "Our morale is not high or even low. Our morale is non-existent... The 3rd Infantry Division soldiers feel betrayed, and forgotten." 2.iraqwar.ru

The Bush Administration Binds and Gags Environmental Regulators July17, 2003 "Operation End Extremism" This is the name of the campaign started by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to combat what it sees as a new threat to the US military: environmental regulations. Last month, the Defense Department asked Congress to "clarify" environmental regulations. The Pentagon's basic complaint is that laws governing air pollution, toxic waste dumps, endangered species and even marine mammals interfere with training and readiness exercises necessary for national security. Employing an unusual tactic for a committee, periodic emails are sent to journalists offering sentence-by-sentence rebuttals of environmental groups' criticisms of the Pentagon's request. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has imposed a gag order on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from publicly discussing perchlorate pollution. democracynow.org

Perchlorate- Rocket fuel pollution strains water supplies prompts health fears July17, 2003 A toxic chemical used to fuel Cold War-era missiles and the rockets that put man on the moon has left a legacy of contamination across the Southwest, where it pinches the region's already tight supply of drinking water. The chemical, called perchlorate, pollutes much of the lower Colorado River -- the main water source for 20 million people across the Southwest -- and has forced the shutdown of hundreds (300+) of wells in California. Thousands of people have sued the companies that once made or handled perchlorate, alleging years of drinking water laced with the chemical have caused cancers and other illnesses. Adrienne Wise-Tates, 46, has had tumors of the brain and ovaries, multiple cysts in her breasts, cancerous cells found when she had a goiter removed and, most recently, an unknown mass in her left kidney. The mother of three blames the perchlorate-tainted water she drank while growing up in Redlands. "I played in the water, drank the water, everything. The normal things a child does," Wise-Tates said. freedrinkingwater.com / Stydies find 40 chemicals & 20 pesticides in water— Yet officials claim no health threat!

To show loyalty, Rice lies for Bush July17, 2003 By Joe Conason Dr. Rice soils previously unblemished record with string of deceptions According to contemporary political lore, the Bush clan exalts loyalty above every other virtue. Other politicians envy that inviolable code, whose power is reflected in the absence of leaks from the White House, in the lockstep obedience of politicians in Congress and around the country, and in the enormous cash donations from hundreds of wealthy "friends." This is how dynasties are built to endure. But at the highest level, in the inner councils, such feudal allegiances often require awful sacrifice and compromise. For those who now work for George W. Bush, loyalty means surrendering professional integrity and accepting public humiliation. Loyalty means uttering words and phrases that nobody can believe. Loyalty means misleading the people and the press about the gravest matters of state. workingforchange.com

George Bush: World Class Monster July 17, 2003 “George Bush is a satanic, sadistic, brutal monster. Compared to George Bush, Adolf Hitler was a true gentleman.” - Michael Boren Williams, former Campaign Manager for Senator Gary Hart and Bush murder attempt victim “For the record, if I had my choice as to which one of the two (Clinton or Bush) represented the greater evil, I would say George Bush - in the blink of an eye....” - Michael Ruppert, former LAPD Narcotics detective. True evil does not develop in a vacuum. Evil is arrogant. It has no conscience. It is utterly self-serving. It hides from the light and will attack, even destroy others to preserve its own demented delusions. It is an unrestrained sociopath, wallowing in the murky darkness of its own psychosis while endlessly rationalizing its terrible deeds. It infiltrates the weak-minded and subverts the weak of character. Evil... creates a world of shadows - shadow play - shadow government. It lives by the lie. “The Big Lie,” once thought to be the exclusive purview of the Nazis, has become canonized in our form of government. And it is growing more perverse—more insidious. Like the Nazis before the fall of the Third Reich, we are a nation wallowing in the murky darkness of our own psychosis. I can think of no contemporary American family more twisted and evil than the Bush dynasty. beachnet.com

Excerpts from the 'Saddam tape' July 17, 2003 "Many documents have been revealed and the other papers with God's help will also be revealed. What will the two liars Bush and Blair say to their people and to humanity? What will they tell the world? What they said was wrong and baseless. The lies were known to the president of the United States and to the prime minister of Britain when they decided to wage war on Iraq". guardian.co.uk

The press gives Bush a free ride on his lies July 17, 2003 By Robert Kuttner I'M GLAD THAT the press is finally making an issue of President Bush's knowing use of a faked intelligence report on Iraq's supposed nuclear weapons program. But most of the press keeps missing the larger story. Deception has become the hallmark of this president. Whether the issue is leaving no child behind or who actually benefits from the tax cuts or what kind of drug coverage the administration's Medicare amendments will really provide or how the Bush Clear Skies Act actually degrades clean-air standards, the press has given the administration an astonishingly free ride. boston.com

The Educational System Was Designed to Keep Us Uneducated and Docile July 17, 2003 It's no secret that the US educational system doesn't do a very good job. Like clockwork, studies show that America's schoolkids lag behind their peers in pretty much every industrialized nation. We hear shocking statistics about the percentage of high-school seniors who can't find the US on an unmarked map of the world or who don't know who Abraham Lincoln was. thememoryhole.org