Edwards Fights to the Finish

Edwards Fights to the Finish

Nobody in the race here understands the rhythms of campaigns any better than Edwards and nobody is more ruthlessly focused on closing the deal than the former trial lawyer and senator. This time he's trying to make it all the way, knowing that he cannot afford to lose here on Thursday night.

But it is his message that is most remarkable. No thought here of finishing on a sunny and positive note, as he did four years ago. His "America Rising" theme is not a variation of "Morning in America."

It is a call to arms that is raw and angry, populist and pugnacious. It is a message that is as exhausting and is it confrontational. It is a message makes Al Gore's "people versus the powerful" seem tame and timid in comparison.

One Edwards supporter, departing after a big rally in Des Moines on Saturday night, said he hasn't heard a message as passionate or strong since Bobby Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign.

Bush Lied about National Intelligence Estimate

Bush Lied about National Intelligence Estimate

Our Decrepit Food Factories

Our Decrepit Food Factories

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that at least 70 percent of the antibiotics used in America are fed to animals living on factory farms. Raising vast numbers of pigs or chickens or cattle in close and filthy confinement simply would not be possible without the routine feeding of antibiotics to keep the animals from dying of infectious diseases. That the antibiotics speed up the animals' growth also commends their use to industrial agriculture, but the crucial fact is that without these pharmaceuticals, meat production practiced on the scale and with the intensity we practice it could not be sustained for months, let alone decades.

Public-health experts have been warning us for years that this situation is a public-health disaster waiting to happen.

The President-Tyrant

The President-Tyrant

The irreplaceable Fritz Stern reminds us that as a democracy with two-hundred thirty years of experience, America is better situated than most to weather the storms of a wannabe tyrant. "But that," he adds, "would presuppose that such a nation really understood its heritage and had a genuine historic sense." We live now with a Government that shamelessly fabricates and alters history—both from the last two hundred years and from the last six years. It does so with a purpose—making its outrageous deeds seem perfectly reasonable and in tune with the past.

But the Founding Fathers had a very profound sense of history. As I have noted before in discussing the influence of Virgil's writings on some of the founding precepts, most of the Founding Fathers were classics scholars. They knew their Virgil, Ovid and Horace, and traded quips, indecipherable to most of us today, based on their readings. And they especially knew the historians—Livy, Tacitus and Sallust. If there was one epoch in the history of Rome that held them captive, then it can quickly be identified—it was the long descent of the Roman Republic into empire and tyranny. How did a state blessed with the republican institutions they spilled blood to gain come to lose them? What was this process? How could it be guarded against? These were questions that preoccupied them. Questions, moreover, that stand in the shadows behind the debates over the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and much of the genesis of our modern institutions. It is of course no coincidence that much of the nomenclature of the new republic can be drawn from the pages of Livy's Ab urbe condita: president, senate, congress… and even some now-lost offices such as censor and auditor.

Distilling that historical experience to its essence, however, we come to a consensus on the threat to the republic. It is internal, and it is the risk that one man aided by a clique will assume tyrannical authority and end the republic. As Livy reminds, the citizens of the nascent republic "valued their liberty so much precisely because their last king had been so great a tyrant." And if there was one essential principle which stood as the republic's bulwark against tyranny, then it was this: that "no man stood above the law."

Gang Rape Cover-Up by Halliburton KBR Revealed

Gang Rape Cover-Up by Halliburton/KBR Revealed

Yes, a gang-rape in Baghdad, by Halliburton and KBR employees with a Halliburton employee as a victim. The cover-up has been swallowed, if not actively abetted, by US personnel there. This should result in massive investigations and firings. In Bush World it will probably result in renewed Halliburton contracts and medals for their workers.

There's not much one can say to increase the disgust that this story is going to serve up to the American public on ABC's 20/20 in a couple nights. A young American woman working for Halliburton was gang raped by her fellow employees, then Halliburton covered up the crime and threatened the woman if she chose to report it. Evidently the US government, such good friends of Halliburton, is supposedly taking part in the cover-up, evidently favoring Halliburton over a gang-raped citizen. Here's the report, but the video is on TV in a couple days:

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.

"It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."

Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.

John O'Neill King of Swift Liars

The lies of John O'Neill

The lies of John O'Neill: An MMFA analysis; Swift Boat Vets' founder has told repeated untruths about himself, Swift Boat Vets, Unfit for Command

Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE

Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear programme, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers.

But this pressure on intelligence analysts, obviously instigated by Cheney himself, has not produced a draft estimate without those dissenting views, these sources say. The White House has now apparently decided to release the unsatisfactory draft NIE, but without making its key findings public.

Giuliani's terrorist ties

Giuliani's terrorist ties

Meanwhile, Barrett's latest article -- probing the lucrative relationship between Giuliani's security firm and the emirate of Qatar -- prompts questions that "America's Mayor" might have found truly hard to answer. With Qatar's troubling record as both an American ally and a longtime haven for al-Qaida terrorists, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or "KSM," the little Gulf sheikdom is a curious client indeed for Giuliani Security and Safety, a division of Giuliani Partners.

If Giuliani was unaware of the terrorism issues surrounding Qatar before he signed his initial contract with the emirate in 2005, then he must not be quite the expert he claims to be. And if he knew of those issues but signed up anyway, that raises other questions.

Certainly he should be asked to explain his connections with the emirate and especially with Interior Minister Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, who has long been suspected of harboring KSM and facilitating the travel of al-Qaida operatives to and from Qatar. Whatever reasons the United States may have for maintaining diplomatic and military ties with Qatar, the contradictions in doing business with that nation for a hard-liner like Giuliani should be explored.

Impeachment: If Not Now, When?

Impeachment: If Not Now, When?

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. – Article II, Section 4

On Nov. 6, Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney on the floor of the House of Representatives. For one shining moment the will of the majority of Americans and the promise of this nation's founders were truly represented.

The detailed charges were solemnly read from the House podium and televised on C-Span. House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer made a motion to table the bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lobbied hard for votes to table.

In a stunning turnaround, House Republicans changed strategy and voted decisively to prevent tabling the impeachment resolution.

Pelosi was defied by 85 Democratic members who voted against tabling the impeachment resolution. This includes John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and six committee members. The resolution was quickly voted back to the Judiciary Committee, where it is not resting quietly.

Judiciary Committee member Bob Wexler wrote, "The American people are served well with a legitimate and thorough impeachment inquiry. I will urge the Judiciary Committee to schedule impeachment hearings immediately and not let this issue languish as it has over the last six months. Only through hearings can we begin to correct the abuses of Dick Cheney and the Bush administration."

Impeachment is squarely on the table, and momentum is building. A year ago, almost no elected official breathed the word impeachment. Now impeachment has hit the House floor, and our electeds have gone on record. Millions of Americans are demanding an end to executive abuse of power.

After six years of state of emergency, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, continual war and occupations, our Constitution is deeply in crisis. Americans are in danger of losing our system of government and civil rights if they do not roll back the Bush administration's assault on the rule of law.

Allowing Cheney and George W. Bush to finish their terms without being impeached means future presidents are free to copy their lawless behavior. Of course many important issues deserve the attention of Congress. But the Constitution is the foundation of our democracy, not just an issue. Without the Constitution, we have nothing.

Polls show that 74 percent of Democrats and the majority of American adults support impeaching Cheney. "Never in our history have the high crimes and misdemeanors been so flagrant, and the people of our country know it," writes local author Richard Behan.

Kucinich has targeted Cheney first, but investigations will implicate the president as well. For the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll, 50 percent of respondents say they "strongly disapprove" of the president. Richard Nixon had reached the previous high, 48 percent, just before an impeachment inquiry was launched in 1974. With these numbers, why aren't Bush and Cheney gone already?

Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) Thinks some Americans deserve representation and some don't

Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) Thinks some Americans deserve representation and some don't

Today, a majority of the Senate voted 57 to 42 to give DC congressional representation. But it failed to get the 60 votes needed to overcome Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) filibuster.

Doesn't the state of Kentucky deserve a Senator with something that resembles character or should they keep reelecting Mitch The Elitist.

Bush's outrageous neglect of Iraqi refugees

Bush's outrageous neglect of Iraqi refugees

One of the great looming disasters of the war in Iraq, a moral abdication of immense proportion, is the Bush administration's failure to help those Iraqis who have risked their lives to help us.

The Iraqi translators, drivers, and assistants of all sorts face near-certain death, at the hands of one militia or another, once U.S. forces begin to pull out (and, rhetoric aside, the pullout has begun). Dozens have been kidnapped or killed already. Whatever one's feelings about the war, it is beyond dispute that these people have earned our commitment to their safety. If they want to leave, we have an obligation to get them out.

[ ]...Helping them leave would also be an acknowledgment that Iraq holds no future for these people—some of whom are among the country's educated elite. And that would be tantamount to acknowledging that the war will not end in victory, at least not as the term was originally defined.

Who's the Enemy?

Who's the Enemy?

Who is the enemy? Who, exactly, are we fighting in Iraq? Why are we there? And what's our objective?

Nearly five years into the war, the answers to basic questions like these ought to be obvious. In the Alice in Wonderland-like wilderness of mirrors that is Iraq, though, they're anything but.

We aren't fighting the Sunnis. Not any more, anyway. Virtually the entire Sunni establishment, from the moderate Muslim Brotherhood-linked Iraqi Islamic Party (which has been part of every Iraqi government since 2003) to the Anbar tribal alliance (which has been begging for U.S. support since 2004 and only recently got it) is either actively cooperating with the American military or sullenly tolerating what it hopes will be a receding occupation. Across Sunni-dominated parts of Iraq, the United States is helping to build army and police units as well as neighborhood patrols — the Pentagon calls them "concerned citizens" — out of former resistance fighters, with the blessing of tribal leaders in Anbar, Diyala, and Salahuddin provinces, parts of Baghdad, and areas to the south of the capital. We have met the enemy, and — surprise! — they are friends or, if not that, at least not active enemies. Attacks on U.S. forces in Sunni-dominated areas, including the once-violent hot-bed city of Ramadi, Anbar's capital, have fallen dramatically.

Among the hard-core Sunni resistance, there is also significant movement toward a political accord — if the United States were willing to accept it. Twenty-two Iraqi insurgent groups announced the creation of a united front, under the leadership of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former top Baath party official of the Saddam era, and they have opened talks with Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia who was Iraq's first post-Saddam prime minister.

We aren't fighting the Shia. The Shia merchant class and elite, organized into the mostly pro-Iranian Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and the Islamic Dawa party, are part of the Iraqi government that the United States created and supports — and whose army and police are armed and trained by the United States. The far more popular forces of Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army aren't the enemy either. In late August, Sadr declared a ceasefire, ordering his militia to stand down; and, since then, attacks on U.S. forces in Shia-dominated areas of Iraq have fallen off very sharply, too. Though recent, provocative attacks by U.S. troops, in conjunction with Iraqi forces, on Sadr strongholds in Baghdad, Diwaniya, and Karbala have caused Sadr to threaten to cancel the ceasefire order, and though intra-Shia fighting is still occurring in many parts of southern Iraq, there is no Shia enemy that justifies a continued American presence in Iraq, either.

Is a Democrat Bush's Best Friend on Telecom Amnesty

Is a Democrat Bush's Best Friend on Telecom Amnesty by Glenn Greenwald

Two months ago, Dianne Feinstein used her position on the Senate Intelligence Committee to enable passage of Bush's FISA amendments, granting the President vast new warrantless surveillance powers.

Last month, Feinstein used her position on the Senate Judiciary Committee to ensure confirmation of Bush's highly controversial judicial nominee Leslie Southwick, by being the only Committee Democrat to vote for the nomination (The Politico: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein had emerged as a linchpin in the controversial nomination").

This week, Feinstein used her position on the Senate Judiciary Committee to enable confirmation of Bush's Attorney General nominee by ensuring that the frightened Chuck Schumer didn't have to stand alone (Fox News: "Schumer's and Feinstein's support for Mukasey virtually guarantees that a majority of the committee will recommend his confirmation").

And now, Feinstein is using her position on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee -- simultaneously -- to single-handedly ensure fulfillment of Bush's telecom amnesty demands, as her hometown newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle, reports

Limbaugh joins other media in whitewashing Swift Boat Vets' falsehoods

Limbaugh joins other media in whitewashing Swift Boat Vets' falsehoods

On the November 7 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Rush Limbaugh claimed that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "were right on the money, and nobody has disproven anything they claimed in any of their ads, statements, written commentaries, or anything of the sort." Limbaugh made his comments on the same day reporter Tom Benner of The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts) revived baseless smears by the Swift Boat Veterans directed at Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) during the 2004 presidential campaign. Brenner wrote: "During the 2004 campaign, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth accused Kerry of embellishing his military service to further his political career, a view that seems right to Tom Mustin of Coronada, Calif., a former Navy lieutenant commander who says he has no involvement with the Swift boat group." In fact, most of the allegations the Swift Boat Veterans made about Kerry's Vietnam War service have been thoroughly discredited, often by official military records, but also by the Swift Boat accusers themselves, who struggled to keep their stories straight.

Sally Bedell Smith Renews Debunked Myths about President Clinton

Sally Bedell Smith Renews Debunked Myths about President Clinton

Smith rehashes the Monica Lewinsky year, and she's got some illuminating interviews with Clinton insiders who feel at last able to talk. There's John Podesta describing Bill angrily telling him that Lewinsky did not perform a sexual act on him and revelations from that keeper of the keys to Bluebeard's Cave, bimbo patroller Betsey Wright, on Bill's therapy, "addiction" and the no-longer-mystery woman who almost broke up the marriage. The details are riveting as ever. Who can get enough of POTUS sweating on the phone at 2 a.m. with a love-addled 24-year-old woman, placating her with job promises, knowing his world is about to explode as surely as a Sudanese powdered-milk factory?

Wow! Clinton insiders "at last" feel "able to talk"! Just imagine the pressure they must have been under not to talk all these years. Quick, grab a copy of For Love of Politics so you, too, can be riveted by these "illuminating interviews" that John Podesta and Betsey Wright at long last feel comfortable giving!

Well ... maybe you shouldn't bother.

That "illuminating interview" with John Podesta occurred a decade ago. And Sally Bedell Smith didn't conduct it; Ken Starr's office did. And if, for some reason, you still care after all these years what Bill Clinton said to John Podesta about Monica Lewinsky, you can save yourself the 20 bucks Smith's book would cost you by reading online the deposition Smith cites for her quotation of Podesta.

But if you do go to all that trouble, you'll find something curious: The deposition does not contain the quotation Sally Bedell Smith says it contains -- not even close. Smith quotes Podesta quoting Clinton as saying "I did not screw that girl" and "she did not blow me." Smith's endnotes claim these quotes come from "Grand-jury testimony of John Podesta, June 16, 1998, vol. 3, p. 3311." You can read that page for yourself here -- but you won't find anything like the words Smith says are there.

And what of Betsey Wright, the other "Clinton insider" who, according to the Post's Burleigh, was finally willing to talk to Sally Bedell Smith? If Smith and Wright have ever spoken, it isn't readily apparent from For Love of Politics. A few minutes with the book's index and source notes finds that quotes attributed to Wright are drawn from a 1992 Time article, a 1993 Washington Post article, 1994 articles in Time and The New Yorker, David Maraniss' 1995 book First in His Class, and James Stewart's 1996 book Blood Sport, among other previously published sources. None are attributed to an author interview of Wright.

In short, the "illuminating interviews" Burleigh touted turn out to have been conducted not by Smith, but by several other journalists (and independent counsel staff). And they aren't new details offered up by long-silent "Clinton insiders who feel at last able to talk." They have, in most cases, been available in published sources for at least a decade.

And, in at least one case, Smith quoted someone -- John Podesta -- as saying something that does not appear in the cited source material. That (alleged) Podesta quote is the first example the Post's Burleigh gave to support her contention that Sally Bedell Smith has "got some illuminating interviews with Clinton insiders who feel at last able to talk." Had Burleigh checked the book's endnotes, she would have known that this description was false, that Podesta's comments are quite old (if he said them at all). Had Burleigh taken five minutes to check Smith's endnotes rather than simply praising her for the supposed coup of getting Podesta to talk, she would have been able to tell Post readers that the words Smith quotes Podesta saying do not appear in the source material from which Smith claims to have quoted.

In addition to this rather obscure, if potentially revealing, mistake, Smith includes in her book at least two passages that ought raise immediate questions about whether it should be taken seriously.

On Page 288, as Bob Somerby first noted, Smith gratuitously includes Paula Jones' graphic description of the size and shape of the President's penis when erect. Jones description was contradicted by medical testimony; its inclusion in For Love of Politics serves only to satisfy the voyeuristic urges that cause journalists to continue obsessing over the decade-old Lewinsky saga in the first place.

On Page 101, Smith writes, "Bill was caught by White House reporters holding up traffic at Los Angeles International Airport for forty-five minutes while he got a two-hundred-dollar haircut on Air Force One from ... Hollywood stylist, Christophe Schatteman." In fact, Clinton's haircut did not delay air traffic. As I wrote when Ed Klein included this long-debunked anecdote in The Truth About Hillary, his 2005 attempt to swift-boat Clinton, "The incident, and the debunking of claims that he caused air traffic delays, are sufficiently well-known that it is nearly inconceivable that this is an honest mistake."

Thou Shalt Have No God Before Bush-Cheney

Thou Shalt Have No God Before Bush-Cheney

I recently wrote that the right wing in America is trying to discourage true spirituality---the kind of religion that encourages people to have compassion for others and to take a stand for others in the face of government oppression. The current administration is afraid of the kind of courage we witnessed in Burma from the Buddhist monks. It does not want to see fat, lazy contented Americans suddenly develop a conscience. However, Americans are a very religious lot. More religious than people in other industrialized countries, according to some accounts I have read. And we have no state religion, such as those they have in Europe, which can tell the people "Do what your government tells you to do!". Religion in the U.S. is more likely to tell you "Follow your conscience." Which is a bad thing if you are Bush or Cheney and you are trying to start up a fascist state. So, the right wing has hit upon a plan. By aligning itself with some religious hucksters and forming a state sponsored Church which will serve to validate the government, it hopes to quash the conscience of the American people.

While the religious right is fond of claiming that the Founders were religious men and women, they forget that they were opposed to the union of church and state, because they believed that the state corrupted religion. Here is how Thomas Paine described religion in its independent form (from The Rights of Man )

All religions are in their nature kind and benign, and united with principles of morality. They could not have made proselytes at first by professing anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting, or immoral. Like everything else, they had their beginning; and they proceeded by persuasion, exhortation, and example. How then is it that they lose their native mildness, and become morose and intolerant?

Since the American Revolution occurred during the Age of Reason, the same could have been said for any atheistic or agnostic system of moral thought. Paine does not assume that religion is good because it derives from God. It is compassionate and civilizing, because this is what humans strive for. This is what they demand in their moral belief systems.

What happens when the state takes over religion and makes it the one and only sanctioned Church?

By engendering the church with the state, a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up, is produced, called the Church established by Law. It is a stranger, even from its birth, to any parent mother, on whom it is begotten, and whom in time it kicks out and destroys.

The Church which serves as an arm of the state is not a humane church.

Rule of Law Under Attack By Bush-Cheney - Aided by Dead End Supporters

Rule of Law Under Attack By Bush-Cheney - Aided by Dead End Supporters

Every law student promptly learns the national ideal that our country is governed by the rule of law, not the rule of men. Today, the rule of law is under attack. Such activities have become a big business and, not surprisingly, they have involved big business.

On October 25th, Secretary Condoleeza Rice officially recognized before a House Oversight Committee that, remarkably, there was no law covering the misbehavior of Blackwater Corporation and their private police in Iraq.

Any crimes of violence committed by Blackwater and other armed contractors commissioned by the Defense and State Departments to perform guard duty and other tasks, fell into a gap between Iraqi law, from which they have been exempted by the U.S. military occupation and the laws of the United States.

Since the United States government is ruled by lawless men in the White House who have violated countless laws and treaties, Bush and Cheney clearly had no interest in placing giant corporate contractors operating inside Iraqi jurisdiction under either the military justice system or the criminal laws of the United States.

Presidential power has accumulated over the years to levels that would have alarmed the founding fathers whose constitutional framework never envisioned such raw unilateral power at the top of the Executive branch. Accordingly, they only provided for the impeachment sanction. They neither gave citizens legal standing to go to court and hold the Presidency accountable, or to prevent the two other branches from surrendering their explicit constitutional authority-such as the war-making power-to the Executive branch. The federal courts over time have refused to adjudicate cases they deem "political conflicts" between the Legislative and Executive branches or, in general, most foreign
policy questions.

Being above the law's reach, Bush and Cheney can and do use the law in ways that inflict injustice on innocent people. Politicizing the offices of the U.S. Attorneys by the Justice Department, demonstrated by Congressional hearings, is one consequence of such Presidential license. Political law enforcement, using laws such as the so-called PATRIOT Act, is another widespread pattern that has drag netted thousands of innocent people into arrests and imprisonment without charges or adequate legal representation. Or the Bush regime's use of coercive plea bargains against defendants who can't afford leading, skilled attorneys.

Books and law journal articles have been written about times when government violates the laws. They are long on examples but short on practical remedies of what to do about it.

Corporations and their large corporate law firms have many ways to avoid the laws. First, they make sure that when Congress writes legislation, the bills advance corporate interests. For example, numerous consumer safety laws have no criminal penalties for the violations, or only the most nominal fines. The regulatory agencies often have very weak
subpoena powers or authority to set urgent and mandatory safety standards without suffering years or even decades of corporate-induced delays.

If the laws prove troublesome, the corporations make sure that enforcement budgets are ridiculously tiny, with only a few federal cops on the beat. The total number of Justice Department attorneys prosecuting the corporate crime wave of the past decade, running
investors, pensioners and workers into trillions of dollars of losses and damaging the health and safety of many patients and other consumers, is smaller than just one of the top five largest corporate law firms.

Out in the marketplace, environment and the workplace, the corporations have many tools forged out of their unbridled power to block aggrieved people from having their day in court or getting agencies or legislatures to stand up for the common folk.

Companies can wear down or deter plaintiffs from obtaining justice by costly motions and other delaying tactics. When people get into court and obtain some justice, the companies move toward the legislature to restrict access to the courts. This is grotesquely called "tort
reform"– which takes away the rights of harmed individuals but not the corporations' rights to have their day in court.

Lush amounts of campaign dollars grease the way for corporations in the legislatures in the fifty states and on Capitol Hill.

As if that power to pass their own laws is not enough, large corporations become their own private legislatures. You've been confronted with those fine-print standard form agreements asking you to sign on the dotted line if you wish to secure insurance, tenancy,
credit, bank services, hospital treatment, or just a job.

Those pages of fine print are corporations regulating you! You can't cross any of them out.

You can't go across the street to a competitor- say from Geico to State Farm, or from Citibank to the Bank of America, because there is no competition over these fine-print contracts, with their dotted signature lines. Unless, that is, they compete over how fast they require you to give up your rights to go to court or to object to their unilaterally
changing the terms of the agreement, such as in changing the terms of your frequent flier agreement on already accumulated miles

Oh, for the law schools that provide courses on the rule of men over the rule of law.

Oh, for the time when there when there will be many public interest law firms working just on these portentous dominations of concentrated power to deny open and impartial uses of the laws to achieve justice and accountability.

Bill O'Reilly Tells His Umpteenth Lie

Bill O'Reilly Tells His Umpteenth Lie

Despite extensive coverage of Medal of Honor ceremony by CNN and MSNBC, O'Reilly said they "are not going to report stories that reflect well on the American military"

Summary: Bill O'Reilly asserted that "some television news organizations ignored the Medal of Honor awarded to Lieutenant Michael Murphy"-- a Navy SEAL who was killed during a rescue mission in Afghanistan -- claiming that "CNN and MSNBC just said no to Lieutenant Michael Murphy" on their prime-time newscasts, finally concluding, "The hard truth is that MSNBC and CNN are not going to report stories that reflect well on the American military." In fact, though CNN and MSNBC did not cover the story during the 8-11 p.m. ET prime-time period, both provided extensive coverage of the Medal of Honor ceremony earlier in the day: MSNBC reported on Murphy at least five times, including carrying the award ceremony live, and CNN covered the Murphy story on at least seven

distinct occasions.

The media do not have a liberal bias. Conservatives even admit it

The media do not have a liberal bias. Conservatives even admit it

The Most Biased Name in News, Seth Ackerman, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, August 2001

"Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives' frequent denunciations of 'liberal bias' in the media were part of 'a strategy' (Washington Post, 8/20/92). Comparing journalists to referees in a sports match, Bond explained: 'If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is "work the refs." Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack next time.'"

The Liberal Media, RIP, Eric Alterman, The Nation, March 13, 2000

"Bill Kristol, perhaps the most honest and intelligent conservative in Washington (excluding, of course, that funny, friendly, charming McCain fellow). 'The press isn't quite as biased and liberal. They're actually conservative sometimes,' Kristol said recently on CNN. If Chris missed that one, he might have come across a similar admission by Kristol offered up in the spring of 1995. 'I admit it,' Kristol told The New Yorker. 'The whole idea of the 'liberal media' was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.'"

Spinning Populism In American News Media, Norman Solomon, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, undated

"'The truth is, I've gotten fairer, more comprehensive coverage of my ideas than I ever imagined I would receive,' [Patrick] Buchanan acknowledged in March 1996. He added: 'I've gotten balanced coverage and broad coverage -- all we could have asked.'"


Who's On the News?: Study shows network news sources skew white, male & elite, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, June 2002:

"A study of ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News in the year 2001 shows that 92 percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican."

Right-wing Nut Hugh Hewitt's ideological double standard for journalists

Hugh Hewitt's ideological double standard for journalists

During an interview with Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, right wing radio host Hugh Hewitt attacked the objectivity of MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Tim Russert, saying the "clowns" have "damaged" NBC "ideologically" because they "worked for two Democratic politicians close to twenty years ago." Later in the interview, however, Hewitt struck a very different tone when discussing Diane Sawyer's past employment for Richard Nixon:

I thought you were going to answer Diane Sawyer, because look, I know she knows what she's talking about, largely because I took over her office at Casa Pacifica when she left the Nixon staff, and I joined the Nixon staff. […]

And you don't spend years with Nixon at Casa Pacifica and not pick up how the world works, and how great minds think. My question is, I think she would dominate the news. I think she would be an extraordinary anchor in the form of Peter Jennings.




* If criminal minds are great minds then perhaps Nixon did have a great mind.

The Real Iraq We Knew - 12 Former Army Captains

The Real Iraq We Knew

The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious impact on Iraq’s oil industry, which still fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq’s reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult. The first commissioner of a panel charged with preventing and investigating corruption resigned last month, citing pressure from the government and threats on his life.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. military has been trying in vain to hold the country together. Even with “the surge,” we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions. Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents’ cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for what they are and vote with their feet — moving within Iraq or leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep holding on to flawed concepts.

Fox News Gibson: Whites commit suicide, blacks 'shoot and move on.'

Fox News Gibson: Whites commit suicide, blacks 'shoot and move on'

A student in Cleveland yesterday shot four people at a high school before killing himself. On his radio show that day, Fox News's John Gibson claimed that he "could tell right away" that the shooter was white:

He killed himself. Hip-hoppers do not kill themselves. They walk away. Now, I didn't need to hear the kid was white with blond hair. Once he'd shot himself in the head, no hip-hopper. […]

And I could tell right away 'cause he killed himself. Black shooters don't do that; they shoot and move on.

Bush's Liberal Supporters - From Military Disaster to Moral High Ground

From Military Disaster to Moral High Ground

THE "liberal hawks" are back. These, of course, are the politicians and pundits who threw in their lot with George W. Bush in 2003: voting and writing for a "preventive war" — a war of choice that would avenge 9/11, clean up Iraq, stifle Islamic terrorism, spread shock, awe and democracy across the Middle East and re-affirm the credentials of a benevolently interventionist America. For a while afterward, the president's liberal enablers fell silent, temporarily abashed by their complicity in the worst foreign policy error in American history. But gradually they are returning. And they are in a decidedly self-righteous mood.

Yes, they concede, President Bush messed up his (our) war. But even if the war was a mistake, it was a brave and good mistake and we were right to make it, just as we were right to advocate intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo. ("The difference between Kosovo and Iraq isn't between a country that wanted peace and one that didn't," the Slate editor and onetime war cheerleader Jacob Weisberg, now tells us. "It was a matter of better management and better luck.") We were right to be wrong — and that's why you should listen to us now.

In addition, they say, we have the guts to call a spade a spade — to designate Muslim suicide-bombers "Islamic Fascists" (Paul Berman) and "Islamofascists" (Christopher Hitchens) — and to denounce Iranian demagogues as would-be Hitlers. We are the heirs, according to the former New Republic editor Peter Beinart, of the anti-totalitarian struggles of World War II and the cold war, and our battle against terrorism is the defining cause of the age.

We are going to hear much more in this vein in the coming months. And there is a new twist. For all its shortcomings, the Iraq war, we are now reminded, was "justified" (Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator) by its impeccable moral credentials. It was supported — and is still — by leading European intellectuals, notably former dissidents like Adam Michnik and Vaclav Havel. They understand evil and the need for America to take a stand. So do we. Our domestic critics simply don't "get it." They are appeasers and defeatists.

This is a seductive tale. But before it takes hold in the Democratic Party, here are some dissenting observations. First, we should not be so quick to wrap ourselves in the mantle of the pro-war Eastern European dissidents. The personal courage of these men is beyond question. Not so their political judgment.

Their common outlook was shaped by life under Communism and the need to choose between right and wrong, between good and evil — an uncompromising choice which they (like President Bush) subsequently projected on to the more complex realm of international relations. Vaclav Havel is now a co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger, a Washington lobby of ultra cold-warriors recycled as cheerleaders for the "global war on terrorism."

The case for liberal interventionism — "taking a stand" — had nothing whatever to do with the Iraq war. Those of us who pressed for American-led military action in Bosnia and Kosovo did so for several reasons: because of the refusal of others (the European Union and United Nations) to engage effectively; because there was a demonstrable and immediate threat to rights and lives; and because it was clear we could be effective in this way and in no other.

None of these considerations applied in Iraq, which is why I and many others opposed the war. However, it is true that United States military intervention in urgent cases will be much harder to justify and explain in future. But that, of course, is a consequence of the Iraq debacle.

Liberal hawks have been quick to swoop down on dovish critics of the American military — condemning in particular MoveOn.org's criticism of Gen. David Petraeus. Quickly, it has become conventional wisdom that liberals should never disparage the military.

But why not? Soldiers have to respect generals. Civilians don't. In a free society, it is a sign of robust civic health when generals are pilloried for getting into policy issues. Liberal Democrats should ask themselves whether, amid today's cult of military "heroes," a president would dare cashier a Douglas MacArthur for insubordination, as Harry Truman did in 1951 — and what our liberal hawks would say if he did.

Finally: In a democracy, war should always be the last resort — no matter how good the cause. "To jaw-jaw," as Churchill reminded Eisenhower, "is always better than to war-war." So the next time someone waxes lyrical for armed overseas intervention in the name of liberal ideals or "defining struggles," remember what Albert Camus had to say about his fellow intellectuals' propensity for encouraging violence to others at a safe distance from themselves. "Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed," he wrote, "but in every case it is someone else's blood. That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything."

From WMDs to Social Security: More Bush Stories

From WMDs to Social Security: More Bush Stories

You remember George W. Bush, the guy who tricked the country into a never-ending war in Iraq with stories about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and links to Osama bin Laden. Well, he still has 16 months left in the White House and he's determined to do yet more damage with his famous "Bush stories" before he leaves town.

The latest Bush story is the cry that Social Security is going bankrupt and will impose an unbearable burden on our children and grandchildren. Of course, this is not the first time President Bush has gone after Social Security. Immediately after the 2004 election, he tried to use his new political capital to privatize Social Security. As a result of a massive nationwide organizing campaign, the privatization drive soon hit a dead end.

But Bush is not through with Social Security. In an apparent effort to lay the groundwork for a future president to privatize and/or cut the program, the Treasury Department is circulating a new set of Bush stories designed to convince the public the Social Security program must be changed.

The GOP's Iraq Problem

The GOP's Iraq Problem

George W. Bush's damn-the-torpedoes determination to stay the course in Iraq has thus created an excruciating dilemma for the GOP. By sticking with the White House, Republicans in Congress can block the Democrats' efforts to end the war, either by filibuster or by upholding an almost certain veto of any bill challenging the war. But any such victory will be Pyrrhic, costing them dearly in next year's election. Between now and then, they'll remain trapped between a White House that isn't ready to give an inch and a Democratic caucus in the House and Senate that can force them to cast vote after embarrassing vote in defense of Bush's war over the next thirteen months, in full public view.

Subverting Majority Rule

Subverting Majority Rule

The Republican obstruction campaign continues. Yesterday, the Republican minority in the Senate filibustered and blocked two measures that had majority support in the House, and bipartisan majority support in the Senate. Republicans continue to filibuster at a pace three times anything ever seen before, in a systematic effort to block popular reforms.

Fifty-six Senators, including six Republicans, supported the resolution offered by Sen. James Webb, D-Va., and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to guarantee the soldiers fighting in Iraq adequate home rotations. This sensible bill - vital to the mental health and readiness of the soldiers on the front line - was blocked because the remaining Republican senators lined up with their leadership to filibuster it.

Similarly, 56 Senators, including six Republicans, supported the legislation introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Arlen Spector, R-Pa., to restore the fundamental right of court review for those detained under suspicion of terrorism. Once more the will of the bipartisan majority was subverted by the filibuster strategy of a partisan minority.

Republicans are filibustering so many bills that the press has begun to cover this extreme tactic as business as usual. The front-page Washington Post story covering the Webb proposal is headlined "Senate bill short of sixty votes needed." The article says the proposal "failed on a 56 to 44 vote, with 60 votes needed for passage." The article never tells the reader that the reason majority rule was frustrated was because of a Republican filibuster that requires 60 votes to overcome.

Republicans decide to punish the troops for their failures

Republicans decide to punish the troops for their failures

Late Update: The roll call is here, and it confirms that the only change in voting was that John Warner decided to vote against it this time, a change that was offset by Dem Tim Johnson's return into the Senate. Also, GOP Senators David Vitter and Sam Brownback, who were no-shows last time, showed up to vote no this time.

Bottom line: Not a single Republican moved from the No to the Yes column. In fact, the only Republican movement was towards the "No" column. As Atrios put it, "welcome to September.

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CNN's Glenn Beck falsely claimed William Paw gave Clinton "$200,000 in donations"

Beck falsely claimed William Paw gave Clinton "$200,000 in donations"

Glenn Beck -- apparently referring to Democratic donor William Paw -- falsely stated that Paw, who Beck said had an income of $46,000, sent Clinton "I think $200,000 in donations." In fact, according to the Federal Election Commission's donor database, William Paw himself donated $4,200 to Hillary Clinton's campaign and $11,800 to all Democratic candidates beginning in October 2005, while, according to the Los Angeles Times, the seven members of the Paw family "gave $213,000, including $55,000 to Clinton and $14,000 to candidates for state-level offices in New York." Beck's guest, American Spectator's R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., stated that Norman Hsu, a businessman and Clinton "bundler," is one of several "shadowy Asian figures" who have been involved with campaign finance violations associated with the Clintons.

As Media Matters documented, Tyrrell has a long history of making wild claims about the Clintons in the Spectator and in anti-Clinton books he has written, including The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President's Life After The White House (Nelson Current), which Tyrrell hyped during his appearance. Under his watch, the Spectator, once a little-known conservative monthly, used tabloid journalism to smear the former president and first lady on a regular basis with no evidence. In his October 20, 1997, "Media Notes" column, Washington Post staff writer Howard Kurtz wrote:

The magazine has been staunchly conservative since Tyrrell and [co-founder Ronald] Burr launched it while they were at Indiana University. But in recent years, as its circulation has mushroomed from 30,000 to more than 200,000, the Spectator has dived headfirst into the scandal-mongering business, fueled in part by the [right-wing philanthropist Richard Mellon] Scaife donations.

Now the magazine, which broke the "Troopergate" story, runs such pieces as "Boy Clinton's Big Mama," "The Clintons' Brewing Micro-Scandal," "Hillary, the CIA & the Iraq Cover-Up" and "Fast Times at White House High." Tyrrell himself has weighed in with two pieces on Bill Clinton's supposed ties to drug-running at the Mena, Ark., airport and another titled "Is Clinton on Coke?"

Director of National Intelligence McConnell - I Lied To The Senate

DNI McConnell: I Lied To The Senate

Committee, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell claimed the new expansive FISA legislation passed by Congress prior to the August recess — the so-called Protect America Act — had helped to thwart a an alleged terror plot in Germany.

A government official later told the New York Times that McConnell was wrong, and that the intelligence had been collected under the old FISA law which required warrants. A chorus of House Democrats immediately raised concerns about McConnell's claims.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) demanded McConnell back up his sworn statement. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) said the Protect America Act "played no role in uncovering the recent German terrorist plot." House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes urge McConnell "to issue a public statement immediately" correcting his remarks.

Denying the Truth: Petraeus, Iraq, and Our Pontius Pilate Press

Denying the Truth: Petraeus, Iraq, and Our Pontius Pilate Press

I was in Miami last night for the Univision-hosted Democratic debate. Listening to their responses on Iraq left no doubt that the candidates have gotten the message that, no matter what Gen. Petraeus says during his testimony, the American people — including the Hispanic community — are done with this war.

"We need to quit refereeing their civil war and bring our troops home as soon as possible," said Hillary Clinton.

"I believe no political progress [in Iraq] means no funding without a timetable for withdrawal," said John Edwards.

"I'm calling on Republican congressmen and legislators to overturn the president's veto of a timetable," said Barack Obama.

Later, after the debate, Chris Dodd told me he had made it clear to Harry Reid: "As you are trying to get Republican votes for a compromise bill, don't count on my vote on any legislation that doesn't include a clear withdrawal date."

I asked freshman Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey if he felt the same way. "I voted against the war as a Congressman," he told me. "I've been in favor of a definite withdrawal date for a long time. I don't close the door on a bill that, like the Webb amendment, would achieve the same results by making troops unavailable. But it's time for America to stop enabling Iraqis' refusal to come to terms with what they need to do."

So the American people get it, and the Democrats running for president and trying to win their votes get it. Then why do so many in the media still not get it?

In Sunday's New York Times, Michael Gordon, Judy Miller's former partner in the Ahmed Chalabi vaudeville production of "Saddam's Got WMD," served up a fact-challenged piece of administration propaganda in which he asserted, "The most comprehensive and up-to-date military statistics show that American forces have made some headway toward a crucial goal of protecting the Iraqi population."

Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid. Nowhere does Gordon point out that the methodology the Pentagon uses to arrive at the comprehensive stats he cites has been thoroughly discredited, as shown by the Washington Post. Instead he asserts:

"Data on car bombs, suicide attacks, civilian casualties and other measures of the bloodshed in Iraq indicate that violence has been on the decline, though the levels generally remain higher than in 2004 and 2005."

Violence In Iraq Is Beyond Our Control

Violence In Iraq Is Beyond Our Control

One might also compare the civilian fatality reports from Iraq with the reliably documented details of violence in Baltimore. In 2006, there were 275 murders in the city, which has a population of about 650,000. The same murder rate, scaled up to the Iraqi population of 27 million, would produce 11,500 violent deaths per year and 45,500 killed over four years of conflict.

Reports based on Pentagon and Iraq Body Count sources estimate that about 75,000 civilians were killed in Iraq over the first four years of the conflict. This suggests that Iraq is less than twice as violent as Baltimore. In stark contrast, the Johns Hopkins estimate of 600,000 violent deaths over four years suggests that Iraq is 10 to 15 times more violent than Baltimore. The latter is intuitively more consistent with qualitative impressions.

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

The Top Ten Reasons Marijuana Should Be Legal

The Top Ten Reasons Marijuana Should Be Legal

Remove Bush Over War Lies

Remove Bush Over War Lies

There had been the sound of many feet on a Brooklyn street at the first funeral, of firefighter Joseph Graffa-gnino, and at the second funeral, of firefighter Robert Beddia, a fire engine sounded in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. In my office about an hour later, slips of paper came silently out of a machine, the slips coming from the Department of Defense and carrying the names and ages of the 14 soldiers who were killed in Iraq when their helicopter crashed. Four were under 21 and nine 25 or under. Of course the first thought was how the city at this time could handle such calamity if the 14 dead were New York firefighters or police officers. This gives a good view of the catastrophe that happens in Iraq, day after day.

But as the soldiers die at a time of national Alzheimer's, there was virtually no reaction to the 14.

When anybody you elect tries to end the war, Bush blocks all intentions with a veto or threats of a veto that prevent it. And his Supreme Court is ready to validate whatever he does, this court with its five Catholic justices, and a chief who falls on his face a couple of times that we know of.

Our politicians despair that there can be no way to override Bush and save our young and everybody of any age in Iraq.

Of course there is. By all the energy and dignified disgust of a nation that needs it to keep any semblance of greatness, there is an extraordinary need for an impeachment of this president and his vice president.

You start an impeachment with an investigator who starts to develop a case. That's what got Nixon out. He had the most expensive, elaborate defense in the world, and when they were pressed his assistants folded and Nixon quit. I wonder whether Bush and his people can do any better when pressed.

Who Owns the Media and How the People Can Take It Back

Who Owns the Media and How the People Can Take It Back

Okay, so we still need to know about Big Media. Only a few hands are writing our history these days, and the push for greater media consolidation is ferocious. Just this month, media titan Rupert Murdoch snatched up the Wall Street Journal. Of course, this consolidation has squeezed out other voices and media owners, particularly women and people of color. Consider two studies by the media reform organization Free Press, which found that just 7.7 percent of racial or ethnic minorities own full-power commercial broadcast radio stations, and 3.3 percent of this demographic own broadcast television stations.

This cleansing is poised to continue. Once again, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is trying to change media ownership rules to allow a handful of media giants to scoop up even more local television channels, radio stations and newspapers in a single market. Think of the media conglomerates as a child who hordes all of the Lego’s - only Big Media is playing for keeps.

Proposed rule changes by the FCC would give media a Botox injection - Ahh! All the newspapers and TV stations look the same - while further eroding our free press. After all, it’s not really free when we have to pay such a high price for it. And of course, that price is the drowning out of our voices, our concerns, our questions and our revolution as media is consolidated.

According to Free Press, “If… changes were approved, one company could potentially own the major daily newspaper, eight radio stations and three television stations in the same town.” Sign me up for a subscription to The Stifled Times!

As promised, the FCC has been charging around the country like a traveling circus to hold public hearings about the proposed rule changes. There may not be a Big Top, but there’s certainly an act - “See the FCC Commissioner Smile and Nod.” Only two more public hearings are scheduled, with the next one taking place in Chicago on September 20.