Greetings, fellow Freedom Fighters™ and Defenders of Democracy™!
We have another jam-packed edition this week--so much injustice and outrage; so little time! Here are this week’s top stories:
Hot off the press news alert: BOYCOTT GASOLINE tomorrow, 15 May 2007! This is a national boycott with two goals: at best, to see what impact we as consumers can have through one concerted day of not consuming; at worst, to raise our and others' awareness that something must be done about our national addiction to gas. If you must buy gas, please buy it today--and consider always buying from CITGO, which is based in Venezuela, rather than supporting U.S. and Saudi terrorists by buying from Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Texaco, Chevron, and BP ... all of which have huge, nasty skeletons in their closets.
Please be sure to check our “Sign here!” department for important actions ...
... ... Join 40,000 Voters Already in the National Cheney IMPEACHMENT Poll!
From our mailbag:
... ... Reader and fellow blogger Dot Calm reminds us to check in with the Madsen Report, which The Scallion links in its sidebar
... ... Dot Calm also sent in Jeremy Scahill's article “Outsourcing the War.” If this doesn't scare the pants off you, then we of The Scallion hold out very little hope!
... ... Reader D.F. sent in a wonderful piece titled “Jesus and War.” We love this piece! It really spells out the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of the “religious” “right” in their proclamation of Christianity accompanied by their ruthless dedication to the culture of hatred, torture, and death.
From AlterNet:
... ... Who won in Iraq? Why, Iran, of course!
... ... Blame the manufacturer if you don't like the hatred, violence, and misogyny of hip-hop
... ... Foreign investors gone wild
... ... China's premature rise to great power
... ... Why is the Washington press corps refusing to even ask about major hypocrisy?
... ... Yes, Iraq is all about the oil
... ... Media hype about painkillers is just that--hype
... ... France's new Margaret Thatcher (Editor's note: O'Reilly now says that, with a fascist now running France, he will no longer boycott French products)
... ... Most Iraqi lawmakers now publicly reject the U.S. occupation
... ... Outsourcing human guinea pigs: offshoring human testing into poor populations that neither understand what's going on nor can afford financially to say “no.”
... ... The American hyper-masculine culture's fear and hatred of women is driving the worst of our policy mistakes
... ... Believe it or not, Paris Hilton is MORE ACCOUNTABLE than George W. Bush!!
... ... Women under attack: the Talibanization of Iraq. (Editor's note: gee, don't we leave the nicest souvenirs behind us as we go around the world freeing people from their oil?)
... ... Disney continues to cash in on racism
... ... The Rockerfeller drug laws have created a national lock-down
... ... Obama: we have to recognize that the oil age is over
... ... Trained to harm: how our military abuses its own (Editor's note: we've all heard of the systematic rape and sexual abuse of female soldiers, but AlterNet shows another side of military abuse, namely that being injured opens soldiers up to being abused by their fellows)
... ... Phony Romney claims that he has the mysterious power to protect us from ... France?!??
... ... Tension mounts as anti-war movement challenges Dems' commitment to stopping Bush's war
... ... During the immigrant rights marches last week, plots to attack immigrants with grenades and semi-automatic weapons were uncovered in Alabama, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
... ... Add Wolfowitz to the rapidly growing list of Bush alums whose career trajectory suddenly plummets upon the disclosure of a pattern of lying obvious to most observers but not to the president himself
... ... Robert Greenwald calls out war profiteers before Murtha committee
... ... Murdoch is trying to buy not only the media but the 2008 election
... ... CNN lets GOP lie about CNN poll on CNN
... ... As much as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wanted to change the subject from the attorney scandal, House Committee Chair John Conyers kept the heat on
... ... This Mother's Day, let's give mothers what they really need: a more secure old age
... ... "Iraq for Sale" director Robert Greenwald explains to Congress that the billions that defense contractors and war profiteers are making out of the Iraq war is a madhouse run amuck
... ... A McCain staffer has called Planned Parenthood "one of the most radical pro-abortion groups in the country." Read Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards' response.
... ... Iraq may have been a pushover in the invasion, but the price of occupation for America could exact a heavy toll on its empire
... ... Reagan's presidency began a deliberate erosion of the public's right to a trial by jury. 20 years later his political heirs continue to feed the myth of "tort reform" and ignore the Constitution in favor of corporate interests.
... ... Watch the video and call your Rep: DON'T Give Bush a “clean” bill ... aka blank check ... to continue the war!
... ... America has oil on the brain
... ... The original Mother's Day was not conceived to sell us stuff we don't need, it was a day started by mothers to bring warfare to an end!
... ... Under investigation by the Bush administration for taking ill 9/11 clean up workers to Cuba for better treatment than they received in America, Moore answers, "I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide."
... ... Contrary to what the media report, putting your child in day care will not make them grow up to be a criminal or Columbine-like killer
... ... An AlterNet writer shares concerns over Obama's foreign policy: he looks pretty hawkish
... ... Election theft goes global
... ... "Third Way," a centrist foreign policy outfit gaining some influence inside DC's Beltway, may be undermining progressive efforts
... ... Lou Dobbs insanely accuses illegal immigrants of infecting us with leprosy!
... ... The battle to ban toxic toys
... ... In Washington, the passage of a final oil law is a key benchmark for the Iraqis to achieve. But Iraq's factions aren't on the same page, and their differences could lead to even more conflict.
From the Center for American Progress:
... ... Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) "signed the nation's first statewide living wage bill yesterday."
... ... Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) quotes Ku Klux Klan grand wizard on House floor
... ... New York and Oregon are reacting negatively to "crisis pregnancy centers," which propagate false information about abortions and family planning
... ... When it comes to lying under oath, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) has different standards for "Scooter" Libby and President Clinton
... ... Former American Family Association staff attorney says anti-Catholic rhetoric tolerated within the organization
... ... Kansas Board of Education repeals abstinence-only provisions and other conservative sex-ed policies
... ... Secretary of Defense Robert Gates contradicts President Bush, says "I don't know" if 2002 war authorization is still valid
... ... Why did the National Endowment of the Humanities honor a Harvard professor who argued that the President is above the rule of law?
... ... If there's a smoking gun at Abu Ghraib, it's in John Yoo's hands
... ... Fox News's right-wing "satire" show, the 1/2 Hour News Hour, to return on Sunday
... ... State senators successfully block Gov. Matt Blunt's (R) appointment of an anti-stem cell scientist to a life sciences research board
... ... State House rejects Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D) tax plan that would raise funds for "schools, transportation, health care and pensions."
... ... Bush administration officials mocked Sen. Mark Pryor's (D-AR) concerns about gender discrimination at the Department of Justice
... ... Despite previous reporting, Rocky Mountain News ignored the resignation of Bush-appointed Interior Department official
... ... Fox News pundit Bill Cunningham claims Alan Colmes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Rosie O'Donnell will be responsible for the next attack on America
... ... DeLay accuses the Left of comparing the Bush regime to Nazis, claiming they're the only ones who make such a comparison; then he accuses the Left of being Nazis
... ... Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) launch an effort showing how local communities and everyday Americans are impacted by the war
... ... A new poll reveals that 71 percent of Floridians "support immediate legislative action to cut green house gas emissions"
... ... A Dallas suburb becomes the first in the nation to prohibit landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants
... ... As measured by coalition deaths per day, we are now in the most violent twelve-month stretch of the four year occupation of Iraq
... ... HUGE Richard Perle FLIP-FLIP on the link between Saddam and 9/11 (Editor's note: and the neoCONs think we're too stupid to notice!)
From Congress.org Weekly:
... ... Should Congress Revoke the Iraq War Authorization? Sen. Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Byrd (D-WV) are drafting legislation that would revoke congressional approval for the war on Oct. 11 -- five years after Congress cleared the way for the 2003 invasion. The war authorization gave President Bush permission to use military force against Iraq "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate." Revoking the authorization would force Bush to return to Congress for another vote or wage war without explicit approval from lawmakers. Tell Congress and President Bush if you think the Iraq War Authorization should be revoked and new approval voted on by Congress or if Congress should stop micromanaging the war as some Republicans have said.
From DN!
... ... Katherine Newman on "Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings"
... ... "No Gun Left Behind: The Gun Lobby's Campaign to Push Guns Into Colleges and Schools"
... ... LAPD Reassigns Two Top Commanders Who Ordered Police to Shoot Rubber Bullets at Protesters & Journalists During May Day Immigrants Rights Rally
... ... Former Norwegian PM and UN Climate Change Envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland on the Challenges to Curb Global Warming
... ... "It Takes an Enormous Amount of Courage to Speak the Truth When No One Else is Out There" -- World-Renowned Holocaust, Israel Scholars Defend DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein as He Fights for Tenure
... ... Following Public Campaign Against Trademark Efforts, Coffee Giant Starbucks Signs Licensing Deal that Could Bring Millions to Ethiopian Farmers
... ... Commander of 1985 French Bombing of Greenpeace Ship Living Freely in Virginia -- as U.S.-Paid Arms Dealer
... ... "Hey, Ken Burns, Why Shun Latinos?" - Juan Gonzalez on PBS WWII Doc
... ... British Author Tariq Ali on the Resignation of Tony Blair: “The Fact That He's Leaving is Because He's So Hated”
... ... Pair Convicted for Leaking Infamous British Memo Detailing Bush's Desire to Bomb Al Jazeera
... ... Author and DN! Correspondent Jeremy Scahill Testifies in Landmark House Hearing on Defense Contracting
... ... Harvard Students Stage Hunger Strike to Improve Pay, Working Conditions for Campus Security Guards
... ... Mother's Day for Peace: A Dramatic Reading of Julia War Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation
... ... Investigative Journalist Greg Palast Reports on the Firing of New Mexico Attorney David Iglesias (Editor's note: PURE INCENDIARY! This interview is NOT TO BE MISSED!)
From Greg Palast:
... ... RFK: Rove And Rove's Brain, 'Should Be In Jail,' Not In Office
... ... Naked neo-cons: Perjury and the Big, Bad Wolfowitz
From Media Savvy:
... ... The lethal media silence on the Kent State smoking guns
... ... Stark reminders of the hazards of newsgathering will be on display at Washington's new Newseum, scheduled to open Oct. 15
... ... Two of the world's largest information companies, Thomson and Reuters, have confirmed that they are in discussions to combine the two businesses.
... ... Clear Channel Communications Inc. on May 7 delayed a vote on a proposed $19.35 billion buyout of the radio and billboard company and said it was talking to the potential buyers about a revised offer
... ... Some Wall Street Journal editors knew that News Corp. was making a $5 billion bid for the paper's parent, Dow Jones & Co., at least a week before the news broke elsewhere, but the NY Times reports they did not publish it
... ... It seems the steep new postage-rate increases for periodicals, scheduled to begin on July 15, will inflict undue hardship on small independent magazines that do much to inform the national discourse on politics and culture
... ... US television giant NBC Universal sided with Viacom in a legal campaign to force YouTube to vigilantly filter copyrighted material from its popular video-sharing website
... ... Before giving in to despair at the bleak realities of the region's media, it is worth remembering how far the Arab media has come in only a decade
... ... This is a true story made by Iraqi radio journalist Zainab from Al Najaf. In this video she documents the story of her close friend who was kidnapped by militias when they saw him carrying a camera and a gun.
... ... During the recent controversy over Don Imus' remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team, some cable-news viewers may have noticed something unusual: the presence of significantly more African-Americans. But does this prove real diversity exists within the medium?
... ... New web tools like social networking and high-quality video make campaigns more competitive, but other factors boost old media's power
... ... Eight more reasons to mistrust Murdoch
... ... Thomson Corp. and Reuters Group PLC's ambitious plan to create the world's largest supplier of financial data and news could face regulatory hurdles as it would narrow the market to two main competitors from three
... ... A recent Newsweek poll showing Democrat Barack Obama leading top Republican presidential hopefuls could have been made up and might help al-Qaida, conservative commentator Ann Coulter said in her latest verbal broadside
... ... Journalists from five Arab countries are to launch a media watchdog group in reaction to what they call increased restrictions on press workers in the region, its founders said Tuesday
... ... The makers of a Channel 4 documentary which claimed that global warming is a swindle have been accused of fabricating data by one of the scientists who participated in the film
... ... Mark Crispin Miller: "The US press has had a lot to say about Sarkozy -- his 'style,' his taste for certain things American, etc. -- but, oddly, hardly anything about the people of his nation, a/k/a 'the electorate.' A good many of them seem not to be very happy with his victory; and there is also that wee matter of the e-voting machinery that 'malfunctioned' all over eastern France."
... ... Time Warner is pushing an unfair hike in postal rates that would stifle America's independent press. It's time stand up for independent media. Send a letter to Congress and the US Postal Service.
... ... The pope, it turns out, has an editor. Fallout from comments Benedict XVI made about abortion and excommunication has been so intense that the Vatican simply changed the record.
... ... The SJC's libel ruling won't cripple the media -- but it could seriously hurt the Boston Herald
... ... There's another new twist in the investigation into unusual trading in Dow Jones shares prior to the disclosure of a takeover bid that sent the stock skyrocketing last week
... ... Australia's largest newspaper, TV and radio companies will set aside their traditional rivalries to unite behind a new public campaign to protect free speech
... ... A new NSA report reveals that before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US Pentagon planned to create a "Rapid Reaction Media Team" to ensure control over major Iraqi media while providing an Iraqi "face" for its efforts.
... ... Telesur, the television network promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a corrective to what he sees as the biased coverage of Latin America by U.S. media conglomerates, views Spain as the bridgehead for a campaign to win an audience in Europe
From OilWatchdog.org:
... ... Gov. Schwarzenegger Challenged With Petition
From HuffPo:
... ... Paris, Bush, and accountability
... ... Condescending Rice snoozed while Chevron paid off Saddam
... ... It's the Constitution, stupid!
... ... Toady Blair's legacy: Worst PM Ever
Lastly, we would like to mention a found item that our Readers might find interesting. In the CNN article linked below, Condescending Rice responded to Iranian foreign minister Mottaki's polite traditional greeting of “As-salama aleikum,” or “May the peace of God be upon you,” with “Your English is better than my Arabic.” According to students of Arabic and Middle Eastern culture, Ms. Rice's flip response wasn't even as courteous as a slap in the face: it was more akin to a kick in the nuts.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/03/iraq.conference.ap/index.html
We of The Scallion can only sputter, “Excuse us?!??” Our nation's Secretary of State can't even be troubled to learn the correct response? She couldn't even force herself to say, “And may the peace of God be also with you” in English, which she claims to know? If Ms. “Dr.” Rice, who is supposed to be the “intellectual” in the bunch (although we of The Scallion suspect that she purchased her degrees just as Bush purchased his), is that clueless--if she is honestly that removed from the reality that she is dealing with MUSLIMS--then we as a nation are well and truly screwed. Heaven preserve us when the beasts that Bush is releasing with such wild, gleeful abandon decide to come back and bite us!
Keep the faith and keep fighting: together, we WILL win our nation back!
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Sign here!
Here are important petitions and other actions we of The Scallion invite our Readers to participate in. Quit bitching—start a revolution!
From the People's E-mail Network (Pen): Join 40,000 Voters Already in the National Cheney IMPEACHMENT Poll
Since our last alert there have been additional dramatic revelations of just how insidiously the vice president corrupted our government and the sacred decision to go to war. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former right-hand man, has now come forward to accuse Cheney's own Office of Special Plans of a campaign to deliberately deceive the nation. And he has gone on public record calling for an impeachment investigation.
41,000 of your fellow activists have already voted in the National Cheney Impeachment Poll.
POLLING PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/cheney_impeachment.php
You can vote yes. You can vote now. But please DO vote.
Furthermore, in arrogant defiance of the ground of Kucinich's third proposed article of impeachment, which was stated as threatening aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, Cheney stood on the deck of a battleship in the Persian Gulf this week, with a backdrop of our most lethal military hardware, and escalated that threat. Even as the situation in Iraq deteriorates day by day, he was quoted as saying,
"We want to complete the mission, get it done right and return with honor."
Cheney has learned nothing. He is completely out of Constitutional control. He is determined to complete mission one, which is and always was to blow the ENTIRE Middle East up in a giant powder keg, to produce sky high profits for his oil industry cronies, and at the expense of our real national security. And the only way we can stop him is to impeach him just as soon as possible.
Please do everything you can to spread the word about the National Cheney Impeachment Poll. Dennis Kucinich has three House co-sponsors now for H.Res. 333, William Lacy Clay, Jr. (MO), Jan Schakowsky (IL) and Albert Wynn (MD). If these are your representatives, please call and thank and encourage them toll free at 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803. If they are not, call and ask your representatives why they will not fulfill their duty to press for impeachment, if it is supported by the facts and the mounting evidence.
When he was in Baghdad this week, after using the reporters covering his trip for a cynical photo-op, he was overheard telling his staff to "kick the press out." It's time to kick some people out alright, starting with Cheney himself! And it's time for the press to start doing their job again, which is to expose the secret, dirty tricks that have passed for our government for the last six years. And to do that we must create a cultural phenomenon of a million people and more voting in the National Cheney Impeachment Poll.
The momentum is building. We need to pour it on. The more you do to help, the louder the drumbeats will get for impeachment, until neither Congress nor the media can ignore our voices. It must come from we the people. That's us.
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.
If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at http://www.usalone.com/in.htm
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From the mailbag
Reader and fellow blogger Dot Calm sent in a link to the Madsen Report, a blog that The Scallion lists in its sidebar. We thought that it was a good reminder to all of us to check in with Mr. Madsen every now and then:
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Dot Calm also sent in “Outsourcing the War” by Jeremy Scahill:
Jeremy Scahill, bestselling author and investigative reporter for The Nation, testified May 10 before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on the impact of private military contractors on the conduct of the Iraq War. This is the full text of his remarks:
My name is Jeremy Scahill. I have submitted my full remarks and request they be entered into the record. I am an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine and the author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. I have spent the better part of the past two and a half years researching privatized warfare. I have interviewed scores of sources, filed many Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained government contracts and private company documents of firms operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
As this Committee is well aware, we are now in the midst of the most privatized war in the history of our country. This is hardly a new phenomenon, but it is one that has greatly accelerated since the launch of the “global war on terror” and the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many Americans are under the impression that the US currently has about 145,000 active duty troops on the ground in Iraq. What is seldom mentioned is the fact that there are at least 126,000 private personnel deployed alongside the official armed forces. These private forces effectively double the size of the occupation force, largely without the knowledge of the US taxpayers that foot the bill.
But despite the similarity in size of these respective forces in Iraq, there are key differences with the way our government approaches the active-duty military and these private war contractors. For instance, we know that nearly 3,400 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq and more than 25,000 wounded. We do not know the exact number of private contractors killed or wounded. Through the US Department of Labor, we have been able to determine that at least 770 contractors had been killed in Iraq as of December 2006 along with at least 7,700 wounded. These casualties are not included in the official death count and help to mask the human costs of the war. More disturbing is what this means for our democracy: at a time when the administration seems unwilling to subject its war strategy to oversight by the Congress, we face the widespread use of private forces seemingly accountable to no effective system of oversight or law.
While tens of thousands of these contractors provide logistical support, thousands are heavily armed private soldiers roaming Iraq. We do know that there are some 48,000 employees of private military companies in Iraq alone.
These forces work for US companies like Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp as well as companies from across the globe. Some contractors make in a month what many active-duty soldiers make in a year. Indeed, there are private contractors in Iraq making more money than the Secretary of Defense and more than the commanding generals. The testimony about private contractors that I hear most often from active duty soldiers falls into two categories: resentment and envy.
They ask what message their country is sending them. While many soldiers lack basic protective equipment–facts well-known to this committee–they are in a war zone where they see the private soldiers whiz by in better vehicles, with better armor, better weapons, wearing the corporate logo instead of the American flag and pulling in much more money. They ask: Are our lives worth less?
Of course, there are many cases where war contractors have hoarded the profits at the top and money has not filtered down to the individual contractors on the ground or the armor to protect them.
The second reaction is that the active-duty soldiers see the “rock star” private contractors and they want to be like them. So we have a phenomenon of soldiers leaving active duty to join the private sector.
There is slang in Iraq now for this jump. It is called “Going Blackwater.” To put it bluntly, these private forces create a system where national duty is outbid by profits. And yet these forces are being used for mission-critical activities. Indeed, in January Gen. David Petraeus admitted that on his last tour in Iraq, he himself was protected not by the active-duty military but by private “contract security.”
Just as there is a double standard in pay, there is a double standard in the application of the law. Soldiers who commit crimes or acts of misconduct are prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There have been some 64 courts martial on murder-related charges in Iraq alone. Compare that to the lack of prosecution of contractors. Despite the fact that tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have streamed in and out of Iraq since March of 2003, only two private contractors have faced any criminal prosecution. Two. One was a KBR employee alleged to have stabbed a co-worker, the other pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison. In four years, there have been no prosecutions for crimes against Iraqis and not a single known prosecution of an armed contractor.
That either means we have tens of thousands of Boy Scouts working as armed contractors or something is fundamentally wrong with the system. Brig. Gen. Karl Horst of the 3rd Infantry Division became so outraged by contractor unaccountability that he began tracking contractor violence in Baghdad. In just two months he documented twelve cases of contractors shooting at civilians, resulting in six deaths and three injuries. That is just two months and one general.
They have not been prosecuted under the UCMJ, under US civilian law or under Iraqi law. US contractors in Iraq reportedly have their own motto: “What happens here today, stays here today.” That should be chilling to everyone who believes that warfare, above all government functions, must be subject to transparency, accountability and the rule of law.
These are forces operating in the name of the United States of America. Iraqis do not see contractors as separate from soldiers–understandably, they see them all as “the occupation.” Contractor misconduct is viewed as American misconduct.
While there is currently a debate in Congress about how to hold these private forces accountable, the political will to act remains shockingly absent.
Given the vast size of this private force, spread across the most dangerous war zone in the world, it is not at all clear how effective oversight would work. We already know that auditors cannot visit many reconstruction sites because of security concerns. Journalists are locked in the Green Zone. The army is stretched to the max. So what entity then is supposed to have the capacity or ability to oversee the men who have been brought to Iraq to go where no one else will?
Members of Congress tell me they have been stonewalled in their attempts to gain detailed information about the activities of these companies. I think it is a disturbing commentary that I have received phone calls from several Congress members asking me for government documents on war contractors and not the other way around.
In the current discussion in the Congress on this issue, what is seldom discussed is how this system, the privatization of war, has both encouraged and enabled the growth and creation of companies who have benefited and stand to gain even more from an escalation of the war.
In closing, while I think this Congress needs to take urgent action on issues of oversight, accountability and transparency of these private forces operating with our tax dollars and in the name of the United States, there is a deeper issue that often gets overlooked. This war contracting system has intimately linked corporate profits to an escalation of war and conflict. These companies have no incentive to decrease their footprint in the war zone and every incentive to increase it.
As the country debates current and future Iraq policy, Congress owes it to the public to take down the curtain of secrecy surrounding these shadow forces that often act in the name and on the payroll of the people of this country. Thank you for your time. I am prepared to answer any questions.
To see a video of this testimony: here.
Jeremy Scahill is the author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.
© Copyright 2007 Jeremy Scahill
Editor's note: the problem with privatizing the army is that we the people no longer have any control over it – Chimpie McCodpiece's praetorian guard is not accountable to military or civilian law. They can rape, murder, and torture whomever they like ... and they can charge whatever they like for the privilege. And the Bush junta is only too delighted to pay every penny ... after all, the mercenaries were some of Chimpie's biggest donors. This is what Rummy meant when he said that our military was not the right organization to do the job in Iraq. Another problem with a private army is that their loyalty is tied to their pay check. They are not loyal to us the people, to our Constitution, to international law, or to anything else to which our military is at least answerable to on paper: they are loyal only to their money and to their bosses and the people (like Chimpie) that their bosses are loyal to. This means that Bush can send mercenaries in to places like Haiti to take out legitimate presidents like Aristide because the mercenaries are not obligated to disobey illegal or unethical orders. Ain't America grand?!
Reader D.F. also sent in “Jesus and War”:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/whitehead1.html
Jesus and War
by John W. Whitehead
“Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by
the sword.”
~ Jesus
With President Bush’s veto of the recent spending bill, fighting in the
Middle East will continue indefinitely wars not only waged by an avowed
Christian president but also backed by the evangelical Christian Right. Rev.
Jerry Falwell, in speaking of terrorists, epitomizes the Bush Administration
’s stance: “I’m for the president to chase them all over the world. If it
takes 10 years, blow them away in the name of the Lord.” In this way,
Christianity is joined with the state and its war machine.
However, what would Jesus think about this in light of his teachings against
the use of violence war, of course, being organized, systematic violence?
One can only imagine that he would be horrified. After all, many who strive
to follow Jesus’ teachings find it impossible to do so and still participate
in war. Indeed, leaders in the early church adopted Jesus’ attitude of
nonviolence. Tertullian (born about AD 160), one of the giants of the early
church, stated very clearly that confessing “Jesus as Lord” means taking the
teachings of Jesus seriously. Just as Caesar commanded men to kill their
enemies, Jesus commanded them to love their enemies. Caesar made use of
chains and torture, in much the same way as governments do today. Jesus, on
the other hand, taught Christians to forgive and to sacrifice power for
servanthood.
In fact, Tertullian had pithy advice for soldiers who converted to
Christianity: quit the army or be martyred for refusing to fight. Tertullian
was not alone in his thinking. “For three centuries,” writes biblical
scholar Walter Wink in The Powers That Be (1998), “no Christian author to
our knowledge approved of Christian participation in battle.” This, of
course, changed in the third century when the church was institutionalized
and became an integral part of the warring Roman Empire.
Jesus’ apostles never advocated violence. Rather, they urged their followers
to suffer, forgive and trust God for the outcome rather than take matters
into their own hands. And while they may have talked about warfare and
fighting, it was not through the use of conventional weapons. For example,
the Apostle Paul wrote: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war
as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the
world.”
Christ’s crucifixion was a radical repudiation of the use of violent force.
And the cross, which was the Roman tool of execution, was reserved
especially for leaders of rebellions. “Anyone proclaiming a rival kingdom to
the kingdom of Caesar would be a prime candidate for crucifixion,” writes
Brian McLaren in The Secret Message of Jesus (2006). “This is exactly what
Jesus proclaimed, and this is exactly what he offered.” But Jesus’ kingdom
was one of peace. Among other things, he proclaimed, “Love your enemies, do
good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those
who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the
other also.” Consequently, Jesus ordered Peter not to use the sword, even to
protect him.
The so-called Roman peace (Pax Romana) was made possible by the cross. That
is, people so feared crucifixion that many opted not to challenge the
emperor rather than face the possibility of death on the cross. Why then
would early Christians choose the cross an instrument of torture,
domination, fear, intimidation and death as their primary symbol? What
could this possibly mean?
For early Christians, “it apparently meant that the kingdom of God would
triumph not by inflicting violence but by enduring it,” notes McLaren, “not
by making others suffer but by willingly enduring suffering for the sake of
justice not by coercing or humiliating others but by enduring their
humiliation with gentle dignity.” Jesus, they believed, had taken the empire
’s instrument of torture and transformed it into God’s symbol of the
repudiation of violence. The message? Love, not violence, is the most
powerful force in the universe.
Not surprisingly, the early Christians were not crusaders or warriors but
martyrs men and women with the faith and courage to face the lions. Like
Jesus, they chose to suffer rather than inflict violence.
When Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers,” exhorting his followers to
turn the other cheek and give freely, he was telling us that active
peacemaking is the way to end war. Can you imagine what the world would be
like if every church adopted that attitude and focused its energies on
active peacemaking?
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who vocally opposed the Vietnam War, took
to heart Jesus’ teachings about peacemaking. In his acceptance speech for
the Nobel Peace Prize, King proclaimed:
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we
arrive at that goal. We will not build a peaceful world by following a
negative path. It is not enough to say “we must not wage war.” It is
necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely
on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.
This is not to say that Jesus was a pacifist. The opposite is true. He spoke
truth to power and engaged in active resistance to injustice. In my opinion,
Jesus would have intervened to defend someone being violently mistreated,
and I believe we must do the same. But he would never have engaged in
violence as the means to an end.
One has to wonder what Jesus would say about war being waged in his name
today. As Gary Wills writes in What Jesus Meant (2006), “If people want to
do battle for God, they cannot claim Jesus has called them to this task,
since he told Pilate that his ministers would not do that.” In fact, as
Wills notes, Jesus “never accepted violence as justified.”
May 10, 2007
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead [send him mail] is
founder and president of The Rutherford Institute.
Copyright © 2007 The Rutherford Institute
Editor's note: THIS is the Jesus that I believe most Americans believe in. Jesus was a true pacifist: that he would not commit or condone violence as a means toward an end, but he would fight devoutly to see justice done. The Americans who volunteered in the Spanish civil war were such pacifists: they wanted peace--to prevent WW II--so they intervened to try to stop the injustice of German and Italian fascism.
-----
From our information clearinghouse
These are items we receive from the countless mailing lists to which The Scallion collectively subscribes. They are worth the effort of at least a good skim.
-----
From AlterNet
Who Won in Iraq? Iran Did -- Big Time
By Gary Brecher, The eXile
To find a winner in Iraq means looking outside the box, because the winners are the countries smart enough to stay out of it. Read more
Make It a Mother's Day for Peace
By Robert Greenwald, Brave New Foundation
The original Mother's Day was not conceived to sell us stuff we don't need, it was a day started by mothers to bring warfare to an end!
Hip Hop Profanity, Misogyny and Violence: Blame the Manufacturer
By Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report
Corporations have been usurping and reshaping Black mass culture for decades -- hip-hop is just the latest product line.
The New Land Rush
By Robert J. Miller, TomPaine.com
Nations are racing to plant flags and claim the "new world" of islands and sea routes that are emerging as Arctic ice melts.
Foreign Investors Gone Wild
By Sarah Anderson, Foreign Policy in Focus
Leaders of developing countries are often forced to work with institutions that promote and protect foreign investment -- with little regard for the costs to democracy and the environment.
China's Premature Rise to Great Power
By Liselotte Odgaard, MIT Center for International Studies
China's so-called rise to great power status is usually taken for granted. Still, a convincing argument can be made that Beijing's post-Cold War grand strategy is based on fear of failure rather than management of success.
NAFTA Redux: Reporters Again Refuse to Ask Simple Questions
By David Sirota
Why is the Washington press corps refusing to even ask about major hypocrisy?
You go to war with the newspaper you have
By Philip Barron
So how does your newspaper cover issues relating to the Iraq War?
Unorthodox and Sometimes Polarizing, the Incredibly Popular Rosie O'Donnell Will Exit Stage Left
By Jeanine Plant, AlterNet
This fall, viewers will say goodbye to Rosie O'Donnell, a woman who, in spite of her unorthodox voice and often polarizing views, remains overwhelmingly popular. So what is it about this social misfit that so attracts the public? Read more
Hard to Deny: Iraq is All About the Oil
By Michael Schwartz, Tomdispatch.com
How the U.S. is working to secure Iraq's oil -- one of the most important sources of petrochemical energy on the planet -- and how the Iraqis are resisting.
Anti-U.S. Uproar Sweeps Italy
By David Swanson, After Downing Street
The U.S. government has proposed to make Vicenza, Italy, the largest U.S. military site in Europe, but the people of Vicenza, and all of Italy, have sworn it will never happen.
Media Hype About Painkillers Shot Down
By Dani McClain, WireTap
While the media may hype the growing number of youths taking pain pills, an exploration of race and economic factors reveals a different scenario in the party drugs teens choose.
Do Climate Change Experts Agree ... Yet?
By Marilyn Berlin Snell, Sierra Magazine
A group of scientists, politicians, CEOs, policy experts, and venture capitalists sit down to try and agree on what steps America should take to combat global warming.
France: Another Political Thatcher is Born
By Julio Godoy, IPS News
As France struggles to balance its traditional respect for labor with the pressures of a globalized economy, the country's new Prime Minister will play a key role.
Departing Leader in Fight to End 'Don't Ask' Leaves Powerful Legacy
By Deb Price, Creators Syndicate
A salute to Dixon Osburn, who helped popularize the fight to end the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.
Wake Up, Global Warming Conspiracy Theorists
By Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet
Why is it that conspiracy theories are almost always regarded as nutty, paranoid fantasies until right-wing America starts talking about global warming?
Anti-war groups pushing Dems
By Jane Hamsher
Grass-roots pressure mounts ...
Report: U.S. and Iranian officials to meet "soon"
By Joshua Holland
If it happens, what will the administration be willing to offer?
Robert Greenwald and the 'Netroots' take on Fox News and win [VIDEO]
By Joshua Holland
The anatomy of a progressive victory ...
Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation
By Raed Jarrar, Joshua Holland, AlterNet
More than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected for the first time on Tuesday the continuing occupation of their country. The U.S. media ignored the story. Read more
Help Wanted: Human Guinea Pigs
By Betsy Model, The Internationalist
If you've ever wondered why we so rarely hear of drug trials going awry in the United States, it is because we "offshore" the drug trials to developing nations who can't afford to say no.
The Hidden Costs of America's Hypermasculine Culture
By Mark Dery, AlterNet
How America's fear of femininity is driving some of our worst foreign policy mistakes.
Paris Hilton: More Accountable than the President?
By Arianna Huffington, HuffingtonPost.com
The two have a lot in common, including privileged backgrounds, reputations for dimwitted pronouncements and serial reckless behavior. But Paris might be taking the lead in accountability.
Women Under Attack: The Talibanization of Iraq
By Bay Fang, Ms. Magazine
Throughout much of recent history, Iraq was one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East for women. Now women are under systematic attack.
Homeland Security: A Costly Mess
By Cindy Williams, MIT Center for International Studies
The Dept. of Homeland Security was created to bring coherence to the disparate activities of numerous agencies involved in domestic security. Four years later, the United States is not getting what it should out of the reorganization.
Myth of the Universal Digital Library
By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet
Sorry, but we can't digitize everything. Here's why ...
Disney Sings Dollars and Racism with 'Song of the South'
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, New America Media
How Disney is still cashing in on a racist movie from 1946.
Rockerfeller Drug Laws Have Created Lockdown, USA (Video)
By Jan Frel
Hip-Hopper Jim Jones marks the 34th anniversary of New York's draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws with his new rap single "Lockdown, USA."
Rocky Anderson vs. Sean Hannity: The Smackdown
An ultra progressive devastates Bush apologist Hannity in a live debate.
Do serious enviros shop online or in person?
By Umbra Fisk
The jury is out ...
Obama: We have to recognize that oil age is over
By Steve Clemons
Trying to bridge the gap between automakers and progressive environmentalists ...
Trained to Harm: How the Military Abuses Its Own
By JoAnn Wypijewski, The Washington Spectator
In the army, being injured makes one deserving of cruelty. Read more
Phony Romney Plays the French Card [VIDEO]
By Rachel Maddow, www.layercake.tv
How Romney will convince us to elect him president based on his special ability to protect us from France.
Big Business' Healthcare Solution Ignores Those Who Need It Most
By Bill Scher, TomPaine.com
Business leaders want a break from mounting healthcare costs, but their policy fix would be nothing more than a dressing up of the same failed healthcare system.
Tension Mounts as Antiwar Movement Challenges Dems' Commitment to Stop the War
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com
The Democrats' endorsement of this crude neocolonial exploitation plan makes them accomplices in the occupation, and further legitimizes the insurgency.
Hate from Within: America's Home-Grown Terrorism
By Roberto Lovato, New America Media
During the immigrant rights marches last week, plots to attack immigrants with grenades and semi-automatic weapons were uncovered in Alabama, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
The Futility of Random Drug Testing
By Marsha Rosenbaum, AlterNet
School-based drug testing is costly, counterproductive and violates basic American values.
A Shining Light Goes Out in Africa
By Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate
The work of journalist Anthony Mitchell, who was just killed in Kenya, revealed the need for our exchange with Africa to involve more than oil, guns and secret prisons.
Bush Alums Reap Their Rewards
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Add Wolfowitz to the rapidly growing list of Bush alums whose career trajectory suddenly plummets upon the disclosure of a pattern of lying obvious to most observers but not to the president himself.
Robert Greenwald to call out war profiteers before the Murtha Committee
By Robert Greenwald
What books do you pack for a trip to DC to testify before Congress?
Rupert Murdoch is buying more than the news
By Jayne Lyn Stahl
If Murdoch prevails in his bid for Dow Jones, he may not just be buying the Wall Street Journal, but the 2008 presidential election, as well.
CNN lets GOPer lie about CNN poll on CNN
By Jan Frel
How much 'balance' can you take?
Conyers to Gonzales: No, Let's Keep Talking about the US Attorneys
By Michael Roston, Raw Story
As much as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wanted to change the subject from the attorney scandal, House Committee Chair John Conyers kept the heat on. Read more
What's a Mother's Worth?
By Riane Eisler, AlterNet
This Mother's Day let's give mothers what they really need: a more secure old age.
The Madness of the War Profiteering in Iraq
By Robert Greenwald, AlterNet
"Iraq for Sale" director Robert Greenwald explains to Congress that the billions that defense contractors and war profiteers are making out of the Iraq war is a madhouse run amuck.
My Response to the McCain Campaign's Attacks on Planned Parenthood
By Cecile Richards, HuffingtonPost.com
A McCain staffer has called Planned Parenthood "one of the most radical pro-abortion groups in the country." Here's Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards' response.
Will Chimp Life Get Human Rights?
By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet
Hiasl, a 26-year old Austrian-based chimpanzee, is petitioning the courts for human status, and let me be the first to extend him a warm welcome to our species.
Iraq: A Small War Guaranteed to Damage a Superpower
By Patrick Cockburn, Tomdispatch.com
Iraq may have been a pushover in the invasion, but the price of occupation for America could exact a heavy toll on its empire.
Updated twice: A clean Iraq withdrawal bill in the House [VIDEO] ...
By Joshua Holland
And a blank-check to follow. Call your Rep.
Why 400 Years of Knowledge is Better Than 20
By Elana Levin
Reagan's presidency began a deliberate erosion of the public's right to a trial by jury. 20 years later his political heirs continue to feed the myth of "tort reform" and ignore the Constitution in favor of corporate interests.
America Has Oil on the Brain
By Terrence McNally, AlterNet
Lisa Margonelli traveled 100,000 miles from her local gas station to oil fields half a world away to try and understand how Americans can buy 10,000 gallons a second without giving it much thought. Read more
Video: Felicity Huffman, Vanessa Williams, Alfre Woodard Teach Us The True Story of Mothers Day
By Robert Greenwald, Brave New Foundation
The original Mother's Day was not conceived to sell us stuff we don't need, it was a day started by mothers to bring warfare to an end!
To Circumcise or Not?
By Dana Goldstein, In These Times
Should uncircumcised men in America heed clinical studies showing that adult male circumcision in Africa can decrease the likelihood of an HIV infection by as much as 60%?
Michael Moore Responds to Treasury Secretary's Investigation Threat
By Michael Moore, AlterNet
Under investigation by the Bush administration for taking ill 9/11 clean up workers to Cuba for better treatment than they received in America, Moore answers, "I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide."
How the Media Perpetuate Women's Fears of Being a Bad Mother
By Caryl Rivers, AlterNet
Contrary to what the media report, putting your child in day care will not make them grow up to be a criminal or Columbine-like killer.
My Lingering Doubts about Obama's Foreign Policy
By Bill Fletcher, Jr., The Black Commentator
From his uncritical stance of Israel's treatment of Palestinians to his statements about Iran, Barack Obama seems to be trying to prove his hawkish credentials.
Election Theft Goes Global
By Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman, Free Press
From Ohio to Scotland, the controversy over electronic voting machines has become a global phenomenon.
Why a knee-jerk rejection of the Dems' grand trade bargain is appropriate ...
By Joshua Holland
A rare instance in which you don't really need to read the thing.
"Security" from a Hometown Baghdad perspective ... [VIDEO]
By Joshua Holland
A first-hand look at the other side of the "surge."
Third Way Is the Wrong Way
By Guy T. Saperstein, AlterNet
"Third Way," a centrist foreign policy outfit gaining some influence inside DC's Beltway, may be undermining progressive efforts. Read more
CNN's Lou Dobbs Defends Claim That Illegal Immigrants Are Bringing Leprosy to America
By Brian J. Levy, Media Matters for America
Citing a debunked study in a right-wing journal, Lou Dobbs' show claimed that leprosy has rised in America as a result of "unscreened illegal immigration primarily from Southeast Asia" -- and he's not backing down.
The Battle to Ban Toxic Toys
By Brita Belli, E Magazine
How some lawmakers and advocacy groups are fighting to make toys safe from harmful chemicals.
Kurdish Leader: Oil Law Is a Deal Breaker
By Ben Lando, UPI
In Washington, the passage of a final oil law is a key benchmark for the Iraqis to achieve. But Iraq's factions aren't on the same page, and their differences could lead to even more conflict.
Sexy with a Disability
By Alessandra Djurklou, Sirens Magazine
The media rarely portray the disabled as sexy. Brave, yes. Melancholy, sure. Angry about their lot, check. One woman shares her story of dating while disabled.
How cops learned to harass pot smokers in the '60s
By Jan Frel
Video teaches young narcs how to distinguish joints from cigarettes, and catch users of 'mind-warping' pot and hash.
-----
From the Center for American Progress
GOOD NEWS
"In a whale-size project, the world's scientists plan to compile everything they know about all of Earth's 1.8 million known species and put it all on one Web site, open to everyone."
STATE WATCH
MARYLAND: Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) "signed the nation's first statewide living wage bill yesterday."
MAINE: "A legislative committee on Monday endorsed a bill that would require retailers to pay for an economic impact study before they can build big stores in Maine communities."
MINNESOTA: Gov Tim Pawlenty (R) will veto legislation that would expand health care access in Minnesota.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS: New York and Oregon are reacting negatively to "crisis pregnancy centers," which propagate false information about abortions and family planning.
BLOG WATCH
THINK PROGRESS: Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) quotes Ku Klux Klan grand wizard on House floor.
THE NEXT HURRAH: "Another key resignation at Department of Interior."
HULLABALOO: When it comes to lying under oath, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) has different standards for "Scooter" Libby and President Clinton.
PANDAGON: Former American Family Association staff attorney says anti-Catholic rhetoric tolerated within the organization.
DAILY GRILL
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."
-- President Bush, 5/1/03
VERSUS
"It's game time."
-- A senior administration official briefing reporters on Vice President Cheney's "message" in Iraq, 5/9/07
GOOD NEWS
Yesterday, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) signed legislation creating "domestic partnerships" for gays and lesbians, along with a bill outlawing "discrimination based on sexual orientation."
STATE WATCH
KANSAS: Kansas Board of Education repeals abstinence-only provisions and other conservative sex-ed policies.
MASSACHUSETTS: Gov. Deval Patrick (D) proposes a $1 billion dollar infusion into stem cell research.
OKLAHOMA: Gov. Brad Henry (D) signs the "harshest anti-immigration bill in the whole United States."
CIVIL RIGHTS: "Two states leading a revolt against the Real ID Act have picked up new firepower in the U.S. Senate."
BLOG WATCH
THINK PROGRESS: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates contradicts President Bush, says "I don't know" if 2002 war authorization is still valid.
BOVARD: Why did the National Endowment of the Humanities honor a Harvard professor who argued that the President is above the rule of law?
WASHINGTON BABYLON: If there's a smoking gun at Abu Ghraib, it's in John Yoo's hands.
INSIDE CABLE NEWS: Fox News's right-wing "satire" show, the 1/2 Hour News Hour, to return on Sunday.
DAILY GRILL
"Well, Iraq's looking good. ... I think we've turned the corner, if you will."
-- Vice President Cheney, 12/18/05
VERSUS
"[W]e've got a long way to go."
-- Cheney, 5/9/07
GOOD NEWS
Construction in New Orleans's devastated Lower 9th Ward began yesterday on an "environmentally friendly new home, based on the winning design in a competition started by Brad Pitt."
STATE WATCH
MISSOURI: State senators successfully block Gov. Matt Blunt's (R) appointment of an anti-stem cell scientist to a life sciences research board.
HAWAII: Bills to enhance the quality of life for indigenous Hawaiians move a step closer to passage.
ILLINOIS: State House rejects Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D) tax plan that would raise funds for "schools, transportation, health care and pensions."
BLOG WATCH
THINK PROGRESS: Bush administration officials mocked Sen. Mark Pryor's (D-AR) concerns about gender discrimination at the Department of Justice.
THINK PROGRESS: CBS fires Gen. John Batiste for appearing in a VoteVets ad that criticized the Iraq war.
COLORADO MEDIA MATTERS: "Despite previous reporting, Rocky Mountain News ignored the resignation of Bush-appointed Interior Department official."
NEWS HOUNDS: Fox News pundit Bill Cunningham claims Alan Colmes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Rosie O'Donnell will be responsible for the next attack on America.
DAILY GRILL
"Odd, I only thought it was the radical left in our own nation which enjoys likening the United States to Nazi Germany."
-- Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), 5/10/07
VERSUS
"[L]iberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler."
-- DeLay, in his book No Retreat, No Surrender
GOOD NEWS
On Sunday, Major League Baseball players used symbolic pink bats for Mother's Day. The bats will be auctioned off, and the funds will be earmarked for breast cancer research as well as treatment and public-awareness initiatives.
STATE WATCH
IRAQ: Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) launch an effort showing how local communities and everyday Americans are impacted by the war.
FLORIDA: A new poll reveals that 71 percent of Floridians "support immediate legislative action to cut green house gas emissions."
MICHIGAN: A state investigation finds "evidence of racism and a culture of oppression and fear" in Michigan's Department of Natural Resources.
TEXAS: A Dallas suburb becomes the first in the nation to prohibit landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants.
BLOG WATCH
THINK PROGRESS: House conservatives: "There is no liberal-conservative divide over Iraq."
EZRA KLEIN: "As measured by coalition deaths per day, we are now in the most violent twelve-month stretch of the four year occupation of Iraq."
THE NEWSHOGGERS: "Death squad tolls in Baghdad rising again."
RISING HEGEMON: Reality proves pro-war pundit Kimberly Kagan wrong on Iraq.
DAILY GRILL
"I never said...Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11."
-- Richard Perle, 5/11/07
VERSUS
"We do know, for example, that Saddam Hussein has ties to Osama bin Laden."
-- Perle, 9/16/01
-----
From Congress.org Weekly
CONGRESS.ORG WEEKLY UPDATE
May 7, 2007
Should Congress Revoke the Iraq War Authorization?
Sen. Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Byrd (D-WV) are drafting legislation that would revoke congressional approval for the war on Oct. 11 -- five years after Congress cleared the way for the 2003 invasion. The war authorization gave President Bush permission to use military force against Iraq "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate." Revoking the authorization would force Bush to return to Congress for another vote or wage war without explicit approval from lawmakers. Tell Congress and President Bush if you think the Iraq War Authorization should be revoked and new approval voted on by Congress or if Congress should stop micromanaging the war as some Republicans have said.
I Support Revoking the Iraq War Authorization
I Oppose Revoking the Iraq War Authorization
SPRING CLEANING AT CONGRESS.ORG
What do you like about Congress.org? What should we keep? What should we get rid of? What do we need more of? Now's your chance to weigh in and tell us what you think. We listened to you and you wanted more issues coming up in Congress and more lead time to offer your views. Here are some bills coming up in Congress and working their way through committee.
- Congress will adopt a budget resolution this week. What should get funding priority?
- Debate starts again on the funding for the war in Iraq. Should there be timetables for the war or just funding?
- Immigration debates are scheduled to draft the details of a bill. For example, one proposal seeks to limit family green cards to just the spouse and children and exclude parents and siblings. What should be in the immigration bill?
- Reauthorization of the Food and Drug Administration and debates on importation of drugs from outside the U.S. One amendment seeks to demand that the FDA ensure the safety of all imported drugs. The FDA says it can't do that.
- The Farm Bill takes shape with debates on provisions such as the welfare of animals in agriculture and importation of contaminated food.
Congress.org does not provide detailed information on legislation in order to remain non-partisan. We encourage you to use your search engine or visit http://thomas.loc.org for more information.
The Congress.org Weekly Update Editors ___________________________________________________________________
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From “Democracy Now!”
* Katherine Newman on "Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings" *
Virginia has carried out the first change in policy to result from the
deadly shooting of 32 people at Virginia Tech more than three weeks ago.
Virginia governor Timothy Kaine has issued an executive order requiring
anyone forced to seek treatment for mental health to be added to a police
database of people barred from buying guns. We talk to Princeton professor
Katherine Newman.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/08/1328236
* "No Gun Left Behind: The Gun Lobby's Campaign to Push Guns Into Colleges
and Schools" *
Brian Siebel, senior attorney with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence, talks about his new report that draws attention to the gun lobby's
efforts in recent years to change college campus rules prohibiting firearms.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/08/1328243
* LAPD Reassigns Two Top Commanders Who Ordered Police to Shoot Rubber
Bullets at Protesters & Journalists During May Day Immigrants Rights Rally *
The fallout continues in Los Angeles from the police attack on a largely
peaceful May Day immigration march. Police with riot guns fired hundreds of
rubber bullets, shot tear gas and clubbed protesters and journalists
gathered in MacArthur Park. At least ten people were injured including seven
journalists.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/08/1328249
* Michael Parenti on "The Culture Struggle" *
We end today's program with the words of acclaimed writer, political analyst
and social critic, Michael Parenti. He is the author of 20 books, including
"Democracy for the Few," "Superpatriotism" and "The Culture Struggle."
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/08/1328254
* Headlines for May 8, 2007 *
- One In Eight Iraqi Children Die Before the Age of Five
- Iraqis Vow to Destroy "Wall of Occupation" In Baghdad
- Iraq War Hampered Recovery Efforts After Kansas Tornado
- Most Democratic Candidates Support Enlarging U.S. Military
- Amnesty: China, Russia, Saudis Supply Arms to Sudan
- Chevron to Pay Fine For Paying Kickbacks to Saddam Hussein
- Senate Probes Justice Dept Efforts to Limit Minority Vote
- Tenet Makes $2.3 Million From Companies Profiting Off Iraq War
- Former Marine Recruiter Jailed for Abusing High School Girls
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/08/1328230
* Former Norwegian PM and UN Climate Change Envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland on
the Challenges to Curb Global Warming *
Nearly 1,000 diplomats from around the world are meeting in Bonn, Germany
this week to draft a new global treaty to control greenhouse gases to
replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. We speak with former
Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland -- one of three prominent
international figures named special UN envoy on climate change. She is
former Director-General of the World Health Organization.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/09/1513200
* "It Takes an Enormous Amount of Courage to Speak the Truth When No One
Else is Out There" -- World-Renowned Holocaust, Israel Scholars Defend
DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein as He Fights for Tenure *
The battle over political science professor Norman Finkelstein to receive
tenure at DePaul University is heating up. Finkelstein - one of the
country's foremost critics of Israeli policy - has taught at DePaul for the
past six years. Finkelstein's two main topics of focus over his career have
been the Holocaust and Israeli policy. We speak to two world-renowned
scholars in these fields: Raul Hilberg, considered the founder of Holocaust
studies, and Avi Shlaim, a professor of international relations at Oxford
University and an expert on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Shlaim calls
Finkelstein a “very impressive, learned and careful scholar,” while Hilberg
praises Finkelstein's “acuity of vision and analytical power.” Hilberg says:
"It takes an enormous amount of courage to speak the truth when no one else
is out there to support him."
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/09/1514221
* Following Public Campaign Against Trademark Efforts, Coffee Giant
Starbucks Signs Licensing Deal that Could Bring Millions to Ethiopian
Farmers *
Specialty Ethiopian coffee beans can retail for as much as $25 dollars a
pound in the U.S, but back in Ethiopia, impoverished farmers may earn less
than $1 dollar a pound for the same beans. Hoping to take more control over
marketing and boost prices, the government of Ethiopia tried to trademark
regional coffee names. Starbucks - the world's largest specialty coffee
retailer - opposed Ethiopia's trademarking efforts. In response, Starbucks
came under heavy public pressure to sign a licensing deal with Ethiopia. The
campaign appears to have worked. Last week, Starbucks and the Ethiopian
government released a joint statement announcing they signed an agreement in
principle.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/09/1515200
* Headlines for May 9, 2007 *
- At Least 21 Afghan Civilians Killed in U.S. Strike
- U.S. Pays, Apologizes to Kin of Afghan Victims Killed in Shooting
- 7 Iraqi Children Killed in U.S. Attack
- Pentagon: 35,000 Troops to be Deployed to Iraq
- Charges Against Ex-CIA Cuban Operative Dismissed
- Florida Indicts 8 Prison Guards on Abuse Charges
- Student Loan Head Resigns as Marketing Ties Probed
- Study: U.S. Hospitals Charging Uninsured More
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/09/1511248
* EXCLUSIVE: Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon on the
Release of Ex-CIA Operative Posada Carriles, the Cuban 5, Guantanamo and the
Health of Fidel Castro *
We go to Havana for an exclusive interview with the President of the Cuban
National Assembly Ricardo Alarcon. The Cuban and Venezuelan governments have
repeated their calls for former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles to be
extradited to stand trial for his role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban
airliner that killed 73 people. Posada was scheduled to go on trial in Texas
on Friday for immigration fraud but a U.S. federal judge tossed out the
indictment on Tuesday making Posada a free man. Alarcon also talks about the
plight of the Cuban 5, Guantanamo Bay, and the health of the ailing Cuban
President Fidel Castro.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/10/1418232
* Commander of 1985 French Bombing of Greenpeace Ship Living Freely in
Virginia -- as U.S.-Paid Arms Dealer *
Twenty two years ago a group of French government agents blew up a ship
known as the Rainbow Warrior off the coast of New Zealand. On board were
activists from the group Greenpeace who were protesting French nuclear
testing in the Pacific. One member of Greenpeace died in the blast. Thirteen
French agents were identified as being directly involved in the bombing but
only two were ever convicted. Now it has been revealed that the commander of
the unit is living freely in McLean, Virginia. Louis-Pierre Dillais is
president of an arms manufacturer with several government contracts.
Greenpeace has urged the Department of Homeland Security to deport Dillais
became of his direct ties to an act of state terrorism. But the Bush
administration has not moved on the request. We speak with Greenpeace
attorney Deepa Isac.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/10/1418244
* Headlines for May 10, 2007 *
- Cuba, Venezuela Renew Posada Extradition Calls
- 14 Killed, 87 Wounded in Iraq-Kurdish Capital Bombing
- More Details Emerge in Haditha Massacre
- GOP Reps. Warn Bush on Iraq War
- Dems Back Measure to Allow More Iraqi Refugees
- Pair Found Guilty for Leaking Al Jazeera Bombing Memo
- Blair Announces Resignation Date
- World Bank Rebukes Israel on West Bank Stranglehold
- Bush Tours Kansas as Governor Faults Iraq War
- Ex-Kansas Attorney Says He Was Told to Step Down
- Report: Moore Investigated for Cuba Trip
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/10/1418221
* "Hey, Ken Burns, Why Shun Latinos?" - Juan Gonzalez on PBS WWII Doc *
A coalition of Latino organizations have reached an agreement with the
filmmaker Ken Burns on a forthcoming World War II documentary that had been
criticized for ignoring the role of Latino soldiers. The 14-hour film, “The
War,” initially included no interviews with any Latino veterans even though
over 500,000 Latinos served in the war. Democracy Now! co-host and New York
Daily News columnist, Juan Gonzalez discusses the controversy.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1719227
* British Author Tariq Ali on the Resignation of Tony Blair: “The Fact That
He's Leaving is Because He's So Hated” *
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced his plans to resign next
month after more than a decade in power. British author Tariq Ali talks
about Blair's legacy, his fatal decision to follow the Bush administration
into Iraq, and his likely successor, finance minister Gordon Brown.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1531215
* Pair Convicted for Leaking Infamous British Memo Detailing Bush's Desire
to Bomb Al Jazeera *
A pair of British men were sentenced to jail on Thursday for leaking a
classified memo that revealed President Bush told British Prime Minister
Tony Blair in April 2004 that he wanted to bomb the Doha headquarters of the
Arabic television network Al Jazeera. They were convicted after a highly
secretive trial. Davide Simonetti of the website Blairwatch joins us in
London.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1531223
* Author and DN! Correspondent Jeremy Scahill Testifies in Landmark House
Hearing on Defense Contracting *
There are over 120,000 private contractors currently deployed in Iraq and
yesterday, a House panel put some of the harshest criticisms of this
privatization of war into the congressional record for the first time.
Democracy Now! correspondent and The Nation magazine investigative reporter
Jeremy Scahill testified before a House Appropriations hearing on defense
contracting. Scahill is author of the book “Blackwater: The Rise of the
World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.”
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1531232
* Harvard Students Stage Hunger Strike to Improve Pay, Working Conditions
for Campus Security Guards *
A group of students at Harvard University have entered their ninth day of a
hunger strike as part of a campaign to demand a pay raise and improved
working conditions for campus security guards. The students want the
university to intervene in salary negotiations between the security guards
and their employer Allied Barton. Two of the hunger striking students join
us from Boston.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1531244
* Mother's Day for Peace: A Dramatic Reading of Julia War Howe's Mother's
Day Proclamation *
We end today's show with a Mother's Day special. Filmmaker Robert Greenwald
has just produced a short film titled Mother's Day For Peace. It features a
dramatic reading of Julia War Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation by Felicity
Huffman, Christine Lahti, Fatma Saleh, Ashraf Salimian, Vanessa Williams and
Alfre Woodard.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1531255
* Headlines for May 11, 2007 *
- Toll in U.S. Bombing of Afghan Village Could Reach 80
- Iraqi Lawmakers Back Draft Bill for Withdrawal Timetable
- Bush Vows Veto for New House Iraq Funding Measure
- Russian Military Head: U.S. Missile Shield Akin to Berlin Wall
- Haitian Refugees: Capsized Boat Deliberately Overturned
- Ramos-Horta Wins East Timor Vote
- LAPD Sued for Crackdown on May Day Protest
- Bush Admin Withholds Emails on Rove Role in Arkansas Hiring
- Latino Groups Reach Deal on PBS WWII Doc
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1530253
* Investigative Journalist Greg Palast Reports on the Firing of New Mexico
Attorney David Iglesias *
On a single day, December 7, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales demanded the
resignations of 8 United States Attorneys. What was really the purpose of
the firings - and who was behind it? Investigative journalist Greg Palast
reports.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/14/1426254
* Feminists Yanar Mohammed of Iraq and Dr. Sima Samar of Afghanistan on the
Dire Situation for Women Under U.S. Occupation and Rising Fundamentalism *
Two leading feminists, one from Iraq and one from Afghanistan, join us to
talk about the dire situation for women in their countries. Yanar Mohammed
is the co-founder of the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq. The group
vocally supports women's rights in Iraq and shelters Iraqi women targeted in
honor killings and sectarian violence. Dr. Sima Samar is the chair of the
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and is the United Nations special
envoy to Darfur, Sudan. She served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for
Women's Affairs in Hamid Karzai's first government following the U.S.
invasion of 2001. She was forced to resign her government post following
death threats.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/14/1426259
* Headlines for May 14, 2007 *
- 120 Dead in Iraq Attacks
- Iraq Bans News Cameras from Bombing Sites
- Al-Qaeda Group Claims Capture of 3 U.S. Troops
- Iraqi Parliament Calls for End to Baghdad Walls
- Cheney Warns Iran as US Opens Talks
- 41 Die in Pakistan Clashes Following Judge Dismissal
- Blair to Be Questioned on Al-Jazeera Bombing Memo
- Palestinian Interior Minister Resigns as Factions Clash
- Trial Begins for Navy Attorney in Gitmo Leak Case
- Dallas Suburb Bans Rentals to Undocumented Immigrants
- Virginia Tech Victims Honored in Graduation Ceremony
- Harvard Students End 9-Day Hunger Strike
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/14/1426235
-----
From Media Savvy
The Lethal Media Silence On Kent State's Smoking Guns
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
The 1970 killings by National Guardsmen of four students during a peaceful anti-war demonstration at Kent State University have now been shown to be cold-blooded, premeditated official murder. But the definitive proof of this monumental historic reality is not, apparently, worthy of significant analysis or comment in today's mainstream media.
A Museum For Artifacts Of The News Media's Hunters And Gatherers
By Katharine Q. Seelye, NY Times
Stark reminders of the hazards of newsgathering will be on display at Washington's new Newseum, scheduled to open Oct. 15.
Thomson And Reuters Confirm Merger Talks
By In The News
Two of the world's largest information companies, Thomson and Reuters, have confirmed that they are in discussions to combine the two businesses.
Clear Channel Delays Buyout Vote
By AP
Clear Channel Communications Inc. on May 7 delayed a vote on a proposed $19.35 billion buyout of the radio and billboard company and said it was talking to the potential buyers about a revised offer.
Report: WSJ Editors Held Story Of Murdoch Bid
By Reuters
Some Wall Street Journal editors knew that News Corp. was making a $5 billion bid for the paper's parent, Dow Jones & Co., at least a week before the news broke elsewhere, but the NY Times reports they did not publish it.
SJC Upholds Judge's Libel Victory Over The Herald
By Raja Mishra and Andrew C. Ryan, Boston Globe
Massachusetts' highest court upheld a $2.01 million libel verdict against the Boston Herald yesterday in a sharply worded decision calling the newspaper's 2002 articles about Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy "defamatory and false."
Stamping Out Diverse Voices
By NY Times
It seems the steep new postage-rate increases for periodicals, scheduled to begin on July 15, will inflict undue hardship on small independent magazines that do much to inform the national discourse on politics and culture.
NBC, Viacom Join In Copyright Battle With YouTube
By AFP
US television giant NBC Universal sided with Viacom in a legal campaign to force YouTube to vigilantly filter copyrighted material from its popular video-sharing website.
Radio Free Harp Says: Save Internet Radio!
By John Schacht, Harp Magazine
If you're among the 50 million monthly webcast listeners who enjoy Internet radio's more eclectic independent sites, you better enjoy it now, because on July 15 it could all come to an end.
The Arab Media Paradox
By Marc Lynch, Abu Aardvark
Before giving in to despair at the bleak realities of the region's media, it is worth remembering how far the Arab media has come in only a decade.
Forced To Be Armed
This is a true story made by Iraqi radio journalist Zainab from Al Najaf. In this video she documents the story of her close friend who was kidnapped by militias when they saw him carrying a camera and a gun. Watch Here
Locked Out: The Lack of Gender and Ethnic Diversity on Cable News Continues
By Media Matters
During the recent controversy over Don Imus' remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team, some cable-news viewers may have noticed something unusual: the presence of significantly more African-Americans. But does this prove real diversity exists within the medium?
Media Power In The Campaign
By Dante Chinni, Christian Science Monitor
New web tools like social networking and high-quality video make campaigns more competitive, but other factors boost old media's power.
Eight More Reasons To Distrust Rupert Murdoch
By Jack Shafer, Slate
The Wall Street Journal may not be a perfect newspaper, but its pages consistently run counter to its economic interests-that is, if the paper can bruise a misbehaving business with a well-reported story, it does. The same goes for advertisers. The same can't be said for Rupert Murdoch.
Hurdles Loom In Deal For Reuters
By Aaron O. Patrick, Wall Street Journal
Thomson Corp. and Reuters Group PLC's ambitious plan to create the world's largest supplier of financial data and news could face regulatory hurdles as it would narrow the market to two main competitors from three.
Coulter: Obama Poll Lead Helps Al-Qaida
By Alan Fram, AP
A recent Newsweek poll showing Democrat Barack Obama leading top Republican presidential hopefuls could have been made up and might help al-Qaida, conservative commentator Ann Coulter said in her latest verbal broadside.
Arab Journalists To Launch Press Watchdog
AFP
Journalists from five Arab countries are to launch a media watchdog group in reaction to what they call increased restrictions on press workers in the region, its founders said Tuesday.
Where's The Paper?
By Robert W. McChesney & Glenn Harlan Reynolds, LA Times
What will be the first major American city without a daily newspaper? Will it matter? All this week, Glenn Reynolds and Robert McChesney debate the future of media.
The Umpteenth Epistle To The Bancrofts
By Michael Calderone, The New York Observer
Dow Jones newsrooms are campaigning in droves to sink the Murdoch bid once and for all.
Old Media Turns Combative Against New Media
By Kenneth Li, Reuters
Leading media executives took a combative tone against Internet companies on Tuesday, suggesting that Big Media increasingly considers new content distributors like Google Inc. to be more foe than friend.
Data Says 2.5 Million Less Watching TV
By David Bauder, Associated Press
In TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.
C4 Accused Of Falsifying Data In Documentary On Climate Change
By Steve Connor, The Independent
The makers of a Channel 4 documentary which claimed that global warming is a swindle have been accused of fabricating data by one of the scientists who participated in the film.
US Press Ignores Post-Election Riots In France
Mark Crispin Miller: "The US press has had a lot to say about Sarkozy -- his 'style,' his taste for certain things American, etc. -- but, oddly, hardly anything about the people of his nation, a/k/a 'the electorate.' A good many of them seem not to be very happy with his victory; and there is also that wee matter of the e-voting machinery that 'malfunctioned' all over eastern France." Watch Here
Take Action: Stamp Out Rate Hikes
By Free Press
Time Warner is pushing an unfair hike in postal rates that would stifle America's independent press. It's time stand up for independent media. Send a letter to Congress and the US Postal Service.
Pope's Abortion Comments Changed By Vatican
By Tracy Wilkinson, LA Times
The pope, it turns out, has an editor. Fallout from comments Benedict XVI made about abortion and excommunication has been so intense that the Vatican simply changed the record.
Judge Dread
By Adam Reilly, The Phoenix
The SJC's libel ruling won't cripple the media -- but it could seriously hurt the Boston Herald.
You Can't Say That!
By David Hinckley, NY Daily News
Bad-boy radio hosts Opie and Anthony yesterday topped even their infamous 2002 "Sex in St. Pat's" stunt, serving up a homeless man's profane declaration that he'd like to rape Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth.
Hip-Hop And The Corporate Function Of Colonization
By Jared A. Ball, Green Institute
Within the last few weeks alone we have seen recent decisions and trends evolve demonstrating the intent and need among those in power to further ensure that mass media will perform its primary function of manipulating popular consciousness.
Facts On Dow Jones Deal Changing
By Greg Farrell, USA Today
There's another new twist in the investigation into unusual trading in Dow Jones shares prior to the disclosure of a takeover bid that sent the stock skyrocketing last week.
Local News Reporting Outsourced To India
By Alex Pham, LA Times
When is local journalism not really local? When it's about Pasadena and written by someone in India.
GOP Debate Has Talk Shows Buzzing
By Mark Jurkowitz, PEJ
The day after the May 3 Republican presidential debate in California, the verdict started rolling in on America's talk shows.
Filmmaker Ken Burns, Hispanic Veterans Reach Settle Dispute On WWII Documentary
By AP
Filmmaker Ken Burns says he will add stories about Hispanics and their contributions during World War II to his upcoming public television series "The War."
Thailand Drops Plan To Sue Google
By AP
The Thai government abruptly scrapped plans to sue Google after the U.S. company agreed to remove from a Web site video clips deemed insulting to the country's revered king.
Media Outlets Unite For Free Speech
By Katharine Murphy, The Age
Australia's largest newspaper, TV and radio companies will set aside their traditional rivalries to unite behind a new public campaign to protect free speech.
Iraq's Own Pentagon (News)Papers
By Jim Lobe, Asia Times
A new NSA report reveals that before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US Pentagon planned to create a "Rapid Reaction Media Team" to ensure control over major Iraqi media while providing an Iraqi "face" for its efforts.
TV Station Begins Chavez Assault On Europe
By Expatica
Telesur, the television network promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a corrective to what he sees as the biased coverage of Latin America by U.S. media conglomerates, views Spain as the bridgehead for a campaign to win an audience in Europe.
Meet (and Support) Your MediaChannel
In this video clip you get to meet the staff of MediaChannel.org. Help us keep fighting by making a tax-deductible donation here. Watch Here
The Stable Of Cable As A Poster Child
By Danny Schechter
When it comes to cable television, what we need is more regulation in the public interest and rules to insure that the needs of viewers come before the needs of advertisers and highly paid cable executives.
Vanishing Graphics And Creative Camera Work Gave Fox News Viewers A Better Look At The Former Miss Canada
By Media Matters
Fox News featured an interview with human rights activist and former Miss Canada Nazanin Afshin-Jam. While she was on camera, however, the virtually omnipresent text at the bottom of the screen vanished, offering viewers an unobstructed view of Afshin-Jam, wearing a low-cut top.
Newspapers Are Killing Cartoonists--Another Brilliant Business Move
By Tony Dokoupil, Columbia Journalism Review
Have editorial cartoons been silenced by "fearful editors" who want to, among other things, "appease conservatives?"
Web Opens New World For Young Chinese, But Erodes Respect
By Peter Ford, Christian Science Monitor
Armed with outside ideas and information, Internetting Chinese teens are challenging their teachers. And some schools welcome it.
The Matt Drudge Primary
By Michael Scherer, Salon
How professional political operatives secretly control the news you read about the 2008 campaign. Hint: It involves the Drudge Report.
Tech Leaders Tell Congress: Net Neutrality Fuels Innovation
By Save the Internet
Chad Hurley, chief executive and co-founder of YouTube, went to Washington this week to testify on behalf of an open Internet, saying that a non-discriminatory Internet was the key to the success of YouTube and other Web innovations.
Senators Throw Support Behind Internet Radio
By Martin H. Bosworth, ConsumerAffairs.Com
Two Senators have introduced legislation that would overturn a decision that threatens to put Internet radio broadcasters and stations out of business due to crippling new royalty payments.
Two More Cyber-Dissidents Get Long Jail Terms In Stalinist Trial
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage at the prison sentences which a Hanoi people's court imposed today on two human rights lawyers and cyber-dissidents at end of a trial lasting only four hours.
Commentary: Latinos Give PBS A History Lesson
By Ruben Navarrette, Jr., CNN
There is an ongoing battle between filmmaker Ken Burns and a coalition of Hispanic veterans, organizations and lawmakers over plans by Burns and the Public Broadcasting System to release a documentary on World War II that ignores the 500,000 Hispanics who fought in the war.
'Dog' Gone! CBS Axes Radio Show After Prank
By Adam Nichols, The NY Daily News
The Don Imus effect took down more shock jocks yesterday after an Asian-mocking joke left CBS radio execs with another hole in their schedule.
Don't Mess Up Cable TV
The Times Reporter
The Ohio Senate approved a bill this week that would radically alter the way cable companies operate in Ohio.
Al Jazeera: Media and Mythology
Al Jazeera's Listening Post takes a look at US media coverage of Pentagon propaganda concerning Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. Watch Here
------
From Greg Palast
RFK: Rove And Rove's Brain, 'Should be in jail,' Not In Office
Monday, May 7, 2007
NEW YORK -- Voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for prison time for the new US Attorney for Arkansas, Timothy Griffin and investigation of Griffin's former boss, Karl Rove, chief political advisor to President Bush.
"Timothy Griffin," said Kennedy,"who is the new US attorney in Arkansas, was actually the mastermind behind the voter fraud efforts by the Bush Administration to disenfranchise over a million voters through 'caging' techniques - which are illegal."
[Hear Kennedy on Griffin, Rove and 'caging lists' at www.GregPalast.com]
Kennedy based his demand on the revelations by BBC reporter Greg Palast in the new edition of his book, "Armed Madhouse." On one page of the book, Palast reproduces a copy of a confidential Bush-Cheney campaign email, dated August 26, 2004, in which Griffin directs Republican operatives to use the 'caging' lists.
This is one of the emails subpoenaed by Congress but supposedly "lost" by Rove's office. Palast obtained 500 of these, fifty with 'caging' lists attached.
'Caging' lists are "absolutely illegal" under the Voting Rights Act, noted Kennedy on his Air America program, Ring of Fire. The 1965 law makes it a felony crime to challenge voters when race is a factor in the targeting. African-American voters comprised the bulk of the 70,000 voters 'caged' in a single state, Florida.
Palast wrote in his book, "Here's how the scheme worked. The Bush campaign mailed out letters," particularly targeting African-American soldiers sent overseas. When the letters sent to the home addresses of the soldiers came back "undeliverable" because the servicemen were in Baghdad or elsewhere, the Republican Party would, "challenge the voter's registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted."
The Republicans successfully challenged "at least one million" votes of minority voters in the 2004 election.
Kennedy, a voting rights attorney, fumed, "What he [Griffin] did was absolutely illegal and he should be in jail. Instead [Griffin] was rewarded with the US Attorney's office."
"They [Griffin, Rove and their confederates at the RNC] knew it was illegal."
Kennedy has called on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to expand their investigations of the firing of US Attorneys to include a probe of their replacements, especially Griffin, as well as Rove's knowledge of the caging operation.
In preparation for just such an investigation, Kyle Sampson, former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, wrote a confidential email, dated December 19, 2006 outlining a strategy to stall Congress' from questioning the propriety of the Griffin appointment. We should gum this to death," wrote Sampson, "Ask the senators to give Tim a chance . . . then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course."
Sampson has since resigned.
Palast said, "Just as Rove is known as 'Bush's brain,' Griffin is 'Rove's Brain.' I'm flattered by his 'review.'"
Palast first reported on the caging list operation for BBC Television's premier current affairs show, Newsnight, in 2004. In a February 7, 2007 email obtained by subpoena from Rove's office, Griffin boasted that, "No [US] national media picked up" the BBC story. Griffin attached an excerpt of Armed Madhouse.
Griffin sent his remarks to Monica Goodling, Senior Counsel to Attorney General Gonzales, who has since resigned and invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answer Congressional questions.
Griffin and Rove refused several requests from Palast and BBC to respond to charges of illegal, racial 'caging' of voters. However, a Republican spokeswoman, while admitting the lists could be used to challenge soldiers' votes, said that was 'not the purpose' for gathering the lists.
Naked neo-cons: Perjury and the Big, Bad Wolfowitz
by Greg Palast
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
George Bush is trying to save Paul Wolfowitz' job as President of the World Bank even after the vulpine neo-con was caught slipping a load of World Bank loot to his love interest, Shaha Ali Riza.
Big deal. Yes, Wolfowitz shouldn't have been greasing his cookie sheet with government funds, but there are bigger reasons to toss The Wolf out the door.
Like, say, perjury and homicide? I haven't forgotten, Mr. Wolfowitz, that on March 27, 2003 you testified before the US Congress that the occupation of Iraq wouldn't cost the American taxpayer a penny.
You said, "There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money." Oh, really?
When Wolfowitz laid down that line of jive, he and the Bushes knew that Americans just can't pass up a bargain, and here The Wolf was offering the sale of the century, a "free Iraq." Not "free" as in "self-governing" but "free" as in, we'll get their oil and their allegiance for nothing!
We can bomb Iraq and the Iraqis will pay for the bombs!
And where will the Iraqis, holding nothing but bushel-bags of Saddam dinars, get these billions of US dollars to pay for the Occupation?
Wolfowitz testified, "The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the next two or three years."
Is that so?
Wolfie's claim was no small matter. It's hard to remember, but lots of the Congressional debate was not about Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction -- the New York Times had already found those for us. Senators were asking, What's this little war going to cost us? There was no way in hell Congress would have authorized Bush's big adventure if it cost $100 billion.
Indeed, $100 billion was the price projected by the President's chief economist, Larry Lindsey. The President corrected Lindsey's math: Bush fired him.
You know the punchline: The war has so far cost the U.S. taxpayer over half a trillion dollars - and counting.
But you weren't wrong, Wolfie. You were lying. And you knew it.
This is serious stuff. I can tell you, as a former government racketeering investigator: if you are wrong, well, stuff happens. But if you say one thing under oath but knew something very different, that, Mr. Wolfowitz, is perjury. Perjury's a felony, Wolf, and you know it. Indeed, your neo-con buddy, Elliott Abrams, was convicted in 1991 for lying to Congress about Reagan's arms-for-hostage swap.
So, did Wolfowitz perjure himself - or just get it wrong? While the question never crossed the mind of the Sheep-o-witz US press, which repeated Wolf's no-cost-invasion claim unchallenged, my producer at BBC Television asked me to investigate.
I learned that Wolfowitz, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, would have gotten his numbers from the expert official designated to measure Iraq's oil, Guy Caruso. Caruso once ran the CIA's oil ops; now he's the head of Bush's Energy Information Administration. A source close to Caruso (in Saudi intelligence, no less) told me the ex-spook heard Wolfowitz' testimony and said, "What are they getting this from?"
In 2004, I confronted Caruso in his Department of Energy office in Washington. Nice man. Caruso knows his stuff. And, after an hour of technical jibberish, he told me the info he gave Wolfowitz' department -- and the numbers didn't add up to anything close to Wolfowitz' Iraq oil windfall.
I then checked Caruso's numbers with his own numbers man, another ex-CIA oil expert, Robert Ebel. I asked Ebel about the Wolfowitz claim of an oil gusher in Iraq that would pay for the US Occupation. Ebel wouldn't answer until after the cameras were off. But I wasn't asked to keep it off the record.
Ebel told me he had put the real numbers up on a think tank website just before the Humvees rolled into Baghdad. His projections conflicted big time with the fantasy facts to which Wolfowitz testified. Ebel told me that allies of neo-con conman Ahmad Chalabi asked Ebel to remove and bury the realistic numbers. He did.
Did Wolfowitz lie? Ebel smiled, "It was just part of the sales pitch, wasn't it?"
The sales pitch?? WAR FOR SALE - CHEAP!
Well, you can say that one man's sales pitch is another man's perjury. If Wolfowitz had knowingly concealed the Caruso team's findings while testifying under oath, then The Wolf is guilty of a felony. Moreover, perjury which leads to death is homicide.
But he's off the hook. I checked the record. Ever since his crony Abrams was charged with perjury, Wolfowitz won't testify under oath. Nor will any of the Bushies.
Wolfowitz did not raise his hand and swear to "tell the whole truth, so help me, God." The Wolf's home free. How the Lord will judge this loophole, I can't say.
So, no perjury charge for Wolfowitz. Of course there's another crime. His getting caught icing his cupcake, Ms. Riza, with World Bank funds, forces millions of innocent morning newspaper readers to suffer visions of these two neo-cons naked and nasty. Urgh!
Still, one can't but help be touched by the romantic side of this story. After all, here were two people of different faiths, sharing their intense love . . . of money, secrets and lies.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild, from which this report is adapted. For more info and to order your copy of his latest book go to www.GregPalast.com
-----
From OilWatchdog.org
Gov. Schwarzenegger Challenged With Citizen Petition
Can Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger break his peculiar silence on the biggest consumer crisis of his administration? Or will he be like Gov. Gray Davis during the California energy crisis of 2001, fumbling as the state nearly went dark?
Help push the issue by signing OilWatchdog's new gasoline price petition to Schwarzenegger and the top leaders of the Legislature.
The petition calls for a special legislative session, which would acknowledge the seriousness of Big Oil's grip on California's economy. The most obvious solution is for the state to regulate refineries as though they were public utilities (like electric companies), and require a supply that's sufficient to prevent these ridiculous, profiteering price spikes.
Arnold doesn't have to care what it costs to fill his Hummer--that would be $112 for the H2. But he seems weighed down by the $3.8 million in contributions he and his committees have gotten from the oil industry.
Gasoline prices have kept us busy, but there are other juicy bits on OilWatchdog.
Bulldog Simpson is not bowing to the UC Berkeley's faculty wimpiness, and is encouraging students to keep up the pressure on the school to re-do its “Big Oil U” contract with BP. Simpson also warned oil execs to match their actions to their newly green words, because it wasn't really lying about sex that took down Lord Browne of BP. And he's got a good take on why Chevron is settling its bribery beef with the government.
Jamie Court takes apart the oil industry's whines about OilWatchdog. And remember OilWatchdog's hot fuel campaign? The LA Times front-pages the issue today, and we've heard there will be a Congressional hearing next month.
You can check out OilWatchdog on NBC Nightly News last night by following this link, then clicking on the "Nightly News" tab, then on the article titled "Gas prices continue to climb". Oil industry spokesmen are making it a point to rebut us in the media at every opportunity, which means they're worried. Yippee!
So read on, sign on to OilWatchdog, tell your friends about the petition.
Sincerely,
Judy Dugan
Here are the recent posts from OilWatchdog.org:
Hot Fuel Breaks Cold Silence?
by Court, 05-09-2007
Will today's front page Los Angeles Times story, "You may not be getting all you pay for at the pump?" help stop at least one gasoline scam? We want your comments on how to break the political silence on other gasoline issues.
Read More
TAGS: cash register politics | Chevron | Hot Fuel | Influence | Record prices | ...
Wiping The Slate Clean
by Simpson, 05-08-2007
Chevron is reported close to a deal avoiding any criminal charges that it paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. It may cost $30 million, but helps open the way to tap Iraqi oil again.
Read More
TAGS: Chevron | Greed | Misdeeds | Profiteering | Supply | The Industry | ...
Yes, We Have a Petition!
by dugan, 05-08-2007
Day One and counting for the OilWatchdog readers' gasoline price petition to government. First California, then Congress.
Read More
TAGS: cash register politics | Influence | Price Gouging | Price spike | ...
PRESS RELEASE: Petition Urges Curbs On CA Gas Prices
by J.Dugan & J.Court, 05-07-2007
Petition urges governor, legislature to act now on spiraling gasoline prices. ...
Read More
TAGS: Greed | Influence | Misdeeds | News Releases | Price Gouging | ...
UCB Students Plan Demonstration
by Simpson, 05-07-2007
Berkeley students who don't want their school to become the next campus to join Big Oil U plan a demonstration Tuesday. Join if you can.
Read More
TAGS: Big Oil U | BP | Environment | Global Warming | Greenwashing | ...
Public Rage=Senate Action?
by dugan, 05-06-2007
Public rage over record gasoline prices and oil company profits may have put a little spine into the US Senate, over making oil companies pay up on drilling royalties.
Read More
TAGS: Chevron | Influence | Misdeeds | Price Gouging | Price spike | ...
Who's Bad for Business?
by Court, 05-05-2007
In response to our recent report about California gouging, oil industry flack Tupper Hull says we hate businesses, but it's oil companies who are showing the true animosity.
Read More
TAGS: Chevron | Greed | Misdeeds | Price Gouging | Price spike | ...
Let This Be A Lesson
by Simpson, 05-04-2007
Big Oil executives can learn a lot from the departure of Lord John Browne as BP chief executive. It wasn't really about a messy personal scandal. Rather it was about his failure to match talk and action.
Read More
TAGS: BP | CEO compensation | Environment | Greed | Greenwashing | ...
Hawaii Takes Action, Sees Result
by dugan, 05-04-2007
Hawaii's politicians are taking some control over gasoline prices. Hello? Where's the California Legislature, now that the state is 20 cents above Hawaii?
Read More
TAGS: Chevron | Misdeeds | Price Gouging | Profits | Supply | The Industry | ...
Read More: OilWatchdog.org
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From HuffPo
Arianna Huffington: Paris, the President, and Accountability: That's Hot!
AP
Excerpted from Arianna Huffington's Blog:
So it's finally happening: accountability. At long last, a prominent public figure is being punished for serial reckless behavior and the willful denial of its consequences. Unfortunately, the public figure in question is Paris Hilton, not George W. Bush. The good news is that, for better or worse, Paris has always been a trend setter (without her, we never would have had the Kim Kardashian sex tape or Britney flashing her privates in public). Maybe her high-profile punishment will lead to more high-profile accountability. Starting with Alberto Gonzales and Paul Wolfowitz. And, of course, the president...
Click here to read more.
ON THE BLOG TODAY
Christy Turlington: The Promise of Sustainability
Stacy Parker Aab: Sen. Obama Spoke of Miracles, and I Hope Detroit Listened
Patt Morrison: Sex [R] or Money [D]?
Robert Naiman: If Congress Voted on Public Opinion, We'd Have a Veto-Proof Withdrawal Plan
Jeff Ballinger: Condi Snoozed While Chevron Paid Off Saddam
AP
Because she's a Russia scholar, Secretary Rice will be quite familiar with Lenin's term, "useful idiot." Near the end of her decade on Chevron's board (she joined it in 1991 while a professor at Stanford University), the corporation cooked up the very responsible-sounding "The Chevron Way to a Strong Board." As chairman of the "Public Policy Committee," she should have been tuned in to the open secret of kickbacks being paid to Saddam starting in June 2000 (everyone in the industry knew, according to investigators quoted in the International Herald Tribune).
While she left the board to head the National Security Council seven months later, there was plenty of time to keep Chevron from buying millions of barrels of crude from Iraq and sending around $20 million to Saddam's private accounts and "pet projects" like aiding Russian whacko bigot, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
"The Chevron Way to a Strong Board," after all, emphasized "ensuring that management and the CEO lay the company's problems out on the table," according to CEO at the time, Kenneth Derr. Sounds really thoughtful and, like most Corporate Social Responsibility blather, aimed at concrete problems. Problem is, even the top officials can be faked out or lack interest in flagging the most blatant acts of cupidity.
Click here to read more.
ON THE BLOG TODAY
Jane Smiley: George W. Bush with Brains
Benjamin R. Barber: Misreading the French Election
Barbara Ehrenreich: Better to be a Chimpanzee
Ian Shapiro: A Strategic Opening to Iran?
Marty Kaplan: It's the Constitution, Stupid
AP
"Okay, this is a lightning round. How many of you believe in evolution? Raise your hands. Thank you. Now how many of you believe in the Rapture? Is that hand up or down, Senator McCain? Okay, thanks. Now this is multiple choice, so please listen to the whole question first. How many pairs of chromosomes do you think people should have: 23, less than 23, or more than 23? Ready? Okay, who says 23? One, two, three, four, five, six hands. Less than 23? I'm sorry Mayor Giuliani, you can only pick one. All right, who says more than 23?"
Can you think of a stupider way for a great nation to choose its leader than the one we have?
We pore over polls whose margins of error are plus or minus 5%, even plus or minus 8%, and pretend that the results -- which are essentially a wash, and which from week to week are in fact a mute still-life, not snapshots of a thrilling trend line -- actually mean something. We pay attention to national head-to-head polls, as if the popular vote actually had anything to do with the electoral college system that produces presidents.
Click here to read more.
ON THE BLOG TODAY
John Ridley: Stop the Presses: Al Sharpton's a Hatemongering Hypocrite
Cecile Richards: My Response to the McCain Campaign's Attacks on Planned Parenthood
Brian Unger: The Evolution of George Tenet
Chris Kelly: Medved Minute 5/9
Arianna Huffington: Tony Blair's Legacy: George Bush's Iraq Trump Card
AP
With Tony Blair putting a date-specific on his slow-bleed resignation, we can expect the floodgates to open on stories analyzing his ten year run as prime minister and the impact he had on America.
"Hand on heart," he said in announcing he will leave office at the end of June, "I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That's your call. But believe one thing: I did what I thought was right for our country."
Maybe so, but his hand-on-heartfelt convictions had dire consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Blair was exactly what George W. Bush needed to sell his fraudulent and immoral war in Iraq to the American public: a seemingly reasonable and non-partisan stamp of international approval (after all, he'd been bosom buddies with Bill Clinton, hadn't he?). Blair enabled the Bush myth that the invasion of Iraq was a coalition effort, that it wasn't just Mongolia, Moldova, Singapore, Poland, and Tonga making up the Coalition of the Willing to Go Along. It was Britain. Great Britain.
Click here to read more.
ON THE BLOG TODAY
Ari Emanuel: In Defense of Chris Albrecht
Rep. Jim Moran: How to Shut Down Gitmo
Jonathan Alter: How Radar Sideswiped Me and Tom Edsall
Jay Rosen: "Something Quite Breathtaking." My Exchange with Neil Lewis of the New York Times
Arianna Huffington: Bill Maher, Frank Luntz, and the Limitations of Reframing Reality
AP
At the moment, everyone is giving advice to the Democrats about how to beat the Republican spinmeisters. Even Republican spinmeisters. On the latest Real Time with Bill Maher, it was GOP language guru Frank Luntz dishing out advice to me, Paula Poundstone, and anyone else who would listen.
Frank is the supreme reality reframer who took the estate tax and turned it into the "death tax," turned school vouchers into "opportunity scholarships," and turned drilling for oil in a wildlife preserve into "responsible energy exploration."
It is Frank's contention that the reason Democrats keep losing presidential races they should win is that they are too critical, too negative, and too angry. Really? Anyone remember the '04 Democratic convention where the Kerry campaign had put the kibosh on all expressions of anger and Bush-bashing?
Click here to read more.
ON THE BLOG TODAY
Gary Hart: The American Security Project
David Bromwich: Blair's Kaleidoscope
Andy Borowitz: Next Week's News
Van Jones: 15 Years Ago: Rodney King Uprising Left LA in Flames -- And Me in Jail!
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And now for something you'll really like!
Suffering from more “senior moments” than you'd care to admit? Then turn up your speakers, click this link, and get ready to smile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yN-6PbqAPM
Don't forget to check out The Dilbert Blog:
posted by The Scallion @ 4:56 PM
