The WAWG Blog

How the [Unregulated] Free-Market System Can Bankrupt the World – The free-market system is a great thing. But let it run unsupervised with greedy investors, and we all end up in a mess.

Halliburton Managers Told Workers That Carcinogen Was ‘Mild Irritant’ -Workers Say Halliburton subsidiary KBR told employees at a water injection plant in Iraq a sand-like substance scattered around the plant was just a “mild irritant,” workers recall. It turns out to be sodium dichromate — a highly toxic chemical which can lead to cancer even with limited exposure.

Cheney Says Bush’s Iraq Decision-making as Courageous as Pardoning Richard Nixon – Asked last week what he thought of the fact two thirds of Americans no longer supported the war in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney had a simple reply: “So?” But in a followup interview — which received little attention — Cheney went on to compare President Bush’s decision to invade the country with President Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon.

Cheney on 4,000 American Dead in Iraq: They Volunteered – Wrapping up a nine-day overseas trip to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked, in an exclusive interview with ABC News, about the effect on the nation of today’s grim milestone of at least 4,000 U.S. deaths over the five-year Iraq war. Noting the burden placed on military families, the Vice President said the biggest burden is carried by President Bush, and reminded ABC news that the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty.

Supreme Court Allows Retiree Benefit Cuts – The Supreme Court on Monday gave employers a green light to reduce health benefits for millions of retirees who turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare.

Sean Hannity’s Relationship With a Neo-Nazi – Hannity is confronted on his show about his relationship with a neo-Nazi. Hannity denies there’s anything to it. But his neo-Nazi buddy says, “I was quite disappointed when Sean Hannity at first tried to say he didn’t know me and then went on to say that I ran some senate campaign in New Jersey. In fact, Sean Hannity does know me and we were quite friendly a number of years ago. When Hannity took over Bob Grant’s spot on 77 WABC in New York City, I was a well-known, regular and welcome caller to his show. Through those calls, Sean and I got to know each other a bit and at some point, I can’t remember exactly when, Sean gave me the secret “Guest call-in number” at WABC so that my calls could always get on the air.”

Why Does the Antarctic Ice Hate America’s Coasts? – A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday. Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started Feb. 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years. This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan.

Conservative Bill Kristol Says Racism is Not a Problem in America – Kristol has embarrassed himself again this week by stating, in the wake of Obama’s speech on race, that racism is not really a problem in America. “The last thing we need now is a heated national conversation about race,” Kristol writes. “Racial progress has in fact continued in America. A new national conversation about race isn’t necessary to end what Obama calls the ‘racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years’ — because we’re not stuck in such a stalemate.”

Kristol provides no empirical evidence to back up such an ignorant claim. He fails to mention, for instance, that 50 percent of African-American men in New York City were unemployed as of 2004; or that 1 in 10 black men in their 20s are behind bars; or that more than half of all black men in inner cities do not finish high school; or that the subprime lending crisis is considered to be “the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern US history,” according to United for a Fair Economy.

Bush Crony Overseeing 2010 U.S. Census Creates a Statistical Katrina – Technology problems could add as much as $2 billion to the cost of the 2010 census and jeopardize the accuracy of the nation’s most important survey. Census officials are considering a return to using paper and pencil to count every man, woman and child in the nation. Carlos Gutierrez, who oversees the Census Bureau, said officials there were unaccustomed to working with an outside vendor on such a large contract. Census Director Steven Murdock, an appointee of President Bush, is the former state demographer of Texas. What we’re facing is a statistical Katrina on the part of the administration,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York. Further insight to Gutierrez is provided by a 12-6-2007 Harper’s Magazine article that reported that Gutierrez has Adan Oktar’s Atlas of Creation — a book that offers an Islamic version of creationism and blames Charles Darwin for modern terrorism, including the 9/11 attacks — for display on a stand at the entrance to his US government office.

How the Neocons Killed Over 4,000 American – Watch the entire two-part PBS Frontline series, Bush’s War.

Hillary Says She Misspoke About Wrestling Bin Laden (parody – just for fun) – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has been accused in recent days of padding her foreign policy resume while First Lady, admitted today that she may have exaggerated about an encounter she said she had with al-Qaeda terror mastermind Osama bin Laden in 1998. In an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Sen. Clinton told host Tim Russert, “I wrestled bin Laden in his cave in 1998 and had him pinned to the ground before the bastard got away.” … “I may have misspoke about what went on that particular day,” Sen. Clinton said today. “But it was a very busy time for me, what with having that knife-fight with Kim Jong-Il and all.”

Regards,

Jim

Another Lie to Scare You: Bush Falsely Says Iran Announced Their Desire for Nuclear Weapons – President Bush contended that Iran has “declared they want a nuclear weapon to destroy people” and that the Islamic Republic could be hiding a secret program. Iran, however, has never publicly proclaimed a desire for nuclear weapons and has repeatedly insisted that the uranium enrichment program it’s operating in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions is for civilian power plants, not warheads. Bush made his assertion Wednesday in an interview marking the Iranian New Year with Radio Farda, a U.S. government-run radio service that broadcasts into Iran in the Farsi language.

White House Press Secretary Says Your Opinion Only Counts Once Every Four Years – The following is from the March 20th White House press briefing:

HELEN THOMAS: The American people are being asked to die and pay for this. And you’re saying they have no say in this war?

PERINO: No, I didn’t say that Helen. But Helen, this president was elected…
THOMAS: But it amounts to it. You’re saying we have no input at all.
PERINO: You had input. The American people have input every four years, and that’s the way our system is set up.

Like Dick Cheney, Perino is clearly suggesting that current opposition to the Iraq war is inconsequential. Perino leaves out one other inconvenient fact: the 2006 mid-term elections.

Fox News Publishes False “Black Panther” Endorsement of Barrak Obama – The front page of FoxNews.com shows an article titled “Obama Gets ‘Panther’ Ok”. They point to a public profile set up by somebody claiming to be a member of the New Black Panther Party who supports Barack Obama. More than 700,000 people have created accounts on Obamma’s website and Fox selected this one and put a screenshot of the inflammatory content on the front page of FoxNews.com. When Obamma’s site was alerted of the existence of this page, they pulled it down. Yet even after they pulled the page, Fox News continues to disingenuously and prominently feature this “story” on their homepage. Fox has done this same sort of thing with Daily Kos and Huffington Post. Bill O’Reilly has been banging this tired drum — calling Huffington no different from Nazis and the KKK — for weeks now. Response to Fox News “story”

Racist Comments on FOX News Website – I don’t want to repeat them here, but if you feel that you must read them, check the link.

Fox News Tries to Make You Scared of Blacks – On his Fox News radio show, Tom Sullivan predicted that if Barrak Obama loses, African-Americans would be rioting in the streets similar to what happened after the O.J. trial in the 1990s.

So Much Obama Bashing on Fox News That one Anchor Walks Off; Another Speaks Out – This morning on “Fox and Friends,” Brian Kilmeade walked off the set after a dispute with his co-hosts over Obama’s comment that his grandmother is a “typical white person.” Kilmeade argued that the remark needed to be taken in context and eventually got so fed up with his co-hosts that he walked off set. Later, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace came on the show and railed against “Fox and Friends” for what he called “Obama-bashing.”

Rush Limbaugh Encouraged Voter Fraud in Ohio – During the Texas and Ohio primaries, Rush Limbaugh was urging Republicans to skip their party’s primary on March 4 and instead cast a vote for Hillary Clinton in order to prolong the fight between her and Barack Obama. And that Tuesday, as media in both states reported, thousands of Republicans did just what Limbaugh and others had suggested — they changed parties to vote for Clinton. “I want Hillary to stay in this, Laura,” Limbaugh told Laura Ingraham on Feb. 29, near the start of his Hillary crusade. “This is too good a soap opera. We need Barack Obama bloodied up politically, and it’s obvious that the Republicans are not going to do it and don’t have the stomach for it, as you probably know.”

The Cuyahoga County Board of Election has now launched an investigation that could lead to criminal charges against voters who maliciously switched parties for the March 4 presidential primary. One voter scribbled the following addendum to his pledge as a new Democrat: “For one day only.” “Such an admission amounts to voter fraud,” the report continued, attributing that conclusion to BOE member Sandy McNair.

America: What’s Not To Mindlessly Love? – From Lionel at AirAmerica: Some of us, me (Hello!) included, are embarrassed over our history and current treatment of some people. While I love Americans for the most part and certainly wouldn’t want to necessarily leave the country, this east coast “elite” has a few problems inter alia with the government of these United States: (1) gays and lesbians are treated as second-class citizens; (2) non-believers are all but ignored; (3) the evangelical jihadists have a stranglehold on this place and have successfully killed all chances of there finally being federal funding for embryonic stem cell research; (4) our treatment of Native Americans heretofore is nothing short of despicable; (5) we’ve invaded a sovereign country as part of a neocon pipe dream; (6) this administration has eroded more constitutional protections than most are even aware ever existed; (7) the advancement of the unitary executive has all but destroyed the separation of powers doctrine; (8) we have marginalized our image in the world and went from being respected to now almost universally-loathed; (9) our drug law policies are archaic if not antediluvian; (10) our Boeotian Prez has made anti-intellectualism quaint; (11) speaking of quaint, we’ve likened the protections of the Geneva Conventions as “quaint”; and (12) ______________ (Your choice.)

God bless what’s left of my America.

How Many Neocons Does It Take to Screw Up a Decision? Below, is an excerpt from the chapter titled “Their Finest Hour: America Readies Itself To Free The Iraqi People” from the book “Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won The War In Iraq.”

WALK IN THE PARK:
“I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.”- Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 2/13/02

“Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder.” – Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02

“Desert Storm II would be in a walk in the park… The case for ‘regime change’ boils down to the huge benefits and modest costs of liberating Iraq.” – Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 8/29/02

“Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world’s sole superpower.” – William Kristol, Weekly Standard editor, and Lawrence F. Kaplan, New Republic senior editor, 2/24/03

TROOP LEVELS:
“I would be surprised if we need anything like the 200,000 figure that is sometimes discussed in the press. A much smaller force, principally special operations forces, but backed up by some regular units, should be sufficient.” – Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02

“I don’t believe that anything like a long-term commitment of 150,000 Americans would be necessary.” – Richard Perle, speaking at a conference on “Post-Saddam Iraq” sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, 10/3/02

“I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point — something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required.” – Gen. Eric Shinseki, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 2/25/03

“The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark.” – Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/27/03

“I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us keep [troop] requirements down. … We can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark…wildly off the mark.” – Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the House Budget Committee, 2/27/03

“It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to image.” – Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the House Budget Committee, 2/27/03

“If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave.” – President George W. Bush, 6/28/05

“The debate over troop levels will rage for years; it is…beside the point.” – Rich Lowry, conservative syndicated columnist, 4/19/06

CASUALTIES:
“Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.” – President George W. Bush, response attributed to him by the Reverend Pat Robertson, when Robertson warned the president to prepare the nation for “heavy casualties” in the event of an Iraq war, 3/2003

“Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” – Barbara Bush, former First Lady (and the current president’s mother), on Good Morning America, 3/18/03

“I think the level of casualties is secondary… [A]ll the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war… What we hate is not casualties but losing.” – Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute, 3/25/03

COST OF IRAQ INVASION:
“Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will.” – Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02

“The likely economic effects [of the war in Iraq] would be relatively small… Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits.” – Lawrence Lindsey, White House Economic Advisor, 9/16/02

“It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars.” – Kenneth M. Pollack, former Director for Persian Gulf Affairs, U.S. National Security Council, 9/02

“The costs of any intervention would be very small.” – Glenn Hubbard, White House Economic Advisor, 10/4/02

“When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community.” – Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 3/27/03

“There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.” – Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, 3/27/03

“The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid.” – Mitchell Daniels, Director, White House Office of Management and Budget, 4/21/03

“Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction.” – Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, 2/18/03

HOW LONG AN OCCUPATION?
“Now, it isn’t gong to be over in 24 hours, but it isn’t going to be months either.” – Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02

“The idea that it’s going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.” – Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 11/15/02

“I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?” – Bill O’Reilly, 1/29/03

“It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could be six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” – Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/7/03

“It won’t take weeks… Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there’s no question that it will.” – Bill O’Reilly, 2/10/03

“There is zero question that this military campaign…will be reasonably short. … Like World War II for about five days.” – General Barry R. McCaffrey, national security and terrorism analyst for NBC News, 2/18/03

“The Iraq fight itself is probably going to go very, very fast. The shooting should be over within just a very few days from when it starts.” – David Frum, former Bush White House speechwriter, 2/24/03

“Our military superiority is so great — it’s far greater than it was in the Gulf War, and the Gulf War was over in 100 hours after we bombed for 43 days… Now they can bomb for a couple of days and then just roll into Baghdad… The odds are there’s going to be a war and it’s going to be not for very long.” – Former President Bill Clinton, 3/6/03

“I think it will go relatively quickly…weeks rather than months.” – Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03

Regards,

Jim

Tucker Carlson Says Cheney is ‘Kind of a Hero’ for Ignoring Americans’ Opinions – When Vice President Dick Cheney asserted in a recent interview with ABC News that “there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress” in Iraq, interviewer Martha Raddatz was dubious.

“Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting,” Raddatz noted.
“So?” replied Cheney.
“You don’t care what the American people think?” Raddatz asked.
“No,” Cheney replied.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough played a clip of this exchange on Morning Joe. “Look at his face,” Scarborough pointed out. “Look how shaken up he is.” “The question,” Scarborough continued incredulously, “was what do you do when two-thirds of American think this war is not worth fighting. Dick Cheney’s response: ‘So?’ There’s a guy that sticks his finger in the wind!”

Tucker Carlson leaped in to defend Cheney. “He’s kind of a hero in that way,” Carlson suggested. “I know I’ll probably have my car egged for saying this, but … it’s so nice to see someone that old-school. ‘Hey, you kids, get off my lawn.’ That’s Dick Cheney. I love that.”

Obama’s Passport File Inappropriately Accessed at by State Department – Three contract employees of the State Department inappropriately accessed at Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s passport file. It was not immediately clear what the contract employees may have seen in the records or what they were looking for.

Your House Could be Raided by the FBI for Accidentally Clicking a Link on the Intrenet – Undercover FBI agents used a technique of posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, which actually directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, then staged armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images. As an example, Roderick Vosburgh, a doctoral student at Temple University who also taught history at La Salle University, was raided at home in February 2007 after he allegedly clicked on the FBI’s hyperlink. Federal agents knocked on the door around 7 a.m., falsely claiming they wanted to talk to Vosburgh about his car. Once he opened the door, they threw him to the ground outside his house and handcuffed him. Using the same logic and legal arguments, federal agents could send unsolicited e-mail messages to millions of Americans advertising illegal narcotics or child pornography–and raid people who click on the links embedded in the spam messages. (It’s just like the old Soviet Union, but with higher technology. – JLV)

Since 2003, at Least 12 Service Members Have Died in Iraq as a Result of Electrocution – Allegedly, KBR allowed U.S. troops to continue using electrical systems which contractor KBR knew to be dangerous and knew had caused prior instances of electrocution.

Regards,

Jim

John McCain Falsely Says That Iran is Helping al Qaeda – During a press conference in Amman on Tuesday, Jordan, John McCain said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”

Asked About Two-Thirds of Americans’ Opposition to the Iraq War, Cheney Says, ‘So?’ – Informed during a Good Morning America interview broadcast Wednesday that two-thirds of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, Cheney said: “So?”

“So you don’t care what the American people think?” ABC’s Martha Raddatz asked.
He added: “I think we cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations of the public opinion polls. There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That’s a huge accomplishment.”

By Damaging Our Partnerships, We Damage Our Security – Our five years in Iraq has not only hurt our relationship with other nations, but with local populations worldwide, especially in the Middle East. The percentage of people who view the United States as a positive influence in public affairs is shrinking. Even worse, our presence in Iraq is used as a recruiting tool for al Qaeda and has generated a level of political turbulence around the world that has given way to a new variety of al Qaeda-style militants. These militants are gaining prominence in many countries that have traditionally been our allies. The longer we remain in Iraq, the longer these new strains of extremism will threaten the security of the region, and in turn our nation. As long as the President’s policies continue, Iraq will continue to be what the Intelligence Community has called a “cause celebre” for a new generation of terrorists.

Why do Bedbugs Hate America? – While grappling with MSNBC and CNN for viewers, Fox News has also been battling a smaller, more insidious enemy closer to home: bed bugs in its Midtown Manhattan newsroom. In an interview on Monday, Warren Vandeveer, senior vice president for operations and engineering at Fox News, said the cable channel had realized it had a problem a few weeks ago, when an employee “caught a bug and showed it to us.” An exterminator determined that the incursion was limited to a “very small area in the newsroom.” But the source of the bugs was not determined until the exterminator inspected the homes of about 20 employees. Mr. Vandeveer said the exterminator later described one employee’s home as having “the worst infestation he had seen in 25 years in the business.”

John McCain is Running for George W.’s Third Term

Regards,

Jim

Cheney Ties Iraq and al-Qaeda Again – Vice President Dick Cheney, in a press conference during a surprise visit to Iraq, again stated that it was “pretty clear” there was a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda before Sep. 11 in spite of the release last week of an exhaustive Pentagon report which concluded that there were no ties between Saddam Hussein and the terror network.

Conservatives Preachers Have Denounced America’s Shortcomings Too – The following is from the son of a conservative preacher: Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers rail against America’s sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the “murder of the unborn,” has become “Sodom” by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say that we are, “under the judgment of God.” They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama’s minister’s shouted “controversial” comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton. But when my late father — Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer — denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Conservative [neocon/authoritarian] Bill Kristol Wrongly Claims that Obama Was in Attendance When Pastor Made Controversial Statements – Conservative Bill Kristol claims that Obama was in fact in the pews at Trinity last July 22 when Reverend Wright made controversial statements. However, Obama was on his way to campaign in Miami.

Fox News Attacks Obama

Fox News Correspondent Likens Obama Pastor and Hitler On Sunday, Fox News correspondent Ainsley Earhardt likens Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright to Hitler.

Department of Defense Delayed Brain Injury Scans – For more than two years, the Pentagon delayed screening troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because officials feared veterans would blame vague ailments on the little-understood wound caused by exposure to bomb blasts, says the military’s director of medical assessments. Air Force Col. Kenneth Cox said in an interview that the Pentagon wanted to avoid another controversy such as the so-called Gulf War syndrome.

FBI Watchlist Data is Unreliable – The FBI gave outdated, incomplete and inaccurate information about terror suspects to be added to the government’s watchlist for nearly three years despite steps taken to prevent errors, a Justice Department audit concludes.

Regards,

Jim

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Bush Asked for Weaker Smog Standard – The Environmental Protection Agency agreed to weaken an important part of its new smog requirements after being told at the last minute that President Bush preferred a less stringent approach, according to government documents. They show tense exchanges between the EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget in the days before the smog air quality standard was announced Wednesday. Changes directed by the White House were made only hours before the agency issued the regulation. The late activity forced the EPA to delay the announcement for five hours.

British Government Figures Hide Scale of CO2 Emissions, Says Report – Britain’s climate change emissions may be 12% higher than officially stated, according to a National Audit Office investigation which has strongly criticized the government for using two different carbon accounting systems. There is “insufficient consistency and coordination” in the government’s approach, the NAO said. Using one system, which the government presents to the UN and in public, Britain emitted 656m tonnes of CO2 in 2005, and claims an improvement on 1990 figures. However, the lesser-known but more accurate data in the government’s national environmental accounts show emissions to be in the region of 733m tonnes in 2005, a NAO report says today.

More Than 200 Thousand Public-Records Requests Unanswered – Two years after President Bush signed an executive order designed to strengthen FOIA compliance and reduce backlogs of pending requests, an audit of public information procedures finds some progress but persistent problems. Hundreds of thousands of requests remain unanswered, and compliance with electronic requests has not kept pace with technological innovation.

Americans Don’t Care About Their Liberty – In recent weeks, the papers have been full of stories about the warehousing of information on Americans by the National Security Agency, the interception of financial information by the CIA, the stripping of authority from a civilian intelligence oversight board by the White House, and the compilation of suspicious activity reports from banks by the Treasury Department. On Thursday, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine released a report documenting continuing misuse of Patriot Act powers by the FBI. And to judge from the reaction in the country, nobody cares.

Four Articles That Say There’s Something Strange Behind the Spitzer Investigation;

Even Some Conservative Republicans are Calling it Strange – While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators. Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

Intrigue: Novak suggests GOP operative behind Spitzer fall – Conservative columnist Robert Novak suggests a Republican political operative was behind the fall of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. “Republican political operative Roger Stone, Eliot Spitzer’s longtime antagonist, predicted his political demise more than three months in advance,” Novak writes. “Spitzer’s entrapment by federal authorities investigating a prostitution ring raised speculation that Stone, with a 40-year record as a political hit man, somehow was behind it.” Speaking of the scandal Stone added cryptically: “My work isn’t done there. Just watch.”

Alan Dershowitz, in the Wall Street Journal, averred that the story of Spitzer’s ‘capture’ doesn’t entirely ring true to career prosecutors – “There is no hard evidence that Eliot Spitzer was targeted for investigation, but the story of how he was caught does not ring entirely true to many experienced former prosecutors and current criminal lawyers,” Dershowitz wrote. “The New York Times reported that the revelations began with a routine tax inquiry by revenue agents ‘conducting a routine examination of suspicious financial transactions reported to them by banks.’ This investigation allegedly found ‘several unusual movements of cash involving the Governor of New York.’ But the movement of the amounts of cash required to pay prostitutes, even high-priced prostitutes over a long period of time, does not commonly generate a full-scale investigation.”

“We are talking about thousands, not millions, of dollars. We are also talking about a man who is a multimillionaire with numerous investments and purchases,” he added. “The idea that federal investigators would focus on a few transactions to corporations — that were not themselves under investigation — raises as many questions as answers.”

Ben Stein deeply disturbed by Spitzer investigation – Former Nixon speechwriter and Republican talking head Ben Stein is troubled by what he calls the actions of a few “nosy civil servants” using evidence gained from wiretaps to unravel the career of the outgoing New York Governor, and undo a majority vote by the people of New York.

“Something sinister is happening,” he says, “and it scares me.”
“Men hire prostitutes by the thousands,” Stein continues, “maybe tens of thousands, every day. They also bring women across state lines for sex every day.

“The punishment for the men who hire hookers is usually nil, or at most, a small fine, close to what you’d get for a traffic ticket.”

Spitzer, on the other hand, was humiliated and run out of office as punishment, with Stein protesting a small number of federal officials having what he essentially calls veto power over the electoral process. Spitzer, he continues, has been stripped of his career for something picked up on a wiretap that was not a high crime like terrorism or treason.

Millions of Iraqis Lack Water and Healthcare Says Red Cross – Five years after the United States led an invasion of Iraq, millions of people there are still deprived of clean water and medical care, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday

Regards,

Jim

Despite repeated denials by Senator Obama and his campaign team, the misinformation from Fox “Noise” still gets around. Sean Hannity made two attempts in January and February to link Obama with the statements by others (Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright) which he has renounced. Here is an exerpt from Brave New Films that shows how this propaganda is like a virus infecting the minds of citizens and voters.

I was on the phone with my parents telling them about the video I was working on, FOX ATTACKS! Obama part 2: Spreading the Virus, and brought up how FOX (Sean Hannity, in particular) has been desperately trying to create a connection between Louis Farrakhan and Barack Obama because a magazine founded by Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and run by Wright’s daughters recently gave Louis Farrakhan an award. I told my parents how Hannity went from saying the magazine gave Farrakhan the award to claiming Wright gave him the award (which he didn’t) to saying that Obama “associated” with Farrakhan (which he hasn’t). Hannity would mostly use these “stories” so he could rattle off some of Farrakhan’s most offensive comments and mention Obama in the same breath, effectively linking the two in the minds of FOX viewers. He just wants to say, “Obama — Farrakhan — racist — anti-Semite” over and over again until they are linked, just as FOX did with “Iraq — Al Qaeda — 9/11 — terrorism” in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Of course, Hannity almost never mentions that Obama has repeatedly denounced Farrakhan’s racist, anti-semitic, and inflammatory remarks, has called for more cooperation between the black and Jewish communities, has spoken before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and has been defended by the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other prominent Jewish organizations. But Hannity doesn’t want his viewers to know this. He just wants them to have a vague impression that Obama is an anti-semite and a black separatist.

When I mentioned this example to my parents, my dad said, “Wait, didn’t Louis Farrakhan give Obama an award and Obama accepted it?” When I told him that this was completely off, he said, “Oh, I guess I must have heard it wrong.”

The author goes on to describe his father as not a “current events junkie,” “reasonably well informed,” a reader of The Economist and “not conservative or a FOX viewer.”

So, why does this misinformation get around and what can be done about it?

One reason is that other networks pickup on the same misinformation and repeat it. During the February 26, 2008, Democratic debate, Tim Russert, of MSNBC, pressed Obama on his relationship with Farrakhan. Russert did this repeatedly.

Another reason the virus spreads is that Sean Hannity is not the only FOX celebrity to generate misinformation about Senator Obama. The Brave New Films video below touches on a litany of lies from Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda propeller called FOX News.

The most egregious part of the FOX bias comes at the end of the video when they equate Obama with Hitler.  There is one very large truth ignored by FOX that makes this analogy just another lie:  Hitler lead his country to ruin because, among other things, he had an authoritarian personality.   Professor Altemeyer’s research about the authoritarian personality has made him the expert on the subject and a major contributor to John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience.    I asked the professor, “Is there any thing that you can say about the likelihood that Senator Obama has any authoritarian tendencies?”  He replied, “My PERCEPTION of Barack Obama is that he would be quite an  UNauthoritarian leader.  I of course don’t know what he’s like when he’s  making decisions, but he talks a great deal about consultation with a  lot of points of view and openness. Something we haven’t seen in the  White House in at least eight years.”

Also, according to Professor Altemeyer’s research, the only threat by authoritarians in this country is from a minority of Republicans, supporters of these Republicans like Rupert Murdoch, certain celebrities at Fox “Noise” and many Protestant evangelicals.

What can you do about the spreading of these lies? Sign the petition demanding that other media stop spreading the FOX virus. Here is what it says:

Fox is a Republican mouthpiece, not a legitimate news organization. Real news organizations must reject Fox’s smears of Barack Obama, not parrot them.

by Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle

In this twenty-ninth survey of the web, The WAWG Index monthly average was up by 3.9 percent from February 2008. Of the fourteen categories tracked, 5 were up, 8 were down and one was unchanged. The largest decrease for March, 54 percent, was rampant chronism and corruption. The largest increase was for protection of corporate power at 176 percent. This increase more than negated the previous 2 month’s decrease.

Through this March reading, the 12 month group moving average for all fourteen categories was up slightly by 0.7 percent to -8.8 percent. Of the fourteen categories tracked, only one, media control, is still positive – and gained 2.3 percent over last month.

(Note: The search engine has updated it’s Advanced interface and restricting the search to the region of the United States was added. The effect seemed to be minimal since the search crteria used include “United Stats.”

US Buries Pentagon Study Showing No Link Between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda – The US administration appeared to bury the release of a detailed Pentagon study confirms there was no direct link between late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda network, making it available only at individual request and by mail — instead of posting it on the Internet or handing it out to reporters.

Republican Campaign Treasurer Embezzled up to $1 Million – The FBI began an investigation in February to determine how much former National Republican Congressional Committee treasurer Christopher J. Ward, who previously did work for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, embezzled from the NRCC.

McCain Intervention Helped Airbus – European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. and Northop Grumman Corp. were awarded a $35 billion Pentagon contract last month to build new Air Force tankers, instead of Boeing Co., and the American-based company is formally challenging the agreement. McCain pushed for EADS to get the contract, and his campaign employs three former EADS lobbyists, although there is no specific evidence of impropriety, according to ABC. “Mr. Clean has a bunch of lobbyists that work for a company that won that contract,” House Democratic Caucus chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., told the network. “Some people claim the way the specs were written, it was all but certain that the company that his campaign lobbyists worked for couldn’t but get that contract.”

Bush Intervened to Have EPA Weaken Ozone Standards – The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA. EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA’s scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents. “It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA’s expert scientific judgment,” said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Defense Resources Council. The president’s order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.

Big Brother is Watching Your Banking and Credit Card Transactions – Every time you swipe your credit card, take cash out of an ATM or transfer money into your bank account, a sophisticated network of computers is keeping track. Some data is kept by the banks and credit card companies and other information is passed on to the federal government. “People aren’t really aware of the fact that transactions that they make with financial institutions are being monitored,” said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy form the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. “Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are having their everyday banking transactions forwarded to the federal government.”

Regards,

Jim

Four Consecutive Years of Privacy Breaches by FBI – A long-anticipated audit, to be released Thursday, is expected to show a fourth consecutive year of privacy breaches by FBI agents using so-called national security letters to gain access to telephone, e-mail, and financial records of Americans and foreigners without a judge’s approval.

McCain Spiritual Adviser Calls for Destruction of Islam – Televangelist Rod Parsley, hailed by Senator John McCain as a spiritual adviser, has called upon Christians to wage a “war” against the “false religion” of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

Islamophobia Threatens Global Peace and Security – A report by a special OIC monitoring group said the organization was struggling to get the West to understand that Islamophobia “has dangerous implications on global peace and security” and to convince western powers to do more. Islamic leaders have long warned that perceptions linking Muslims to terrorism, especially since the September 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, would make Muslims more radical. The West must understand that “the war against terror cannot be successful without the support of Muslim countries,” said the report.

Justice Department Says Legal Opinion on Bush’s Executive Orders is Classified – The Bush Administration’s Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel is refusing to turn over a document providing its analysis of Bush’s justification for executive orders. Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists, the office said the document was “classified.”

More Rough Interrogations of Prisoners Held Indefinitely Without Charges – The Defense Department is conducting an extensive review of the videotaping of interrogations at military facilities and so far it has identified nearly 50 tapes, including one that showed what a military spokesman described as the forcible gagging of a terrorism suspect. Other rough treatment was shown of a prisoner held for five years without being charged.

Feds Knew of Formaldehyde in FEMA Trailers Before They Were Issued – Federal officials issued trailers to Hurricane Katrina victims even though some workplace safety tests detected high levels of formaldehyde at government staging areas for the structures just weeks after the storm, a lawyer for hundreds of occupants said Wednesday

Citing Faith, Bush Says War with Iraq Will Forever be the Right Decision – Speaking Tuesday to the National Religious Broadcasters’ convention, President Bush declared the decision to “remove” Saddam Hussein in 2003 the “right decision at this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision.” Bush also pledged to veto the “fairness doctrine,” which would enjoin radio stations to give even time to opposing views.

White House Won’t Remove Loophole Allowing Foreign Contractors to Ignore Fraud – The White House has indicated it will not remove a loophole quietly inserted into a budget rule which allows contractors abroad to keep silent if they observe fraud or abuse on US government contracts. The proposed rule, put forth by the White House Office of Management and Budget last year, exempts all companies who do work overseas from a new regulation requiring US contractors to report waste, fraud or abuse they encounter while doing work for the government. More than $100 billion in contracts have been awarded for work in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last five years. “This sends the message that if you’re going to do waste, fraud and abuse, don’t do it at home, do it abroad,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT).

White House Spokesman Says the Problem with the Economy is That You’re Not Spending Your Money – The White House, buffeted by a stronger than expected drop in monthly US retail sales, urged US consumers Thursday to shop and said they should be confident in long-term US economic health. “We do want to see the consumer spend, and that’s one of the reasons for the rebate checks,” spokesman Tony Fratto said. With consumer spending the main engine of the US economy, the February report showing Americans were closing their wallets heightened concerns the world’s biggest economy is falling into, or already is in, recession. (Consumers, why do you hate America? – JLV)

Regards,

Jim