Bush's big swindle of Americans and Iraqis to pay
off corporations September 30, 2003 L. E. Miller
Bush is a puppet of the corporate barons, and if anyone
doubted that, the following article in today's Washington Post should dispel any
question marks. Bush has swindled the American people by awarding massive
boondoggles, tax loopholes, and tax cuts, to his corporate paymasters who put
this corrupt regime in office-- and to the richest-of-the-rich. Meanwhile, we're
being forced to dig into our pockets to enrich these crooks! aljazeerah.info
Tax Cuts Lead to Largest Deficit Ever in
Complete Reversal of Bush's Prediction
September 30, 2003 Despite President Bush's assurance in 2001 that his tax cuts
"could happen without fear of budget deficit, even if the economy
softens," the estimated $455 billion budget deficit this fiscal year will
be the highest in U. S. history. In the President's 2002 State of the Union
message he tried to shift blame onto Congress, saying "our budget will run
a deficit that will be small and short-term so long as Congress restrains
spending," but earlier this month he admitted his tax cuts account for 25%
of the deficit. misleader.org
Soros calls for 'regime change' in US September
30, 2003 Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has called for an end to the
Bush administration ahead of next year's presidential elections. Mr Soros -
whose Foundations Network has given $1bn around the world to various causes to
help tackle poverty and disease - told BBC Radio 4's United Nations Or Not?
programme that the US would only stop pursuing "extremist" policies if
there was a change at the White House. news.bbc.co.uk
PAYING
TWICE PEOPLE LOVE DOUBLE TAXATION September
30, 2003
By: Ed Henry Pretty soon we'll be able to pay for our groceries at the super and then when
we cart them home there will be someone there to make sure we pay for them
again. Won't that be nice? It should fit right in with the taxes we are already
paying twice. And President Bush can conduct fundraisers all over the country where it
costs $100 to $1,000 to get in and another $100 to $1,000 to get out. All this
is consistent with what the government is doing now, the double taxation
rip-off. For example....etherzone.com
"Shallow Throat" Tells How Bush
Can be Defeated in 2004 September 30, 2003
By Bernard Weiner
The message I got from Shallow Throat was: "Let's talk outside the Beltway.
Lubbock airport 3 p.m. Tuesday, on your way back from Houston."
The high-ranking GOP mole, who had provided exceptional information and advice
from inside the White House and now in another government agency, didn't want to
risk being spotted in conversation anywhere near Washington, D.C. Lubbock,
Texas, is not near anything. crisispapers.org
The Subpoenas are Coming!
September 30, 2003 By Mark
Rasch Citing a provision of the Patriot Act, the FBI is sending
letters to journalists telling them to secretly prepare to turn over their
notes, e-mails and sources to the bureau. Should we throw out the First
Amendment to nail a hacker? Frequent readers of this space know that I am no
apologist for hackers like Adrian Lamo, who, in the guise of protection, access
others' computer systems without authorization, and then publicize these
vulnerabilities. securityfocus.com
American couple does not accept
Israeli explanations of daughter's death September
30, 2003 JERUSALEM
Parents of an American activist killed earlier this year in Gaza by an Israeli
army bulldozer called Monday for an independent U.S. investigation of her death.
Rachel Corrie, 23, from Olympia, Wash., was crushed to death March 16 while
trying to block a huge army bulldozer destroying a row of Palestinian homes in a
refugee camp near the Gaza-Egypt border. famulus.msnbc.com
M. J. Akbar: As
Canada shivers, Bush sings: My way, or take the highway
September 30, 2003 When America wants to see the world,
it stands in front of the mirror. When the world wants to see America it takes a
long shot. If America does not find the world transformed in its own image, it
seeks to change what it does not like. The rest of the world ponders the cost,
and checks the exchange rate of collateral damage. If America looms across the
world, then it broods over Canada. To be a peacetime neighbour of America is to
win a lottery in destiny's stakes. To be a neighbour when America has been
wounded in war, is a test of nerve. The brooding has become a glower ever since
Canada wafted out of Washington's familiar embrace and refused to send troops to
help America's occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration has been either
sulking or fretting ever since. Geography makes no difference to America's
inability to appreciate that others may have genuine reasons for their stance.
Washington is as clueless about Ottawa as it is about Timbuktoo. gulfnews.com
36
Reasons To Vote For Bush and Republicans In 2004
September 30, 2003 by James Boyne Vote for President Bush and Republican
Senators and Congressmen if:
You think $900/month ($10,800/year) is a fair price for a health insurance
policy. You believe drug companies should prevent you from buying Canadian drugs
at half price. Your state has a budget deficit of $2 billion but we should spend
$600 billion in Iraq.You would like to see us attack Syria, Iran, and North
Korea and Cuba at a cost of $1 trillion, because they are bad and are trying to
get us and we better get them first opednews.com
Companies
Kept Cutting Jobs in September: U.S. Economy Preview
September 29, 2003 (Bloomberg) U.S. companies
eliminated jobs for an eighth straight month in September and the unemployment
rate increased to 6.2 percent, suggesting the accelerating economy has done
little to brighten the nation's labor market, economists expect a government
report to show on Friday. The economy shed 25,000
jobs this month, bringing to almost a half million the number lost this year and
about 2.7 million since President George W. Bush took office. bloomberg.com
US
election fraud scandal looms? Explosive conjectures and evidence
September 29, 2003 By Egan Orion Wednesday
09 July 2003, 07:03 STEALING ELECTIONS is a sordid tradition in the
United States, though it's certainly not unknown in some other countries, as
well. From Tammany Hall's machine politics in the 19th century through Mayor
Daley's grasp on Chicago elections, right up to Lyndon Johnson's first election
and John Kennedy's 1960 cliff-hanger defeat of Richard Nixon, many US elections
have been thought to have had "irregularities". So much so that it's
not really certain where "Vote early, and often!" originated, whether
in Boston, New York, or Chicago. theinquirer.net
Chavez Blasts US for aiding and abetting
terrorists September 29, 2003 The Venezuelan
President Chavez canceled his trip to the US citing an assassination attempt by
U.S.-supported Venezuelan coup plotters and Cuban exiles living in Maimi. Just
days before he was to give a speech at the U.N. President Chavez abruptly
cancelled his trip to the U.S. citing
security threats, which included a potential
attack on his airplane. Cuba's Fidel Castro claims
the threat may have come from U.S.-supported anti-Castro exiles living in Miami,
working in conjunction with the U.S. supported Venezuelan coup plotters of April
2002. This has prompted Hugo Chavez to lambaste
the U.S. for doing nothing to stop the illegal attempts at overthrowing his
government Entire
Feature / indymedia.org
Dumbest Generation
Yet - Mindless Hive America
September 29, 2003 From David Goldman The End Is At Hand...
I was surfing between stations when I came across The Jay
Leno Show. He is the cheap imitation of Johnny Carson. I remember a few 'jewels'
from this hilarious fiasco: He arranged a common
knowledge 'competition' with three competitors, two men and one woman around 20
years old. They were typically-educated normal middle to upper middle class
young people on their way to adulthood. During the
'competition' ... 1.
None of them recognised the photo of Abraham Lincoln. rense.com
U.S. CORPORATIONS AND THE NAZIS
September 29, 2003 The Elkhorn Manifesto Part II
"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to
supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist
regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in
Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi
regime. wealth4freedom.com
Democratic candidates back Bush’s Iraq
war spending bill
September 29, 2003 By Patrick Martin Last Thursday’s debate among the
10 Democratic candidates for president, held at Pace University in New York
City, was a largely undistinguished and unremarkable affair. The seven
“major” candidates—those whose campaigns have received sufficient funding
from corporate America and the wealthy to be considered viable—traded
criticisms of each other, while ignoring the three most liberal candidates,
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, former Ambassador Carol Moseley-Braun, and Reverend
Al Sharpton, whose lack of financial backing renders them irrelevant to the
outcome of the contest. wsws.org
Diebold Internal Memos Admit Voting
Machine Flaws September 29, 2003 by CONSPIRACY PLANET mdb file in Gaston recently. I
know our dealers do it. King County is famous for it. That's why we've never put
a password on the file before." Diebold's own memos authenticate the
security flaw Harris wrote about on July 8, 2003 (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/access-diebold.htm).
In contrast to their rebuttal to the Johns Hopkins report,which confirmed
serious flaws with the voting machine software, Diebold has never denied that
Harris reviewed actual certified versions of its software used in real elections
and never contended that her analysis is wrong. conspiracyplanet.com
No wonder America has so many enemies
September 29, 2003 By ERIC MARGOLIS President Bill Clinton was impeached
by a Republican-controlled Congress for lying about sex. President George W.
Bush and aides lied the United States into a stupid, unnecessary colonial war
that has so far killed more than 305 Americans and seriously wounded more than
1,400. It has also cost many thousands of Iraqi dead, and $1 billion US weekly.
Lying about sex is an impeachable offence; lying the nation into war apparently
is not. canoe.ca
Full Disclosure on Full Disclosure
By RICHARD BLOW Last
week Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed his desire for greater openness in
politics. "We need to throw open the doors and windows of government,"
he said. At the same time, however, Mr. Schwarzenegger has forced his campaign
staff to sign strict confidentiality agreements. Under threat of termination,
staff members must agree not to disclose information about "Arnold
Schwarzenegger and his family, friends, associates and employees." The
policy, first described in The Los Angeles Times, stipulates that Mr.
Schwarzenegger can obtain an injunction against anyone trying to break it and a
fine of $50,000 per violation. A campaign aide later promised that if elected,
Mr. Schwarzenegger would abandon the policy. In the meantime, his use of
confidentiality agreements shows how, as celebrity candidates are becoming more
common in politics, so too are the dubious mechanisms of celebrity image
control. nytimes.com
Congressman
Ron Paul Admits Conspiracy to Create World Government
September 28, 2003 911Exposed.com Eric
Rainbolt Audience member asking question of Congressman Paul at event near
Austin, Texas on August 30th, 2003: "Congressman Paul, I have a
question..." Moderator: "Over here." (pointing to Eric Rainbolt.)
Eric Rainbolt: "Great! If we can take a look at the big picture, could you
tell us, the people in this room, any information that you may have of an
international and deceptive conspiracy to overthrow the American Republic and
its Constitution & Bill Of Rights in order to set up and usher in a
totalitarian World Government likely espoused under the UN also.."? propagandamatrix.com
Even traditional conservatives outraged by radicalism of the right September
28, 2003 By Clyde Prestowitz For a moment during the spring, neoconservatives
associated with the Bush administration thought they had died and gone to
heaven. The quicker than expected fall of Saddam Hussein seemed to justify their
vision of a new America that would reshape world politics. The United States
would use its overwhelming military power to crush tyrannical regimes, they
declared, and establish American-style capitalist democracies in their place.
Domestically, the neocons’ only question was whether the tax cuts aimed at
reshaping American society would be merely big or gigantic. As time passes,
however, it has become increasingly clear that this course is neither neo nor
conservative and that it may lead more quickly to hell than to heaven boston.com
It's Official! Third
Major War Supporting Country Hit By Blackouts! September 28, 2003
Either this is an insane coincidence .Blackout Across Italy, Police Say . . or .
. .ROME (AP) - Power went out across Italy before dawn Sunday, plunging the
nation into darkness, police and news reports said. Authorities did not
immediately know the cause. The first power outages were reported around 4 a.m.
local time in Rome, where the city was celebrating an all-night festival with
museums and restaurants open around the clock. Later, the national electricity
company ACEA said power was out across the nation, the ANSA news agency said.
``As far as we know it's all across Italy,'' police official Franca Sesti
Miraglia said in Rome. indymedia.org
Thousands stage Iraq demo September 28,
2003 Thousands of protesters gathered for an anti-war rally in London calling
for an end to the US and UK occupation of Iraq. The march started in Hyde Park
and was followed by a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by speakers including
Tony Benn, filmmaker Ken Loach and Labour MP George Galloway.The organisers said
they wanted to make Labour respond to their anger over the situation in Iraq,
ahead of the party's annual conference.Police estimated there were about 20,000
marching, although organisers estimated up to 100,000 had attended the event. bbc.co.uk
Russia Won't End Accord With Iran to Build
Reactor September 28, 2003 By DAVID E. SANGER President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said today that he would send "a clear but
respectful signal to Iran" that it must comply with international
inspections of its suspected nuclear weapons program. But he told President Bush
that Russia would go forward with its plans to help Iran build a nuclear
reactor. Mr. Putin's statement this morning that he would not terminate Russia's
$800 million commercial nuclear contract with Iran came as a brief, and almost
cryptic, aside in response to a question at a news conference with Mr. Bush at
the presidential retreat at Camp David. nytimes.com
Final agony of RAF volunteer killed by
sarin - in Britain September 28, 2003 Antony
Barnett As the inquest into the death of a 'human guinea pig' at Porton Down
opens, a witness breaks 50 years' silence to recount the horrors he saw 'I had
never seen anyone die before and what that lad went through was absolutely
horrific... it was awful,' he said. 'It was like he was being electrocuted, his
whole body was convulsing. I have seen somebody suffer an epileptic fit, but you
have never seen anything like what happened to that lad... the skin was
vibrating and there was all this terrible stuff coming out of his mouth... it
looked like frogspawn or tapioca. observer.guardian
'Reuters
Cameraman Killed For Filming U.S. Graves September 28, 2003 By Awad al-Ragoub,
IOL Correspondent AL-KHALIL, West Bank, August 19 (IslamOnline.net) - The
brother of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana said he was deliberately murdered for
discovering mass graves of U.S. troops killed in Iraqi resistance attacks.
"The U.S. occupation troops shot dead my brother on purpose, although he
was wearing his press badge, which was also emblazoned on the car he was
driving," he said. "Mazen told me by phone few days before his death
that he discovered a mass grave dug by U.S. troops to conceal the bodies of
their fellow comrades killed in Iraqi resistance attacks," Nazmi said.
"He also told me that he found U.S. troops covered in plastic bags in
remote desert areas and he filmed them for a TV program. We are pretty sure that
the American forces had killed Mazen knowingly to prevent him from airing his
finding." islamonline.net
Marchers Worldwide Demand Iraq Pullout September 28, 2003
By JACK GARLAND LONDON - Thousands of protesters demanding an end to the
occupation of Iraq took to the streets Saturday in London, Athens, Paris and
other cities around the world, chanting slogans against the United States and
Britain. story.news.yahoo.com
Many forced into hard work in retirement
September 28, 2003 Labor Investment losses, rising health care costs and
longer lives are changing seniors' plans. By Bill Atkinson If Sarah A. Hale
could retire with a lot of money, she would buy an RV, throw a dart at a map and
travel. "If I had enough money ... I certainly would know how to enjoy
it," she said. Instead, Hale might work until she dies. Dressed in a blue
Rite Aid smock, blue shorts and white tennis shoes, Hale glides through narrow
aisles like a 30-year-old. But Hale is 70, and she puts in 40-hour weeks as a
cashier at the pharmacy in the Rotunda shopping center. sunspot.net
CIA seeks probe of White House September 28, 2003 Agency asks Justice to
investigate leak of employee’s identity. The CIA has asked the Justice
Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by
revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against
the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President
Bush’s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from
Africa, NBC News has learned. msnbc.com
Bush's
Unofficial Official Secrets Act: How
the Justice Department Has Pushed to Criminalize The Disclosure of Non-Security
Related Government Information September
27, 2003 By JOHN W. DEAN Except in a few highly egregious circumstances
relating to national security information (espionage and atomic secrets), the
U.S. Congress has, in the past, never made it a crime to leak information to the
news media. As a result, for over two hundred years, our government has operated
without an "official secrets act." In contrast, Great Britain and
other nations have long criminalized the disclosure of government information.
But there's a crucial difference between them and us: They lack an equivalent of
our First Amendment. Despite the free speech costs, President George W. Bush has
created the equivalent of an official secrets act for America - and it is only
growing stronger. Indeed, by cobbling together provisions from existing laws,
Bush's Justice Department has effectively created one of the world's most
encompassing, if not draconian, official secrets acts. writ.news.findlaw.com
134,000 Lost Jobs in August 'Mass
Layoffs'
September 27, 2003 By Kirstin Downey
More U.S. workers lost their jobs in large layoffs in August, the Bureau of
Labor Statistics reported yesterday, another sign that employers are continuing
to trim payrolls even as the economy strengthens. washingtonpost.com
Because His Lips are Moving
September 27, 2003 by Bridget Gibson The last tax cut enacted by the
George Bush’s Republican-led Congress was supposed to create 1,000,000 (one
million) jobs. The truth has been quite the opposite. Jobs have been evaporating
from all sectors of the economy. More than 500,000 were lost in the last quarter
alone. informationclearinghouse.info
Mixed reports cast doubt on US recovery
September 27, 2003 By John Labate A surprising fall in orders for US
manufactured goods in August cast fresh doubts on Thursday about the
sustainability of the US economic recovery. news.ft.com
Dollar's drop and oil fears cause gold rush
September 27, 2003 Bullion price hits seven year high Larry Elliott Fears of a
prolonged slump in the value of the dollar sent gold prices to their highest
level in seven years yesterday as investors sought a haven from the turbulence
of the foreign exchanges. The price of gold rose by $5 to just over $390 an
ounce in London trading amid speculation that the $400 barrier could be breached
in the coming weeks. guardian.co.uk
Bush faces pressure as US poverty rate
continues to rise September 27, 2003 By
Genaro Armas NEARLY 35 million people lived in poverty in the US in 2002 and
incomes slipped for the second year in a row, the US government said yesterday,
in a report sure to provide new ammunition for Democrats trying to unseat US
President George W Bush. The Census Bureau’s annual report showed the number
of people living below the poverty line rose by 1.7 million last year, from 32.9
million in 2001, when the national economy first went into recession. examiner.ie
15,000 More U.S. Troops Told to Prepare for
Iraq September 27, 2003 (Reuters) The
U.S. military, faced with reluctance by other nations to send forces to Iraq, on
Friday night activated 10,000 Army National Guard troops to go there and put
5,000 more Army Guard soldiers on alert for likely service in Iraq. reuters.com
Largest Ice Shelf in Arctic Fractured
September 27, 2003 The Artic Circle's largest ice shelf has fractured.The
huge mass of floating ice, which has existed for at least 3,000 years, is now in
pieces, bringing up questions of how global
warming will affect the Earth's ecosystem in coming years. The majority of
the scientific community has come to accept the reality
of climate change, citing it for contributions to impacts
from declining plant and animal populations to a devastating effect on people.
Some of those scientists will be meeting
in Moscow in the next few days to discuss the issues relating to climate change.
Each major weather related event like the heat
wave in Europe or hurricane
Isabel is not proof of climate change by itself, but taken all together, the
probability that such catastrophic incidents would be happening now without
climate change is extremely unlikely. This week's event in the Arctic, when
viewed in the context of similar events in the Antarctic
should be sobering news to those who doubt so-called global warming. In the
meantime, some environmental activists are calling for an end
to the carbon age. They continue to campaign
on issues of climate change, make individual
efforts, or take more radical
action. http://indymedia.org/
Military's message a tough sell for
parents September 27, 2003 By ESTHER
SCHRADER Jeff Fayette's mom said: `The people at work tell me you're trained
to lie to me. My son is not fighting for anybody in Iraq. He's going to stay
right here and he's gonna be my baby,' " Moody said. "That's the kind
of feeling we're up against now. I tell you, it's real easy to get
depressed." chron.com
'You lied, they died,' US parents tell
Bush September 27, 2003 Duncan Campbell
in Los Angeles The father of a soldier killed in Iraq accused President George
Bush yesterday of being responsible for his son's death. Fernando Suarez, whose
20-year-old son, Jesus, was one of the first fatalities, said: "My son died
because Bush lied." guardian.co.uk
DIEBOLD GOES POSTAL!
September 27, 2003 From: Bev Harris All Black Box Voting files
confiscated, including personal info on activists by Diebold. Here's what you
can do to help: Get the word out far and wide that Diebold has done this thing.
1. Diebold issued a pull-down demand under DMCA for the BlackBoxVoting.org web
site, citing a link posted on a forum in the site, claiming that the link
allowed web visitors to visit an unrelated page which contained items they say
they own the copyright to. 2. Not only was BlackBoxVoting.org pulled down, but
ALL of the documents, databases and programming for approximately 500 pages of
material, most of which did not relate to Diebold at all, was confiscated.
Dozens of web pages were pulled down which had nothing whatever to do with the
disputed information. whatreallyhappened.com
Md. Plans Vote System Fixes After Criticisms
September 27, 2003 By Brigid Schulte
Security Review Finds 328 Flaws in AccuVote. An independent review released
yesterday found 328 security weaknesses, 26 of them critical, in the
computerized voting system Maryland has just purchased, flaws that could leave
elections open to tampering or allow software glitches to go undetected. washingtonpost.com
Just Remember Governor Gang Bang's Latest
Public Groping Incident Was in 2000 September
27, 2003 Not Years Ago. He Was Trying to, As They Say, "Cop a Feel"
from Female Broadcasters in Britain in 2000 Then, the same day, TWO OTHER
attractive TV gals say he lewdly groped them." And there’s more: See [LINK];
AND [LINK];
AND [LINK];
AND [LINK];
AND [LINK].
buzzflash.com
California debate travesty shows need for
socialist alternative September 27, 2003 By
John Christopher Burton The September 24 debate between the five so-called
“major” candidates vying to replace Governor Gray Davis was a travesty. The
ninety minutes of sound bites and mutual mud-slinging was an insult to the
people of California and the nation, whose living standards are being devastated
by the policies of war and social reaction pursued by Democrats and Republicans
alike in Washington and Sacramento. None of the candidates seriously addressed
the real concerns of Californians—rising unemployment, growing poverty and
homelessness, tuition increases for college students, decaying schools, lack of
health care, and the worsening quagmire in Iraq that is consuming hundreds of
American lives, thousands of Iraqi lives, and tens of billions of dollars. wsws.org
Stage Zero -The Moral
Development Of George W. Bush September 26,
2003
By Carol Norris "...people progress in their moral reasoning (i.e.,
in their bases for ethical behavior) through a series of levels... The first
is "the Preconventional Level," where one usually finds oneself in
elementary school. The first stage of this level is where George, I believe,
makes his home. It's called: Stage Zero." If George wasn't driving the world down the road to
extinction with his wars, his environmentally disastrous choices and world
alienating policies--"Look at me, ma, no hands" he says while
sitting behind the wheel of our children's future--I'd think he was almost
fascinating. Fascinating the way one who is steeped in myriad
psychological issues is. The difference is they
don't have the means to bomb human beings into "pink mist,"
obliterate the infrastructures of countries, and poison the world with coal
and pesticides and carbon dioxide and depleted uranium and napalm, as they
play grown up. rense.com
Amnesty International report denounces US treatment of war prisoners
September 26, 2003 By Ruby Rankin A recent report by Amnesty International (AI) warns that the Bush
administration is repudiating basic democratic rights and undermining the entire
post-World War II system of international humanitarian law. The 60-page document, which exposes US torture of those captured in the
“war on terror”, is entitled The threat of a bad example: undermining
international standards. It details the US government’s treatment of
foreign war prisoners held without charge and denied access to their families
and legal counsel for almost two years in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Bagram US Air
Base, Afghanistan. wsws.org
Levi to Shut N. American Plants, Cut Jobs
September 26, 2003 By Andrea Orr Struggling jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. said
on Thursday it would close its remaining North American plants and cut nearly
2,000 jobs, completing its long exit from the U.S. manufacturing business that
began more than 20 years ago.
The job cuts and plant closures are part of the latest restructuring at the
privately held 150-year-old company, an American icon which has been forced to
move its production overseas to remain competitive. biz.yahoo.com
Depleted uranium may stop kidneys
"in days" September 26, 2003 By Rob Edwards
Soldiers who inhale or swallow high levels of depleted uranium (DU) on the
battlefield could suffer kidney failure within days, according to a new report
from the one of the UK's premier scientific bodies, the Royal Society. There are
also long term risks for children who play in heavily contaminated areas, it
says. newscientist.com
The
spies who pushed for war September 26, 2003
Julian Borger reports on the
shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the
CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force.
As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give
secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear
in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a
complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war. guardian.co.uk
Troop morale is Achilles heel for Bush
September 26, 2003 Craig Stern Do you support the troops? For months, this phrase was used
to silence peaceniks and drum up support for the war in Iraq. Keep it squarely
in mind, for this same phrase may very well be the battle cry that unseats
George W. Bush in 2004. Yes, that's right. Adding insult to injury, the Pentagon
issued an interim budget report in July recommending a dramatic 47 percent drop
in combat pay and family separation allowances for our soldiers. Combat pay is to be cut from $225 a month to $150 a month,
and family separation allowances (which support soldiers' families back home)
are to be cut from an already inadequate $250 a month to a truly pathetic $100 a
month. dailytrojan.com
Israel Reels at Pilots' Refusal to Go on Missions September
26, 2003 By Jeffrey Heller Israel sharply criticized and grounded on Thursday a
group of air force pilots who refused to carry out missions against Palestinian
militants in which civilians could be killed. "The pilots' mutiny" was how Israel's largest newspaper, Yedioth
Ahronoth, described their action as commentators speculated whether other
soldiers might follow suit in opposing the way the military confronts a
Palestinian uprising. wireservice.wired.com
Bush
at the UN—a war criminal takes the podium
September 25, 2003 By Bill Vann President George W. Bush’s ignorant and
insulting speech to the United Nations General Assembly September 23 made clear
that the US administration has all but written off any hope of obtaining
significant international support for its colonial venture in Iraq. Bush came
before the body as an unrepentant war criminal, whose actions had violated the
UN Charter and international law by waging a war of aggression as criminal and
unprovoked as those carried out by the Hitlerite regime in Germany more than 60
years ago. Having just last week publicly acknowledged there is no evidence of a
link between the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC, Bush began his speech to
the UN by invoking the ruins of the World Trade Center as the “symbol of an
unfinished war.” wsws.org
Climate change blamed as largest Arctic ice shelf breaks in
two after 3,000 years September
25, 2003 By Michael McCarthy Environment Editor The largest ice shelf in the Arctic, a solid feature for at least 3,000
years, has broken in two and climate change is to blame, say American and
Canadian scientists. The Ward Hunt ice shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada,
has split down the middle, and a freshwater lake held behind it has drained
away, the researchers say. Reporting in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists
say the fracture, which had been developing since 2000, was further evidence of
continuing and accelerating climate change in the north polar region. independent.co.uk
Vote Against the Computerized Ballot September
25, 2003 By Marc Rotenberg We're nowhere near ready to hand over the core
of our democratic process—voting—to electronic systems. In a recent article on
TechnologyReview.com, Simson Garfinkel gleefully
reported that the concerns about electronic voting systems expressed by many of
the country's leading technical experts were overblown. Suggesting that those
who worry about the conversion from paper ballots and lever machines to newer
technologies are like "a group of doctors arguing for the return of
leeches. Back in the real world, however, the evidence is mounting daily that a
lot more work needs to be done before the vote counting process—truly the
kernel of democracy—is turned over to devices that lack adequate auditing and
operate in secret. technologyreview.com
2 Iraqi Boys, Injured, Tell of a
Jet Attack in the Night September 25, 2003 By
ALEX BERENSON Tahseen Ali Khalaf was asleep beside his brother
Hussein when the shooting started early this morning outside their ramshackle
house in this farming community 40 miles west of Baghdad, he said. Then a pair
of United States fighter jets swooped in, dropping nearly a dozen bombs or
missiles — it was not immediately clear which — in a highly unusual strike.
Now Tahseen, 12, and Hussein, 10, are lying beside each other again, in the main
hospital in nearby Falluja, a center of resistance to the American occupation.
The hospital lately has tended to a number of apparently accidental victims of
American attacks. nytimes.com
Bashing Bush in N.Y. poll
September 25, 2003 By
MAGGIE HABERMAN President
Bush's support among New Yorkers has taken a double-digit dip, with his approval
rating falling below 50% - and a quarter of Republicans saying they plan to vote
against him, a new poll found. nydailynews.com
Broward rethinks
$17 million electronic voting system September
25, 2003 By Scott Wyman Less than two years after
spending $17 million to replace Broward County's election system, county
commissioners expressed growing apprehension Tuesday about electronic voting and
decided to rethink what they had done.
Commissioners ordered their staff to explore retrofitting the new touch-screen
voting machines to print copies of each ballot or ditching the machinery in
favor of paper ballots read by optical scanners. sun-sentinel.com
How much is $87,000,000,000... September 25, 2003 $87 B is more than all
state budget deficits in the United States, combined. President Bush wouldn’t
help states deal with their deficits, even though his tax cuts helped drive down
state revenues. $87 B is nearly double what we’re spending on unemployment
benefits. Over one million Americans have exhausted their unemployment benefits
without finding a job, and Congress has offered only measly extensions. $87 B is
double what we invest in homeland security... eight times what we invest on Pell
grants for college students... 87 times our investment in after-school programs.
The White House budget slashes after-school programs from $1 billion to $600
million -- eliminating them for 475,000 children. ...and where can we get that
kind of cash? Bush’s dividend and capital gains tax cuts mostly favor big
investors. Repealing them would save $148 Billion over 10 years. (Joint
Committee on Taxation) Bush cut the highest income tax rate for the wealthiest
Americans. Restoring the pre-Bush rate could save $20 Billion annually. tompaine.com
Media sustained Bush propaganda
September 25, 2003 James P. Cammarata
Peoria
So, a recent poll shows that 70 percent of Americans believe that Iraq had a
direct role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
I'm not sure what upsets me most: The administration that produced the lies
and innuendoes; the gullible public who swallowed them; or the supposedly free
press that allowed so many outrageous half-truths to go unchallenged.
Abraham Lincoln was right when he said you can't fool all of the people all of
the time but, with the present administration, you can come pretty darn
close. azcentral.com
Following JetBlue Privacy Breach, ACLU
Urges Customers to Find Out If They Are In Government Database September
25, 2003 New ACLU Web Page Lets Passengers File Requests Under Privacy
Act NEW YORK– The American Civil Liberties Union today unveiled an
online form that lets airline passengers automatically issue an official Privacy
Act request for any information that the government may hold about them in
connection with the recent transfer of passenger data by the airline JetBlue.
“We want to empower people to find out for themselves if they have been caught
up in this experiment in using average Americans’ personal information in a
misguided effort to detect terrorists,” said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the
ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program, which set up the site. “We
believe this page is an unprecedented tool. It lets Americans file
official requests without having to hire a lawyer or become an expert in privacy
law.” aclu.org
Environmental Groups Want Records of
Meetings with Polluters September 25, 2003
Statement Sierra Club Bush Administration Nearing Deal To Weaken Clean Air,
Toxics Protections For Communities Near Factory Farms. Environmental Groups Seek
Records From Bush Administration's Closed-Door Meetings With Agricultural
Polluters. Washington, DC- Newly obtained documents from the Environmental
Protection Agency reveal that the Bush Administration is formalizing a back-room
deal with the livestock and poultry industries that would let giant factory farm
polluters off the hook for violations of the Clean Air Act and the Superfund
hazardous waste law that have protected communities for decades. truthout.org
Weak dollar sparks share rout
September 25, 2003 A drop in the value of the dollar caused stock markets to
plunge around the world on Monday. Leading stock market indexes in the US,
Japan, France and Germany all fell heavily during the day's trading. The falls
were triggered by a statement from the G7 group of rich nations, meeting in
Dubai at the weekend, who called for market forces to set exchange rates. The
statement hit US stock markets, as investors feared that a laissez-faire
attitude towards the weak dollar would deter foreign investment. "If the
dollar continues to fall, there is increasing risk that foreign investors will
pull money out of US stocks and bonds," said Mike Kayes, chief investment
officer at Eastover Capital. bbc.co.uk
German Firm Probes Final
World Trade Center Deals September 24, 2003
By Erik Kirschbaum PIRMASENS, Germany (Reuters) - German computer
experts are working round the clock to unlock the truth behind an unexplained
surge in financial transactions made just before two hijacked planes crashed
into New York's World Trade Center on September 11. A world leader in retrieving
data, German-based firm Convar is Using a pioneering laser scanning technology
to find data on damaged computer hard drives and main frames found in the rubble
of the World Trade Center and other nearby collapsed buildings, Convar has
recovered information from 32 computers that support assumptions of dirty
doomsday dealings."There is a suspicion that some people had advance
knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out
amounts exceeding $100 million," Wagner said. "They thought that the
records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were
destroyed." propagandamatrix.com
Bush to World: Drop Dead!
September 24, 2003 By Fred Kaplan
The president lays an egg at the U.N. Has an American president ever delivered such a bafflingly impertinent speech
before the General Assembly as the one George W. Bush gave
this morning? Here were the world's foreign ministers and heads of state, anxiously
awaiting some sign of an American concession to realism—even the sketchiest
outline of a plan to share not just the burden but the power of postwar
occupation in Iraq. And Bush gave them nothing, in some ways less than nothing. slate.msn.com
Bush's plea for UN help in Iraq sparks
hostile response September 24, 2003 By
David Usborne in New York President George Bush was accused at the United
Nations yesterday of undermining the system of multilateral security by going to
war in Iraq without authorisation from the Security Council. The criticism was
led by the French President, Jacques Chirac, who used the annual General
Assembly of the UN, the first time world leaders had gathered in New York since
the invasion of Iraq, to blame Mr Bush for the crisis of confidence facing the
world body. By extension his criticism was also directed at Tony Blair, who did
not attend. "The war, launched without the authorisation of the Security
Council, shook the multilateral system," M. Chirac said. "The UN has
just been through one of the most grave crises in its history." M. Chirac's
sentiments were echoed by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, who warned that
pre-emptive unilateral military action without the authorisation of the UN
risked a move to the law of the jungle. independent.co.uk
Israel builds concentration camp north of
Hebron September 24, 2003
Occupied Jerusalem The Israeli army is building a large
concentration camp in the Gush-Etzion area along the Hebron-Bethlehem highway.
The concentration camp has a net area of 10,000 square metres and is surrounded
by a 3-metre high fence made of barbed wire and other metal hurdles. The camp is
equipped with numerous torture chambers, including tools and instruments for use
during interrogations. The camp, which had been used as a lock-up to incarcerate
Palestinian children involved in resisting the Israeli occupation, is designed
to accommodate as many as 5,000 people at any time. Last month, the Israeli army
said it was planning to reopen the infamous desert concentration camp, known as
“Ketziot” located in the western Negev, not far from the Egyptian borders. libertyforum.org
U.S. Will Pay Price for Rule of the Rich September 24, 2003
Ramsey Clark: "If you think
it’s been a long evening, wait ’til I get through. But we’re going to have
to take some long evenings, because this planet is deeply troubled, and the
greatest cause of that trouble is our own government. In the speech that
Rev. James Lawson referred to that Martin Luther King made on April 5, 1967, the
most startling thing that he said at the time and the thing that caused
the most anger and hatred to be directed toward him - was this sentence: “The
greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government.” Thirty-one years
ago! Why anyone would have been startled is hard to say, because it was an
obvious fact. We call ourselves
the world’s greatest democracy. We are absolutely a plutocracy. It is
the most obvious thing in the world. Wealth governs this country, and
wealth uses military violence to control the rest of the world as best it can.
And we’re responsible, and we will pay the price for it." addictedtowar.com
Big Three to shed 50,000 jobs in next
four years: analysis. September 24, 2003
The Big Three domestic automakers could shed 50,000 jobs over the next
four years under the terms of new labour contracts, according to an analysis by
Goldman Sachs. Analysts with the Wall Street investment bank calculated that the
closure or divestitures of 10-13 parts and assembly plants provided for under
new labour contracts, plus regular attrition, could result in the loss of 50,000
hourly jobs in the United States. yahoo.com
HALLIBURTON PLANS TO FILE CHAPTER 11
BANKRUPTCY IN NOVEMBER??? September 24, 2003
In case you were wondering why George W. Bush and friends are strongly pushing
tort reform in class action lawsuits look no further than the case of
mega-contributor Halliburton. How can a company contemplating bankruptcy for the
past three years donate money to Republicans? On Monday Halliburton began
mailing yet another reorganization plan to participants with a plan to file
Chapter 11 reorganization in November. This delay in payments on 200,000 claims
for asbestos related injury is entering yet another phase. Is this reminiscent
of the Exxon delays in paying settlements for the Valdeze spill? Will it go on
for 14 years without a dime being paid until friendly judges can reduce the
settlement to peanuts? Stay tuned for more amazing stories of Corporate weasels
circumventing the law while benefiting from billions of your taxpayer dollars. blogspot.com
Scientists: No WMD in Iraq
September 24, 2003 Vienna Iraqi scientists working under the new provisional government
confirmed on Tuesday United Nations claims made before the war that Iraq has not
had any nuclear weapons program for over a decade. news24.com
Administrative Subpoenas for the FBI: A Grab for Unchecked Executive Power
September 24, 2003 The Administration recently renewed its effort to obtain administrative
subpoena
authority for the FBI. The President called for it in his speech
marking the second anniversary of 9/11. An
administrative subpoena is essentially a piece of paper signed by an FBI agent issued with no prior judicial, prosecutorial or grand jury
approval. Under the current proposals, failure to comply with an administrative
subpoena could result in civil and criminal penalties, and the subpoenas would
be executed in complete secrecy. In fact, under one of the proposals, anyone who
disclosed the existence of an administrative subpoena could be subject to up to
five years in prison. cdt.org
Anti-war teacher quits her job rather than her principles
September 24, 2003 By ROBERT L.
JAMIESON Jr. For the kids at Olympic View Elementary, it's the day the music died.
Their popular music teacher didn't come back to the Seattle school this year.
Their arts instruction has been left with a gaping hole. The reason why seems so ridiculous: Instructor Mary K. McNeill -- "Mary
K" to everyone at the school -- made the "mistake" of encouraging
kids to write and sing songs about love and peace during the U.S. war in Iraq. A few parents complained. The school principal met with Mary, who had been at
Olympic View for a few years and whose methods had been embraced. Mary was issued an ultimatum: You can sing about peace but in no way can you
suggest anything about stopping war. seattlepi.nwsource.com
The research and activism arm of
BlackBox
Voting.com September 24, 2003 Diebold: No real answers to
flawed software, selling to Ohio, San Diego anyway
Diebold webcast Aug 5 2003: "We have two primary drivers for the next
quarter: San Diego and Ohio." The deal (for 10,000 touch screens) in San
Diego is signed by not consummated yet. Ohio: By Aug 15 will identify
preferred vendors to the counties. "We’d like that to be just one vendor,
Diebold," said Thomas Swidarski of Diebold. Ohio counties will have a 30
day window to select which vendor to buy. aacaw.org
The Fixing of the 2004 Election September
23, 2003 By Norman D. Livergood The High
Cabal is already busy fixing the 2004 election, using the tactic of making
sure that both the Republican and Democratic candidates are "their
man." As we saw in a previous
article, they're also planning to use rigged electronic voting machines to
claim victory no matter how American citizens cast their ballots. But the
disenchantment with their puppet, Dubya, is getting out of hand. Even Rove and
the other members of the Bush II junta are having to admit that his
"approval rating" is slipping to a dangerous low. hermes-press.com
Studies
document housing disaster for millions in US
September 23, 2003 By Tim Tower Three recent studies have exposed a
rapidly worsening housing crisis in the United States. Millions of families are
living in substandard conditions, are homeless, or are making choices each day
to spend money on housing and do without health care, child care, or other basic
necessities. With virtually no affordable housing being built, the crisis can
only intensify. wsws.org
US
plans to attack seven Muslim states
September 23, 2003 Presidential hopeful General
Wesley Clark says the White House devised a five-year plan after the 9/11
strikes to attack seven majority-Muslim countries.
(Aljazeera)
A former commander of NATO's forces in Europe,
Clark claims he met a senior military officer in Washington in November 2001 who
told him the Bush administration was planning to attack Iraq first before taking
action against Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan. The
general’s allegations surface in a new book, The
Clark Critique, excerpts from which appear in the latest edition of the US
magazine Newsweek. informationclearinghouse.info
Dollar slumps after G7 call for
flexible currencies September 23, 2003 Richard
Wray in Dubai and Charlotte Denny The dollar went into a tailspin and stock
markets around the world dropped into the red yesterday as investors took the
weekend's call by the G7 for greater flexibility in global exchange rates as a
green light to sell the US currency. Despite hints from Japan's new finance
minister that Tokyo's policy of capping its currency had not changed following
the meeting of finance ministers from the group of seven leading economies, the
dollar slid against the yen to levels not seen for more than two and a half
years. guardian.co.uk
Hispanic Soldiers Die in Greater Numbers
in Iraq September 23, 2003 by Miriam
Kagan One of the first U.S. soldiers to die in Iraq, Jose Gutierrez,
was an orphaned Guatemalan who at the time of his death was not even an American
citizen. As U.S. casualties in Iraq continue to mount, so does the worry in
the country's Latino community that its children are dying in unusually high
numbers and are being lured into dangerous service with targeted recruiting by
the Armed Forces. informationclearinghouse.info
Cronkite:
The new Inquisition
September 23, 2003 By Walter Cronkite
President Bush's televised answer to the growing
concerns of many - including some Republicans - about the powers granted to him
in the USA Patriot Act was to ask for even stronger measures, particularly the
expanded use of "nonjudicial subpoenas." That means a federal agency
such as the FBI can write its own subpoenas to conduct a search - no judges
needed. denverpost.com
Campaign 2004: Clark’s Charge
September 23, 2003 WORD WAS THAT Karl Rove, the president’s political
mastermind, had blocked the idea. Clark was furious. Last January, at a
conference in Switzerland, he happened to chat with two prominent Republicans,
Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Marc Holtzman, now president of the University of
Denver. “I would have been a Republican,” Clark told them, “if Karl Rove
had returned my phone calls.” Soon thereafter, in fact, Clark quit his day job
and began seriously planning to enter the presidential race—as a Democrat. msnbc.com
America puts Iraq up for sale
September 23, 2003 By Philip Thornton in Dubai and Andrew Gumbel Iraq was
in effect put up for sale yesterday when the American-appointed administration
announced it was opening up all sectors of the economy to foreign investors in a
desperate attempt to deliver much-needed reconstruction against a daily backdrop
of kidnappings, looting and violent death. In an unexpected move unveiled at the
meeting in Dubai of the Group of Seven rich nations, the Iraqi Governing Council
announced sweeping reforms to allow total foreign ownership without the need for
prior approval. The initiative bore all the hallmarks of Washington's ascendant
neoconservative lobby, complete with tax cuts and trade tariff rollbacks. It
will apply to everything from industry to health and water, although not oil.
But it is still likely to feed concerns that Iraq is being turned into a golden
opportunity for profiteering by multinational corporations relying on their
political connections. independent.co.uk
Say no to privatisation
September 23, 2003 America's plan to privatise the Iraqi economy is a mistake
that needs to be corrected before it is implemented. The huge sell-off programme,
tax breaks and virtual elimination of tariffs on imports is designed to attract
foreign investment and revive Iraq's moribund industries. But recent evidence
suggests Washington's radical prescription is doomed to fail. The last big
socialist, centralised economy that opted for such sudden and drastic shock
therapy was Russia in 1992. The result was economic devastation, rampant
corruption and the rise of a powerful class of businessmen, the oligarchs. guardian.co.uk
China rejects US sanctions
September 23, 2003 BEIJING: China on Sunday voiced strong opposition to
the US move to impose sanctions on the Chinese government and a state-run
military firm for allegedly selling advanced missile technology to an unnamed
country. "We express our strong opposition to the US manner of constantly
implementing sanctions on others based on their own (US) domestic law,"
foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in a statement. jang.com.pk
