September 11th And The Bush
Administration Compelling
Evidence for Complicity August 31, 2003 Walter E. Davis, PhD
Clearly, one of the most critical questions of the twenty-first century
concerns why the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were not prevented. As
I outline below, there are numerous aspects regarding the official stories about
September 11th which do not fit with known facts, which contradict
each other, which defy common sense, and which indicate a pattern of
misinformation and coverup. The reports coming out of Washington do very little
to alleviate these concerns. informationclearinghouse.info
Labor Day 2003 Putsch vs the American People
August
31, 2003 By Bryan Zepp Jamieson It’s Labor Day, and it’s time to take a
quick look at the lot of the American worker. Well, it’s pretty crappy. Not
just the unemployment rates. Those exemplify pretty crappy, of course.
Officially, it’s around 6.3%, and unofficially (counting the people who have
given up looking for work and whose benefits have expired) it’s somewhere
around 10.5%. It isn’t just the pay, which is lagging further and further
behind the increases the top 1% of wage earners see. Although with discretionary
income falling each year, many west European nations have caught or surpassed
us. (Yes, Americans have higher wages and lower taxes than their European
counterparts, but said counterparts don’t have to deal with such privatized
taxes as health care, pensions, higher education, and so on.) zeppscommentaries.com
Hot Summer Sparks Global Food Crisis
August
31, 2003 by Geoffrey Lean This summer's heatwave has drastically cut
harvests across Europe, plunging the world into an unprecedented food crisis,
startling new official figures show. Separate calculations by two leading
institutions monitoring the global harvest show that the scorching weather has
severely reduced European grain production, ensuring that the world will not
produce enough to feed itself for the fourth year in succession, and plunging
stocks to the lowest level on record. rense.com
Texas Democrats learned the hard way about being nice to
Republicans August 31, 2003
by Jackson Thoreau
During the 2000 campaign before the world went to hell under Bush-Cheney, Rodney
Ellis, a Democratic state senator in Bush-Cheney’s home state of Texas, was
asked by some national Democratic officials to travel around the country saying
not-so-nice things about the dangerous corporate hack who now occupies the White
House. He refused. Now, he wishes he hadn't. houston.indymedia.org
Neocons Admit They’ve Blown It – Is The Draft Next? August
31, 2003 By
Paul Craig Roberts Do you remember the ridicule neocons
heaped on critics who predicted a quagmire in Iraq? Now neocons William Kristol
and Robert Kagan are calling for more troops and more money - two more army
divisions and another $60 billion to be exact. vdare.com
Bush's chokehold August
30, 2003
The new rule from the Bush administration allowing thousands of factories, power
plants, and refineries to increase pollution is not just an arcane piece of
federal regulation. It is a mandate to fill the air with soot that makes people
sick. The Environmental Protection Agency issued its revision of clean air
regulations on Wednesday. It is one of the most significant actions President
Bush has taken weakening environmental protections. It comes after Bush spent a
week touring picturesque nature settings touting his love of the environment. timesargus.com
Do Jobs Not Matter Anymore?
August 30, 2003 By E. J. Dionne Jr
Maybe we should just scrap Labor Day and rename it "Capital Day."
After all, aren't we now a "nation of investors"? Isn't most business
reporting, especially on television, about stock prices and "returns on
capital"? If you care about wages and working conditions, you must be some
sort of dinosaur.
And, hey, who cares about unemployment? Productivity is growing, which means
we're more efficient. Sure, we're losing manufacturing jobs. But worrying about
manufacturing is so Old Economy. Yeah, yeah, a lot of those manufacturing jobs
helped people build middle class lives. But won't they make it all up in their
portfolios? Income is old hat. Wealth is the thing. washingtonpost.com
Bush Backer Competing For State Contract On
Voting Machines August 29, 2003 A wealthy businessman who's helping the Ohio
Republican Party try to win the state in 2004 for President Bush also leads a
company competing for a coveted state contract to sell voting machines. Walden
O'Dell is chief executive of Diebold Incorporated in North Canton. The Cleveland
Plain Dealer reported yesterday that O'Dell told Republicans in an August 14th
fund-raising letter that he is committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral
votes to Bush. onnnews.com
Bush administration says it won't
regulate carbon dioxide August 30, 2003 Seth Borenstein Carbon dioxide, the
chief cause of global warming, cannot be regulated as a pollutant, the
Environmental Protection Agency ruled Thursday. The decision, which reverses a
1998 Clinton administration position, means the Bush administration won't be
able to use the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from cars. Had
the Bush administration decided that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and harmful,
it could have required expensive new pollution controls on new cars and perhaps
on power plants, which together are the main sources of so-called greenhouse
gases. oudaily.com
GAO's Final Energy Task Force Report
Reveals that the Vice President Made A False Statement to Congress August
30,
2003 By JOHN W. DEAN This month, the General Accounting Office (GAO) - the
investigative and auditing arm of Congress - issued a report that contains some
startling revelations. Though they are couched in very polite language, they are
bombshells nonetheless. The
report - entitled "Energy Task Force: Process Used to Develop the
National Energy Policy" - and its accompanying
Chronology strongly imply that the Administration has, in effect, been
paying off its heavy-hitting energy industry contributors. It also very strongly
implies that Vice President Dick Cheney lied to Congress. The Background: How
Cheney Stonewalled GAO news.findlaw.com
GM Crops Failing In The Fields August 30, 2003 And Harming Farmers And The
Environment Friends of the Earth Europe and Greenpeace A new study published
today by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace demonstrates that the growing
of GM crops in Spain is causing contamination of organic crops, producing
low yields and its benefits are grossly overstated. The report is also
highly critical of the Spanish Government for failing to properly control or
monitor the situation. rense.com
Schwarzenegger plucks economic advisers
from conservative think tank used by Bush August
30, 2003 RACHEL KONRAD Arnold
Schwarzenegger has been vague about his economic plans for California, but clues
may come from his advisers, many of whom hail from a conservative think tank
whose members helped develop President Bush's economic plan. sfgate.com
SORDID
SCHWARZENEGGER Aug
30, 2003 By Stephen White A SORDID 26-year-old interview
came back to haunt Arnie Schwarzenegger's bid for political power yesterday. In
the adult magazine interview the bodybuilder talks about gang-bangs, smoking
drugs and the size of his private parts. mirror.co.uk
Sex abuse at US air force August 30, 2003 Suzanne Goldenberg America's air force
academy yesterday confronted devastating evidence that it presided over a
training regime that was hostile to women, with nearly 70% of female cadets
reporting they had been sexually harassed, and nearly 20% sexually assaulted.
The findings, in a draft report by the defence department's inspector general's
office, comes just six months after six former cadets charged the academy with
fostering a climate that condoned violence against women because it punished
those who reported they had been raped. guardian.co.uk
American Embassador Pied August 30, 2003 On August 28, an
anti-FTAA activist
pied American Embassador Peter Allgeier, co-president of the FTAA, during a
press conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. [photo
| video]
The activist, a member of Bakers
Without Borders, released a note protesting the negotiations of the FTAA.
The FTAA will concentrate wealth, increase poverty, and destroy labor, consumer
and enviromental rights, said the note. http://indymedia.org/
|
|
Number of Parents Suffering Long-Term
Unemployment Soars August 29, 2003 Long-term unemployment among parents
surged more than 50 percent in a 12-month period, according to an analysis
released today by the Children's Defense Fund. One out of every 100 American
parents was jobless and suffering long-term unemployment (more than 26 weeks) in
June 2003, the highest percentage in years. The rapid rise indicates that the
economy continues to worsen for many families with children. Today's
analysis shows that 655,000 parents experienced long-term unemployment - more
than three times the number two years ago. The figure marks a one-month jump of
20 percent and a 51 percent one-year increase. These parents were among 2.8
million parents unemployed and actively seeking work. commondreams.org
Waiting In The Food Line Aug.
29, 2003 (CBS) With unemployment rising,
there has been a sudden leap in the number of people on emergency food
assistance. And in Ohio, some of the food lines look as if they've been taken
from the pages of the Great Depression. It’s not just the unemployed. Plenty
of people working full time are still not able to earn enough to keep hunger out
of the house. So if you think you have a good idea of who's hungry in America
today, you may be wrong. Correspondent Scott Pelley reports on this story, which
last aired this winter "This is what it was during the Depression era. That
people stood in line to get government commodities. We haven’t come very far,
have we?" Bob Garbo America’s Second Harvest cbsnews.com
Jobs Without Power Working In America
August 29, 2003 Jonathan
Tasini For at least
half their waking hours, the American people live in a dictatorship. At home or
in public places, Americans enjoy a measure of freedom and liberty envied by
most people around the world: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom
of association (true, John Ashcroft is trying to change all that but that's
another story). But, the moment Americans walk through the doors of their
workplace, they enter into a world that strips away all their basic rights.
Within the walls of the workplace, the whim of the corporation is more powerful
than the U.S. Constitution. tompaine.com
Wounded, Weary And Disappeared August 29, 2003
Bill Berkowitz The
men and women injured in Iraq and Afghanistan have become the new disappeared. The nation reached a sad milestone in late
August. With the death of an American soldier in a roadside bombing on August
29, the number of soldiers killed in Iraq after the official end of the war
reached 139, exceeding the "postwar" casualty count. Nightline aired a
feature; the Associated Press posted a story on the war dead -- but most media
outlets continue to ignore an equally dreary reality. informationclearinghouse.info
GM Frankenfood Allergies Aug.
29, 2003 By
Sheryl Jackson My grandson and I are anaphylactically allergic to all GM
FrankenFoods. The itching and neurotoxicity of these patented consumables by
the Monsters of Monsanto should be forced on to all of the creators and
their families. The GM patented molecules were identified and isolated by a
team of Swiss, Swedish and Dutch scientists in the year 2000. At that time,
it was determined that the three molecules that the Monsters of Monsanto had
spliced into the food were: 1.) from a pansy plant, 2.) from a cockroach and
the third though isolated could not be identified. The excitotoxins of these
FrankenFoods cause so many multiple diseases, that they have become the
stuff of fiction. And the reality is that no one has been allowed to develop
tests for allergies to these now known neurotoxins because they are patented
and Monsanto refuses to allow the tests to be developed. rense.com
Another 10,000 troops for Iraq are not enough for
Bush August 29, 2003
By Chris Kraul in Al Diwaniya
In a relatively modest but welcome bit of relief for United States forces,
troops from 21 countries, including Spain, Poland and four Central American
nations, will begin taking over duties from marines in south-central Iraq this
week. The changeover, involving about 10,000 fresh troops, comes as President
George Bush renews efforts to enlist the help of more foreign countries in Iraq,
hoping that last week's bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad
will motivate reluctant countries to take part in shoring up security. smh.com.au
Family of soldier displaying outrage toward
president August 29, 2003 BY TOM
JOHNSTON With their 23-year-old son serving as an Army reservist in Iraq, Pat
and Paul Vogel are trying as best they can to support the work he and his fellow
soldiers are doing. But the Barrington residents are finding it much more
difficult to endorse Aaron's commander in chief. The Vogels accuse President
George Bush of using fabricated information about former Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein's ties with Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001
terrorist attacks, and Hussein's potential use of weapons of mass destruction
against the United States as the basis for declaring war on Iraq. "Our
primary concern with the president is we feel like a lot of bad decisions have
been made leading up to our son's and a lot of other troops' being
involved," Paul Vogel said. pioneerlocal.com
A Small Group of Dedicated
People Might Actually Do Something August 29, 2003
By Doris 'Granny D' Haddock
You know, there are two kinds of politics in the world: the politics of love and
the politics of fear. Love is about cooperation, sharing and inclusion. It is
about the elevation of each individual to a life neither supressed nor
exploited, but instead nourished to rise to its full potential – a life for
its own sake and so that we may all benefit by the gift of that life. Fear and
the politics of fear is about narrow ideologies that separate us, militarize us,
imprison us, exploit us, control us, overcharge us, demean us, bury us alive in
debt and anxiety and then bury us dead in cancers and wars. alternet.org
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought August
29, 2003
By Michael Dobbs Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President
Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under Operation Iraqi
Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more dollars under a no-bid
contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to newly
available documents. news.yahoo.com
Steel Not Seen As Factor in WTC Collapse
August 29, 2003
DEVLIN BARRETT Early tests on steel beams from the World Trade Center show they
generally met or were stronger than design requirements, ruling them out as a
contributing cause of the collapse of the towers, federal investigators said
Wednesday. kansascity.com
Another Default Possible in Russia August
29, 2003 Pravda.ru About 80
percent of Russia's reserve funds - more than $64 billion - are being
currently stored in foreign banks in the form of the US Treasury liabilities
and other "stocks." Russian money is working for Americans. Saving
money in someone else's pockets is a very interesting thing to do. Do
Kremlin officials know what is going to happen, if they attempt to invest
that money in Russia? rense.com
It
Is Time To Cast a Worried Eye Towards Yellowstone
August 28, 2003
by Larry Park and Marshall Masters
Yesterday afternoon, a 4.4 magnitude earthquake
occurred just 9 miles southeast of the south entrance to Yellowstone National
Park. The volcanism model developed by Larry Park has suddenly lurched us
a huge step towards a worst-case eruption event. Simply
put, anyone living within 600 miles of Yellowstone could be sitting in a modern
day Pompeii. In addition, for those living outside this area and West of
the Mississippi river, there could be grievous consequences as well because
systemic processes are now building beneath Yellowstone, that paint a very clear
picture of a major eruption event in its early stages yowusa.com
Mild
earthquakes rattle coastal US cities August
28, 2003 at 11:09AM Milford, New Jersey - Minor
earthquakes shook New Jersey, Los Angeles County and Hawaii. No injuries or
serious damage was reported. In Los Angeles County on the West Coast, a temblor
measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale struck at midnight on Tuesday 8km west of
Valencia, according to preliminary data from the United States Geological
Survey. A smaller earthquake hit the area shortly before that and another -
measuring 2.7 on the Richter scale - occurred at 11.03pm. iol.co.za
Bush Seeks to
Limit Federal Employee Pay Raises to 2 Percent
August 28, 2003
Bloomberg President George W. Bush is pressing
Congress to limit pay increases for 1.8 million federal employees to 2 percent
next year, a move he said would save money as the U.S. fights terrorists in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Granting
federal employees a larger pay increase would be ``inappropriate'' and
``interfere with our nation's ability to pursue the war on terrorism,'' Bush
said. bloomberg.com
Bush
administration loosens air pollution rules for industries
August 28, 2003
BY MICHAEL KILIAN The
Bush administration Wednesday put into effect a controversial change in Clean
Air Act rules that allows electrical power plants, refineries and other
industries to replace equipment and increase emissions without installing modern
pollution control devices as currently required by law The
new rule softens provisions of 26-year-old "new source review"
regulations that require coal-fired power plants and other pollution sources to
install up-to-date emission control equipment if they expand or improve their
facilities. bradenton.com
Bush's war goes
global August 28, 2003 By NAOMI KLEIN
The U.S. President has created a tool kit for any
mini-empire looking to get rid of the opposition.
The Marriot Hotel in Jakarta was still burning when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
Indonesia's Co-ordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, explained
the implications of the day's attack. "Those who criticize about human
rights being breached must understand that all the bombing victims are more
important than any human-rights issue." In
a sentence, we got the best summary yet of the philosophy underlying President
George W. Bush's so-called war on terrorism. Terrorism doesn't just blow up
buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of
terrorism, real and exaggerated, has become a shield of impunity, protecting
governments around the world from scrutiny for their human-rights abuses. globeandmail.ca
THE DEAN
DECEPTION The lying S.O.B. August
28, 2003 Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Or, as the post-Vatican II generation would put it:
Through my fault, through my fault, through my most
grievous fault! I
confess: I wanted to believe. I wanted to hope. I wanted to have faith in
Howard Dean as the anti-war candidate. I even wrote a column about it, wherein I
praised the former Vermont governor and sometime critic of the Iraq war. Good
lord, I even compared him to Adlai Stevenson! Boy oh boy, was I ever wrong!
How wrong? Here is Dean giving Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post the
real scoop: / antiwar.com
Cuts in education funding will
improve academic performance. Honest. August
28,
2003 By Charles Bogle Given the capitalist system’s need
to mask its contradictions, no matter the ugliness that lies beneath, it was
only a matter of time before the right wing of the mainstream media started
spewing forth disinformation to prove, incredibly, that recent cuts in funding
for public education will actually have a positive influence on academic
performance. wsws.org
Airlines raised
exec pay after 9-11
Delta, Northwest, Continental cut jobs at same time
August 28, 2003 By Mark
Jaffe Delta Air
Lines Inc. and Continental Airlines Inc. gave their CEOs raises after the Sept.
11, 2001 terrorist attacks as they fired a total of 33,000 workers, according to
a study by two nonprofit groups. detnews.com
Outsourcing jobs in India to
increase seven times by 2008 August
28, 2003 IANS The number of workers in
India performing computer jobs for U.S. companies will increase seven-fold from
177,000 in 2002 to 1.2 million in 2008, says a new study. newindpress.com
'Anti-Semitic' Labels Used As Political
Tools August 28,
2003 By Linda S Heard Star of "Braveheart", Mel Gibson
is the latest in the line of actors, writers and celebrities to bedealt a blow
to his career: a label planted on anyone who dares to reflect Jews or Israel in
anything other than a favourable light. Yes, you've guessed it, the dreaded term
"anti-Semite". His crime?Gibson directed, produced and financed The
Passion - a movie based on the Christian Gospels, centring on the life and
crucifixion of Jesus. rense.com
Baghdad's shame
August 28,
2003 By Brandon Sprague and Adam Shemper Iraq Babies die daily of
treatable diseases while their doctors search for black-market drugs, because
the U.S can't fix Iraq's corrupt, crime-plagued health system. --
Babies are dying in Baghdad hospitals every day because medicine and medical
supplies, lying in abundance in government warehouses...salon.com
Women's Groups Give Bush an 'F' on
Iraq, Afghanistan August 28,
2003 Jeffrey Allen The
Bush administration deserves a failing grade on ensuring rights and
opportunities for women in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S.-based women’s rights
advocates charged at a Washington, D.C. press conference Tuesday. news.yahoo.com
US Navy's sonar is danger to sea life,
judge rules August 28, 2003 By Kenneth
Weiss
The United States Navy has been stopped from testing a powerful sonar system in
most of the world's oceans after a federal judge ruled that the booming sounds
used to detect enemy submarines could "irreparably harm" whales,
dolphins and fish. US District Judge Elizabeth Laporte ruled in San Francisco on
Tuesday that the navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to
consider alternatives that could shield whales and other marine life from these
loud sounds, which have been compared to standing next to the space shuttle at
take-off. smh.com
US green activists vandalise 'polluting' 4x4 cars
August 28, 2003 Duncan Campbell Radical environmentalists have vandalised
or wrecked hundreds of sport utility vehicles at car dealerships or in the
streets in California over the past few days, causing millions of dollars' worth
of damage. The attacks on the popular four-wheel drive cars, targeted because of
the pollution they cause, were apparently carried out by supporters of the Earth
Liberation Front, a loose network on the radical wing of the environmental
movement. Many of the wrecked vehicles were spraypainted with the group's
initials, ELF. guardian.co.uk
|
As a stop-gap measure,
George W. Bush secretly and unlawfully grabbed huge portions of the U.S.
Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds to bribe the Saudis not to
re-schedule their flight capital out of the U.S.
|
FOR NOW, SAUDIS GET BLACK-OUT PAY-OFF
August
27, 2003 By Sherman Skolnick & Lenny Bloom As stated in previous stories, the Saudi
Royal Family have been in the midst of a bitter divorce from the Bush White
House Gang. To evade prior knowledge charges of treason against themselves, the
Bushies have been falsely blaming the Saudis for 9-11. As a reprisal, on the
afternoon of Thursday, August 14, 2003, the Saudis were set to begin the wire
transfer, out of the U.S., of a 98 Billion Dollar portion, of their upwards of
One Trillion Dollars of deposits in U.S. money center banks, mainly in New York.
The transferring was blocked by a massive black-out U.S./Canada, hard-hitting
New York and transit recipient point, Toronto. This was apparently orchestrated
by a U.S. power firm owned by the British Aristocracy, to whom the Bush Crime
family are shackled as stooges and scapegoats. The occupant and resident of the
White House had few options. libertyforum.org
Army foresees doubling up tours
August 27, 2003
By Dave Moniz For the first time since the all-volunteer Army began in 1973,
significant numbers of U.S. combat soldiers may have to start serving
back-to-back overseas tours of up to a year each in places such as Iraq,
Afghanistan and South Korea, top Army officers say. usatoday.com
The Conservative Future
August
27, 2003 By Phil
Shepherd This
article is about what the U.S. may look like if conservatives get their hearts
desires, and if no one stops them.
The Bush
Neo-Cons have strategized about the 21st century being the American
century, and they are busy trying to make it real.
Unopposed
here is how it may turn out. The
year is 2020. Bush, Chaney, and all the rest have gone back to their ranches.
America now struggles under massive debts due to the Bush tax cuts. And as a
result world capital investments have fled from the U.S. to China and other
countries. Americans live with unemployment levels greater then during the Great
Depression. The middle class is much smaller, the poor are many, and the spread
between rich and poor in America makes our nation look like the worst of third
world countries where rich oligarchies rule in private splendor surrounded by
public squalor, and abject poverty. Millions of jobs have permanently left
America for other countries. Thousands of factories are padlocked and boarded up
with grass growing in their parking lots.
opednews.com
Swiss Aid Society To Sue U.S. Over Asset Freeze
August 27, 2003 By Tamer Abol Enin
GENEVA "The
association .. respects all Palestinian and Israeli laws alike, given that
cooperation with Palestinian aid organizations is only done through Israeli
channels," al-Shouly averred .." A Swiss relief organization on Tuesday, August 26, repudiated U.S.
allegations of having links with Palestinian political parties, vowing to take
legal action against the U.S. administration recent decision to freeze its
assets. "The Association de Secours Palestiniens (ASP) is not
politically-oriented and cooperates directly with accredited aid and relief
organizations in Palestine," ASP chairman Khaled al-Shouly told
IslamOnline.net. palestinechronicle.com
U.S. college
grads see jobs being taken abroad August 27, 2003
"America's
white-collar workers should not feel too smug. They can be replaced by cheaper
foreign workers. That process is under way." By ROWLAND NETHAWAY The future of American workers, if they are lucky enough to land a job, lies
with multinational companies that rely heavily on foreign labor. It's too late to worry about losing U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico as a
result of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexico's workers now are in a panic over losing their
NAFTA-generated
manufacturing jobs to China, the world's new global manufacturing center. ajc.com
Drivers cynical and perplexed about reasons for higher
prices
August 27, 2003
The cynical American motorist is alive and well at Fort Wayne's gas stations,
depending on who you talked to Monday. At some stations, the price of gas has jumped more than 30 cents per gallon
in the past two weeks, thanks to the Aug. 14 blackout, increased demand and
seasonal production issues.
"This whole 'blackout' thing doesn't wash with me," said Zanesville
resident Julie Rodenbeck as she pumped gas at the Marathon station at U.S. 24
and Interstate 69 in southwest Fort Wayne. "Regular gas was $1.38 a gallon
the last time I filled up. It's just greed." fortwayne.com
What's going on: Fox News seems to think it runs United
States August
27, 2003 By GEORGE POAGUE The
network might as well be on Bush's payroll. Welcome
to the United States of Rupert Murdoch. At least that's how it seems. The
incredibly arrogant Fox News Channel now regards itself as the U.S. government
-- although its attitude is closer to the thought-police style of the old Soviet
Union -- with the power to silence anyone who criticizes it. Here's a couple of
recent examples. By now you've probably heard about Fox's lawsuit against
satirist Al Franken over his forthcoming book, "Lies and the Lying Liars
Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." Fox maintains that
the words "fair and balanced" are copyrighted by the cable channel.
The hysterical lawsuit also accused Franken of being "shrill,"
"unstable" and lacking "serious depth or insight." Knight
Ridder columnist Brian Lambert wrote: "Have Fox's lawyers ever watched
their own channel? It's essentially programmed by and for the shrill, unstable
and depthless." Lambert added: "This, I remind you, is from the people who employ Sean
Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and give Matt Drudge and Ann Coulter more air time
than most non-Republicans." It's widely rumored that talkmeister O'Reilly spurred his network to file the
suit. You see, Franken tore O'Reilly a new orifice at a couple of impromptu
debates this year, and Mr. "No Spin Zone" wants revenge. theleafchronicle.com
How Does the War Party Get Away with It? August
26, 2003 By Robert
Higgs
If you see someone shuffling along the street, eyes downcast, a pained
expression on his face, you may have stumbled upon a member of the Peace Party.
Once again, this party's cause has gone down to defeat, and its members are
shaking their heads sadly, wondering why.
Their anguish is not assuaged by the knowledge that ultimately many will come to
see that they were right to oppose this war. Eventual vindication will avail
them little. The war is a fait accompli, and time’s arrow flies in only
one direction. The death, destruction, and misery that the war has caused cannot
be erased. On the contrary, for many of the victims, that misery will only
fester, despoiling the other lives it touches, just as it did in the aftermath
of earlier, similarly mistaken wars. Think of all the former soldiers with parts
of their bodies missing, or parts of their minds gone askew. In this country,
veterans’ institutions brim with these enduring casualties, and big-city
alleys harbor no small number of them. In Iraq the innocent victims of this
year's war are counted in the tens of thousands, and their number continues to
mount. independent.org
Monsanto Fined $700 Million for Poisoning People with PCBs
August 26, 2003 ANNISTON (Alabama) Deal reached in PCB trials August 26 2003
By Jessica Centers Lawyers for more than 20,000 plaintiffs in federal and state trials over PCB
pollution in Anniston reached an agreement Wednesday with the companies accused
of chemical contamination. The $700 million settlement, announced in federal district court in
Birmingham, would resolve all outstanding Anniston PCB litigation. The terms of the global settlement were agreed to by attorneys in both the
federal court case, Tolbert v. Monsanto Co. et al., and the state court case,
Abernathy v. Monsanto Co. et al. The judges in both cases presided over the
hearing together. organicconsumers.org
Operation Bush Unemployment August 26, 2003
We the people of the United States of America must stand up and take our
country back. Millions of Americans have lost jobs since the George W. Bush
administration took office, with no decent job creation proposals made. He has
made it more difficult to contact him by e-mail, and he is not listening to the
American public. We will stand together and send him a message that the next
person we want standing in the unemployment line is him. webspawner.com
Bush Iraq policy in disarray August
26, 2003 By Bill Vann On Tuesday, the death toll suffered by US occupation troops in Iraq in the
wake of President Bush’s May 1 claim that major fighting was over topped the
number killed in the invasion and its immediate aftermath. A bomb claimed the
life of a soldier riding in a column of army vehicles about 16 miles northwest
of Baghdad. The death marked more than just a numerical milestone—139 having lost their
lives in the occupation as opposed to 138 in the fighting that preceded it.
Behind the rising death toll is growing popular resistance in Iraq. Washington confronts a far more dangerous enemy today than when it waged its
one-sided war against the weakened military apparatus of Saddam Hussein’s
corrupt regime. It now faces an increasingly hostile and radicalized population
that is determined to free the country of foreign occupation. wsws.org
Bush at the Helm A Modern Ahab or a
Toy Action Figure? August 26, 2003 By SAUL LANDAU
KB
Toys has released a George W. Bush "Action Figure" entitled
"Naval Aviator," produced by Blue Box Toys in China. It sells for
$39.99 and it commemorates the "historic" May 1 Bush
dressed-as-combat-pilot landing on the USS Lincoln. We won, he said. Hostilities
in Iraq were over. When some Iraqis resisted, Bush taunted them.
"Bring `em on." Scores of dead U.S. soldiers have paid the price for
Bush's challenge. Hey, that's war! Leaders lead and soldiers die! Similarly, Bush appears to scoff at Nature. The
President, a feisty sort of guy, fears no one and nothing. Then again he spends
most of his time in the White House, his Texas ranch or at fundraisers. Is he a
flesh and blood, who commanded the literary ship Pequod in Herman Melville's tale?
Like Ahab, Bush pursues personal crusades behind a
religious facade. Cursed Al Qaeda! Cursed whale! counterpunch.org
ACLU
Says Justice Dept.’s PATRIOT Act Website Creates New Myths About Controversial
Law August 26,
2003 A new Justice Department
website purporting to “dispel the myths” about the controversial PATRIOT Act
in fact creates fresh myths about the law and gives new life to old ones,
according to analysis released today by the American Civil Liberties Union. “It is inexcusable that Attorney
General Ashcroft is using this website to further mislead the public about
controversial portions of the law,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D.
Romero. “The American people are entitled to a more honest account.” aclu.org
US green activists vandalise 'polluting' 4x4 cars
August 26, 2003 Duncan Campbell Radical environmentalists have vandalised
or wrecked hundreds of sport utility vehicles at car dealerships or in the
streets in California over the past few days, causing millions of dollars' worth
of damage.The attacks on the popular four-wheel drive cars, targeted because of
the pollution they cause, were apparently carried out by supporters of the Earth
Liberation Front, a loose network on the radical wing of the environmental
movement. Many of the wrecked vehicles were spraypainted with the groups's
initials, ELF. guardian.co.uk
|
Bush says the war is
over,
but
this
U.S. truck burns and Americans are
still dieing.
|
ARE YOU ANGRY YET?
August 25, 2003 You should be! You've been lied to. Your tax money has been
taken from you and spent under false pretenses. Your children have been sent off
to kill and be killed in an illegal war launched without Congressional approval.
You who fought in the war and think you came back home healthy, well, you've
been lied to as well. Your health is all downhill from here (ask any Vet from
Desert Storm), and your children will have a higher incidence of birth defects
because that depleted uranium isn't as harmless as you were told it was. And
those VA medical benefits you were promised? That was a lie too. Are you angry
yet? And those of you who sold your better judgment for a free hot-dog and a
flag at a Clear Channel sponsored pro-Bush rally, well, you were lied to as
well, and worse, made to look totally stupid before the rest of the world. whatreallyhappened.com
Growing opposition to Bush
re-election August 25, 2003 Julian Borger
For the first time, more Americans say they would oppose President George Bush's
re-election in 2004 than support a second term, according to a poll published
yesterday that showed mounting pessimism over the US military presence in Iraq.
As attacks on coalition forces continue to inflict casualties, a Newsweek poll
found that the human and economic costs of occupation were eroding the
president's support at an accelerating rate. guardian.co
Bring Our Troops Home and Send In the
Neocons August 25, 2003 by Ron Holland
Today is just another day and another major bombing against US and US-affiliated
targets in Iraq. Our garrison troops continue under attack daily and the oil
pipelines continue to explode and burn. Why the heck are we there and isn't it
time to take the false neocon propaganda and the neocon advisors and put them
where they have placed our American men and women in uniform? The neocons
promised we would be met as liberators, but of course we are seen as conquerors
by the citizens of Iraq, the rest of the Middle East and most of the world. They
call our invaders a coalition, but basically it is just the US and its UK
assistant out to steal oil and run the world. albawaba.com
U.S. troops using confiscated Iraqi
AK-47s August 25, 2003 By Andrew England
An American soldier stands at the side of an Iraqi highway, puts his AK-47 on
fully automatic and pulls the trigger. Within seconds the assault rifle has
blasted out 30 rounds. Puffs of dust dance in the air as the bullets smack into
the scrubland dirt. Test fire complete. U.S. troops in Iraq may not have found
weapons of mass destruction, but they're certainly getting their hands on the
country's stock of Kalashnikovs and, they say, they need them. The soldiers
based around Baqouba are from an armor battalion, which means they have tanks,
Humvees and armored personnel carriers. But they are short on rifles. boston.com
Horrifying US Secret Weapon Unleashed In
Baghdad August 25, 2003 By Bill Dash
On that date, al-Ghazali and his family sheltered in their house as a fierce
street battle erupted in his neighborhood. In the midst of the fighting, he
noticed that the Americans had called up an oddly configured tank. Then to his
amazement the tank suddenly let loose a blinding stream of what seemed like fire
and lightning, engulfing a large passenger bus and three automobiles. Within
seconds the bus had become semi-molten, sagging "like a wet rag" as he
put it. He said the bus rapidly melted under this withering blast, shrinking
until it was a twisted blob about the dimensions of a VW bug. As if that were
not bizarre enough, al-Ghazali explicitly describes seeing numerous human bodies
shriveled to the size of newborn babies. By the time local street fighting ended
that day, he estimates between 500 and 600 soldiers and civilians had been
cooked alive as a result of the mysterious tank-mounted device. rense.com
THE SECRETIVE WORLD OF VOTING MACHINES August
25, 2003 privatizing the vote - sabotaging the system - around the world by Lynn
Landes The most successful coup is one that few notice. Over the last 100
years Americans have slowly but surely surrendered our public voting
process to private corporations and their voting machines... in violation of our
constitutional right to fair, open, and observable elections. The price
paid has been the legitimacy of our democracy. And countries around the world
are following our lead. Today, two Republican dominated corporations, Election
Systems and Software (ES&S) and Diebold Voting Systems, control about 80% of
the vote count in the U.S.. Meanwhile, the long history of election upsets
due to voting machine "glitches", that overwhelmingly favor Republican
candidates, continues to grow. Where is the outrage? Where's the concern? Where
are the Democrats? ecotalk.org
Cheney Stifled Energy Probe, GAO
Investigators Say August 25, 2003 by Peter
Kaplan Congressional investigators said on Monday that Vice President Dick
Cheney had stymied their investigation into his energy task force by refusing to
turn over key documents. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, said it was impossible to tell how much energy companies or industry
groups may have influenced the task force's 2001 report because the
administration withheld important records. commondreams.org
Israel Destroys Entire Commercial Market
In One Day August 25, 2003 OCCUPIED WEST
BANK Over 100 shops and
5 homes demolished in Nazlat 'Isa for the building of the wall, marking the single largest demolition of buildings in
years. The entire commercial area of Nazlat 'Isa was today razed to the ground
as some 15 bulldozers, accompanied by large numbers of military and border police, entered
the community at 5:00 AM and destroyed over 100 shops and 5 homes. The market,
which was previously targeted in January of this year with the destruction of 82
or close to one half of its shops, has been the commercial center for the entire
region. rense.com
ACLU, Conservatives, Civil Rights Groups
Agree: CAPPS II Raises Serious Privacy and Security Concerns August
25, 2003 At a forum entitled “CAPPS II: Passenger Screening and Privacy
Concerns,” hosted by the American Civil Liberties Union, prominent
conservatives and the Washington head of the NAACP today warned Congress about
potential threats to privacy and civil rights under the Transportation Security
Administration's (TSA) now infamous Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening
System (CAPPS II) airport spying system. aclu.org
Fluoride Linked to Low IQ
August 25, 2003 Studies Show From
Fluoride Action Network. Children's intelligence declines as their
natural drinking water fluoride levels increase, concluded a Chinese study in
the May 2003 journal, "Fluoride." Children scored inferior IQ's even
when fluoride levels were similar to that added to U.S. water supplies to
prevent tooth decay(1). "As the fluoride levels in drinking water
increased, the IQ fell and the rates of mental retardation and borderline
intelligence increased," write researchers Xiang, et al. enn.com
