Florida Voting Machine Logs Reveal Anomalies

No surprises here. Please move along.

boot1780 from Slashdot writes:

"Having 'successfully sued former Palm Beach County (FL) Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore to get the audit records for the 2004 presidential election,' Black Box Voting reports that the 'internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night.' Besides the date discrepancies, they claim to have discovered countless other errors and anomalies, including a case of one voting machine being 'powered down 128 times during the election'." Given the findings here, can we have a do-over?

Nope, no do over. Republican will never allow that to happen. No matter how much they stuffed the ballot box. Is it me? It seems like all this work the GOP is doing is just to make it easier to stage an election so they can seize power and make it look like it was legal.

You can see the raw voting logs for Palm Beach County Here:

From BlackBoxVoting.org:

After investing over $7,000 and waiting nine months for the records, Black Box Voting discovered that the voting machine logs contained approximately 100,000 errors. According to voting machine assignment logs, Palm Beach County used 4,313 machines in the Nov. 2004 election. During election day, 1,475 voting system calibrations were performed while the polls were open, providing documentation to substantiate reports from citizens indicating the wrong candidate was selected when they tried to vote.

Another disturbing find was several dozen voting machines with votes for the Nov. 2, 2004 election cast on dates like Oct. 16, 15, 19, 13, 25, 28 2004 and one tape dated in 2010. These machines did not contain any votes date-stamped on Nov. 2, 2004.

[snip]

The logs rule out the possibility that these were Logic & Accuracy (L&A) test results, and verified that these results did appear in the final totals. In addition to the date discrepancies, most had incorrect polling times, with votes appearing throughout the wee hours of the night. These machines were L&A tested, and the L&A test activities appeared in the logs with the correct date and time.

According to the voting machine assignment log, these machines were not assigned to early voting locations. The number of votes on each machine also corresponds with the numbers typical of polling place machines rather than early voting.

Many of these machines showed unexplained log activity after the L&A test but before Election Day. In addition, many more machines without date anomalies showed this log activity, which revealed someone powering up the machine, opening the program, then powering it down again. In one instance, the date discrepancy appeared when someone accessed the machine two minutes after the L&A test was completed.

Scary huh? Any bets that the GOP will brush this off? How about the media never even reporting it?

The Slashdot post and discussion are here:
Florida Voting Machine Logs Reveal Anomalies

The BlackBoxVoting article can be found here:
Someone accessed 40 Palm Beach County voting machines Nov 2004

Technorati tags: News, Election, Diebold, Voting, Florida

It's the Corporation, Stupid. The Sellout of National Security

I've quoted Molly Ivans before. She's an excellent journalist with a good sense of humor. Here' she writes about the United Arab Emirates taking over our ports. Bush seems to like it...

Molly Ivans of Truthdig writes:

So, aside from the fact that it’s politically idiotic and at least theoretically presents a national security risk, just what is wrong with the Dubai Ports deal?

President Bush said: “I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I’m trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, we’ll treat you fairly.” So, what’s wrong with that? There’s our only president standing up against discrimination and against tarring all Arabs with the same brush and all that good stuff. (The fact that it was Mr. Racial Profiling speaking, the man who has single-handedly created more Arab enemies for this country than anyone else ever dreamed of making is just one of those ironies we regularly get whacked over the head with.)

OK, here’s for starters. We have already been warned that, should we back out of the DP deal, the United Arab Emirates may well take offense and not be so nice about helping us in the War on Terra—maybe even cut back its money, as well as its cooperation. This is a problem specific to the fact that we are dealing with a corporation owned by a country: A corporation only wants to make money, a corporation owned by a country has lots of motives.

Second, this is a corporation, consequently its only interest is in making money. A corporation is like a shark, designed to do two things: kill and eat. Thousands of years of evolution lie behind the shark, whereas the corporation has only a few hundred. But it is still perfectly evolved for its purpose. That means a corporation that makes money running port facilities does not have a stake in national security. It’s not the corporation’s fault any more than it’s the shark’s.

Balance, the word balance when used between security and profit scares me.

The president is quite correct that a “Great British” corporation has no more or less interest in helping terrorists than an Arab corporation. It is not the corporation that is supposed to have other interests—it is government. But as Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security, said, “We have to balance the paramount urgency of security against the fact that we still want to have a robust global trading system.”

“Balance” is the arresting word here—keep your eye on “balance.” We have an administration that is absolutely wedded to corporate interests, both American and global. It honestly believes that “free trade” is more important than the environment and more important than the people. It has repeatedly demonstrated it is willing to let both go in order to foster free trade. There is no “balance” in its consideration on these issues, and now, it turns out, not much “balance” on national security, either.

The people running this country—and that includes most of the leaders of both parties—have proven again and again they are perfectly willing to outsource American jobs, American wage standards, and American health and safety standards all for the sacred, holy grail of free trade. Why would it surprise us that national security is ditto?

The entire article can be found here:
It's the Corporation, Stupid

Technorati tags: News, Bush, Ports, UAE, Security

Budget Cuts Threaten Environment

My friends at the National Environmental Trust sent me an interesting email in response to my previous post concerning Bush's pretend oil addiction.

Here's the email:

Hey man, nice piece on the Bush budget and renewable energy. If you'’re looking for more, we'’ve pulled together a bunch of resources on both energy and on Bush'’s proposal to sell public lands to make up for budget shortfalls. You might find something else you can use there: http://www.net.org/policy/budget/

Keep up the good work.

So quite naturally, I checked it out. They have managed to put together a pretty nice collection of articles and links that describe, to the letter, just how stupid Bush thinks we are. He just simply tells us how green he is while he makes it easier for oil and pollution. Personally, I think he drinks the stuff.

From NET.org:

It is now clear that President Bush's budget has completely undercut his State of the Union address promise to address our "addiction to oil" by 2025. The President pledged to increase funding for alternative energy by 22 percent, but his budget cuts the very programs that would help us reach this goal. Overall cuts in energy efficiency and conservation are mirrored by a 13 percent reduction in environmental funding, and by proposals to raise money by selling public lands. See below for more about specific budget cuts.

I won't post the links here, but be sure to visit the site and check them out.

The entire article can be found here:
Budget Cuts Threaten Environment

Technorati tags: Bush, Environment, News, Oil, Energy

Bush's Renewable Energy Plan Merely an Election Campaign

Emperor Bush wound up his sweeping three state, two day tour that he used to push his renewable energy plans. It would have almost have been believable except that the plan came from a Texas Oil-Barron, an ultra-conservative, a former oil company executive, and the signer of 6 years of budgets that cut renewable energy funding and pave the way for more oil use in the country.

This is another case of Bush's two-faced policies. He tells something the American people want to hear, and then go and do what American corporations want. Which is usually to the detriment to the American people. Here he's saying that he wants to push for renewable energy but his policies say otherwise.

Caren Bohan of Reuters writes:

President George W. Bush called on Tuesday for tapping renewable energy sources like wind and solar power to contend with surging energy costs but environmental groups questioned his commitment to easing U.S. oil dependence.

Bush also told employees at a key laboratory for renewable energy research that he regretted "mixed signals" that had led the Colorado facility to announce job cuts earlier this month because of budget cuts.

He visited the National Renewable Energy Laboratory a day after his administration rushed the transfer of $5 million to the lab to enable it to restore the jobs and resolve what could have been an embarrassing situation.

Here's a small fact: Bush's Budget would have laid off 32 employees from the laboratory because of a $28 million cut from it's budget. How did the GOP fix the PR problem? $5 million dollars. That doesn't sound like Bush is committed to renewable energy but is willing to make it look like he is.

How about his budget? It has nothing more than token increases and major cuts in other areas:

Although the proposed budget boosts funding for solar power by 77 percent to $148 million and doubles biomass research programs to $150 million, research and development funding for geothermal and hydropower has been eliminated. The FY07 budget request for research and development for wind‚—the fastest growing energy source in the country‚—is $44 million. This is a $930,000 (2 percent) cut from last year‚’s request.

The 2007 budget also proposes cutting almost two-thirds of the $23 million designated for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs in the 2002 Farm Bill (HR 2646, Sec.9006). This cut would be harmful to farmers, ranchers, and small rural businesses. These people rely upon grant and loan programs to support energy efficiency improvements and the purchase of renewable energy systems including wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy sources. At a time when America's rural communities are facing economic challenges, funding renewable energy and energy efficiency projects would help establish an additional income source for landowners, create jobs, and lower energy costs for rural consumers. The Bush administration also attempted to slash this program in the 2005 and 2006 budget proposals. In both cases, UCS worked with coalition partners to successfully restore full funding during the congressional appropriations process. We will push for full funding of the program again this year. From the Union of Concerned Scientists

Let's face it, if he really wanted a renewable energy policy, he would spend more than that. While a 77% increase is good it only raises it to $150 million in a $3 trillion budget.

While we applaud President Bush's call to reduce U.S. oil dependence, the proposed budget will do virtually nothing to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. There are no incentives in the proposed budget for improving the fuel economy of today's cars and trucks. This is the best way to reduce oil dependence over the next 20 years. The relatively small increase in research dollars for hybrid technology ($6.7 million according to the White House) is positive, but is paltry in comparison with the size of the problem the United States sends more than that overseas to pay for oil every 15 minutes.

From Reuters:

Dave Hamilton, an energy expert at the Sierra Club environmental group, said an energy bill Bush signed last August was a "missed opportunity" to have boosted alternative-fuels research funds further.

He said Bush's latest energy initiatives were "baby steps in the right direction." But he added, "The administration's larger actions have moved counter to the goals of reducing foreign oil dependence."

Addressing the issue of the jobs that had just been restored at the lab, Bush said, "I recognize that there has been some ... let me say, mixed signals when it comes to funding."

"Our mutual desire is to clear up any discrepancies in funding, and I think we've cleaned up those discrepancies," he added.

Yeah, now we know you are lying to us.

The Reuters article can be found here:
Bush's Renewable Energy Plan Merely an Election Campaign

The Union of Concerned Scientists article can be found here:
Bush Administration FY07 Budget —Highlights and Lowlights

Technorati tags: News, Bush, Energy, Oil, Power

Where have we been?!?!?

So you guys have probably been wondering about our sparse posts lately. Well I decided to explain it. Demetrios are going to be losing our jobs at the end of the week. They decided to outsource our jobs to that far away land called Houston, TX.

So in the time that we should be diligent and blogging and swearing, we've been job searching (and just a little bit of drinking).

I wanted to let you guys know that we are still here. We haven't given up (or been arrested) but it seems fairly important to have an income. At least that's what my fiance and kids keep telling me.

So bear with us. Soon we'll be posting like mad again. Hell, if we don't find jobs soon, we'll be posting just to have something to do. You might even get sick of us!

Wish us luck. We'll let you know what's going on.

Adam Mindwolf

Prosecutors Urge 10-Year Sentence for Corrupt Republican Cunningham

Federal prosecutors are so disgusted with Randy "Duke" Cunningham's Corruption that they have petitioned the court for "duke" to have the full 10 year sentence.

It's not all too shocking when you read some of the things he did.

Charles R. Babcock of the Washington Post writes:

[B]ecause of "unparalleled corruption" that included a "bribe menu" on congressional letterhead telling a defense contractor what payments were required for different levels of federal funding, federal prosecutors said in court papers yesterday.

For instance, it said that Cunningham offered one of the contractors, identifiable in the court papers as Mitchell Wade, head of a Washington company called MZM Inc., $16 million in government contracts in return for the title to a boat Wade had just bought for $140,000. A copy of the notes is included in the filing, showing, the government said, that Cunningham charged an additional $50,000 for every $1 million more.

When the payments reached $340,000, the rate for each $1 million of federal funding dropped to $25,000, the document said.

The 35-page memo detailed several other incidents, including several in which the government said Cunningham attempted to tamper with witnesses when he feared that his actions would be discovered.

And...

Cunningham's downfall began last June when the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Wade had bought Cunningham's house there for $700,000 more than it was worth in 2003. The congressman used the proceeds to buy a more expensive home in Rancho Santa Fe.

The prosecutor's filing said that in 2004, Cunningham set out to erase the mortgages on his new home. First he demanded that the other contractor, identifiable as Brent Wilkes, head of ADCS Inc., give him $525,000 to pay off a second mortgage. The contractor did so on the condition that he received an additional $6 million in government funding, prosecutors said.

Cunningham demanded that Wade pay him $500,000 to pay off the rest of the mortgage, which prosecutors said Wade did by writing checks for $171,000 and $329,000 to Top Gun Enterprises, a memorabilia company Cunningham used to sell books and mementos of his days as a Navy fighter pilot in Vietnam.

Cunningham attempted to fabricate evidence and tamper with witnesses to his corruption, the government said, including persuading a real estate agent to write a letter justifying the lower price Wade resold his home for, and a phony letter in which Cunningham expressed his surprise at the low price and promised to pay Wade the difference.

He did not pay, the filing said.

The punchline is, when Cunningham's lawyer read the filing he released a statement saying the filing was "not surprising, but it is sad."

Sad? How can that be sad? Cunningham is a corrupt congressman and needs to be put away for skimming millions of dollars. Is that part sad?

We should give him ten years for each dollar he took.

The entire article can be found here:
Prosecutors Urge 10-Year Sentence for Corrupt Republican Cunningham

Technorati tags: News, Corruption, Politics, GOP, Scandal

Fox News withholds video of Cheney's drinking acknowledgment, ignores key questions

Here's something interesting.

Fox News withholds video of Cheney's drinking acknowledgment, ignores key questions:

Cheney's exclusive interview with Fox pays off; FNC withholds video of Cheney's drinking acknowledgment, ignores key questions

Summary: In airing Brit Hume's interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, Fox News omitted Cheney's comments about drinking a beer the day he shot his hunting companion. Fox News even excluded the comments from what it said was the "full interview" posted on its website.

Vice President Dick Cheney's decision to grant an exclusive interview to Fox News anchor Brit Hume apparently paid off, as Hume neglected to ask obvious questions and Fox News curiously decided not to broadcast Cheney's acknowledgment that he drank a beer before accidentally shooting a hunting companion in the face.

Cheney's acknowledgment that he consumed alcohol was one of the most significant new revelations of the interview, and -- though Cheney said he had only one beer, hours before the shooting -- raises new questions about the decision by the sheriff of Kenedy County, Texas, where the shooting took place, not to interview Cheney until the morning after the shooting. Yet Fox News chose not to broadcast Cheney's acknowledgment; instead, Hume paraphrased it in setting up the interview, thus sparing Cheney the embarrassment of the public seeing him acknowledge that he was drinking before he shot a man in the face -- and depriving the public of the opportunity to assess his credibility as he talked about the matter.

Fox News' decision to withhold video of Cheney's comments about drinking extends further than the initial broadcast of Hume's interview. At 9 a.m. ET on February 16, Fox's website urged readers to "Click here to watch Brit Hume's full interview with Vice President Cheney":

Technorati tags: News, Cheney, Drinking, Fox News

Harvard study blasts Bush education policy

A Harvard study revealed Tuesday what we already knew. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" Favors more affluent, white communities over poor communities and minority communities. How hard was this to figure out folks? Bush's Every Child Left Behind policy punishes underperforming school districts by removing funding. When the schools can't pay to have teachers teach classes, class sizes go up. Test scores go down. So more money is taken away.

Bush has put your children's education on a slippery slope, and it's picking up speed.

From CNN.com:

President Bush's No Child Left Behind education policy has in some cases benefited white middle-class children over blacks and other minorities in poorer regions, a Harvard University study showed Tuesday.

Political compromises forged between some states and the federal government have allowed schools in some predominantly white districts to dodge penalties faced by regions with larger ethnic minority populations, the study said.

Bush's 2001 No Child Left Behind Act was meant to introduce national standards to an education system where only two-thirds of teenagers graduate from high school, a proportion that slides to 50 percent for black Americans and Hispanics.

But instead of uniform standards, the policy has allowed various states to negotiate treaties and bargains to reduce the number of schools and districts identified as failing, said the study by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project.

"There's a very uneven effect. There are no clear uniform standards that are governing No Child Left Behind. If one state gets one thing, another state can do something else," the study's lead author, Gail Sunderman, said in an interview.

In Washington, a bipartisan commission announced on Tuesday that it was being created to take a "hard, independent look" at the law's problems and promises, and then make recommendations to Congress before the law's expected renewal in 2007.

Under No Child Left Behind, children in every racial and demographic group in every school must improve their scores on standardized tests in math and English each year. Failure to achieve annual progress can lead to sanctions against schools.

Children in poorly performing schools can switch schools if space is available. In extreme cases, schools can be closed.

But a surge in the number of schools identified as "needing improvement," including many considered top performers in their state, has stirred opposition to the law nationwide -- from a legal challenge in Connecticut to a rebellion by state legislators in staunchly Republican Utah.

The 60-page study examines letters sent by the Department of Education to all 50 states on how each state can administer the law and on their accountability plans.

Forty-nine states have taken some action to amend the law or been granted waivers to provisions in No Child Left Behind, the study said. "The problem with this approach is that it does not affect all schools equally," said Sunderman. "No two states are now subject to the same requirements."

In one example the study cites, states in rural Midwestern regions were granted extensions on deadlines to meet requirements on teacher qualifications that were unavailable to poorer rural regions with greater numbers of black Americans and ethnic minorities in southeast and southwest states.

"The policy is essentially a product of negotiation, of power and discretion, not law," Gary Orfield, director of Harvard's Civil Rights Project, said in the report.

The entire article can be found here:
Harvard study blasts Bush education policy

Technorati tags: News, Harvard, Bush, Education, Politics, left

Federal court orders Justice Dept. to release NSA documents

I'm going to get right to it because it's so simply amazing.

Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory writes:

This development seems quite significant; at the very least, it will ensure that the scandal continues regardless of the degree of success the White House finds in attempting to suppress a meaningful Congressional investigation. And, this will be yet another front where the White House is engaged in a full-scale effort to prevent an investigation into their illegal eavesdropping program. Here is what happened:

On the very day the New York Times first disclosed the existence of the warrantless eavesdropping program, The Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC") filed a Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") request with the Justice Department seeking the disclosure of four categories of documents relating to the NSA program, including documents reflecting the method used to determine which American citizens were eavesdropped on, as well as documents pertaining to the legal "justifications" for the Administration's eavesdropping program.

Despite purporting to approve EPIC's request for expedited processing of the FOIA application, the Justice Department dragged its feet, never produced anything (or responded in any way to the request), and continued to conceal those documents. As a result, EPIC commenced a FOIA action against the DoJ in federal court in the District of Columbia, seeking a preliminary injunction compelling the DoJ to comply with the FOIA request and produce the demanded documents. The ACLU filed a similar suit which was consolidated with the suit filed by EPIC.

Today, Federal Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. granted EPIC's Motion for a Preliminary Injunction (h/t Hypatia) and ordered the Justice Department, no later than March 8, to respond to the FOIA request and produce the demanded documents or, alternatively, specifically identify the documents and specify the ostensible reasons for withholding them. The Court's order (in .pdf) is here.

Many of these documents are among those sought by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, which the DoJ is refusing to produce. But the FOIA requests here go beyond those which Specter is trying to obtain, since Specter is seeking only documents pertaining to the legal justification for the program but these FOIA requests also include operational aspects of the illegal eavesdropping.

I do not know all of the implications of the Court's order, which will undoubtedly be appealed and perhaps stayed during the appeal. The DoJ is not yet being required to produce all of the requested documents but instead merely to "respond" to the FOIA requests, which leaves open the option of objecting to producing some or all of them on the grounds of various privileges and national security claims. But the Order does require the DoJ to "produce or identify all responsive records" by March 8, which means that they will have to identify the documents they want to withhold and provide reasons why they are withholding them (which the court will then review for validity).

As significant as the ruling itself is the rationale for it. The court explained:

"President Bush has invited meaningful debate about the warrantless surveillance program," U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy wrote. "That can only occur if DOJ processes [EPIC's] FOIA requests in a timely fashion and releases the information sought" . . . .

[A] meaningful and truly democratic debate on the legality and propriety of the warrantless surveillance program cannot be based solely upon information that the Administration voluntarily chooses to disseminate.

As I have been indicating, this scandal has many tentacles. And each of them is growing inexorably. The White House is running around with a broom desperately trying to sweep each branch under the rug (odd behavior for a White House which claims to welcome this scandal because it politically benefits from it), but once the mechanisms of the Washington scandal machine are activated with full-force, it is very difficult to simply shut them off or the prevent the disclosure of information which someone is trying to conceal. Clearly, this scandal isn't going to fade away with a little arm-twisting of some weak-willed Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Glenn post can be found here:
Federal court orders Justice Dept. to release NSA documents

Technorati tags: NSA, Bush, Wiretap, News, FOIA

UN denounces torture at Guantanamo, official calls for closure

From Monsters and Critics:

A United Nations investigator has called for the closure of the US prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay as the United Nations Thursday released a searing, detailed report of abuses and torture that occur there.

Manfred Nowak, one of the human rights reporters who carried out the investigation, made the call for closure in an interview published Thursday by Der Standard newspaper in Vienna,

'The Pentagon has authorized certain interrogation methods in Guantanamo, which in their combination are qualified by international organizations as torture, or at least inhuman treatment,' he said, citing use of extreme temperatures, or long detention in isolation.

The human rights investigative report, released Thursday in Geneva and made available in New York, charges that the United States has been acting as judge, prosecutor and defense counsel at the US Naval base at Guantanamo bay in Cuba, where about 520 terror suspects have been held since 2002.

Earlier this week, Washington rebuffed a draft of the report, calling it flawed and one-sided because the investigators refused to visit the facility. The US also said some of the practices condemned in the report, such as forced feeding, were allowable under international law

Forced feeding? You know, to me that sounds like cruel and unusual punishment. Why is this allowable in a U. S. run facility. Remember "All men are created equal"? remember "inalienable rights"? Why do they not deserve human rights?

Is it because they're terrorists? If they were terrorists we would be able to prove it and they would have been convicted and placed in jails by now. They are not even getting the right of counsel, which we provide to illegal aliens. Why are these people so much worse than normal people?

Is it because they are brown? When WAS the last time we attacked a country of white people? 1944. Since then we have ritualistically bombed poor, third world, and dark skinned nations.

George Carlin said is best:

Especially if your country is full of brown people. Oh, we like that, don't we? That's our hobby now. But it's also our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya. You got some brown people in your country? Tell 'em to watch the fuck out, or we'll goddamn bomb them!

Well, who were the last white people you can remember that we bombed? In fact, can you remember any white people we ever bombed? The Germans! That's it! Those are the only ones. And that was only because they were tryin' to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world.

Bullshit! That's our job. That's our fuckin' job.

Can it actually be a racist thing?

The UN reporters were given permission by the Pentagon to visit Guantanamo last November, but not to interview the detainees. The reporters turned down the visit because the visit would have contravened UN principles of human rights investigations.

The report detailed interrogation techniques that met the definition of torture under international conventions, including submitting detainees to conditions and positions of powerlessness to extract information.

It cited 'plentiful evidence' that US policies applied at Guantanamo led to serious mental health problems.

It particularly denounced the use of excessive violence against the detainees. Photographs obtained by the reporters show the detainees were shackled, chained, hooded, forced to wear earphones and goggles.

'They also showed beating, kicking, punching, but also stripping and forced shaving' of detainees who resisted, the report said.

The reporters charged that the US lacks the legal basis to detain the suspects and uses torture and excessive violence, including force-feeding of hunger strikers, against them.

It cited 'reliable indications' showing violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief at the controversial sprawling detention center opened after September 11.

'It is of particular concern that some of these violations have even been authorized by the authorities,' the 54-page report said in its conclusion.

The entire article can be found here:
UN denounces torture at Guantanamo, official calls for closure

Technorati tags: Guantanamo, UN, Washington, News, Human Rights, Bush

Dalai Lama speaks out: Politics, religion equal violence

The Dalai Lama is in Israel this week.

He is speaking out against religion in politics. He says that when there is not enough separation between religion and politics there will be violence because emotion is involved.

Neta Sela of YNetNews.com writes:

The leader of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama, has arrived in Israel for a five-day visit.

Describing the purpose of his visit as bringing harmony to the area, he said he did not come to talk about the situation of Tibet.

During a press conference, the Dalai Lama said the purpose of his visit was to advance humane values and warmth, as well as dialogue instead of violence, as a necessary condition for peace.

But the harmony was pushed aside when the Tibetan leader was immediately thrown into the cold waters of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and asked whether Israel should conduct negotiations with Hamas.

The Dalai Lama described the question as obstructive, adding that it was too early to answer it. He quickly added that the Hamas won the majority, and that democratic elections must be respected. Addressing Hamas, he added that it's best to talk, saying he wanted to enjoin them into that belief.

The Tibetan leader said that if, during his visit in Bethlehem, Hamas members would want to meet him, he would gladly oblige.

In the course of the conference, the Dalai was asked to speak about global Islamic terrorism, the crisis over cartoons of Islam's prophet Muhammad, and the wave of rage which followed them.

'Don't blame the prophet Muhammad'

The Dalai Lama pointed out the difference between Muslims and the policies of Muslim countries, and emphasized that as a Tibetan leader, he and his people differentiate between the Chinese people and the Chinese government.

The prophet Muhammad should not be blamed for the violence, said the Dalai Lama, adding that the problem is the lack of separation between politics and religion, a situation which creates violence because emotion is involved.

We must tell the whole world to talk and not to respond immediately… I have Muslim friends and they told me that anyone who calls themselves Muslim while causing blood to be spilled is not Muslim, he said.

The article can be found here:
Dalai Lama speaks out: Politics, religion equal violence

Technorati tags: News, Dalai Lama, Religion, Politics, Israel

Saddam Warned U.S. of Terrorism

Here's a slap in the face to the Bush Administration.

Gerald Nadler of the AP writes:

Saddam Hussein told aides in the mid-1990s that he warned the United States it could be hit by a terrorist attack, ABC News reported Wednesday, citing 12 hours of tapes the network obtained of the former Iraqi dictator's talks with his Cabinet.

One of Saddam's son-in-laws also explained how Iraq hid its biological weapons programs from U.N. inspectors, according to the tapes from August 1995.

The coming terrorist attack Saddam predicted could involve weapons of mass destruction.

"Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans," Saddam is heard saying, adding he "told the British as well."

"In the future, what would prevent a booby trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one?" Saddam said.

But he insisted Iraq would never launch such an attack. "This story is coming, but not from Iraq," he said.

The State Department had no comment on the report, which aired on "World News Tonight." ABC News said U.S. officials confirmed the tapes were authentic.

ABC News said the CIA found the tapes in Iraq and that the 12 hours were provided to it by Bill Tierney, a former member of a U.N. inspection team who was translating them for the
FBI. ABC News quoted Tierney as saying the U.S. government was wrong to keep the tapes secret.

Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told Saddam on the tape that "the biological (attack) is very easy to make. It's so simple that any biologist can make a bottle of germs and drop it into a water tower and kill 100,000."

"This is not done by a state. No need to accuse a state. An individual can do it," he said

They also talk about how they had hid information about chemical weapons from U.N. Inspectors before the first Iraq war.

Saddam warning the U.S. about Terrorism. Now that's funny.

The entire article can be found here:
Saddam Reportedly Warned U.S. of Terrorism - Yahoo! News

Technorati tags: Iraq, Terrorism, Hussein, Saddam, News

Politics had a place at the funeral of political activist King

Judy Kirkwood writes:

The Coretta Scott King funeral provided an amazing history lesson as well as an intimate look at the woman. But comments from different sources in the news suggesting that political references at a funeral are inappropriate are completely off base.

King's life was devoted to a social movement that had to be political in order to be validated. Why wouldn't her funeral be political? She walked 50 miles (in high heels) to make the point that African-Americans be allowed to vote in a country in which they had the right, but not the means, because they could not register. That's a political problem.

The strange thing was that one of the four presidents there would have expected anything else. If he wasn't prepared to suffer some criticism of the results of his decisions, he should not have come. President Bush knew that Coretta King deplored the war in Iraq. She stood for nonviolence. Why wouldn't she? Her husband may have been assassinated by our own government the King family has never believed James Earl Ray was the killer. The Kings were victims of illegal wiretapping that was supposed to ruin their lives but didn't. Why wouldn't someone (former President Jimmy Carter) bring that point up as a parallel to what is happening today?

When Bush dies, it will be his funeral his way. He does not yet have the power to legislate what is said at someone's funeral.

The article can be found here:
Politics had a place at the funeral of political activist

Technorati tags: King, Civil Rights, MLK, news, opinion, politics

Pope says science compliments faith

I'm really starting to like this guy. You know, when he became pope I was worried. Everyone said he was a ultra conservative traditionalist. He actually seems fairly progressive. He is at least a bridge builder.

Philip Pullella of Reuters writes:

Science made such rapid progress in the 20th century that people may sometimes be confused about how the Christian faith can still be compatible with it, Pope Benedict said on Friday.

But science and religion are not opposed to each other and Christians should not be afraid to try to understand how they compliment each other in explaining the mystery of life on Earth, he told the
Vatican's doctrinal department.

The Pope made his comments at a time of heated debate, mostly in the United States, about intelligent design arguments challenging evolution. A Pennsylvania court ruled in December that intelligent design could not be taught as science in school.

"The Church joyfully accepts the real conquests of human knowledge and recognizes that spreading the Gospel also means really taking charge of the prospects and the challenges that modern knowledge unlocks," he said.

The dialogue between religion and science would actually help the faithful see "the logic of faith in God," said the Pope, speaking to members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

He headed this Vatican department for nearly 25 years until his election last April.

Scientific discoveries sometimes came so rapidly "that it becomes very complicated to recognize how they are compatible with the truth revealed by God about man and the world," said the German-born Pontiff, 78.

The Church, however, should not fear the challenge of reconciling faith and reason because God was "in fact, the Lord of all creation and all history."

The intelligent design debate in the United States has pitted scientists -- who are sometimes also agnostics -- against believers who claim that science can prove some life forms are so complex that they must have had a supernatural "designer."

This last paragraph in italics is so simplistic, I'm having a hard time believing it's not biased. I don't know any agnostic scientists, do you? Has anyone met one? Seen one? Where are all these agnostic scientists coming from? The former Soviet Union? The truth of the matter is, it's a stereotype. Less than 1% of the entire United States is agnostic. You can't go and say that's it's all scientists.

This guys bias is coming out in this article.

ID supporters have been trying to get it taught as science in biology classes alongside Darwin's theory of evolution, which some Christian conservatives oppose. Its opponents rejected this as having no scientific basis at all.

The entire article can be found here:
Pope says science no threat to faith

Technorati tags: Pope, Science, Religion, Faith, Evolution

Politics vs. Climate Reality

An article criticizing the Bush Administration's policy of smearing, covering up, and discrediting science fact and replacing it with his misinformation.

From USAToday:

Would that the rise and fall of George C. Deutsch, 24, a NASA political appointee, could become a metaphor — one taken all the way to its logical conclusion — for the Bush administration's policies on global warming. Deutsch has for months embodied the White House's earth-is-flat take on why the earth is warming, with consequences from melting glaciers to freak weather.

Working in NASA's public relations, he tried to muzzle a renowned climate scientist who — like serious scientists the world over — warns that global warming is a threat requiring government intervention to curb emissions from cars, factories and more.

This furthered the business-friendly Bush administration's increasingly lonely mantra that the science isn't solid enough for more than voluntary measures. But scientific consensus long ago moved on. The issue now is not whether global warming is happening, but how severe the effects will be.

This week, evangelical Christians, normally among President Bush's most loyal supporters, broke with him on the issue and urged action: 86 prominent figures released a statement warning that "millions of people could die" because of global warming.

One casualty of all this was Deutsch, who resigned when it was discovered his résumé was longer on political loyalty — work on Bush's re-election campaign — than on education. Texas A&M University said he never received the journalism degree he claimed.

But that merely removed the symptom, not the underlying problem.

That a low-level bureaucrat could overrule a prestigious scientist says worlds about how the administration balances politics against science. Further evidence can be found at the Food and Drug Administration, which has stifled overwhelming evidence that the "morning-after pill" is safe and effective. It blocked over-the-counter sales — a transparent payoff to abortion opponents.

Global warming is a good place to beginaltering that facts-be-damned approach. The administration has a ready-made environmental bandwagon to jump back onto. The world agreed in 1992 to prevent dangerous climate change. Countries have since worked on mandatory emissions curbs in what is known as the Kyoto Protocol, but Bush, as soon as he took office, turned his back on it.

Ignoring the impact of climate change is getting difficult: Federal officials are considering declaring the polar bear a threatened species because rising Arctic temperatures are melting the ice pack that's their home.

Now that scientific fact has spoken louder than ideology at NASA, perhaps the same can happen at the White House.

Politics vs. climate reality

Technorati tags: Bush, GOP, Environment, Science, Global Warming, Deutsch

Three More Lawmakers Linked to Abramoff

Ok right off the bat, the three are: LaTourette R-Ohio (another from Ohio), Young R-Alaska, and Moore-Capito R-W. VA.

Hey, did you notice that there are no Democrats in that list? Know why? Because there are no Democrats linked to this. I hate having to keep repeating myself but people keep sending me emails trying to convince me that the GOP lies are the truth. Abramoff did NOT give money to any Democrat, nor any Democrat causes, PACs or charities.

What money the Native American Tribes were giving to the Democrats decreased by ~33% when they hired Abramoff. So they can't try that either. Don't let them try to fool you. Step in when they try to propagate that lie. Tell people the truth.

OK, end angry rant. on with the news...

Toni Locy and Pete Yost of the AP writes:

Three members of Congress have been linked to efforts by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a former General Services Administration official to secure leases of government property for Abramoff's clients, according to court filings by federal prosecutors on Friday.

The filings in U.S. District Court do not allege any wrongdoing by the elected officials but list them in documents portraying David Safavian, a former GSA chief of staff, as an active adviser to Abramoff, giving the lobbyists tips on how to use members of Congress to navigate the agency's bureaucracy.

Abramoff is cooperating with federal investigators in a wide-ranging probe of corruption on Capitol Hill that threatens several powerful members of Congress and their staff members. Last month, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud.

Safavian is charged with lying to a GSA ethics officer when he said Abramoff was not seeking business with the agency at the time the lobbyist paid for Safavian and several others to go on a golf outing to Scotland in August 2002.

At the time of the trip, prosecutors said, Abramoff was trying to get GSA approval for leases of the Old Post Office Pavilion in Washington for an Indian tribe to develop and for federal property in Silver Spring, Md., for use by a Jewish school.

Two of the elected officials referred to in Friday's filings have been identified in published reports as Reps. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, and Don Young, R-Alaska. According to Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, the two representatives wrote to the GSA in September 2002, urging the agency to give preferential treatment to groups such as Indian tribes when evaluating development proposals for the Old Post Office.

LaTourette maintains he did nothing improper by advocating special opportunities for certain small businesses in areas known as HUBzones, or Historically Underutilized Business zones. His spokeswoman, Deborah Setliff, said that the letter was reviewed by Young's chief of staff and counsel and that it did not advocate any particular business over another.

Friday's filings by prosecutors refer to a third member of Congress, Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va. Her name appears in e-mails that suggest she was trying to help Abramoff secure a GSA lease for land in Silver Spring for a religious school.

They're trying to back-pedal. Capito says:

"The action taken by her former chief of staff was done without her knowledge, approval or consent," said her spokesman, Joel Brubaker. "She was not aware of any contact with GSA of any type on this matter."

Her former chief of staff agrees saying he did not tell her. Isn't it still her responsibility? Hell yes it is. I can't wait for "Spring White House Cleaning"

The entire article can be found here:
Three More Lawmakers Linked to Abramoff

Technorati tags: Abramoff, Scandal, GOP, Lobby, Safavian, GSA, Congress

Ex-CIA officer accuses White House of 'misusing' data on Iraq

Paul Pillar until last year, was responsible for the collection and assessment of Intelligence on Iraq and the entire Middle East. He says that the Bush Administration did not receive incorrect information like they say. They "cherry picked" just the tidbits that would justify going to war in Iraq.

In essence they lied to you so they could kill tens of thousands for no real discernible outcome.

Pillar wrote an article for the latest issue of the foreign policy magazine, Foreign Affairs, stating that the White House "misused" (a word I would not have used) intelligence.

Tom Regan of the Christian Science Monitor writes:

"It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote. Pillar retired last year after almost 30 years at the CIA. Intelligence experts interviewed by the Post described him as "an influential behind-the-scenes player and was considered the agency's leading counterterrorism analyst." One of his main responsibilities was coordinating intelligence assessments on Iraq from the entire US intelligence community. Pillar now teaches security studies at Georgetown University in Washington.

In 2004, an assessment that Pillar had made for the Bush administration about post-war Iraq was leaked to the press. The assessment said that the insurgency in Iraq could evolve into a guerrilla war or civil war. Pillar was accused by Bush supporters of being ""a longstanding intellectual opponent of the policy options chosen by President Bush to fight terrorism."

In the article for Foreign Affairs, Pillar writes that the proper roles of intelligence gathering and policy making are sharply divided. While that role can sometimes seem blurry, if the intelligence community is to maintain its credibility, it must "not advocate policy, especially openly."

Yes, I agree. Leave up to Bush to develop lies to tell the American people. That way we only have one target to aim at when we sweep Washington clean of GOP corruption after the 2006 election.

The entire article can be found here:
Ex-CIA officer accuses White House of 'misusing' data on Iraq

Technorati tags: Bush, White House, GOP, Iraq, Intelligence, War

U.S. Gov To Index Internet

From Slashdot:

The U.S. government plans to search, link and reference every news site, blog and email on the Internet, using sophisticated AI codenamed ADVISE to do the correlations. Unlike traditional dataveilance like Echelon, ADVISE aims to find terrorists before they strike and even deduce their motivations in wanting to commit their crimes. Part of the breakthrough is a way for humans to view data as 3D holographic images with tech recently used at the Superbowl."

Everyone say HI! to Rummy when he gets here. They'll probably have arrested me by then. I'll probably be charged with "Overuse of Commas" or something like that.

(Yeah like I'm just so much of a threat to the GOP...)

One commenter on Slashdot summed up my whole opinion on this:

This won't help dealing with the terrorists at all.
What if they communicate via

- plain old websites/ftps
- internet storage servers, irc, etc?
- instant messangers
- VoIP
- decentralized networks?

Lets not forget that they can

- obsfucate.. simplest method would be typing stuff into a CAPCHA-like image. OCR has no chance...
- use slang
- encrypt!

It will end up as an intrusion to the privacy of ordinary people unaware of this and/or private communications among companies.

This is just another way to keep tabs on Americans.

Mark Clayton for the Christian Science Monitor writes:

The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.

The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.

"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots - analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."

Our ultra right-wing Government will know more about you than you ever had nightmares about before.

The entire article can be found here:
U.S. Gov To Index Internet

Technorati tags: Government, Pentagon, ADVISE, Echelon, Blog

Daily Kos: Cheers and Jeers

A little Friday belly laugh from Daily Kos.

Daily Kos: Cheers and Jeers:

Late night snark to wrap up the week...

"There's a boycott now of Danish products in the Muslim world. Luckily not too many mosques are made out of Legos."
---Jay leno

-

"If President Bush is wiretapping my phone and listening to my calls, I think he actually should pay for half of the phone-sex bill."
---David Letterman

-

"President Bush unveiled his new $2.2 trillion budget. The president settled on $2 trillion after being told that $2 bazillion was not a real number."
---Conan O'Brien

-

"The trial of Enron chiefs Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay began four-and-a-half years after perpetrating -- allegedly -- the fraud that led to the second largest bankruptcy in American history. Why four-and-a-half years? Because apparently it's harder to bring Ken Lay to trial than it is to invade two countries."
---Jon Stewart

-

"While giving the [State of the Union] speech, President Bush was interrupted more than 50 times by applause and once by a Dennis Hastert Dorito fart."
---Tina Fey

Ah. That explains the $200 million earmark in Bush's budget for a "Goddam ventilation system that works."

Technorati tags: Daily Kos, Letterman, Leno, O'Brien, Stewart

Brownie wants to talk all about FEMA and Katrina

It seems Michael Brown doesn't want to go down alone. His lawyer sent a latter to the White House saying that:

"As has been the situation since the outset of the various Congressional hearings regarding the response to Hurricane Katrina, Mr Brown has been and is prepared to answer and and all questions. He intends to answer all questions fully, completely, and accurately. Specifically, unless there is specific direction otherwise by the President, including an assurance the President will provide a legal defense to Mr. Brown is he refuses to testify, if asked, about particular communications he had with the individuals named earlier in this letter. His desire is that all facts be made public."

What it sounds like is, Brownie is tired of being the scapegoat. He wants to come clean and let the world know what really happened.

Or he's a puppy and wants Emperor Bush to save him.

From CNN.com:

Former disaster agency chief Michael Brown is indicating he is ready to reveal his correspondence with President Bush and other officials during Hurricane Katrina unless the White House forbids it and offers legal support.

Brown's stance, in a letter obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, follows senators' complaints that the White House is refusing to answer questions or release documents about advice given to Bush concerning the August 29 storm.

Brown quit as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency days after Katrina struck. He left the federal payroll November 2.

In a February 6 letter to White House counsel Harriet Miers, Brown's lawyer wrote that Brown continues to respect Bush and his "presidential prerogative" to get candid and confidential advice from top aides.

The letter from Andrew W. Lester also says Brown no longer can rely on being included in that protection because he is a private citizen.

I wonder what it is he wants to tell the world. I hope it's good. Emperor Bush will probably want to keep him quiet, no matter what it is. It's just their way.

The entire article can be found here:
Brownie wants to talk all about FEMA and Katrina

Technorati tags: FEMA, Katrina, New Orleans, levee

White House mobilizes the military ... for politics.

The GOP is at it again. Using every trick they can to trick and scare the public into voting Republican. Here they plan on using Vetrans from the Iraq war to talk about it.

By they way, did you know that using active military personel for politics is illegal?

Robert Schlesinger writes:

Active-duty military personnel are not supposed to engage in partisan political activies, right? Right: They are, in fact, legally prohibited from partisan political activities, according to DoD regulations which you can find here and here.

Someone may have forgotten to alert the eager beavers in the White House political affairs office.

Conservative columnist Robert Novak reported the following in his column today:

...public with its war message. Raul Damas, associate director of political affairs at the White House, has been on the phone directly to Republican county chairmen to arrange local speeches by active duty military personnel to talk about their experiences in Iraq.

Huh?

According to the DoD regs, examples of prohibited activities by active-duty military include: A "member on active duty shall not speak before a partisan political gathering, including any gathering that promotes a partisan political party, candidate, or cause."

Without knowing the details of these arrangements it's impossible to say whether the letter of the law is being broken here. But the White House -- by extension the commander-in-chief himself (is that unitary government?) -- arranging for active-duty military to speak at GOP events certainly seems like a clear violation of the law's spirit.

And sounds like something the GOP loves to do. They'd love it even better if it could make them some money at the same time.

The article can be found here:
White House mobilizes the military ... for politics.

Technorati tags: White House, GOP, Republican, Military, Robert Novak, Iraq

White House mobilizes the military ... for politics.

The GOP is at it again. Using every trick they can to trick and scare the public into voting Republican. Here they plan on using Vetrans from the Iraq war to talk about it.

By they way, did you know that using active military personel for politics is illegal?

Robert Schlesinger writes:

Active-duty military personnel are not supposed to engage in partisan political activies, right? Right: They are, in fact, legally prohibited from partisan political activities, according to DoD regulations which you can find here and here.

Someone may have forgotten to alert the eager beavers in the White House political affairs office.

Conservative columnist Robert Novak reported the following in his column today:

...public with its war message. Raul Damas, associate director of political affairs at the White House, has been on the phone directly to Republican county chairmen to arrange local speeches by active duty military personnel to talk about their experiences in Iraq.

Huh?

According to the DoD regs, examples of prohibited activities by active-duty military include: A "member on active duty shall not speak before a partisan political gathering, including any gathering that promotes a partisan political party, candidate, or cause."

Without knowing the details of these arrangements it's impossible to say whether the letter of the law is being broken here. But the White House -- by extension the commander-in-chief himself (is that unitary government?) -- arranging for active-duty military to speak at GOP events certainly seems like a clear violation of the law's spirit.

And sounds like something the GOP loves to do. They'd love it even better if it could make them some money at the same time.

The article can be found here:
White House mobilizes the military ... for politics.

Technorati tags: White House, GOP, Republican, Military, Robert Novak, Iraq

INFORMATIVE HUB: Presidential KNOCK OUT!

Wanna take some of your frustration out on G.W.? Well what are you waiting for?!?

Presidential KNOCK OUT!

Bush Sneaks Social Security Privatization Into Budget

Here's a quick one for you.

From Truthdig:

Last year, even though Bush talked endlessly about the supposed joys of private accounts, he never proposed a specific plan to Congress and never put privatization costs in the budget. But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday. | story(from MSNBC)

Truthdig says: Perhaps he thought no one would notice? Maybe he missed the standing ovation Democrats gave the sinking of that scheme during his State of the Union speech? | video(from crooks and liars)

First Frist Secretly Slips Immunity For Pharmaceutical Companies Into Defense Bill...

And now this...

Anyone still wonder why we think Republicans are Crooks and Liars?

Bush Sneaks Social Security Privatization Into Budget

Technorati tags: Bush, Social Security, Privatization, Budget, Congress

Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information (02/09/2006)

I don't see any other news reporting this and I don't know just how accurate this is. I'm going to report it just in case. If it's real I'll substantiate it later.

In this article "Scooter" Libby (a name that you should not go into politics with), came clean to Federal grand jury. He told them that Dick Cheney and other "White House superiors" authorized him to disclose classified information to the media.

Murray Waas of the National Journal writes:

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Beyond what was stated in the court paper, say people with firsthand knowledge of the matter, Libby also indicated what he will offer as a broad defense during his upcoming criminal trial: that Vice President Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials had earlier encouraged and authorized him to share classified information with journalists to build public support for going to war. Later, after the war began in 2003, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war.

Libby testified to the grand jury that he had been authorized to share parts of the NIE with journalists in the summer of 2003 as part of an effort to rebut charges then being made by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson that the Bush administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make a public case for war.

Wilson had been sent on a CIA-sponsored mission to investigate allegations that the African nation of Niger had sold uranium to Iraq to develop a nuclear weapon. Despite the fact that Wilson reported back that the information was most likely baseless, it was still used in the President's 2003 State of the Union speech to make the case for war.

But besides sharing details of the NIE with reporters during the effort to rebut Wilson, Libby is also accused of telling journalists that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, had worked for the CIA. Libby and other Bush administration officials believed that if Plame played a role in the selection of her husband for the Niger mission, that fact might discredit him.

This is interesting. If anyone can add to this, please let me know.

UPDATE: It's been posted to HuffPo and she has better fact checking than I do (my left hand) so I'm going to go with her and say it's valid.

The entire article can be found here:
Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information

Technorati tags: Cheney, Scooter Libby, Leak, Fitzgerald, Wilson, Plame, Rove

DeLay in charge of SubCommittee overseeing Abramoff Investigation

How stupid do they think the American people is? Isn't DeLay on the list of people being investigated in the Abramoff scandal? Now he's in charge of it's oversight.

Sounds like a normal day in the life of the GOP.

Andrew Taylor of the AP writes:

Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay, forced to step down as the No. 2 Republican in the House, scored a soft landing Wednesday as GOP leaders rewarded him with a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee.

DeLay, R-Texas, also claimed a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is currently investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with lawmakers. The subcommittee also has responsibility over NASA a top priority for DeLay, since the Johnson Space Center is located in his Houston-area district.

"Allowing Tom DeLay to sit on a committee in charge of giving out money is like putting Michael Brown back in charge of FEMA.— Republicans in Congress just can't seem to resist standing by their man," said Bill Burton, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

GOP leaders also named California Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee. Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, vacated that post after winning a campaign to replace DeLay.

McKeon is a seven-term conservative who has a generally good relationship with educators. He authored a 2001 law to remove disincentives for workers who would have lost part of their Social Security benefits when switching jobs to become public school teachers.

DeLay was able to rejoin the powerful Appropriations panel — he was a member until becoming majority leader in 2003 — because of a vacancy created after the resignation of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif. Cunningham pleaded guilty in November to charges relating to accepting $2.4 million in bribes for government bus

How long do you think it will be before he's forced out of that post?

The article can be found here:
DeLay in charge of SubCommittee overseeing Abramoff Investigation

Technorati tags: DeLay, Abramoff, GOP, Scandal

Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative

In what has to be considered a strange turn of events, dozens of evangelical Christian leaders have broken from religious right dogma and are backing a major initiative to fight global warming. Saying in their letter, "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."

Laurie Goldstein of the New York Times writes:

Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life."

"For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority," the statement said. "Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough."

The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges.

"We have not paid as much attention to climate change as we should, and that's why I'm willing to step up," said Duane Litfin, president of Wheaton College, an influential evangelical institution in Illinois. "The evangelical community is quite capable of having some blind spots, and my take is this has fallen into that category."

Unfortunately, this does not come forward without the usual right wing rhetoric.

Some of the nation's most high-profile evangelical leaders, however, have tried to derail such action. Twenty-two of them signed a letter in January declaring, "Global warming is not a consensus issue." Among the signers were Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; and Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Their letter was addressed to the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group of churches and ministries, which last year had started to move in the direction of taking a stand on global warming. The letter from the 22 leaders asked the National Association of Evangelicals not to issue any statement on global warming or to allow its officers or staff members to take a position.

E. Calvin Beisner, associate professor of historical theology at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., helped organize the opposition into a group called the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. He said Tuesday that "the science is not settled" on whether global warming was actually a problem or even that human beings were causing it. And he said that the solutions advocated by global warming opponents would only cause the cost of energy to rise, with the burden falling most heavily on the poor.

We need a majorinitiativee like the one put forward earlier to ban misstatements and deliberate falsehoods in government science work. Maybe with the proper legislation, people like George C. Deutsch would have never had the ability to alter NASA's Science into incorrect statements.

Now that we have more on the bandwagon, we have a larger chance to get out and sway public opinion. We need to tell people the truth. We need to let people know that their Government has been intentionally giving them misleading and false information just so the corporations that bribed them can make more money.

The entire article can be found here:
Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative

Technorati tags: Global Warming, Evangelical, Christian, Climate

INFORMATIVE HUB: Bush defends spending cuts amid lawmakers' qualms

Surprise... Surprise...

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday defended domestic spending-cut proposals that have been greeted warily in the U.S. Congress, saying the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina had forced him to make tough decisions.

He also pushed anew for extension of his first-term tax cuts and said if they were allowed to expire, growth and government revenues would suffer.

Two days after unveiling a $2.77 trillion budget plan that would cut or eliminate 141 programs, Bush said he had targeted programs that either were not performing well or were no longer needed. He has also proposed squeezing $36 billion in savings over five years from the Medicare health program for the elderly.

At a business luncheon in New Hampshire, a state that prides itself on low taxes, Bush urged lawmakers to enact "sunset" provisions that would force periodic reviews of federal programs to see if they are still needed.

"Families set priorities, individual Americans set priorities, business people set priorities all the time when it comes to setting the budget, and that's what the federal government needs to do," he said.

In a congressional election year when Democrats hope to reverse Republican dominance in both the House and the Senate, Democrats blame Bush and his allies for bloating budget deficits with huge tax cuts and fault the president for underestimating the Iraq war's costs.

The White House projects the budget deficit will hit a record $423 billion this year.

"There's no question the war and the hurricanes have stretched our budget — all the more reason to set priorities and to be wise with your money," Bush said.

But Democrats say Bush would force the middle-class to bear the brunt of fiscal recklessness.

"If you're already wealthy, then this budget will make you wealthier. But if you're a widow, orphan or are disabled, you'll see a cut in benefits," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Some Republicans, including Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, have expressed qualms about parts of Bush's budget proposal.

Bush also faces pressure from his conservative base to get tougher on spending, which some Republicans say has risen far too sharply on his watch.

An editorial in the Manchester Union Leader on Wednesday said budget deficits had been made "ridiculously large" by "Republican profligacy."

It said Bush's promises to reduce the deficit in future years were based on "fiction" because of unrealistic assumptions underlying his projections.

While seeking nearly $15 billion in savings by trimming programs in cancer research, community policing and other areas, Bush would give a record $439.3 billion to the Pentagon, up 4.8 percent from last year. On top of that, the White House will seek new financing for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Back in Washington later, Bush signed a measure to cut $39 billion over five years from the Medicaid health care program for the poor, student loans and other programs.

But hours after Bush signed the measure, a Senate aide told reporters that a clerical error written into the bill as it bounced between the House and Senate could mean it may need another vote.

The typographical error resulted in the House and Senate passing slightly different versions of the legislation.

Legislation becomes law only when the president signs a measure that has been passed in identical form by the House and Senate. Aides in both the House and Senate said it was not yet clear how lawmakers would fix the problem.

View Source...

INFORMATIVE HUB: Military role in space said set to expand

Future battle front?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The military's role in deterring attacks on commercial satellites is set to be strengthened in the first broad overhaul of U.S. space policy in a decade, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

The policy would remove any ambiguity about official responsibility for figuring out who was behind any attack on U.S.-owned commercial satellites, said Air Force Col. Anthony Russo, head of the U.S. Strategic Command's space division.

Russo said recent drafts of the policy, which he said could be announced within months, did not rule out weapons in space.

Instead, they speak of taking "all appropriate measures to defend our space assets," he told a reporters at a forum organized by the private Center for Media and Security.

"All appropriate measures is a pretty broad statement," Russo said. "It doesn't rule out weapons in space. It doesn't say go build them either."

Currently, no known weapons specifically designed to apply force are stationed in space — an absence that Russia, China and many others strongly support.

Russo described President George W. Bush's emerging national space policy as an "evolution" from the current one, issued in 1996 by then-President Bill Clinton.

"The new bit clarifies that (the military's responsibility) extends to commercial assets that are not necessarily providing U.S. government services," he said.

Responding to an attack could fall to U.S. law enforcement, the State Department or another government agency depending on the case, Russo said.

Putting the military squarely in the equation should act as a deterrent to those who would interfere with satellites, Russo said "because right now they can do it and expect to get away with it."

Tens of thousands of incidents involving possible attacks on satellites are reported each year, he said. But only a handful of these turn out to be deliberate efforts to pirate services or interfere for political reasons.

"I see that trend increasing," Russo said, adding that he expected the U.S. military to get more resources to carry out the projected space-mission expansion.

The United States is increasingly dependent on commercial space companies for national security-related work as well as essential telecommunications and financial services.

View Source...

Jack Abramoff Describes Relationship With President Bush

A few more lies Emperor Bush has tried to feed us have been spat back at him. Of course he knows Abramoff, the number one Republican lobby and campaign contributor. We all know it.

Conservatives, don't try that line where you say Abramoff donated to Democrats too. Instead, I want you to remember. We know you are lying!

From ThinkProgress.org:

The emails written by Abramoff were addressed to Kim Eisler, the national editor of Washingtonian magazine. The Washingtonian recently reported on the existence of several photographs showing Abramoff and Bush together. Eisler is also the author of Revenge of the Pequots, a book about tribal politics for which Abramoff was interviewed.

In the emails, Abramoff describes meeting Bush “in almost a dozen settings,” and details how he was personally invited to President Bush’s private ranch in Crawford, Texas, for a gathering of Bush fundraisers in 2003. Abramoff did not attend, citing a religious observance.

Abramoff emailed Eisler about his invitation to Crawford and his decision not to attend:

NO, IT WAS THAT I WOULD HAVE HAD TO TRAVEL ON SATURDAY (SHABBOS). YES, I WAS INVITED, DURING THE 2004 CAMPAIGN. IT WAS SATURDAY AUGUST 9, 2003 AT THE RANCH IN CRAWFORD.

The White House has continually downplayed the relationship between Abramoff and President Bush. At a January 26 press conference, President Bush said “You know, I, frankly, don’t even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don’t know him.”

But according to Eisler, Abramoff told him that the two have met almost a dozen times, shared jokes, and spoke about details of Abramoff’s family:

HE HAS ONE OF THE BEST MEMORIES OF ANY POLITICIAN I HAVE EVER MET. IT WAS ONE IF [sic] HIS TRADEMARKS, THOUGH OF COURSE HE CAN’T RECALL THAT HE HAS A GREAT MEMORY! THE GUY SAW ME IN ALMOST A DOZEN SETTINGS, AND JOKED WITH ME ABOUT A BUNCH OF THINGS, INCLUDING DETAILS OF MY KIDS. PERHAPS HE HAS FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING. WHO KNOWS.

I just love the fact the Abramoff is so willing, Hellecstatict extatic to give up the people he worked with. It makes it easier for us.

The article can be found here:
Jack Abramoff Describes Relationship With President Bush

Technorati tags: Abramoff, Corruption, Bush, Lobby

Rove Threatens Blacklist for any Republican Against Bush

Hopefully this will backfire in his face.

This has been around. It's been on Daily Kos, Huffington, and even Fark.

From Insight Magazine:

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

"It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said.

The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings.

Over the last few weeks, Mr. Rove has been calling in virtually every Republican on the Senate committee as well as the leadership in Congress. The sources said Mr. Rove's message has been that a vote against Mr. Bush would destroy GOP prospects in congressional elections.

"He's [Rove] lining them up one by one," another congressional source said.

Mr. Rove is leading the White House campaign to help the GOP in November’s congressional elections. The sources said the White House has offered to help loyalists with money and free publicity, such as appearances and photo-ops with the president.

Those deemed disloyal to Mr. Rove would appear on his blacklist. The sources said dozens of GOP members in the House and Senate are on that list.

So far, only a handful of GOP senators have questioned Mr. Rove's tactics.

I'surpriseded stuff like this isn't illegal. The White House threatening members of Congress. Hell it could be blackmail depending on how you look at it.

The entire article can be found here:
Rove Threatens Blacklist for any Republican Against Bush

Technorati tags: Bush, Rove, Senate, Wiretap, Blacklist, GOP