Sam Supports Security Taps

"sam supporty????"

Casey,

The question some people may have to decide is if his anti-choice stance is worth his support of invasions of privacy and breaking the 4th ammendment.

Anyone hear the clangs of democracy slamming shut?

Hang in there, Cap'n. It ain't over 'til the Liberty Lady sings.

what part of "impeach" don't you understand, Mr. Bush?,
Otter

Read what the apologists are saying:

Unwarranted Complaints

By DAVID B. RIVKIN and LEE A. CASEY

SHORTLY after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush ordered surveillance of international telephone communications by suspected members of Al Qaeda overseas, even if such calls also involved individuals within the United States. This program was adopted by direct presidential order and was subject to review every 45 days. Judicial warrants for this surveillance were neither sought nor obtained, although key members of Congress were evidently informed. The program's existence has now become public, and howls of outrage have ensued. But in fact, the only thing outrageous about this policy is the outrage itself.

(there's more)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/opinion/27casey.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

OC...

Yeppers, look who penned the article...

David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey are lawyers who served in the Justice Department in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations.

Bruce Schneier wrote an excellent analysis of the Bush administration's Fourth Amendment violations and its push for unchecked presidential power in last week's Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Here are some salient excerpts from Schneier's article. The complete text is available at: http://tinyurl.com/d7jf7

-----

[snip]

This isn't about the spying, although that's a major issue in itself. This is about the Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search. This is about circumventing a teeny tiny check by the judicial branch, placed there by the legislative branch, placed there 27 years ago -- on the last occasion that the executive branch abused its power so broadly.

[snip]

This rationale was spelled out in a memo written by John Yoo, a White House attorney, less than two weeks after the attacks of 9/11. It's a dense read and a terrifying piece of legal contortionism, but it basically says that the president has unlimited powers to fight terrorism. He can spy on anyone, arrest anyone, and kidnap anyone and ship him to another country ... merely on the suspicion that he might be a terrorist. And according to the memo, this power lasts until there is no more terrorism in the world.

[snip]

Yoo then says: "The terrorist incidents of September 11, 2001, were surely far graver a threat to the national security of the United States than the 1998 attacks. ... The President's power to respond militarily to the later attacks must be correspondingly broader."

This is novel reasoning. It's as if the police would have greater powers when investigating a murder than a burglary.

[snip]

Investigations, arrests and trials are not tools of war. But according to the Yoo memo, the president can define war however he chooses, and remain "at war" for as long as he chooses.

This is indefinite dictatorial power. And I don't use that term lightly; the very definition of a dictatorship is a system that puts a ruler above the law. In the weeks after 9/11, while America and the world were grieving, Bush built a legal rationale for a dictatorship. Then he immediately started using it to avoid the law.

[snip]

This is not a partisan issue between Democrats and Republicans; it's a president unilaterally overriding the Fourth Amendment, Congress and the Supreme Court. Unchecked presidential power has nothing to do with how much you either love or hate George W. Bush. You have to imagine this power in the hands of the person you most don't want to see as president, whether it be Dick Cheney or Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michael Moore or Ann Coulter.

Laws are what give us security against the actions of the majority and the powerful. If we discard our constitutional protections against tyranny in an attempt to protect us from terrorism, we're all less safe as a result.

-----

it ain't just about a blue dress this time,
Otter

Wow - was Bush spying on other political officials?!!!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/27/24227/922

May take awhile to open at Kos, so here's an excerpt, which comes from Wayne Madsen:

United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18, the NSA's "Bible" for the conducting of surveillance against U.S. persons, allows "U.S. material," i.e., listening to U.S. persons, to be used for training missions. However, USSID 18 also requires that all intercepts conducted for such training missions are to be completely destroyed after completion of the training operation.

In the case of Bolton and other Bush administration hardliners, the material in question was not deleted and was transmitted in raw intercept form to external agencies for clearly political purposes--a violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and USSID 18, which only allows such raw training mission intercepts to be transmitted when evidence of criminal activity is uncovered during the training mission.

The beneficiary of Bolton's felonious acts are none other than Dick Cheney and Irving Libby!

Intelligence community insiders claim that a number of State Department and other government officials may have been subject to NSA "training" surveillance and that transcripts between them and foreign officials likely ended up in the possession of Bolton and his neoconservative political allies, including such members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff as David Wurmser (a former assistant to Bolton at State), John Hannah, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The list of NSA targets is breathtaking:

Possible affected individuals include: Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and their conversations with their counterparts and officials around the world; Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns and his telephone conversations with International Atomic Energy Agency director general Mohammed el Baradei... (Bolton was frozen out of negotiations between Burns, Britain, and Libya over the stand-down of the Libyan weapons of mass destruction program)... various phone calls made by Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board Brent Scowcroft...New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and his telephone conversations with Secretary of State Powell and North Korea's deputy UN ambassador Han Song Ryol; phone conversations between Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden and his Iranian counterpart, Majlis foreign affairs chair Mohsen Mirdamad, and between Biden, his staff, and William Burns and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman; and President Jimmy Carter's phone conversations with Cuban officials before and during his May 2002 trip to Cuba (Carter said he found no evidence to support Bolton's claims of Cuban biological weapons development).

The diarist speculates:

Before George admitted to spying, I looked at Madsen's NSA sources as tin foil hat overdrive.  Well hand me an aluminum  cap, because this looks all too feasible now and fits into the Bush administration pattern of behavior of Machiavillian tactics.  Bush and Dick wouldn't go to FISA because they were illegally spying on Americans for political gain, not for national security purposes, and FISA would not grant a warrant for such clearly unconstitutional actions.  

Glad to see discussions started about Alito.
Casey your statement: "However, if I were the Bush administration, I would advise him to answer and defend his reasoning forcefully" is a pipe dream. Don't expect Alito to answer anything about Bush's wire tapping controversy as it in all likelihhod will land on the Supreme Court's desk.
Perhaps asking Alito if he agrees that the Nixon tapes should have been turned over to the Watergate Committee and Sam Irwin and was correctly decided would remind Americans that Bush's behavior is far worse than Nixon's and that there are limits to the Executive Privilige and National Security defense. We should be told by Alito to lay out exactly what are the limits to a Presidential assertion of National Security or Executive Privilige and perhaps asking Alito his feelings aboout the Saturday Masacre and firing of Archibold Cox. I agree with dick's post about Impeachment yesterday, I would just be more subtle about the approach and Alito's hearings would be the perfect time to start raising these legal issues. Alito appears to be much more doctrinaire than Roberts, who seems to be more of an appropriate fit for the Supreme Ct. Alito reminds me of Bork without the goatie and with a calmer temperament.

Posted by: marc trager at December 27, 2005 10:49 AM

Marc,

And if you read the last paragraph in there, it seems to believe the President was given limitless authority during wartime.

This however is not true.

from reading all 75 comments following the Kos article about spying on other politicians, I can see that some do not consider Wayne Madsen a credible source. One gentleman, however, offers also the following:

Sen Rockefeller, in May, 2005, sums up the Bolton NSA problem as follows:

State Department records indicate that Mr. Bolton requested the minimized identities of nineteen U.S. persons contained in ten NSA signals intelligence reports. These requests were processed by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). In each instance, the INR request to the NSA, on behalf of Mr. Bolton, included the justification that the identity of the U.S. person(s) was needed in order to better understand or assess the foreign intelligence value of the information contained in the intelligence report. This is the standard justification required by NSA in order for officials to request the identity of a U.S. person contained in a signals intelligence report.

Based on my personal review of these reports and the context in which U.S. persons are referenced in them, I found no evidence that there was anything improper about Mr. Bolton's ten requests for the identities of U.S. persons.

Rockefeller indicates Bolton jumped through the proper legal hoops in order to gain access to US identities.  But, by NSA refusing to allow SSCI chairs access to either the identities of the US persons, and with Bolton refusing to be questioned on his access, it's clear that Congress was effectively denied any oversight on whether the disclosure of US persons' intercepts was lawful.

Furthermore, based on the information available to me, I do not have a complete understanding of Mr. Bolton's handling of the identity information after he received it.

The Committee has learned during its interview of Mr. Frederick Fleitz, Mr. Bolton's acting Chief of Staff, that on at least one occasion Mr. Bolton is alleged to have shared the un-minimized identity information he received from the NSA with another individual in the State Department. In this instance, the NSA memorandum forwarding the requested identity to State INR included the following restriction: "Request no further action be taken on this information without prior approval of NSA." I have confirmed with the NSA that the phrase "no further action" includes sharing the requested identity of U.S. persons with any individual not authorized by the NSA to receive the identity.

In addition to being troubled that Mr. Bolton may have shared U.S. person identity information without required NSA approval, I am concerned that the reason for sharing the information was not in keeping with Mr. Bolton's requested justification for the identity in the first place. The identity information was provided to Mr. Bolton based on the stated reason that he needed to know the identity in order to better under the foreign intelligence contained in the NSA report. According to Mr. Fleitz, Mr. Bolton used the information he was provided in one instance in order to seek out the State Department official mentioned in the report to congratulate him. This use of carefully minimized U.S. person identity information seems to be not in keeping with the rationale provided in Mr. Bolton's request.

Again, Bolton appears to have improperly shared the name of at least one intercepted US person with INR staff, but not for the reasons he claimed in order to obtain the name of the US official in the first place.

Rockefeller is calling Bolton on his BS, but is helpless, as the Bolton hearings and recess appointment indicate, to do anything about it.

Is Bolton the only official who played the system, and mocked Congress on it?  I doubt it.

I just sent $10 each to Naral, Planned Parenthood & NOW - to help work against Alito confirmation. It's not much but maybe some phone banking etc.

Hey Rummy...

If you can read this...

Bite me b****.

I see the censors are back...

Geez... for a moment I was thinking yall were still laid up from the turkey drugging.

Merry New Year.

Or something like that.

No donations to candidates at the year-end.
I'm sending money to TruthOut, NPR & community radio (KEXP, KSER).

Juan Cole: In Iraq the Killing Resumes
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705I.shtml
A wave of guerrilla bombings and apparently coordinated small arms attacks around north-central Iraq left over 20 dead and over twice as many wounded on Monday. (Actually, it is worse; the average estimated dead in the guerrilla war ranges between 38 and 60 per day, but wire services seldom report more than a fraction of these deaths).

Skyrocketing Number of Vets with Post Tramatic Stress
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705J.shtml
The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

John Yoo: Architect of Imperialism
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705K.shtml
John Yoo knows the epithets of the libertarians, the liberals and the lefties. Widely considered the intellectual architect of the most dramatic assertion of White House power since the Nixon era, he has seen constitutional scholars skewer his reasoning and students call for his ouster from the University of California at Berkeley.

Iraq Vote Shows Sunnis Are Few in New Military
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705L.shtml
An analysis of preliminary voting results released Monday from the December 15 parliamentary election suggests that in contrast to the remarkable surge in Sunni Arab participation in the political process, the Sunnis still have comparatively little representation in the Iraqi security forces.

CIA 'Rendition' Exposed by Cell Phone Use
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705M.shtml
The trick is known to just about every small-time crook in the cellular age: If you don't want police to know where you are, take the battery out of your cell phone when you're not using it. Had that trick been taught at the CIA's rural Virginia training school for covert operatives, the Bush administration might have avoided much of the crisis in Europe over the practice the CIA calls "rendition."

Debate Looms on Citizen Babies
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705N.shtml
A proposal to change long-standing federal policy and deny citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants on US soil ran aground this month in Congress, but it is sure to resurface - kindling bitter debate even if it fails to become law.

Below a Mountain of Wealth, a River of Waste
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705O.shtml
When the company arrived there were several hundred people in the lowland village of Timika. Now it is home to more than 100,000 in a Wild West atmosphere of too much alcohol, shootouts between soldiers and the police, AIDS and prostitution, protected by the military.

The Costly Enron Cleanup
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705Z.shtml
Four years after Enron Corp. collapsed, the Houston energy trader clings to life as "the financial equivalent of a Superfund site," its chairman said. Liquidating Enron's maze of partnerships could cost more than $1 billion.

Dianne Im going to cross post your last post on Reb Nation.. I was just looking at their site thats a great run down.

Hell yes.

Posted by: Christy at December 26, 2005 10:14 PM

Christy,

I'm not an expert in all the ways of the internet and email systems but there are so many reasons for email to be delayed in getting from one person to another that are perfectly legitimate, ie., no one is spying or diverting or reading and deleting. A mail server being down at one end or the other of the ISP's in the link. A mail server overloaded with spam email from one of the viruses so badly that legitimate email can't get through.

That happened at my ISP earlier this year at the same time they were trying to upgrade the spam management / whitelisting software and it was a nightmare. I know that some of my email was bounced and some of it didn't get through their processing for 3-4 days. They basically got hit with a massive Denial of Service attack at the same time they were upgrading and the results were horrid.

I don't know that that is what happened with your system in particular but please understand that there are many very legitimate reasons that email delivery might not be instantaneous.

As for email getting bounced back with an undeliverable message, the most common reason is that the email address was mispelled.

As for the blogger / blogspot problems, that's actually documented. Blogger itself had real problems which are mentioned in this Wired article:

http://wired.com/news/culture/1,67138-0.html

I suspect that is probably what hit your site. It's about the right timeframe when you discovered it and you and I worked on it.

There's also another blogger entry here that talks about more recent Blogger issues:

http://blogging.typepad.com/how_to_blog/2005/12/warning_reports.html

We have a Shadow Government existing within the executive branch.

At some point, the senate will need to decide if it has abandoned the Consitution, or the Republic stands.

there was no misspelling I checked.

I am not saying there is not a LEGIT REASON.

I am saying is it is happening to me constantly. I get that denial message all the time. I send they do not arrive. They send I don't get them.

And it just does seem a little freaky for it to take 4 days.. but if there IS a legit reason OK, but my email is so riddled with problems I absolutely have no faith in its reliability.

None.

For those who followed the Froomkin vs. Harris kerfuffle a few weeks ago, here's an interesting and very in-depth followup on what's happened since then. Lots of embedded links... and some great input from Jay Rosen...

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/12/19/fr_rply.html

WAIT WAIT DW...

If a virus wiped my site clean.. then how is it my PERSONAL postings are STILL THERE but SPLICED into Jan 30th or after.

Looking at it is confusing, because THOSE posts, me introducing myself, my pics,.. those pics are its all there..

BUT THE NEWS IS GONE.

HOW did it DO THAT...???

AND HOW is google ONLY SHOWING my CURRENT DAY, on a google cached pages search...???

If that is the work of a virus... that is one ... clever .. virus.

I am CERTAIN the alteration took place between March and june ..

Im thinking june was when I discovered it.

Because when you get into the guts of how posts are stored vs other specific features of the site like the "About me page", they're stored on different paths / directories on the server.

And as a matter of fact, right now a Google search for rebellenation.blogspot.com with this search argument

"rebelle" site:rebellenation.blogspot.com

produces 507 hits most of which appear to be cached as well.

Yes, Blogger had problems between March and June and people lost parts of their websites including posts. In your case evidently Nov-Dec 2004 and most of Jan 2005.

I remember very clearly my archives were accurate right up until February maybe on into march.

See, that the whole problem with this thing...

I have a MEMORY completely different that what I see, I may be....

WHATEVER clinical term you want to use insert here. I don't care OK Im CRAZY I confess. But Im not SENILE...

I know WHY I do the things I do. I am no mystery to myself. My memory does not just sit there and make up COMPLETELY DIFFERENT REALITIES than the information I absorb every damn day.

Like I said at some point I really really had to DEEPLY question MY OWN MEMORY and I have decided that whatever has happened. I do not know WHAT happened. But whatever it is I have no choice but to TRUST MY OWN MIND.

I KNOW THEY can NOT be trusted. Am I wrong??? I may have a detail wrong ok tell me where Ill accept it, but to have me dismiss my own VERY PRECISE memory of the event....

I do not even kniow HOW to do that. The memories I have are very.. detailed, details that have NEVER CHANGED.

Had I not been WAITING for word on the USS Sna Franscisco.. I may never even have given a second thought to the earthquake until the waves hit.. as it was.. the FIRST reports something was up was a report from NEW ZELAND.. i posted that one.. it was the first i heard of the quake in the SUMATRA TRENCH and high wave activity was being reported there .. cant remember.. something about the conditions it was causing on their shores..

I posted it and both me and Rossi were waiting for word out of diago garcia because i told her US Nuke sub that side of the world they may not report it here so you keep an eye from there.

That report from New Zeland was ... im guestimating... 2 hours BEFORE they annouced tsunami reports.

I know what I remember. I know what THEY say.

I do not know WHAt to believe but I do know I CAN NOT believe THEM.

As a matter of a fact had I not been WAITING on word from the USS San Francisco that morning...

HAD it crashed on jan 7th...

I MOST LIKELY WOULD NEVER HAVE CARED or even BOTHERED to find its name.

there were 260,000 people dead, after the waves I just kinda kept it in mind but there was suddenly OTHER things to post about.

enough already Christy

Yeah..

Enough.

Some how its NEVER satisfactory.. is it..?

Another amazing one... not a single mention of voting machines in the obituary below...

Computer visionary Diebold dead at 79
Consultant pushed businesses to computerize as early as the 1950s

Dec. 27, 2005

NEW YORK - John Diebold, the business visionary who preached computerization as the future of worldwide industry during the era of Elvis and Eisenhower, died Monday at his suburban home. He was 79.

Diebold passed away in Bedford Hills, N.Y., from esophageal cancer, said his nephew, John B. Diebold.

Although Diebold is now hailed as a prophet of the computerized future, his zeal for computers was less than widespread in the 1950s. After graduating from the Harvard Business School in 1951, he was hired by a New York management consulting firm.

But he was fired three times by the company over his insistence that clients should consider computerizing. "I was too early," he once said. "It was before the first computer was installed for business use."

The native of Weehawken, N.J., then laid out his bold vision of a computerized future with his 1952 book "Automation," which presented the radical notion of using programmable devices in daily business. The influential book, since hailed as a management classic, was reissued on the 30th and 40th anniversaries of its publication.

Oddly enough, his vision of the future was conceived while serving in the Merchant Marines during World War II. He watched the ship's anti-aircraft fire control mechanisms, with its crude self-correcting mechanisms, and envisioned adapting the technology for business use.

Diebold, who held degrees in business and engineering, was also responsible for a dozen books —including nine that collected his speeches and scholarly articles.

In 1954, when Elvis Presley was recording in Sun Studios and President Eisenhower was in the White House, Diebold launched his consulting firm John Diebold & Associates. That year, General Electric unveiled the first full-scale computer system for a business.

Diebold was now the go-to guy in a brand-new way of doing business. Over the next half-century, he provided counsel to AT&T, IBM, Boeing and Xerox, along with the cities of Chicago and New York and the countries of Venezuela and Jordan.

He was appointed by President Kennedy in 1963 to the U.S. delegation for the inaugural U.N. Conference on Science and Technology for Developing Countries.

A perfect example of Diebold's influence on daily life was his firm's 1961 creation of an electronic network for the Bowery Savings Bank in New York. The system allowed immediate updates of all transactions, allowing customers to bank at any branch.

His company also developed a network that changed the way hospitals keep their records, allowing researchers to collect medical records and statistics electronically.

Some of his ideas took time to reach fruition. In 1963, Diebold presented newspaper executives with a plan to use keyboards for inputting stories that could be edited on computer consoles — a system that did not became standard until the 1980s.

Diebold is also survived by his wife, Vanessa, along with daughter Joan and son John. Funeral arrangements were incomplete, said his nephew.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10617777/

More:

FOCUS | Norman Solomon: NSA Spied on UN Diplomats in Push for Invasion of Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705Y.shtml
Despite all the news accounts and punditry since the New York Times published its December 16 bombshell about the National Security Agency's domestic spying, the media coverage has made virtually no mention of the fact that the Bush administration used the NSA to spy on UN diplomats in New York before the invasion of Iraq. That spying had nothing to do with protecting the United States from a terrorist attack.

--- I remember when this happened. The UK Observer broke the story. I thought it would be a huge scandal and everyone seemed to ignore it or gloss over it. --- yes, there is at least one of the articles, just as I remembered it, & it has not been wiped from the internet.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html
Revealed: US Dirty Tricks to Win Vote on Iraq War

Here is the original memo that was leaked to the Observer (spellings changed to British):

Sunday March 2, 2003

To: [Recipients withheld]
From: FRANK KOZA, Def Chief of Staff (Regional Targets)
CIV/NSA
Sent on Jan 31 2003 0:16
Subject: Reflections of Iraq Debate/Votes at UN-RT Actions + Potential for Related Contributions
Importance: HIGH
Top Secret//COMINT//X1

All,

As you've likely heard by now, the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for insights as to how to membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE: Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/ negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies, etc - the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals or to head off surprises. In RT, that means a QRC surge effort to revive/ create efforts against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters.

We've also asked ALL RT topi's to emphasize and make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/ debates/ votes. We have a lot of special UN-related diplomatic coverage (various UN delegations) from countries not sitting on the UNSC right now that could contribute related perspectives/ insights/ whatever. We recognize that we can't afford to ignore this possible source.

We'd appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who might have similar, more in-direct access to valuable information from accesses in your product lines. I suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines in formal channels - especially as this effort will probably peak (at least for this specific focus) in the middle of next week, following the SecState's presentation to the UNSC.

Thanks for your help

How many episodes are there of Law and Order..?

And how many times are we required to watch each one..??

Is it wierd to wanna make voodoo dolls of the cast members to stick ice picks through...??

No mention of voting machines..

That is gonzo nuts.

Wow.

DiAnne why wasn't this story brought up during Bolton's confirmation, or was this the info that Biden and Rockefellow had subpoened which was never released by the Whitehouse which would be even more of a scandal. Maybe this is why the Bush Admin. stonewalled the Bolton confirmation hearing.

Ira
It seems to be another example of dots not being connected, although I would think that quite a few people were aware of this if I was!!

This was something like the Downing Street Memo or the 9/11 Commission Report or the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity or the transcriptions of Sybel Edmonds or the lack of Bush attending Guard camp, all of which I would have thought would have been way more important than an intern's blue dress - yet people just went on about their business.

Ira I think heres why..

This is breaking now...

Rice just got sullied..

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/After_domestic_spying_reports_U.S._spying_1227.html

OMFG!!!!!!!!

President Bush and other top officials in his administration used the National Security Agency to secretly wiretap the home and office telephones and monitored private email accounts of members of the United Nations Security Council in early 2003 to determine how foreign delegates would vote on a U.N. resolution that paved the way for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, NSA documents show.

Are they saying what I think they are saying...???

Is bolton BLACKMAILING members of the UN...???

if they have been monitoring them...

Oh man that makes TOO much sense.

Another 2003 story anyone could have read:

UN Launches Inquiry into American Spying
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,910657,00.html

How about:
New York Times, Networks Shun UN Spying Story
http://www.fair.org/activism/un-observer-spying.html

Cover-up.
I started reading http://www.guardian.co.uk on 9/11/2001 and haven't missed a day since. The Observer is their weekend supplement so that's why I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

This is old news and could have been known to any American who was awake. You have to kill your television and read foreign press.

DiAnne; if Bolton was involved in spying on the UN he should be recalled if that is possible, as a real threat to our national security. Perhaps Rep. Conyers office needs to be contacted, although I am sure they have already read this story. It just seems like someone ought to be confronting Bolton about this and having him removed from a job that Biden et al swore he never should have gotten. As I recall, Ohio Republican Senator Voinovich adamently opposed Bolton, maybe this story needs to be emailed to his office and ask that he take action against Bolton.

Look. This is 2-1/2 years ago.

The Observer reported (3/2/03) that the surveillance plan "involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of U.N. delegates in New York." The paper's report is based on a National Security Agency memo that directs the agency to increase its surveillance of Security Council nations in order to monitor their deliberations over Iraq; a "friendly" intelligence service-- evidently Great Britain-- was asked to participate in this operation. The principal targets the surveillance plan is aimed "against" are Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan-- nations the Observer dubs the "middle six," whose votes are considered crucial to an upcoming Security Council resolution that would authorize the use of military force.

In the wake of the Observer article, reports in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times seemed to downplay the importance of the matter. The L.A. Times headlined its March 4 piece "Purported Spy Memo May Add to U.S. Troubles at U.N.," while the subhead read: "'Top secret' document discusses bugging of council members. Forgery or no, some say it's nothing to get worked up about." The lead sentence referred to a "long-standing U.S. practice of spying at the United Nations." The Washington Post's March 4 story, headlined "Spying Report No Shock to U.N.," was similarly unimpressed with the Observer’s findings.

The New York Times has yet to even mention the story, now a full week after it first broke. The Times did, however, find a spying story it deemed worth of coverage (3/10/03): the fact that the White House "has asked more than 60 countries to find and expel several hundred Iraqi diplomats that the C.I.A. and others have identified as suspected intelligence agents." The Times put the article on its front page, although it noted that "it is unclear what proof, if any, the United States [government] is providing to back up its claims that the diplomats are in fact Iraqi intelligence agents."

Ira..

Could Bolton have been there TOO and BY Blackmail of the UN members..??

Pakistan is supposed to be our ally on the war on terrorism.

Here is the rest of what happened? Why?
It is not secret that Editors of the New York Times and Washington Post have recently been called to the White House and asked not to publish information about domestic surveillance without warrants and certainly not to bring up this old stuff about spying on diplomats and government officials during the run-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The network news shows have also not aired any reports about the Observer story either, though that's not to say they weren't initially interested: According to Salon.com (3/4/03), one of the report's authors, Martin Bright, "said that he had agreed to interviews with NBC, CNN, and Fox News Channel-- and that all three had called and canceled." Salon added that the story "has quickly spread throughout the world."

The lack of media interest in the U.S. was partly attributed to the sense that spying on diplomats is not noteworthy. The prominent reporting of this story in the rest of the world, as well as follow-up reporting by the Observer, might suggest otherwise: The paper reported on March 9 that the U.N. is conducting a "top-level investigation" of the matter, while Chilean president Ricardo Lagos is demanding an explanation from British prime minister Tony Blair. The Observer also reported that an employee at Britain's Government Communications Headquarters was arrested "on suspicion of contravening the Official Secrets Act" in connection with the leaked document.

Why is a story that is having such wide impact around the world being nearly ignored by the U.S. press? With a pending U.N. vote on military force perhaps just days away, it would seem newsworthy that the United States is, in the words of the NSA memo, "mounting a surge" in order to obtain "the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises." For some reason, though, major American media outlets have taken a pass.

UN Spying and Evasions of American Journalism
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0226-13.htm

About a year later, Parliamentarian Clare Short blew the whistle on them again, before she quit.

Tony Blair and George W. Bush want the issue of spying at the United Nations to go away. That's one of the reasons the Blair government ended its prosecution of whistleblower Katharine Gun on Wednesday. But within 24 hours, the scandal of U.N. spying exploded further when one of Blair's former cabinet ministers said that British spies closely monitored conversations of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq last year.

The new allegations, which have the ring of truth, are now coming from ex-secretary of international development Clare Short. "I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations," she said in an interview with BBC Radio. "In fact I have had conversations with Kofi in the run-up to war thinking 'Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this and people will see what he and I are saying.'" Short added that British intelligence had been explicitly directed to spy on Annan and other top U.N. officials.

Then the BBC reported on it - here are the Q&A. But Tony Blair refused to help and muddied the waters as much as he could.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3489888.stm

They are saying everybody does this, that the British UN mission in New York is the target of other people trying to eavesdrop on it.

They're saying that this is really a bit of a storm in a teacup, that it's not the same as sort of planting a little microphone on somebody's lapel.

The Foreign Office says: "GCHQ and MI6 never act outside the law, neither here in Britain, nor abroad."

But there is some debate about this.

Malcolm Shaw QC, Professor of International Law at the University of Leicester, said: "It's not legal to bug foreign diplomats, certainly not without their consent.

"With regards to the United Nations this is covered by the UN headquarters agreements as well as general diplomatic law and it is certainly not legal."

The UN also says it is illegal.

If they were monitoring their personal communications...

Things like Annans son... they would not just NOT use that.

Don't forget - one year ago

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive/

Surveillance of Democrats

DiAnne:

We should insist on knowing whether these scumbags infiltrated the Kerry campaign hdqtrs or conference calls.
Recall the Virginia Republican party wiretapped a Conference Call of the Virginia Democratic Party and several Va Republicans would up with 9 month jail sentences.
Why is no one demanding that question be answered, DiAnne?

several Va Republicans ended up with 9 month jail sentences.

Virginia GOP executive director indicted for wiretapping
Ex-Official of Va. GOP Indicted in Eavesdropping
January 24, 2003

Federal prosecutors announced today that the former executive director of the Virginia Republican Party was indicted on felony charges of eavesdropping on Democratic conference calls, reviving a political feud that helped demolish bipartisan cooperation last year.
Edmund A. Matricardi III, 34, who resigned his Virginia GOP post last April following his indictment here on similar state charges, resigned his new position at the South Carolina Republican Party this afternoon after U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty announced the latest indictment alleging violations of the U.S. Wiretap Act.

Hey folks -

I need help! I'm trapped in the neocon world of my inlaws and will be for 5 more days. I need our best ammo. There will be at least 3 occasions where it is three against me, and I need to be able to hold me own.

Send me your best stuff on the big topics of the day!

Christy: I'm not trying to feed anyone's paranoia here, because it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. And I've been meaning to offer you an apology- you were evidently right about the "mercy killings" that you mentioned just after Katrina. I had said that it was outrageous to accuse doctors of murder without any facts, but there's now an ongoing investigation, so there was evidently some truth behind what you said.
I have no doubt that you're right about your blog posts and your missing e-mails. Yes, there are other explanations, butwhen this thing continues to happen, there has to be something behind it. Just listen carefully when you pick up your phone for a click about 10 seconds after the conversation begins. I'm being dead serious here. That was the second thing that happened to me after the e-mails started disappearing.
It's not just politicians or terrorists that this administration is interested in.
I have the most UNparanoid husband in the country, but he began to notice the clicks on the phone line and the hollow sound that followed them. He's convinced that they're after any politically active democrats that they can get to.
It's hard for people to believe if they haven't experienced it.
Watch your back, that's about all I have to say.

Drat. Now I can't remember where I left my tinfoil hat.

the truth is way, way out there,
Otter

Otter- whatever. I really wish it were a tinfoil hat thing.
What disturbs me the most is what small fish they're fishing for with their wiretaps. What you have to imagine is Richard Nixon's paranoia times a million, because that's what we're getting with this administration. And all the stuff I'm talking about happened within a year to a year and a half before the last election.
If your tin foil hat tells you you're not safe- well, sometimes it's even logical to listen to a hat.
And it took years for them to realize that there were two shooters at the Kennedy assassination.
It was just all too unbelievable.

Otter- and it's also true that some people can pick up radio signals through the fillings in their teeth.
Put that in your tin foil Hat :-)
JK

Stocks tumbled Tuesday, with investors bailing out of a variety of sectors in a broad-based end-of-the-year selloff. The losses erased the Dow's slim gains for the year and left the S&P 500 up 3.8 percent and the Nasdaq with a 2.4 percent gain. Investors were bothered by weakness in energy and tech stocks and worries about a slower economy.

Carol- I spent the holidays with a slew of neocons too, but right now, they're all pretty quiet.
I got the impression that, for the first time in 5 years, George W Bush was the last thing they wanted to discuss at the dinner table.
They weren't interested in hearing about bugging American citizens, the new Iraqi/Iranian love-fest, Scooter Libby's indictment, Tom DeLay's indictment, their friends here on the Gulf Coast who can't get help from FEMA.......
They were just pretty quiet. I can't believe yours would be all that argumentative over these holidays either.
It was a nice holiday down here in Talaban city, really.

For all the possible cable guys in here..

Check out this happening..

Me and my friend from Wash State are on the phone. Since Im on dial up we are discussing and she is searching.

We were looking for the Margie Scheodinger case. We were bouncing theories off of each other.

This went on for about two hours into the early afternoon. This was right when we first started looking it up, after two hours we were joking about how freaking paranoid we were.

Suddenly there is a nock at her door. She looks out and tells me. "omg its a cable guy."

I said..'Umm ok'

She opens the door and the guy says .. 'Hi my name is Larry"

Both of us at the exact same time went 'LARRY THE CABLE GUY..??"

He kept talking as I was hit by an EXTREME bout of paranioa. I started screaming through the phone. 'Do not let him him! Demand his ID. DO NOT LET HIM IN"

I hear the guy say.." i need to check the line in your back bedroom... the company did not call you..?"

Kim says to him, 'No no one called and Haha Hey my girlfriend is on the phone freaking out can you show me some ID?

He does, she tells me, "omg he really is named Larry.

she lets him in the house.

I can not describe the exact wording of what followed but this was the thrust of it..

as he is winding through her house she asks him what is the problem with my cable lines.

His explaination was... AND I SWEAR TO GOD... He says that her cable lines are 'leaking' and interfering with the FAAs signal at the AIRPORT some miles away.

i was flabberghasted. so was she..

I told her ASK HIM if he is affliated with any government law enforcement... she tells me no, Im not asking that. I tell her again. She says no. I tell her give him the phone and I will ask him.

So she gets flustered and just blurts it out to him.

Know what his answer was...?

It wasn't no.

He says... I am very close to such and such county DEA taskforce and have alot of CLOSE FRIENDS in the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY.

She said ok TY... And immediately walks out of the room tells me shhh shhh the entire way.

She goes out onto her front porch and says..

'Omg Christy there is a spook in my F**** BEDROOM!!"

I did not know what to say... he finally left and that night my man got home soon as he walk in i pounced on him demanding an explanation for 'leaking' cable lines interfering with FAA signals..

He just looked at me. He called Kim HIMSELF to find out what dude said. He was like that is SOOOO not right.

And her husbamd too, who so happens to be military, him too he was all in there pulling s*** apart that the guy was messing with saying no no no no no.

Man that was some crazy crazy shittokki ....

2005 MEDIA FOLLIES!
Geov Parrish, AlterNet
The 10th annual list of the year's most overhyped and underreported stories.
http://www.alternet.org/story/29877/

We should insist on knowing whether these scumbags infiltrated the Kerry campaign hdqtrs or conference calls.

Posted by: Ira at December 27, 2005 04:36 PM

Yes, that seems very obvious to me!! Do we really live now in a society without justice?!

Very interesting Pew Research study on what the blue v. red breakdown really is about summarized by kos poster rippe:

Party Affiliation: Pew Research Finds 9 Segments

Over the past 13 months, Pew Research has conducted a series of studies aimed at learning the views and demographic differences between Democrats and Republicans.

According to this ongoing research, there are actually 9 categories that Americans fall into politically. This is substantially more nuanced than the standard (D) vs. (R), red vs. blue. Follow me over the speed bump if you'd like to "know thy enemy"...

http://www.dailykos.com/hotlist/add/2005/12/27/152020/15/displaystory//

You can take a quiz to see where you line up in their groups here...
http://typology.people-press.org/typology/

Published 9 months after 9/11 - don't you think US & UK citizens have been under surveillance the whole time?
Excuse: cast a broad net to capture terrorists. Real Agenda: stifle dissent about invading Iraq & other plans:

UK pushes boundaries of citizen surveillance

The data retention powers to be handed to a wide range of UK government agencies will exceed those available anywhere else in the world.

For the last four years two privacy watchdogs, the Electronic Privacy Information Centre and the London-based Privacy International, have produced a worldwide survey of privacy and human rights.

The last edition was produced in September of last year, but almost as soon as it was published its contents were rendered out of date. The September 11 terrorist atrocities radically altered views towards privacy and surveillance.

The next survey will show, around the world, a shifting of the dividing line between what citizens of many countries can expect to remain private, and what governments want to be able to find out.

But the news in the UK this week that surveillance powers are to be handed to a host of government departments and other groups takes the use of data retention - the keeping of detailed information on how and with whom we are communicating - to a level not seen anywhere else in the world.

The new UK proposals would allow bodies ranging from the Home Office and local councils to Consignia and fire authorities to access the records.

The plans have been attacked as a "systematic attack on the right to privacy" by Simon Davies, director of Privacy International.

He said yesterday: "I'm not aware of any country with powers given to such a large number (or wide spectrum) of authorities."

But across the world, governments are extending investigators' powers to probe their citizens' actions and movements online.

Most of the other countries restrict the release of information to a handful of groups - typically, law enforcement agencies and national security agencies.

Even this has been controversial in some cases. In the US, the "wall" separating domestic law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies has been partially removed by the USA Patriot Act, introduced in the aftermath of September 11.

It had been in place since the 1970s, when it was discovered the FBI and CIA had been investigating over half a million Americans during the McCarthy era.

The US might be regarded as the home of the internet's libertarian spirit, but other provisions in the Patriot Act look similar to those in the UK's hugely controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act of 2000.

US web users can have their surfing spied on simply if a judge is told the information that might be gleaned from the interception could be relevant to a criminal investigation.

The web user need never be told what has happened, or why, and the investigators do not have to report back to the court.

ISPs can even "volunteer" to hand over certain kinds of information (if not the content of emails and other communications) to law enforcement agencies without the need for court orders or subpoenas.

The Act was described as "a tremendous blow" to the civil liberties of American citizens by the cyber-rights organisation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which added that much of it had little to do with preventing terrorism, and much more to do with clamping down on domestic computer crime.

Other countries have been quick to follow the US lead, and make exceptions to laws covering freedom of information and data protection.

Germany has relaxed controls on the monitoring of email and bank records, and also broken down the wall between secret services and law enforcement agencies.

The Australian senate is discussing large-scale amendments to its laws on telecommunications interception that would make it much easier for electronic communications to be tapped.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament last week bowed to pressure from the UK government and police forces, and agreed to force internet service providers and phone companies to keep logs of their users' communications for an as-yet unspecified length of time - possibly several years.

The records will allow investigators to build up a detailed picture of an individual's movements online, including which websites they have visited, the nature of internet searches they have made, and details of whom they emailed and when.

This Europe-wide change of law will also erode provisions made by member states, including Ireland, which were designed to protect privacy to build confidence in e-commerce. But this week's proposed extension to the UK's RIP act will go beyond that agreed for the rest of Europe.

Online activists have promised to campaign against the extension of the RIP Act's provisions, which are due to be debated on Tuesday.

Stand.org, a campaigning group that fought against the original RIP Act, has been resurrected to fight the amendment.

Whatever the outcome, the researchers preparing the 2002 Privacy and Human Rights survey will have their work cut out recording the sweeping changes in their field since September 11.

--- We are now 4-1/2 years down the road from 9/11. Who can say what kind or amount of data they have amassed by now? Wasn't it just a week or two ago that some government official was ranting about "radical librarians" who didn't want to hand over patron's reading records?

Linda:

I could tell you why I'm directing you to this link, but then I'd have to kill you.

http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

ahem ahem,
Otter

Mark Shields rolls out some statistics on CNN.com along with some hard-hitting assessments of the Bush administration...

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/26/shields.terror/index.html

Yikes -- there just might be something to this after all...

-----

In a shocking discovery, the HVSN has learned that the US government has been operating a secret radar system for the last decade capable of tracking individual crackpots wearing tinfoil hats.

"Tinfoil hats produce a very distinct signature when probed by Doppler weather radar," said the researcher who developed the system. "By tracking these returns over time, we can compile an extensive geospatial database of the movements and activities of conspiracy theorists across the country."

The developer of the system contacted the Vast Spy Network anonymously by sending encrypted RFC 1149 packets. He decided to reveal the secret after hearing about this year's annual Connecticut Conspiracy Convention (ConnConCon), attended by several thousand crackpots, many sporting metallic headwear.

"My guilty conscience prompted me to do something to help those poor bastards, who stubbornly believe that a lousy piece of foil can protect them from the government," he said. "But the whole idea behind tinfoil hats was actually planted by the government to make it easier to track these people."

-----

Full story here: http://tinyurl.com/btdyd

things that make you go "hmmm",
Otter

How Big Brother is Watching, Listening and Misusing Information About You
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=32&num=4656

Internet Under Surveillance - Reporters Without Borders
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=433

Bush Pushes Plan to Permit Internet Surveillance
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0121-01.htm

International Cooperation in Internet Surveillance
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/4/4306/1.html

Internet Surveillance after the US Patriot Act
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=317501

ACLU Joins Fight Against Internet Surveillance
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1895253,00.asp

State Surveillance in the Internet
http://www.bernal.co.uk/

Senate Panel Examines Internet Surveillance System of FBI (Carnivore) - Before 9/11
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/06/carnivore.hearing/

Surveillance & Crackdown
http://backspace.com/action/surveillance_and_crackdown.php

Surveillance, Carnivore & Internet Monitoring
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Carnivore/

Internet Surveillance Moves to Schools, Libraries
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4974291

Year-End World-Wide Roundup on Internet Surveillance - before 9/11 - more on Echelon, which tracks globally and is in use
http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/ar/roundup_surveillance.html

US Feds Push Internet Surveillance
9/12/2001
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16

Reporters Without Borders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporters_Without_Borders

Otter- I see now why yours doesn't work, if you're using that one as a pattern.
It's absolutely necessary that the foil be wrinkle-less in order to function properly.
Therefore, the cone shape is the only one that can truly protect from the evil rays.
And yours is just tin foil. Mine is aluminum.
Actually, mine is even better than THAT. It's aluminium. The far superior British version.
I can only offer you my sympathy.

Welcome to America, 2004, where the actions of more than 150 million citizens are monitored 24/7 by the TIA, the Terrorist Information Awareness (originally called Total Information Awareness) program of DARPA, DHS and the Department of Justice.

Although Congress cut off funding for TIA last year, the Bush Administration ordered the program moved into the Pentagon’s “black bag” budget, which is neither authorized nor reviewed by the Hill. DARPA also increased the use of private contractors to get around privacy laws that would restrict activities by federal employees.

Six months of interviews with security consultants, former DARPA employees, privacy experts and contractors who worked on the TIA facility at 3701 Fairfax Drive in Arlington reveal a massive snooping operation that is capable of gathering – in real time – vast amounts of information on the day to day activities of ordinary Americans.

That's a paragraph or two from the first link Dianne posted above. The article begins by saying that certain keywords in cell phone calls trigger off an investigation, and that as many as 150 million Americans may be involved. Huh. Wonder how many Democrats there are in this country.
I'm absolutely positive that I've probably used some suspicious keywords in some of my cell phone conversations- especially when mentioning to some friend what I wish for George Bush's future.
The word probably rhymed with "fred."

So, my aluminium foil hat is now securely on my head, and I'm watching for those clicks on the phone line.
You really should change the design of that hat Otter :-)

Linda:

No wonder you're feeling so sympathetical. You're going only by anecdotal evidence. But for actual, exhaustive test data on the relative efficacy of three different configurations of aluminum foil helmets (the Classical, the Fez, and the Centurion), go here:

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

I kid ewe not,
Otter

Linda
A day or two after 9/11, government officials started to say that Americans would have to compromise some of our civil liberties in order to fight terror, and also that there would be alot of government secrecy.

I'm sure that these government screening programs net alot of "false positives" but I don't think it's hard to monitor billions of messages using a triaged system of computers. There is plenty on the internet for companies who want to monitor employees.

During the Kerry campaign, I made the mistake of blogging from work and using my real email. Someone contacted the CEO of my workplace and I didn't lose my job, but I changed my ways. What I did also learn was that my workplace, and most people's, can track every keystroke you make & even if you eliminate the "cookies" for sites visited on your computer, there are ways they can track all activity. If they can do that, it should be a piece of cake for the government.

I think we should all assume that every word we write (or read) has the potential to be monitored, even if we have done nothing more than exercise our Constitutional right to free speech.

Besides, both aluminum *and* aluminium are just, like, *so* totally last-decade as far as protective headgear materials go. As the following article points out,

"While aluminium foil and tin-foil are traditional, less fragile materials such as 3M Velostat (a kind of metallised plastic) and metal window-screen mesh are now more commonly used. Electrical conductivity is seen as a key quality."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinfoil_hat

what, you think we're kidding?,
Otter

ARE YOU BEING TRACKED?
Devanie Angel, Sacramento News & Review
Big business thinks Radio Frequency Identification tags are great. Privacy-rights advocates fear the tiny chips will invite corporations and the government into our personal lives.
http://www.alternet.org/story/29890/

BRING ON THE REBELS
William Greider, The Nation
Challenges from within by a few insurgent Democrats may be the only way to save the party from the ineffective big-money beast it's become.
http://www.alternet.org/story/29953/

Linda
That's quite an interesting article! Looks like another technology that is potentially neutral or in some cases useful (like used to cut down on domestic violence) but in the wrong hands, very dangerous.

I don't like the idea of underwear tracking! For those of us who don't necessarily do much that is interesting to the government or anyone else, this would certainly guarantee that we didn't!!

Notice how much of this is driven by the business sector, without much oversight by the public or Congress, just like most everything else that is starting to happen?! Is it any wonder that our media and government work to serve big business & that Walmart, the nation's largest employer, is right on board with this technology.

Compared to bar codes when used properly, it's supposed to track the product, not the person - but I can see Walmart using it to track its employees & customers. Already, GPS devices are being used to track delivery drivers & some unions are balking.

I noticed that the article mentioned the Electronic Freedom Foundation. I've been pretty interested in them lately, and also Reporters Without Borders (who are like Medecins sans Frontiers, the Drs. without Borders).

Slightly different topic, but for monitoring media, I hope everyone checks FAIR and Media Matters when they think of it.

It's not exactly the newest news, but it's still good news (courtesy of Editor & Publisher Online):

-----

PAYOLA PUNDIT DOUG BANDOW RESIGNS FROM COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

By Dave Astor
Published: December 20, 2005 5:13 PM ET

NEW YORK Columnist Doug Bandow resigned Tuesday from Copley News Service, E&P has learned. He had been under fire for accepting payola from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff to write Op-Ed pieces favorable to some of Abramoff's clients.

Copley had suspended the columnist last Friday. "We accepted Doug Bandow's resignation today," Glenda Winders, the syndicate's vice president and editor, told E&P Tuesday via e-mail. "He had been with us since 1983, and he had a wide following in our own Copley papers and beyond."

Winders, who was responding to an E&P query seeking an update on Bandow's situation, did not say how many papers Bandow was in. At least one client -- the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review -- had already announced Tuesday that it was dropping Bandow's column.

Winders declined further comment.

Bandow had previously resigned from the Cato Institute last Thursday after admitting he took bribes -- a transgression first revealed by BusinessWeek.com. Bandow said he accepted money to write 12-24 pieces starting in the mid-1990s. He received $2,000 for some of the commentaries.

Full story here: http://tinyurl.com/dkpbu

-----

cull them rotten apples,
Otter

Otter: Wikipedia mentions that the placebo effect has convinced some people that tinfoil hats actually work. That's what happened with me. Since the day I put on my aluminum hat, I have not been abducted by aliens.
But, how can I be sure it's not the hat?????
I'm certainly not planning to tempt fate by taking it off.
That would be a very foolish thing to do, especially since I live in a state that borders on the Burmuda Triangle. :-)
You take yours off first, and we'll just see how THAT works out.

Anyone heard any news lately on the Fitzgerald investigation? Is nothing happening, or is the news-media just neglecting the story?

Linda:

Just to show you how seriously I take that stuff, let me show you the present I got for my pet qat this Yulemas:

http://tinyurl.com/8cwa5

because pets are peeples too,
Otter

Cleaning closets so finding wierd stuff off the internet and on.

Ruth Conniff | Impeachment Buzz
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705Q.shtml
What sense does it make that some of the same Washington media and political leaders who countenanced the Clinton impeachment over a semen-stained dress, somberly intoning about the "rule of law," consider impeaching Bush beyond the pale? No sense at all, according to Ruth Connif of the Progressive.

Robert Fisk | Telling It Like It Isn't
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705S.shtml
I first realized the enormous pressures on American journalists in the Middle East when I went some years ago to say goodbye to a colleague from the Boston Globe. I expressed my sorrow that he was leaving a region where he had obviously enjoyed reporting. I could save my sorrows for someone else, he said. One of the joys of leaving was that he would no longer have to alter the truth to suit his paper's more vociferous readers.

FYI, folks, Keith Olbermann just devoted the lead-off position and 14 minutes of air time to Shrubya's sins in office and the growing MSM buzz about the possibility of impeachment proceedings against him -- including a very lucid legal-aspects interview with none other than John Dean, who certainly ought to know about these things. WTG, Olbermann!

give 'em hell keithie,
Otter

Posted by: Otter at December 27, 2005 08:18 PM

Looks like subvisive felines better watch out...

GOP Investigated Pres. Clinton’s Cat But Only Plans ‘Oversight’ on Pres. Bush’s Admitted Illegal Spying

What do you call a political party that thinks postage for a Presidential cat's fan club requires a full-on Congressional investigation, but a President who admits on national television to breaking Federal law, repeatedly, only merits some committee "oversight," and spotty oversight at that?

Republicans

Compare and contrast:

1995: Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), then chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, investigated whether taxpayers were footing the cost of stationery and postage for the fan club dedicated to President Clinton’s cat, Socks. (They were not - and it turns out Barbara Bush’s dog Millie had a fan club too.)

2005: Two weeks ago, President Bush admitted he willfully flouted a law that requires him to get warrants before wiretapping U.S. citizens. His justification for ignoring the law appears to be nobless oblige. In reaction, Republicans in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Friday that they are planning “oversight” hearings into the matter.

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2005/12/26/gop-investigate... /
via:http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/

Bush thinking about '09?
Book on Roosevelt's post-presidency tops president's reading list

From Dana Bash
CNN Washington Bureau
Tuesday, December 27, 2005

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- Although he has three years left in office, President Bush is spending the holiday week at his ranch reading a book about Theodore Roosevelt's life after he left the White House.

The book, "When Trumpets Call," by Patricia O'Toole, examines the frustration Roosevelt felt and his inability to let go after leaving office in 1909, at age 50.

Bush is also reading "Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground," by Robert Kaplan. The book is a firsthand account of the role of U.S. troops around the world, including in Iraq, engaged in what the author calls "American imperialism."

When asked why the president picked a book that includes some criticism of the American military role in Iraq, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said "The president is an avid reader. He reads books of all kinds and stripe and persuasion. And he decided to read it."

Should Americans take anything from the fact that Bush is already reading about a predecessor's post-White House years?

"The president is a history buff," Duffy said. "The president knows full well that he's got a lot of time left in this second term and he's going to accomplish big things, as he has talked about repeatedly."

Duffy said NBC anchor Brian Williams recommended the Teddy Roosevelt book to the president.

Your joke here ---->

marc- I'm sorry, but I think Dana Bash is pulling our collective legs. I do not believe that George W Bush reads books, nor is he a history buff.
It seems to me that he said one time that he didn't read books- just like he doesn't read the newspaper in the morning.
And Mr Duffy is simply lieing. George W Bush doesn't speak to crowds that disagree with him- he certainly isn't going to read a book that disagrees with his policies.
It's all just spin.
Very few history buffs would have gotten us into this mess in Iraq- they'd have known better

elfypoo- did you pay by monopoly money?
I'm gonna start funnelling all my monopoly money into my pay pal account.
I have two cats, so I'll need a lot of money.

I think the best military book for Him to read (or have read to Him) would be "Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military In the New American Century", by Stan Goff.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1932360123/104-1402874-1671913?v=glance&n=283155

marc the market went down b/c of the inversion of the yield curve, i.e short term rates exceeded long term rates. Economists say that is the precursor to a downturn in the economy; in plain language the beginning of a recession.
Thanks George for the shortest economic recovery in US economic history, following 4 years of economic misery.Great tax policy.

If Shrubya really wants to start planning for his future legacy by reading books about his predecessors' post-presidency activities, he'd do well to read these ones instead of that one:

RN: THE MEMOIRS OF RICHARD NIXON by Richard Milhouse Nixon

PRESIDENT NIXON: ALONE IN THE WHITE HOUSE by Richard Reeves

FINAL DAYS by Carl Bernstein

THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,
Otter

Linda:

"elfypoo" ?!?

Grrrrrr.

otters do have sharp teeth ya know,
Otter

Kurds in Iraqi army proclaim loyalty to militia

By Tom Lasseter
Knight Ridder Newspapers

KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.

Five days of interviews with Kurdish leaders and troops in the region suggest that U.S. plans to bring unity to Iraq before withdrawing American troops by training and equipping a national army aren't gaining traction. Instead, some troops that are formally under U.S. and Iraqi national command are preparing to protect territory and ethnic and religious interests in the event of Iraq's fragmentation, which many of them think is inevitable.

The soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Peshmerga - the Kurdish militia - and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks. Many said they wouldn't hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs, if a fight for an independent Kurdistan erupted.

"It doesn't matter if we have to fight the Arabs in our own battalion," said Gabriel Mohammed, a Kurdish soldier in the Iraqi army who was escorting a Knight Ridder reporter through Kirkuk. "Kirkuk will be ours."

The Kurds have readied their troops not only because they've long yearned to establish an independent state but also because their leaders expect Iraq to disintegrate, senior leaders in the Peshmerga - literally, "those who face death" - told Knight Ridder. The Kurds are mostly secular Sunni Muslims, and are ethnically distinct from Arabs.

Their strategy mirrors that of Shiite Muslim parties in southern Iraq, which have stocked Iraqi army and police units with members of their own militias and have maintained a separate militia presence throughout Iraq's central and southern provinces. The militias now are illegal under Iraqi law but operate openly in many areas. Peshmerga leaders said in interviews that they expected the Shiites to create a semi-autonomous and then independent state in the south as they would do in the north.

The Bush administration - and Iraq's neighbors - oppose the nation's fragmentation, fearing that it could lead to regional collapse. To keep Iraq together, U.S. plans to withdraw significant numbers of American troops in 2006 will depend on turning U.S.-trained Kurdish and Shiite militiamen into a national army.

The interviews with Kurdish troops, however, suggested that as the American military transfers more bases and areas of control to Iraqi units, it may be handing the nation to militias that are bent more on advancing ethnic and religious interests than on defeating the insurgency and preserving national unity.

A U.S. military officer in Baghdad with knowledge of Iraqi army operations said he was frustrated to hear of the Iraqi soldiers' comments but that he had seen no reports suggesting that they would acted improperly in the field.

"There's talk and there's acts, and their actions are that they follow the orders of the Iraqi chain of command and they secure their sectors well," said the officer, who refused to be identified because he's not authorized to speak on the subject

American military officials have said they're trying to get a broader mix of sects in the Iraqi units.

more... http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13495329.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Chuck in Houston for Dwahzon:

Thanks for the link to the PEW study from:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/27/152020/15

on the perennial blue-red issue. I took the test -- I came out "liberal" (and self-identified to boot) -- although as always often I wanted to answer "neither" to a proposition framed as a yes-no. I also downloaded the whole study for persusal - it's at http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/242.pdf

Chuck in Houston

PS: Thought this was worth posting -- I bought that recent book about Lincoln and his cabinet (Team of Rivals) for my sister and mailed it to her for X-mas and she bought the same and mailed the same to me for X-mas! I thought that was pretty funny.

Deliciously snarky Op-Ed piece from today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

-----

IT"S GOOD TO BE KING GEORGE
By Reg Henry

As I was saying to a fellow peasant just the other day, it is ironic that this country should rebel against one King George only to bow down before another monarch of the same name more than 200 years later.

[snip]

Previously, before His Majesty assumed his sovereign powers, the president -- as he was then quaintly known -- had to go to a secret court if he wanted permission for his agents to snoop on enemies within the realm. The esteemed judges of this court would take out their official rubber stamp, and the matter would be handled satisfactorily for all concerned except for the knaves and scoundrels, hopefully not all of them Democrats.

Although a rubber stamp administered in secret was about the same covering for civil liberties as a lace pasty applied to an exotic dancer, the common people nevertheless rested easily, because a genuflection had been made to their beloved Constitution.

[snip]

Now everything is changed. Faith-based policies have rediscovered the divine right of kings. I hope the royal court realizes that I am writing this in the groveling position like the uncouth but humble person that I am.

To show my fealty, I tug my forelock in the old ritual of subservience except that I haven't got a forelock, as a result of male pattern baldness, and therefore, as a substitute, I tug my back mullet-lock in all honor and obedience.

I pray King George for his gentle forbearance because he has said that even discussing his new royal powers may aid the enemy. Of course, the last thing I wish to do is aid the enemy. It's just that the old habit of free speech dies hard.

[snip]

We beseech you, your kingship, to institute a system of hereditary peerage based upon merit and loyalty (i.e., campaign contributions) so that we peasants will have someone to look up to other than the tawdry celebrities on TV. Sir Rush of Bloviation, Sir Karl of Spin, these will be names to conjure with in the future days of dynasty. Perhaps, as a goodwill gesture, you could name Bill Clinton as a knight of the garter belt.

Please, sire, forgive us our petulant Bush-bashing of former days before we realized you wore a crown. Spy on us as much as you want because we understand now that your knowledge of the Constitution is infinitely greater than our own.

-----

Read the whole piece here:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05361/628256.stm

serfs up, doods,
Otter

proud liberal here

moi aussi... in spades

true blue & tested,
Otter

WTF is 'Elfypoo'....???

I always find DCP educational, but today's thread will be hard to top. I tip my tin foil hat to Otter and Linda for the educational posts.

Oops, just as I tipped my hat, I felt this strange surging buzz going down my head into my neck and spine, and then a funny tingling in my toes. Damn, I have been infected with the evil rays.

OC...

That was just me and Marc...

You were caught in the synapse cross-fire...

Keep that lid on it. =]

Posted by: Christy at December 27, 2005 11:03 PM

Christy,

Check out this site to learn what elfypoo is:

http://mirrors.meepzorp.com/ebay/pet-foil-hat/

See yall have been wearing the wrong type of hat..

I gave up tinfoil myself, about 6 months ago and switched to plastic wrap.

Almost smothered my silly self the first try, but once your fat head starts sweating off the excess thought fat... its TOTALLY worth it.

OMG a tinfoil hat on a LOCUST!!!

Or wtf ever that ugly bug is...

Thats hillarious.

Indy,

Are you and Marc reading my mind (or "minds" as GW would say) ? As Danny Quayle said, "What a terrible thing to lose one's mind".

OC...

Quayle did not LOOSE his mind..

THEY took it from him while he was sleeping.

You know what I find strange..??

People KNOW georgie is spying on us. Tapping phones, monitoring email..

We KNOW they are doing this to thousands, MAYBE MILLIONS of people.

Yet there are still so many among us, that would say yeah... ok... but they still dismiss ANYONE who speaks of it.

I say to you they are jacking with my site, my email... Lindas phone is clicking...OTHERS in here too, I KNOW for a fact are experiencing technical difficulties as well... Yet to connect them to ACTUAL ONGOING EVENTS we have to buy a ticket to Crazy Town.

Even when you know the 'conspiracy' ACTUALLY EXISTS... It is still so freaking tempting to dismiss those who believe it is not only happening but happening to them.

Notice how I was not even ON the subject until DW brought it up again to me... Then Ira tells ME..

Enough Christy....

ENOUGH...????

Yeah, thats just... I don't even know what that is but I know I am not 7 freaking years old.

Here is my thoughts on Linda apologizing to me on the mercy killing thing.

Fine I accept your apology. However know this.. My accusations were not based on NOTHING...

And here is something VERY IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER..

Have I ever lied to you before...? ANY of you..?

Have I ever made a misstatement or misspeak or flat out mistake that was SO EGREGIOUS to completely discredit MYSELF...???

I am not saying I am not cabable of lying. Actually I could be quite good at it if I HONESTLY felt it was not a total waste of time to lie in the first place.

There are alot of those in here who DO believe we are caught up in something... strange and menacing, and I am often amazed at how ..

It is hard to even articulate. Maybe THIS is why talking about it even now is so taboo.

What do you say...?? Hell I don't even know, but putting someone in a corner with a tinfoil hat on is simply no longer going to work.

From day one on the Kerry blog I ALWAYS had a sense we were...being watched.

It would be OBVIOUS why they would monitor a group like this and you can bet certain members have caught their attention.

Maybe what Linda said is really the only thing THERE IS left to say...

Watch your backs.

Ok I figured out what I wanted to say...

IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN CONSPIRACIES AT THIS POINT.....

IF YOU ARE NOT PARANOID BY NOW....

You have not been paying attention.

At least I don't have a transponder in my back.

All political blogs are watched and one for a candidate for the Democrats was of course watched by operatives from the other party.

The information about how internet info is monitored has been available since before 9/11 and happens not just in the US. It should come as no surprise.

Actual tapping of phones and monitoring of individual's specific emails is a different matter. It's finally being talked about in the media but that should have happened a long time ago.

There was always concern on the part of the ACLU, EFF and other civil rights watchdog groups, including Libertarians on the right.

Every politically active person in every country always has to watch their backs, especially since the more repressive things get, the more need there is to get active.

One of the sites I posted has a listing of countries by amount of press freedom, and there was another I found that listed them by amount of "transparency" (government not being secretive). In both surveys, the Scandinavean countries and most of the developed nations came first, with the US somewhere in the middle - at or near the bottom of the developed countries (as we are for education, health care & so many things) but above some of the third world countries where there is obvious corruption and income disparity.

We are starting to excel at mediocrity. I had a friend who used to say he'd rather be the top of the bottom than the bottom of the top. Well we're the bottom of the top.

Posted by: DiAnne at December 28, 2005 12:28 AM

Very well put.

During the debates... maybe thats what bushes bump was... a transponder so he could be tracked by the Mother Ship...

This is too long to post here but check it out..

Top Ten Myths about Iraq in 2005
Juan Cole

Iraq has unfortunately become a football in the rough and ready, two-party American political arena, generating large numbers of sound bites and so much spin you could clothe all of China in the resulting threads.

Here are what I think are the top ten myths about Iraq, that one sees in print or on television in the United States.

http://www.juancole.com/2005/12/top-ten-myths-about-iraq-in-2005-iraq.html

Go look at the pic I just posted on Reb.. OMG its

Wonderful...

http://rebellenation.blogspot.com/2005/12/sometimes-images-defy-description.html

But in Mississippi, prominent Republicans are worried sick.

Oh things they are a'changin...

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27262317.shtml

It is ALL thanks to one Howard Dean.

God bless that man.

Look who wrote that..

Robert freaking novak...ick..

Things MUST be getting bad in the camp of evil and darkness.

And YES I am aware I am talking to myself at this point but has that ever stopped me before..??

Hey...

When Christy talks...people listen.

Schizophrenia is a terrible thing to waste.

As you were all saying C...

Look at it this way...there is always SOMEONE listening.

=O

I'm not Schizophrenic Indy..

Im just old fashion nuts.

And as someone else said on this blog recently.. Just cause YOUR not paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.

AS A MATTER OF A FACT INDY...

When I sat here and thought to myself.. "Self.. if the Gov. WAS monitoring the DCP blog, whom would be MOST likely to draw their intrest..??"

Do you know in my scientific methods of observation I named myself ONLY after listing you as NUMERO UNO.

Preach on brother man.

We dig it Daddy-O!!

The revised and edited DCP Poem,,,

(Gave it a tune up from the original)

Once upon a wayward wind,
I reached into the dark.
I found a great fire within,
That only took a spark.

There I found the Truth Prevailed,
And a Sparrow brought the drink.
Independence preached the blues.
We found so many links.

A silly Monkey cheered us on.
In perfect butchered French.
The Coast Guard came, did the same.
We've been here ever since.

Like a dream the fire burned,
In each and every soul.
We stood as one, like we begun,
And refused to let it go.

The good doctor, always on call,
Provided a deep examination.
No discussion, a hot White Russian,
Was Dianne's only explanation.

John told tales of great balloons.
And we all believed.
As darkened clouds shut out the moon,
Not one of us concede.

Bound together,for each our own.
As one we stand or fall.
We found a home, each came alone.
Where one dream unites us all.

A dream that burns within the breast,
And shows thine eyes the way.
Where visions topple tyrannies.
And mercy wins the day.

Yes, we say, Truth Shall Prevail.
And we will make it so.
High water is only hell,
If there is no where left to go.

Soon the dark will open up,
We shall seek out each other.
But tonight, we stand and fight,
As sisters and as brothers.

A simple dream of better days.
Has changed us all forever.
Simple dreams can change the world.
When we dream together.

The name of that poem...

The Truth Shall Prevail

It shall, indeed.

Since we need a fresh thread ANYWAY...

A poem for You Indy...

The Ostlers Fate

The wind was a torrent of darkness,
Among the gusty trees.
The moon a ghostly galleon,
Tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road a ribbon of moonlight,
Over the purple moor.
And a highwayman came riding,
Up to the old inn door.
Tim the ostler stood in shadows,
He took one step in retreat.
As a chill and bitter wind,
Made the lightless wicket creak.
With his hair like moldy hay,
And hollow eyes of madness,
For a fleeting moment,
Insanity turned to sadness.
The stable groaned heavy with night.
In darkness Tim watched the stranger.
He already knew what he must do,
As the night blew frigid danger.
He saw the highwayman sense it,
Then refused to see.
He proudly rode to the abode,
As if it could not be.
Tim glared with hateful daggers,
From hiding he mumbled mutters.
At the man with a whip,pulled from his hip,
To tap on tightened shutters.
Returning the whip to his claret coat
The highwayman wistled a tune.
The bolts were freed and Tim could see,
Clear by the light of the moon.
Beauty spilled from the lofty porthole.
Tims madness dared a glance.
At the lovely landlords daughter,
With whom he had no chance.
Red lipped Bess sat in the casement,
Binding both men to her in awe.
She reached from above to the one she loved,
The other she never saw.
Tim narrowed eyes of spiteful hatred.
A passion he knew each day.
He watched the lovers from his cover,
And heard the highwayman say,
"One kiss my bonny sweetheart.
I'm after a prize tonight!
If the kings yellow gold is where I'm told
I'll come to thee by dawns' light.
But if I am pressed sharply,
And harried throughout the day,
I'll come to thee by soft moonlight,
Though hell should bar the way!"
Bess loosed her long raven hair.
Tim watched the robber stroke it.
A scream of longing in his soul,
In darkness he never spoke it.
The highwayman pulled a crimson ribbon,
From her inky midnight locks.
Spurring west,with a smile he left,
On the loney road toward the docks.
Yet still the keeper of horses,
Watched from the darkness afar.
His hate no less as he saw Bess,
Pray to the twinkling stars.
Yes he knew what he would do,
Still he could not pull to duty,
He saw the light within his sight,
Madness mesmerized by beauty.
The lovely Bess dashed soft light,
The dark settled the old inn yard.
The shutters threw again tight and true,
Once more night was locked and barred.
Now alone in his stable home,
Tim stewed but a moment longer.
He did not fold once in the cold.
He let madness make him stronger.
The kings men would take him in.
Perhaps even bring him a feast.
He had plenty of time in his troubled mind.
As insanity pulled Tim east.
All the kings horses and all the kings men,
Met him with quiet distain.
He betrayed the lovers hed grown to hate.
They listened to his pain.
Bess watched a lonely new day dawn,
Her love had not come by noon.
Images burst from the tawny sunset,
Just before the rise of the moon.
When the road was a gypsys' ribbon,
Looping the purple moor,
The kings red coats came marching,
Up to the old inn door.
They said nothing to the landlord.
They drank his ale instead.
Through her window Tim could see,
As they bound Bess to her bed.
They rigged a musket to her side,
Aimed deep into her breast.
In the dark Tim broke apart,
But never did he protest.
Streached before her narrow casement,
Tim watched her watch the night.
Waiting for her loves approach,
The road west within her sight.
The soldiers watched there with her,
And heard as the wind did say,
"I'll come to thee by soft moon light,
Though hell should bar the way!"
Tlot tlot....Did they hear it?
For Tim had heard it well.
Tlot tlot in the darkness.
He saw Bess' bosom swell.
The soldiers took to thier priming.
Tim drew a proud mad breath.
Then her musket shattered the night,
And warned him with her death.
Shock threw back the insanity,
That lived there in the stables.
Like in his dreams he screamed and screamed,
The soldiers shook thier heads disabled.
Tlot tlot back into darkness.
The highwayman fled to the lightless wood.
He did not dare to show he cared,
He did not know who stood.
Unheard were the ostlers screams,
And the landlords mournful cries.
They slayed him in the very room,
Where his lovely daughter died.
They left tim the ostler nothing.
Not gold nor even a feast.
They let him scream and left unseen,
Marching back to the east.
Tim never looked for his hated love
He wailed on the stable floor.
There was no warning with the morning,
As the highwayman stepped through his door.
Now hollowed eyes of madness,
Met saddened eyes of rage.
The one Tim betrayed let him lay,
But did not let him age.
He was left to rot upon that spot,
And the highwayman buried his love in private.
He lay the father next to his daughter,
And cried in the morning quiet.
He knew her life was sacrificed,
For love and nothing less.
Like a beast he thundered east,
And never looked back toward the west.
He found the soldiers still on the road,
And inflicted what damage he could.
But they shot him down on that ground,
And left him in his own blood.
Yet still of a winters night they say,
When the wind is in the trees.
When the moon a ghostly galleon,
Tossed among cloudy seas.
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight,
Looping the purple moors,
A highwayman comes riding,
Up to the old inn doors.
Over the cobbles he clatters,
Into the dark innyard.
He taps with his whip on the shutters,
But all is locked and barred.
He wistles a tune to the window,
And who should be waiting there?
Tis Bess the landlords daughter,
Plaiting a crimson ribbon into long black hair.
And they say the stables are haunted.
By a ghost who is lost in madness.
Yet it seems that when he screams,
The howls are that of sadness

Christy Cole 2004

Some Conservatives Return to Old Argument

Outside Advocacy Group Aims
To Rally Support by Backing Bush's Initial Claims on Iraq

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and JOHN D. MCKINNON
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 28, 2005; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- The television commercials are attention-grabbing: Newly found Iraqi documents show that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, including anthrax and mustard gas, and had "extensive ties" to al Qaeda. The discoveries are being covered up by those "willing to undermine support for the war on terrorism to selfishly advance their shameless political ambitions."

The hard-hitting spots are part of a recent public-relations barrage aimed at reversing a decline in public support for President Bush's handling of Iraq. But these advertisements aren't paid for by the Republican National Committee or other established White House allies. Instead, they are sponsored by Move America Forward, a media-savvy outside advocacy group that has become one of the loudest -- and most controversial -- voices in the Iraq debate.

While even Mr. Bush now publicly acknowledges the mistakes his administration made in judging the threat posed by Mr. Hussein, the organization is taking to the airwaves to insist that the White House was right all along.

Similar to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- the advocacy group that helped derail John Kerry's presidential campaign -- Move America Forward has magnified its reach by making small television and radio ad buys and then relying on cable- and local-television news outlets to give the commercials heavy coverage. Move America Forward has no discernible formal ties to the White House or the Republican National Committee, and the group says it operates independently from the Republican Party establishment. Still, the organization provides a clear benefit to the administration by spreading a pro-war message that goes beyond what administration officials can say publicly.

The effect of the ads hasn't been measured. Amid a simultaneous flurry of speeches by the president and a ramped-up RNC effort aimed at boosting the war, polls show that Mr. Bush's job-approval ratings, specifically his handling of the Iraq situation, have risen this month from all-time lows.

"The White House has really done a poor job of getting the message out, which is why we've had to step into the breach," says California-based Republican political strategist Sal Russo, one of the group's three founders. "They should do a better job of coordinating with those willing to get out and tell the story. We shouldn't be the only ones out here fighting."

The White House didn't return several calls seeking comment. A Republican National Committee spokesman declined to comment.

Move America Forward has raised more than $1 million, mainly in small donations, over the past two years. The group grew out of the successful 2003 effort to recall Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis. It was officially founded in 2004 by Mr. Russo, whose company provides office space for the organization; Melanie Morgan, a conservative San Francisco radio host; and Howard Kaloogian, a Republican former state assemblyman seeking the congressional seat of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned recently after admitting to taking bribes from defense contractors.

One of their early efforts was a campaign supporting John Bolton's contentious nomination as United Nations ambassador. Another involved backing U.S. detention policies at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by selling "I [Heart] Gitmo" bumper stickers.

When the White House was caught flat-footed this summer by the emergence of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier turned vocal administration critic, Move America Forward sent pro-war protesters to her camp in Texas and mounted a parallel bus tour of war supporters that culminated in a large rally in Washington. The counter-Sheehan campaign showed how the organization has raised its profile by staging well-publicized rallies and public events that attract substantial media coverage, even if the number of participants is relatively low.

In July, with the administration facing a torrent of negative media coverage of the war in Iraq, Move America Forward sent five conservative radio-talk-show hosts to U.S. military bases in Baghdad for a week of upbeat broadcasts. Ms. Morgan says that, during her time in Iraq, she rode up and down the so-called highway of death leading from Baghdad's airport seven times to prove to her listeners that it wasn't as dangerous as media reports suggested.

In addition to his Iraq political work in the U.S., Mr. Russo has an open-ended political-advertising contract with the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq for whom he produces advertisements that run in the U.S. seeking investment in Kurdistan. Some critics accuse him of having a vested financial interest in prolonging the U.S. presence there.

Liberals question how the group has maintained its status as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, which requires strict nonpartisanship, given the anti-Democratic tone of its campaigns. The group's Web site, www.moveamericaforward.org, for example, attacks the current chairman of the Democratic National Committee, referring to "Howard Dean types who only see a future of failure for this country."

"When you have people participating in partisan activities with nonprofit dollars, that's really something the IRS needs to look at," says Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org, another frequent target for Move America Forward's rhetoric. "An organization with a shady tax status participating in partisan activities and saying things that aren't true is a rogue element in American politics."

An Internal Revenue Service spokeswoman declined to address the issue, saying that it is agency policy not to "comment on individual taxpayers or organizations." MoveOn is a "political action committee," meaning its donations aren't tax-deductible and must be disclosed.

Move America Forward officials acknowledge that the group's leadership is conservative, but insist they are nonpartisan and point out that the organization also has criticized Republicans. They say that the organization has no connections to the Bush administration or the Republican Party and has been unable to get meetings with White House personnel. And they say there is no conflict between the organization's advocacy work and Mr. Russo's financial ties to the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq.

"If you consider being pro-America and pro-troop to be Republican, then we'll proudly take that label," Ms. Morgan says. "But we've never been embraced by the White House or made part of a secret-right wing conspiracy."

Indeed, Ms. Morgan says she is baffled that the White House no longer makes the case that Mr. Hussein had WMDs. The White House dropped the claims after a variety of investigators found no evidence to substantiate them. But Ms. Morgan says her ads are justified, based on documents given to her in Iraq by an Iraqi general she identified as Abdul Qader Jassim, and on information from U.S. officials involved in the hunt for weapons there. She believes Mr. Hussein possessed WMDs, and that those weapons remain in Iraq today. It couldn't be ascertained that Mr. Jassim is a general and he couldn't be reached for comment.

The organization has kept up a steady drumbeat of pro-military and pro-war commercials in recent weeks. Its newest radio ads, timed to the holiday season, feature parents of service people killed in Iraq or on their way back to the country. In one spot, a woman described as military parent Deborah Johns observes that the "the terrorists know they can not defeat our military -- they can only win by beating down the morale of the American people."

Several Move America Forward officials hope to participate in the Iraq debate more actively than through mere advocacy. Mr. Kaloogian has an early fund-raising lead in the crowded field of Republicans hoping to succeed Mr. Cunningham, the former U.S. representative who resigned after admitting taking bribes. And Move America Forward Executive Director Robert Dixon, furious over a recent troop withdrawal resolution passed by the Sacramento City Council, is weighing a run for a seat in the hopes of getting the declaration reversed.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113572887635032543-MBBcaDkXJAQBlIrm5UujD1fj5qw_20061227.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Posted by: marc trager at December 28, 2005 06:55 AM

Marc,

They have lots of money to keep the lies out there. And they know democratic supporters tend to be more broke.

It's easy for them to toss money out right and left, and frankly, many of them are counting on the media to spin their lies out further, just like it said they did with the swifties.

sparrow... this is the gem of the article...

"If you consider being pro-America and pro-troop to be Republican, then we'll proudly take that label," Ms. Morgan says. "But we've never been embraced by the White House or made part of a secret-right wing conspiracy."

I could write an entire paper on just this statement alone... and I'll bet you all could too.

Land of the Eaves, home of the Swift.

hopefully Ed Schultz finally going on Armed Service Radio will be able to counter some of those lies, but as we move into the '06 campaign season marc we should not be complacent, and just expecting victory against elements like Moving Forward. Moveon bends over backwards to comply with IRS regs, which apparently Repubs once again presume they are exempt from.

new thread...

Swifties and Move Forward, and the blood of children is on the hands of these "pro-life" nationalists.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/253643_random28.html

In Iraq, Death Often Comes Quickly - and Without Reason

Operation Democracy / MoveOn

Get involved

Don't give up